There were in 1638 thirty ministers in New England, all men of intelligence
and education; and to three of them, Richard Mather, Thomas Welde, and John
Eliot was entrusted the literary part of the pious work. They managed to
produce one of the greatest literary curiosities in existence. The book
was printed in the house of President Dunster of Harvard College upon a
"printery," or printing-press, which had cost L50, and was the gift of
friends in Holland to the new community in 1638, the name-year of Harvard
College. Governor Winthrop in his journal tells us that the first sheet
printed on this press was the Freeman's Oath, certainly a characteristic
production; the second an almanac for New England, and the third, "The Bay
Psalm-Book." Some, who deem an almanac a book, call this psalm-book the
second book printed in British America.
A printer named Steeven Daye was brought over from England to do the
printing on this new press. Now Steeven must have been given entire charge
of the matter, and could not have been a very literate fellow (as we
know positively he was a most reprehensible one), or the three reverend
versifiers must have been most uncommonly careless proof-readers, for
certainly a worse piece of printer's work than "The Bay Psalm Book" could
hardly have been struck off. Diversity and grotesqueness of spelling were
of course to be expected, and paper might have been coarse without reproof,
in that new and poor country; but the type was good and clear, the paper
strong and firm, and with ordinary care a very presentable book might have
been issued.
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