" This rather ambiguous sentence means that Ainsworth was
poisoned, not the Jew. Brooks's account of the story is that the conference
took place, the Jews were vanquished, and in revenge poisoned the champion
of Christianity afterwards. Dexter most unromantically throws cold water on
this poisoning story, and adduces much circumstantial testimony to prove
its improbability; but it could hardly have been invented in cold blood by
the Puritan historians, and must have had some foundation in truth. And
since he is dead, and the thought cannot harm him, I may acknowledge that I
firmly believe and I like to believe that he died in so romantic a way.
The Puritans were psalm-singers ever; and in Holland the Brownist division
of the church came under strong influences from Geneva and Wittenberg, the
birth-places of psalm-singing, that made them doubly fond of "worship in
song." Hence the Pilgrim Fathers, Brewster, Bradford, Carver, and Standish,
for love of music as well as in affectionate testimony to their old pastor
and friend, brought to the New World copies of his version of the Psalms
and sang from it with delight and profit to themselves, if not with ease
and elegance.
Dexter says very mildly of Ainsworth's literary work that "there are
diversities of gifts, and it is no offence to his memory to conclude that
he shone more as an exegete than as a poet.
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