It is truly delightful to look into these occult matters--_rerum cognoscere causas_. There are subjects of deep interest, which lie somewhat nearer the surface of the earth--the origin of certain usages and undertakings, and the authorship of certain long-lived works, which appear to be made of a species of literary everlasting, but whose original proprietors have never been discovered. I have great respect, for those antiquarians, whose researches have unlocked so many of these long hidden mysteries; and, however bare-headed I may be, when the venerated names of Speed, or Strype, or Stow, or Rushworth, or Wood, or Holinshed occurs to my memory, I have an involuntary tendency to take off my hat. It was, doubtless, in allusion to their grotesque and uncouth versification, that the Earl of Rochester prepared his well-known epigram-- "Sternhold and Hopkins had great qualms, When they translated David's Psalms." This version, which held its ground, for a century and a half, and, as Chalmers says, slowly gave place to the translation, by Tate and Brady, had an origin, of which, I presume, few individuals are apprized. Thomas Sternhold lived to translate fifty-one only of the Psalms; and the first edition was published in 1549, with this title--"_All such Psalms of David as Thomas Sterneholde, late groome of the king's majestye's robes did in his lyfetime drawe into Englyshe metre_." About this period, the larger cities of the kingdom had become inundated with obscene and blasphemous songs, to such a degree, that some powerful expedient seemed to be required, for the removal of this insufferable grievance. Accordingly, the felicitous idea occurred to Mr. Thomas Sternhold, of substituting the Psalms of David, as versified by himself, for the bacchanalian songs, then in use, throughout the realm. He anticipated a practical illustration of the command of St. James--"_Is any merry let him sing Psalms_." Ostensibly prepared for the use of the churches, the moving consideration, for this version, with Mr. Sternhold, was such as I have shown it to be. The motive is plainly stated, in the title-page--"_Set forth and allowed to be sung in churches of the people together, before and after evening prayer, as also before and after sermon; and moreover, in private houses, for their godly solace and comfort, laying apart all ungodly songs and ballads, which tend only to the nourishment of vice and the corrupting of youth_." Wood, in his Athenæ Oxonienses, i. 183, Lond: 1813, says of Sternhold--"Being a most zealous reformer and a very strict liver, he became so scandalized, at the amorous and obscene songs used in the court, that he, forsooth turned into English metre fifty-one of David's Psalms, and caused musical notes to be set to them, thinking thereby, that the courtiers would sing them, instead of their sonnets, but did not, only some few excepted."