Tender-hearted Wither! This hymn, which in his gentleness he offers to the lips and heart of a prisoner as a devout mode of beguiling his solitary hours, was doubtless the very song of his own soul, under the rigours of his unalleviated confinement, and in the damp and gloomy atmosphere of his comfortless dungeon. His were hard times; and those who got the upper hand sometimes forgot their own sufferings in the joy of inflicting suffering in their turn. It was not easy, however, to clip or singe the wings of Wither's muse. Some of his best verses were made in the Marshalsea; and we cannot but pay honourable tribute to the memory of the man who, while he helped those who had less genius and fewer resources than himself to sing with him, cheered on his own muse in a style like this If thy verse do bravely tower, As she makes wing she gets power; I'll fly where I never did; And though for her sake I'm crost, For, though banish'd from my flocks, * She doth tell me where to borrow By her help I also now Make this churlish place allow Some things that may sweeten gladness, In the very gall of sadness. The dull loneness, the black shade, That these hanging vaults have made; The strange music of the waves, Beating in these hollow caves; This black den which rocks emboss, Overgrown with eldest moss; The rude portals that give light More to terror than delight; Well sung, Wither! He has broken his prison; he has reached the home of freedom, and now drinks at its very source the inspiration which still gives life to his best hymns. Let his name be wreathed with peace! . Chapter X. PSALMS IN ENGLISH METRE. "As through thy temple now the deep strains peal, All that the Psalmist hath expressed so well." OW few among the legion of modern versifiers have ever caught either the spirit or the manner of the sacred old hymns, which they have tried to throw into English metre. With few exceptions, those who have aimed at a literal version of the Psalms in metre are tame, and have lost the soul of the original; while many of the paraphrasers are lacking in dignity, and excite any feeling but that of devotion, by calling their neighbours to sing their psalms "done into metre." Sternhold and Hopkins must be venerated as we revere antiquity even in its dotage. Brady and Tate are always associated with our early impressions of old Church psalmody, when the parish-clerk used to act as head singer, and give the key-note on a doleful instrument that they called a pitch-pipe. As to the music of the Scotch version, it is enough that it is admired most by those who |