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Thomas Wyat versified the Penitential Psalms, the 6th, 32nd, 38th, 51st, 102nd, 130th, and 143rd, with a Prologue and connecting stanzas of his own. the Psalms put into music by Surrey only the 8th was in Marot's collection; but of those chosen by Wyat, all except the 102nd are among the fifty that were chosen by Marot. Another English versifier of the Psalms at Henry VIII.'s court was Thomas Sternhold, groom of the Robes to his Majesty. It was Sternhold's expressed desire to do in England with the Psalms what had been done by Marot in France, "thinking thereby that the courtiers would sing them instead of their sonnets; but did not, some few excepted." Sternhold, who died in 1549, published in 1548, "Certayne Psalms," nineteen in number. After his death next year there appeared immediately "All such Psalms of David as Thomas Sternhold, late grome of the King's Majestyes Robes, did in his lyfe time drawe into Englysshe metre." This contained thirty-seven Psalms by Sternhold, with seven by John Hopkins, a Suffolk clergyman and schoolmaster. Hopkins, with help of others, laboured on until there was produced a complete metrical setting of the Psalms in English for congregational singing. It appeared in 1562, was in the same year adopted for use in the Church of England, and appended to the Book of Common Prayer. One of the " apt tunes," provided for the 100th Psalm, and known to us now as the Old Hundredth, was a tune that had been provided by Goudimel and Lejeune for the French version of the Psalms by Clement Marot. This is one of the Psalms paraphrased by the Earl of Surrey :

PROEM.

Where reckless youth in an unquiet breast,
Set on by wrath, revenge and cruelty,
After long war patiënce had oppressed,
And justice, wrought by princely equity:
My Denny then, mine error deep imprest,
Began to work despair of liberty;
Had not David, the perfect warrior taught,
That of my fault thus pardon should be sought.

PSALM LXXXVIII.

O Lord! upon whose will dependeth my welfare,
To call upon thy holy name, since day nor night I spare,
Grant that the just request of this repentant mind

So pierce thine ears, that in thy sight some favour it may find.

My soul is fraughted full with grief of follies past;

My restless body doth consume, and death approacheth fast; Like them whose fatal thread, thy hand hath cut in twain; Of whom there is no further bruit, which in their graves remain.

O Lord! thou hast me cast headlong, to please my foe,
Into a pit all bottomless, whereas I plain my woe.
The burden of thy wrath it doth me sore oppress:

And sundry storms thou hast me sent of terror and distress.

The faithful friends are fled and banished from my sight: And such as I have held full dear, have set my friendship light.

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PSALM CXXX.

From depth of sin, and from a deep despair,
From depth of death, from depth of heart's sorrów,
From this deep cave of darkness deep repair,
Thee have I called, O Lord! to be my borrów.
Thou in my voice, O Lord! perceive and hear
My heart, my hope, my plaint, my overthrow,

My will to rise; and let, by grant, appear

That to my voice thine ears do well entend.
No place so far that to Thee is not near,

No depth so deep that thou ne may'st extend
Thine ear thereto; hear then my woeful plaint,
For, Lord, if thou do observe what men offend,

And put thy native mercy in restraint;

If just exaction demand recompence,
Who may endure, O Lord! who shall not faint

At such accompt? dread, and not reverence
Should so reign large: but thou seeks rather love;
For in thy hand is Mercy's residence,

By hope whereof Thou dost our heartés move.
I in the Lord have set my confidence;
My soul such trust doth evermore approve.
Thy Holy Word of eterne excellence,

Thy mercy's promise that is alway just,
Have been my stay, my pillar, and pretence.
My soul in God hath more desirous trust,
Than hath the watchman looking for the day,
By the relief to quench of sleep the thrust.

HUGH LATIMER. (From a Portrait prefixed to his Sermons. 1635.)

In the year of the executions of John Fisher and Sir Thomas More (1535), Hugh Latimer, then about forty-five years old, was made Bishop of Worcester in place of a non-resident Italian who was deprived of the office. Hugh Latimer, son of a small farmer at Thurcaston, in Leicestershire, had graduated at Cambridge, and attacked opinions of the Reformers in his oration made on taking his B.D. degree. Thomas Bilney, who was burnt for his Reformed opinions in 1531, heard Latimer speak, went afterwards to his room, and talked over with him privately the matter of his oration. The result was that Latimer's opinions greatly changed. As he opposed the Pope at a time when Henry VIII. had broken with Rome, Latimer was introduced to the king in 1530 by his physician, Dr. Butts, preached before him, and became his chaplain. In 1531 the king gave him a rectory in Wiltshire, at West Kington. Here his plain speaking as a preacher brought Latimer into difficulty. He was accused of heresy, excommunicated, and imprisoned, but the king protected him, and next year also his friend Cranmer became archbishop; so that in 1535 Latimer became, as has been said, Bishop of Worcester. He held that office only until 1539, when the king dictated to Parliament, and imposed as domestic Pope upon the English people, an "Act Abolishing Diversity of Opinions." It required all men, under severe penalties, to adopt the king's opinions-which were those of the Church of Romeupon six questions then in dispute: transubstantiation, the confessional, vows of chastity, private masses, denial of the cup to the people at communion, and celibacy of priests. Hugh Latimer, who

could not retain his bishopric by a compliance with this act, resigned, and was silenced for the rest of Henry's reign. When the king died, Latimer was still a prisoner in the Tower, and in danger of his life. Then came, at the end of January, 1547, Edward VI. to the throne. He was but ten years old, and was to come of age at eighteen. During those eight years-which he did not live to complete, for he died in his sixteenth year-Cranmer was among the sixteen executors to whom regal power was entrusted, and his maternal uncle, the Earl of Hertford, created Duke of Somerset-hitherto a secret friend, and now an open friend of the Reformersbecame Lord Protector.

EDWARD VI. (From the Portrait by Holbein.)

There was thus a sudden change of the force of authority in the direction to which the Reformers pointed. Latimer, released from the Tower, preached at Paul's Cross on the 1st of January, 1548. The Parliament proposed to reinstate him in his bishopric, but he preferred to remain free, and speak his heart on all that concerned the religious life of England and of Englishmen, with his own homely directness that went straight to its mark. In January, 1549, he preached in the Shrouds,' at St. Paul's, his sermon on the Ploughers, by which he meant the clergy bound to labour in the field of God. He insisted much on faithful preaching, and in this characteristic passage warned his hearers who was

THE BUSIEST PRELATE IN ENGLAND.

Well, I would all men would look to their duty, as God hath called them, and then we should have a flourishing Christian Commonweal. And now I would ask a strange question. Who is the most diligentest bishop and prelate in

1 The Shrouds were covered places by the side of old St. Paul's which might be used by the preacher and audiences at Paul's Cross in case of bad weather. The name was given also to the old church of St. Faith, in the crypt under the cathedral, when that was chosen as the place of shelter.

all England, and passeth all the rest in doing his office? I can tell, for I know him who he is; I know him well. But now methinks I see you listening and hearkening, that I should name him. There is one that passeth all the other, and is the most diligent prelate and preacher in all England. And will ye know who it is? I will tell you. It is the devil. He is the most diligent preacher of all other. He is never out of his diocese, he is never from his cure; ye shall never find him unoccupied, he is ever in his parish; he keepeth residence at all times, ye shall never find him out of the way; call for him when ye will, he is ever at home; the diligentest preacher in all the realm, he is ever at his plough; no lording nor loitering may hinder him, he is ever applying his business; ye shall never find him idle, I warrant you. And his office is to hinder religion, to maintain superstition, to set up idolatry, to teach all kind of popery. He is as ready as he can be wished for to set forth his plough, to devise as many ways as can be to deface and obscure God's glory. Where the devil is resident, and hath his plough going, there away with books, and up with candles; away with Bibles, and up with beads; away with the light of the Gospel, and up with the light of candles, yea at noon days. Where the devil is resident, that he may prevail, up with all superstition and idolatry, censing, painting of images, candles, palms, ashes, holy water, and new service of men's inventing, as though man could invent a better way to honour God with than God himself hath appointed. Down with Christ's cross, up with Purgatory pickpurse-up with Popish Purgatory, I mean. Away with clothing the naked, the poor and impotent, up with decking of images, and gay garnishing of stocks and stones; up with man's traditions and his laws, down with God's will and His most holy Word. Down with the old honour due unto God, and up with the new god's honour. Let all things be done in Latin. There must be nothing but Latin, not so much as Memento homo quod cinis es, et in cinerem reverteris-" Remember, man, that thou art ashes, and into ashes thou shalt return." What be the words that the minister speaketh to the ignorant people, when he giveth them ashes upon Ash-Wednesday, but they must be spoken in Latin? And in no wise they must be translated into English. Oh, that our prelates would be as diligent to sow the corn of good doctrine, as Satan is to sow cockle and darnel. And this is the devilish ploughing, the which worketh to have things in Latin, and hindereth the fruitful edification. But here some man will say to me, "What, sir, are ye so privy to the devil's council, that ye know all this to be true?" Truly, I know him too well, and have obeyed him a little too much, in condescending to some follies; and I know him, as other men do, that he is ever occupied, and ever busied in following the plough. I know him by St. Peter's words, which saith of him, Sicut leo rugiens circuit quærens quem devoret-" He goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." I would have this text well viewed, and examined every word of it. Circuit, he goeth about every corner of his diocese; he goeth on visitation daily, and leaveth no place of his cure unvisited; he walketh round about from place to place, and ceaseth not. Sicut leo, as a lion-that is, strongly, boldly, fiercely, and proudly, with haughty looks, with a proud countenance, and stately braggings. Rugiens, roaring, for he letteth not slip any occasion to speak or to roar out when he seeth his time. Quærens, he goeth about seeking, and not sleeping, as our bishops do, but he seeketh diligently-he searcheth diligently all corners, where as he may have his prey. He roveth abroad in every place of his diocese-he standeth not still, he is never at rest, but ever in hand with his plough that it may go forward.

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Latimer was a Lent preacher before the king in 1548 and 1549, preaching from a pulpit built in the king's private garden at Westminster, with many statesmen, courtiers, and people gathered about him. The king listened at an open window near the preacher, and the princess Elizabeth, then fifteen or sixteen years old, was among his hearers.1

As the next passages will serve to show, Latimer went straight to his point in plain idiomatic English:

A REQUEST TO THE LORD PROTECTOR. "When all Israel heard of this judgment [the judgment of Solomon] they feared the king." It is wisdom and godly knowledge that causeth a king to be feared. One word note here, for God's sake, and I will trouble you no longer. Would Salomon, being so noble a king, hear two poor

to satisfy this place. I am no sooner in the garden and have read awhile, but by-and-by cometh there some or other knocking at the gate. Anon cometh my man and saith, "Sir, there is one at the gate would speak with you." When I come there, then it is some one or other that desireth me that I will speak that his matter might be heard, and that he hath lain thus long at great cost and charges, and cannot once have his matter come to the hearing. But among all other, one specially moved me at this time to speak. This

it is, sir :

A gentlewoman came to me and told me, that a great man keepeth certain lands of hers from her, and will be her tenant in the spite of her teeth. And that in a whole twelvemonth she could get but one day for the hearing of her matter, and the same day when the matter should be heard, the great man brought on his side a great sight of lawyers for his counsel: the gentlewoman had but one man of law; and the

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women? They were poor, for, as the Scripture saith, they were together alone in a house, they had not so much as one servant between them both. Would King Salomon, I say, hear them in his own person? Yea, forsooth. And yet I hear of many matters before my Lord Protector, and my Lord Chancellor, that cannot be heard. I must desire my Lord Protector's grace to hear me in this matter, that your Grace would hear poor men's suits yourself. Put them to none other to hear, let them not be delayed. The saying is now, that Money is heard everywhere; if he be rich, he shall soon have an end of his matter.

Other are fain to go home with weeping tears, for any help they can obtain at any judge's hand. Hear men's suits yourself, I require you in God's behalf, and put it not to the hearing of these velvet coats, these upskips. Now a man can scarce know them from an ancient knight of the country. I cannot go to my book, for poor folks come unto me, desiring me that I will speak that their matters may be heard. I trouble my Lord of Canterbury, and being at his house, now and then I walk in the garden looking in my book, as I can do but little good at it; but something I must needs do

1 Fox, in the picture here copied, places her on the front steps of the pulpit.

great man shakes him so, that he cannot tell what to do. So that when the matter came to the point, the judge was a mean to the gentlewoman that she would let the great man have a quietness in her land. I beseech your Grace that ye will look to these matters; hear them yourself. View your judges, and hear poor men's causes.

CORRUPT PATRONAGE OF LIVINGS.

If the great men in Turkey should use in their religion of Mahomet to sell, as our patrons commonly sell benefices here (the office of preaching, the office of salvation), it would be taken as an intolerable thing, the Turk would not suffer it in his commonwealth. Patrons, be charged to see the office done, and not to seek a lucre and a gain by their patronship. There was a patron in England (when it was) that had a benefice fallen into his hand, and a good brother of mine came unto him, and brought him thirty apples in a dish, and gave them to his man to carry them to his master; it is like he gave one to his man for his labour, to make up the game, and so there was thirty-one. This man cometh to his master and presenteth him with a dish of apples, saying, "Sir, such a man hath sent you a dish of fruit, and desireth you to be good unto him for such a benefice." "Tush, tush!"

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quoth he, "this is no apple matter, I will none of his apples. I have as good as these (or as he hath any) in mine own orchard." The man came to the priest again, and told him what his master said. "Then," quoth the priest, "desire him yet to prove one of them for my sake, he shall find them much better than they look for." He cut one of them, and found ten pieces of gold in it. 'Marry!" quoth he, "this is a good apple." The priest standing not far off, hearing what the gentleman said, cried out and answered, "They are all one fruit, I warrant you, sir; they grew all on one tree, and have all one taste." "Well, he is a good fellow, let him have it," said the patron, &c. "Get you a graft of this tree, and I warrant you it will stand you in better stead than all St. Paul's learning."

NEGLECT OF PREACHING.

I would our preachers would preach, sitting or standing, one way or other. It was a goodly pulpit that our Saviour Christ had gotten Him here. An old rotten boat, and yet He preached His Father's will, His Father's message out of this pulpit. He cared not for the pulpit, so He might do the people good. Indeed, it is to be commended for the preacher to stand or sit, as the place is; but I would not have it so superstitiously esteemed, but that a good preacher may declare the Word of God sitting on a horse, or preaching in a tree. And yet, if this should be done, the unpreaching prelates would laugh it to scorn. And though it be good to have the pulpit set up in churches, that the people might resort thither, yet I would not have it so superstitiously used, but that in a profane place the Word of God might be preached sometimes; and I would not have the people offended withal, no more than they be with our Saviour Christ's preaching out of a boat. And yet to have pulpits in churches it is very well done to have them; but they would be occupied, for it is a vain thing to have them as they stand in many churches.

"It

I heard of a bishop of England that went on visitation, and (as it was the custom) when the bishop should come and be rung into the town, the great bell's clapper was fallen down, the tyall was broken, so that the bishop could not be rung into the town. There was a great matter made of this, and the chief of the parish was much blamed for it in the visitation. The bishop was somewhat quick with them, and signified that he was much offended. They made their answers and excused themselves as well as they could. was a chance," said they, "that the clapper brake, and we could not get it mended by-and-by; we must tarry till we can have it done. It shall be mended as shortly as may be." Among the other, there was one wiser than the rest, and he comes to the bishop, "Why, my lord," saith he, "doth your lordship make so great a matter of the bell that lacketh his clapper? Here is a bell," saith he, and pointed to the pulpit," that hath lacked a clapper this twenty years. We have a parson that fetcheth out of his benefice fifty pounds every year, but we never see him." I warrant you the bishop was an unpreaching prelate. He could find fault with the bell that wanted a clapper to ring him into the town, but he could not find any fault with the parson that preached not at his benefice. Ever this office of preaching hath been least regarded, it hath scant had the name of God's service. They must sing Salve festa dies about the church, that no man was the better for it, but to show their gay coats and garments.

I came once myself to a place, riding on a journey homeward from London, and I sent word over night into the town that I would preach there in the morning, because it was holiday, and methought it was an holiday's work. The

church stood in my way, and I took my horse and my company, and went thither (I thought I should have found a great company in the church), and when I came there, the church door was fast locked. I tarried there half an hour and more. At last the key was found, and one of the parish comes to me, and said, "Sir, this is a busy day with us; we cannot hear you; it is Robin Hood's day. The parish are gone abroad to gather for Robin Hood, I pray you let 1 them not." I was fain there to give place to Robin Hood. I thought my rochet should have been regarded though I were not; but it would not serve, it was fain to give place to Robin Hood's men.

It is no laughing matter, my friends; it is a weeping matter, a heavy matter, a heavy matter, under the pretence for gathering for Robin Hood, a traitor and a thief, to put out a preacher, to have his office less esteemed, to prefer Robin Hood before the ministration of God's Word; and all this hath come of unpreaching prelates. This realm hath been ill provided for, that it hath had such corrupt judgments in it, to prefer Robin Hood to God's Word. If the bishops had been preachers, there should never have been any such thing, but we have a good hope of better. We have had a good beginning: I beseech God to continue it. But I tell you, it is far wide, that the people have such judgments. The bishops they could laugh at it. What was that to them? They would have them to continue in their ignorance still, and themselves in unpreaching prelacy.

The last of the sermons so preached, which Latimer called his Ultimum Vale (Last Farewell) to the Court, was more than three hours long, vigorous, discursive, and rich in illustration of the directness of speech that made his preaching effectual, and at the same time laid it open, in its own day, to much critical exception from his adversaries. substance of the sermon is here given, without the digressions:

COVETOUSNESS.

The

From Latimer's Ultimum Vale," the last Sermon before King Edward. Preached in 1550.

Videte et cavete ab avaritia. Take heed and beware of covetousness: take heed and beware of covetousness: take heed and beware of covet ousness: Take heed and beware of covetousness.

And what and if I should say nothing else, these three or four hours (for I know it will be so long, in case I be not commanded to the contrary) but these words: "Take heed and beware of Covetousness." It would be thought a strange sermon before a king, to say nothing else but Cavete ab Avaritia "Beware of Covetousness." And yet as strange as it is, it would be like the sermon of Jonas that he preached to the Ninivites, as touching the shortness, and as touching the paucity or fewness of the words. For his sermon was, Adhuc quadraginta dies, et Nineve subvertetur-" There is yet forty days to come, and Ninivy shall be destroyed." Thus he walked from street to street, and from place to place round about the city, and said nothing else but, "There is yet forty days," quoth he, "and Ninivy shall be destroyed." There is no great odds nor difference, at least wise, in the number of words, no nor yet in the sense or meaning between these two sermons. This is, "Yet forty days, and Ninivy shall be destroyed;" and these words that I have taken to speak of this day, "Take heed and beware of covetousness." For Ninivy should be destroyed for sin, and of their sins covetousness

1 Let, hinder.

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