7. Shall they thus scape on mischief set,
thou God on them wilt frowne:
For in his wrath he will not let
to throw whole kingdomes downe.
It would perhaps be neither just nor conducive to proper judgment to gather
only a florilege of noble verses from Sternhold and Hopkins' Version and
point out none of the "weedy-trophies," the quaint and even uncouth lines
which disfigure the work. We must, however, in considering and judging
them, remember that many words and even phrases which at present
seem rather ludicrous or undignified had, in the sixteenth century,
significations which have now become obsolete, and which were then neither
vulgar nor unpoetical. I also have been forced to take my selections from
a copy of Sternhold and Hopkins printed in 1599, and bound up with a
"Breeches Bible;" for I have access to no earlier edition. Sternhold
and Hopkins themselves may not be in truth responsible for many of
the crudities. Hopkins, in his rendition of the 12th verse of the
seventy-fourth Psalm, thus addresses the Deity:--
"Why doost withdraw thy hand abacke
and hide it in thy lappe?
O pluck it out and bee not slacke
to give thy foes a rap."
"Rap" may have meant a heavier, a mightier blow then than it does
now-a-days.
Here is another curious verse from the seventieth psalm,--
"Confounde them that apply
and seeke to make my shame
And at my harme doe laugh & crye
So So there goeth the game.
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