The second edition of Ainsworth's Version was printed in 1617, a third
in 1618; the fourth, in London in 1639, was a folio; and the sixth, in
Amsterdam in 1644, was an octavo. A little 24mo copy is in the Essex
Institute in Salem, and an octavo is in the Prince Library, now in the
custody of the Public Library of the City of Boston. The latter copy has
a note in it written by the Rev. Thomas Prince: "Plymouth, May 1, 1732. I
have seen an edition of this version of 1618; and this version was sung
in Plymouth Colony and I suppose in the rest of New England 'till the New
England Version was printed."
There is a copy of the first edition of Ainsworth in the Bodleian Library
and one in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. The American Antiquarian
Society and the Lenox Library are the only public libraries in America that
possess copies, so far as I know. The one in the library of the American
Antiquarian Society was presented to it in 1815 by the Rev. William Bentley
of Salem, Massachusetts, to whom also belonged the copy of the Bay Psalm
Book now in the library at Worcester. He was a divine and a bibliophile and
an antiquary, but there also ran in his veins blood of warmer flow. During
the war of 1812, when the report came, in meeting-time, that the frigate
"Constitution" was being chased into Marblehead harbor, the loyal parson
Bentley locked up his church, and tucked up his gown, and sallied forth
with his whole flock of parishioners to march to Marblehead with the
soldiers, ready to "fight unto death" if necessary.
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