"
The second edition of the "New England Psalm-Book" was published in 1647;
the one copy known to exist has sold for four hundred and thirty-five
dollars. The third edition was the one revised by President Dunster and
Mr. Lyon, and was printed in 1650. In 1691 the unfortunate book was again
"pollished" by a committee of ministers, who thus altered the last two
stanzas of the Song of Deborah and Barak:--
28. Out of a window Sisera
His mother look'd and said
The lattess through in coming why
So long's chariot staid?
His chariot-wheels why tarry they?
Her ladies wise reply'd
29. Yea to herself the answer made,
30. Have they not speed? she cry'd.
31. The prey to each a maid or twain
Divided have not they?
To Sisera have they not shar'd
A divers-colour'd prey?
Of divers-colour'd needle-work
Wrought curious on each side
Of various colours meet for necks
Of those who spoils divide?
Rev. Elias Nason wittily says of "The Bay Psalm-Book," "Welde, Eliot, and
Mather mounted the restive steed Pegasus, Hebrew psalter in hand, and
trotted in warm haste over the rough roads of Shemitic roots and metrical
psalmody. Other divines rode behind, and after cutting and slashing,
mending and patching, twisting and turning, finally produced what must ever
remain the most unique specimen of poetical tinkering in our literature.
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