The "Old Version," when published (by John Daye, for the Stationers'
Company, "cum gratia et privilegio Regiae Majestatis"), bore upon the
face of it that it was "newly set forth, and allowed to be sung of the
people in churches, before and after morning and evening prayer, as
also before and after the sermon." The question of its authority has
been at different times much debated, chiefly by Peter Heylyn and
Thomas Warton on one side (both of whom disliked and disparaged it),
and by William Beveridge, bishop of St Asaph, and the Rev. H. J. Todd
on the other. Heylyn says, it was "permitted rather than allowed,"
which seems to be a distinction without much difference. "Allowance,"
which is all that the book claimed for itself, is authorization by way
of permission, not of commandment. Its publication in that form could
hardly have been licensed, nor could it have passed into use as it did
without question, throughout the churches of England, unless it had
been "allowed" by some authority then esteemed to be sufficient.
Whether that authority was royal or ecclesiastical does not appear,
nor (considering the proviso in King Edward's act of uniformity, and
Queen Elizabeth's injunctions) is it very important. No inference can
justly be drawn from the inability of inquirers, in Heylyn's time or
since, to discover any public record bearing upon this subject, many
public documents of that period having been lost.
In this book, as published in 1562, and for many years afterwards, there
were (besides the versified Psalms) eleven metrical versions of the "Te
Deum," canticles, Lord's Prayer (the best of which is that of the
"Benedicite"); and also "Da pacem, Domine," a hymn suitable to the
times, rendered into English from Luther; two original hymns of praise,
to be sung before morning and evening prayer; two penitential hymns (one
of them the "humble lamentation of a sinner"); and a hymn of faith,
beginning, "Lord, in Thee is all my trust." In these respects, and also
in the tunes which accompanied the words (stated by Dr Charles Burney,
in his _History of Music_, to be German, and not French), there was a
departure from the Genevan platform. Some of these hymns, and some of
the psalms also (e.g. those by Robert Wisdom, being alternative
versions), were omitted at a later period; and many alterations and
supposed amendments were from time to time made by unknown hands in the
psalms which remained, so that the text, as now printed, is in many
places different from that of 1562.
Scotch Psalms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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