The prevalent fervour scattered its sparks through all the ranks of society, and the thoughts of all were concentrated on the sole object of "the new religion." The Reformation was the great political topic in the court of Edward the Sixth; discussions in theology were no longer confined to colleges or to the clergy. Our poets, ever creatures of their age, reflecting its temper, and who best tell its story, confined their genius to ballads and interludes, making rough sport for loungers and for the common people; or, in their quieter moods, were devoted to metrical versions from the Scriptures. In a history of our vernacular literature, the introduction of a versified psalter and of psalm-singing forms an incident; as the passion for psalmody itself is a portion of the history of the Reformation. "This infectious frenzy of sacred song," as Thomas Warton describes what he condemns as puritanic, we adopted from the practice of Calvin, who had introduced psalm-singing into the Geneva discipline, but really had himself borrowed it from the popularity of the first psalms in French metre, by Clement Marot. This natural and fine genius, as a commutation for an irregular life--and he had been imprisoned for eating flesh in Lent--was persuaded by the learned Vatable, the Hebrew Professor, to perform this signal act of penance. The gay novelty charmed the court, and was equally delightful to the people; every one chose the psalm which expressed his own personal feelings or described his own condition, adapted to some favourite air for the instrument or the voice. At the time it could have been little suspected that while Calvin was stripping the religious service of its pageantry, and denuding it even of its decent ceremonies, he would have condescended to anything so human as a tune and a chorus; yet the austere reformer of Geneva showed no deficient knowledge of human nature, when he contrived to make men sing in concert, or carol in the streets, and shorten their work by a song cheerful or sad; for psalms there are for joy or for affliction, effusions for all hours, suitable to all ranks.[2]