But though the metrical versions of the Psalms often inclined to doggerel, and though they probably had little, if any, influence on the Authorized Version, they made their own claims to accuracy, and even after the appearance of the King James Bible sometimes demanded attention as improved renderings. George Wither, for example, believes that in using verse he is being more faithful to the Hebrew than are the prose translations. "There is," he says, "a poetical emphasis in many places, which requires such an alteration in the grammatical expression, as will seem to make some difference in the judgment of the common reader; whereas it giveth best life to the author's intention; and makes that perspicuous which was made obscure by those mere grammatical interpreters, who were not acquainted with the proprieties and liberties of this kind of writing." His version is, indeed, "so easy to be understood, that some readers have confessed, it hath been instead of a comment unto them in sundry hard places." His rendering is not based merely on existing English versions; he has "the warrant of best Hebrew grammarians, the authority of the Septuagint, and Chaldean paraphrase, the example of the ancient and of the best modern prose translators, together with the general practice and allowance of all orthodox expositors." Like Wither, other translators went back to original sources and made their verse renderings real exercises in translation rather than mere variations on the accepted English text. From this point of view their work had perhaps some value; and though it seems regrettable that practically nothing of permanent literary importance should have resulted from such repeated experiments, they are interesting at least as affording some connection between the sphere of the regular translators and the literary world outside. FOOTNOTES: [155] _Preface to Genesis_, in Pollard, _Records of the English Bible_, p. 94. [156] Pollard, p. 266. [157] _Ibid._, p. 112. [158] _Ibid._, p. 187. [159] _Ibid._, p. 205. [160] Coverdale, _Prologue_ to Bible of 1535. [161] Pollard, p. 196. [162] _Ibid._, p. 259. [163] _Ibid._, p. 365. [164] _Ibid._, p. 360. [165] Pollard, p. 220. [166] _Ibid._, p. 239. [167] _Ibid._, p. 163. [168] _Ibid._, p. 126. [169] _Ibid._, p. 203. [170] _Ibid._, p. 371. [171] Pollard, p. 280. [172] Pollard, p. 241. [173] Strype, _Life of Parker_, London, 1711, p. 536. [174] For a further account of Aelfric's theories, see Chapter I. [175] _The Psalter translated by Richard Rolle of Hampole_, ed. Bramley, Oxford, 1884. [176] Chapter 15, in Pollard, _Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse_. [177] _Prologue_, Chapter 15. [178] _Prologue to the New Testament_, printed in Matthew's Bible, 1551. [179] Strype, _Life of Parker_, p. 208. [180] Pollard, p. 116. [181] Preface to _The Obedience of a Christian Man_, in _Doctrinal Treatises_, Parker Society, 1848, p. 390. [182] Pollard, p. 211. [183] _Ibid._, p. 277.