"
But I see no signs of qualmishness; they show to me rather a healthy
sturdiness as one of their strongest characteristics.
Pope at a later day wrote:--
"Not but there are who merit other palms
Hopkins and Sternhold glad the heart with psalms.
The boys and girls whom charity maintains
Implore your help in these pathetic strains.
How could devotion touch the country pews
Unless the gods bestowed a proper muse."
Wesley sneered at this version, saying, "When it is seasonable to sing
praises to God we do it, not in the scandalous doggrel of Hopkins and
Sternhold, but in psalms and hymns which are both sense and poetry, such
as would provoke a _critic_ to turn _Christian_ rather than a
_Christian_ to turn _critic_."
The edition of 1562 was printed with the notes of melodies that were then
called Church Tunes. They formed the basis of all future collections of
psalm-music for over a century. They soon were published in harmony in four
parts, "which may be sung to all musical instrumentes set forth for the
encrease of vertue and abolyshing of other vayne and tryfling ballads." In
1592 a very important collection of psalm-tunes was published to use with
Sternhold and Hopkins' words. It is called "The Whole Booke of Psalmes:
with their wonted tunes as they are sung in Churches composed into four
parts." This book is noteworthy because in it the tunes are for the first
time named after places, as is still the custom.
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