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A version of the Psalms which seems to have demanded and deserved more
attention than it received was written by Cotton Mather. He was doomed to
disappointment in seeing his version adopted by the New England churches
just as his ambitions and hopes were disappointed in many other ways. This
book was published in 1718. It was called "Psalterium Americanum. A Book
of Psalms in a translation exactly conformed unto the Original; but all
in blank verse. Fitted unto the tunes commonly used in the Church." By a
curious arrangement of brackets and the use of two kinds of print these
psalms could be divided into two separate metres and could be sung to
tunes of either long or short metre. After each psalm were introduced
explanations written in Mather's characteristic manner,--a manner both
scholarly and bombastic. I have read the "Psalterium Americanum" with care,
and am impressed with its elegance, finish, and dignity. It is so popular,
however, even now-a-days, to jibe at poor Cotton Mather, that his Psalter
does not escape the thrusts of laughing critics. Mr. Glass, the English
critic, holds up these lines as "one of the rich things:"--
"As the Hart makes a panting cry
For cooling streams of water,
So my soul makes a panting cry
For thee--O Mighty God."
I have read these lines over and over again, and fail to see anything very
ludicrous in them, though they might be slightly altered to advantage.
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