33

Gleanings.

pronunciation, was both liked and rewarded by her Majesty; and himself received neither reward nor commendation, presuming of his 7. own good scholarship. This his no small grief he uttered unto divers of his friends in Trinity college, who were also much discontented, because the honor of the disputation did not redound unto their college. Master Cartwright, immediately after her Majesty's neglect of him, began to trade in divers opinions, as that of the discipline, and to kick against her ecclesiastical government; and that he might the better feed his mind with novelties, he travelled to Geneva, where he was so far carried away with an affection of their new-devised discipline, as that he thought all churches and congregations for governments ecclesiastical, were to be measured and squared by the practice of Geneva. Therefore when he returned home, he took many exceptions against the established government of the church of England, and the observation of its rites and ceremonies, and the administration of its holy sacraments; and buzzed these conceits into the heads of divines, young preachers, and scholars of the university of Cambridge, and drew after him a great number of disciples aud followers. Cartwright afterwards disturbs the state of the university; is recommended to be quiet, but to no purpose; is at last expelled, after having refused to assist at a conference which Archbishop Whitgift offered him. Cartwright afterwards published, in 1591, a book of new discipline, for which he was proceeded against in the Star Chamber.

ARCHBISHOP WHITGIFT.

Elizabeth THE mention of this great prelate, whom queen used to call her little black husband, gives us an occasion to quote what the judicious and temperate Hooker says of him, which is alone sufficient to wipe off all the foul aspersions cast upon his name by the Puritans.

He always governed," says Hooker, "with that moderation which useth by patience to suppress boldness, and to make them conquer that suffer.

LORD BURLEIGH.

THIS great statesman was very much pressed by some of the disaffected divines in his time, who waited on him in a body, to make some alterations in the articles and liturgy. He desired them to go into the next room by themselves, and bring him in their unanimous opinion upon some disputed points. They return"Why gentlemen" ed, however, without being able to agree. said he, "how can you expect that I should alter any point in dipute, when you who must be more competent, from your situation, to judge than I can possibly be, cannot agree yourselves in what manner you would have me alter it."

" that

With respect to the education of children he used to say: the unthrifty looseness of youth in this age was the parent's faults, who made them men seven years too soon, having but children's judgments."

The same great man was wont to say, "I will never trust any man not of sound religion; for he that is false to God, can never be true to man."

THOMAS STERNHOLD.

THIS person, who has perpetuated his name by a well known version of the psalms in metre, was a native of Hampshire, and edncated at Wykeham's school near Winchester, after which he studied at Oxford, but left the university without a degree and became groom of the robes to King Henry VIII. who by his will left him a legacy of one hundred marks. He continued in the same office to Edward VI. and was in some esteem at court, for his vein in poetry. Being a zealous reformer, he became so scandalized at the amorous and obscene songs used in the court, that he 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 they did not, only some few excepted. "However, the poetry and music being admirable, (says Wood) and the best that was made and composed in those times, they were thought ft afterwards to be sung in all parochial churches. All those psalms which he put into rhyme, have the letters T. S. set before them to distinguish them from others. What other poetry, or what prose, this our Sternhold hath composed, does not appear." He died in 1549.

Cotemporary with Sternhold was JOHN HOPKINS, who turned into metre fifty eight of David's psalms, which in all the editions of that version have the two letters J. H. set before them. He appears to have been a schoolmaster in Suffolk. The other translators were WILLIAM WHITTINGHAM, afterwards the unworthy dean of Durham, who made considerable dilapidations in that cathedral, being a puritan and THOMAS NORTON, who was a barrister, and trans lated several books from the latin into English. Their respective signatures are to the psalms translated by them. Of this famous version curious is the account given by Dr. Heylyn: "About this time," says he, "the psalms of David did first begin to be composed in English metre by Thomas Sternhold, one of the grooms of the privy chamber, who left both example and encouragement to John Hopkins and others to dispatch the rest. A device first taken up in France, by one Clement Marot, one of the grooms of the bed chamber about King Francis I. who being much addicted to poetry, and having some acquaintance with those that were thought to have inclined to the reformation, was persuaded by the learned Vatabius, (professor of the Hebrew language in Paris) to exercise his poetical fancy in translating some of David's psalms, for whose satisfaction and his own, he translated the first fifty of them; and after flying to Geneva, grew acquainted with Beza, who in some tract of time translated the other hundred also, and caused them to be fitted to several tunes, which thereupon began to be sung in private houses; and by degrees to be taken up in all churches of the French nation which followed the Geneva platform. The translation is said by Strada to have been ignorantly and perversely done, as being the

work of a man altogether unlearned; but not to be compared with the barbarity and botching, which every where occurreth in the translation of Sternhold and Hopkins; which notwithstanding being allowed for private devotion, they were by little and little brought into the use of the church and permitted, rather than allowed to be sung before and after sermons. Afterwards they were printed and bound up in the common prayer book, and at last added by the sta tioners to the end of the Bible. For though it be expressed in the title of these singing psalms, that they were set forth and allowed bato be sung before and after morning and evening prayer, and also before and after sermons, yet this allowance seems rather to have been a connivance than an approbation; no such allowance being any where found by such as have been most industrious and concerned in the search thereof. At first it was pretended only that the said psalms should be sung before and after morning and evening prayer, and also before and after sermons; which shows they were not to be intermingled with the public liturgy; but in some tract of time, they prevailed in most places to thrust the Te Deum, the Benedictus, Magnificát, and the Nunc Dimittis, quite out of our church."

Although there be much truth in this relation of Heylyn's, yet his censure is too general and severe; for many of the psalms in this version are truly excellent, and far superior to any other poetical translation. The old hundred infinitely exceeds that in Tate and Brady's version. Good bishop Beveridge wrote a little book in defence of Sternhold and Hopkins; and a living prelate of pre-eminent learning and judgment, has pronounced this version to be more exact and agreeable to the original than the other.

ALEXANDER NOWELL.

IN Brascnose-college, Oxford, is a portrait of this learned divine, with fishing tackle about him; he having been a great angler. He became principal of that house, and dean of St. Paul's. "For thirty years together," says Wood, "he preached the first and last sermons in the time of lent before Queen Elizabeth, wherein he dealt plainly and faithfully with her without dislike; only at one time speaking less reverently of the sign of the cross, she called aloud to him from her closet window, commanding him to retire from that ungodly digression, and stick to his text. He wrote several pieces, the most noted of which was his catechism in latin, and translated into Greek and English. He died in 1601.

BISHOP BEDELL.

THIS excellent prelate, to whom the Irish are indebted for the translation of the Bible into their language, was bishop of Kilmore. Like the good bishop Berkeley, he would never be translated to another see, thinking with him, that his church was his wife, and his diocese his children, from whom he should never be divoreed. "Bishop Bedell lived with his clergy," says his biographer,

"as if they had been his brethren. When he went his visitations, he would not accept of the invitations that were made to him by the great men of the country, but he would needs eat with his brethren, in such poor inns, and of such course fare, as the place afforded. He went about always on foot, (one servant only attending him) except upon public occasions, that obliged him to ride in procession with his brethren. He never kept a coach in his life; his strength always enabling him to ride on horseback. Many poor Irish fami lies were entertained out of his kitchen, and in the Christmas time he had the poor always eating with him at his own table, and he brought himself to endure both the sight of their rags and of their rudeness. He by his will ordered his body to be buried in a churchyard, with this inscription:

Depositum Gulielmi quondam Episcopi Kilmorensis.

He did not like the burying in a church; for, as he observed, there was much both of superstition and pride in it; so he believed it was a great annoyance to the living, where there was so much of the steam of dead bodies rising about them. He was likewise much offended at the rudeness which the crowding the dead bodies into a small parcel of ground occasioned, for the bodies already laid there, and not yet quite rotten, were often raised and mangled; so that he made a canon in his synod against burying in churches, and recommended that burying places should be removed out of towns."

In this he agreed with the pious and exemplary bishop Hall, who, in a sermon preached at the consecration of a burying ground at Exeter, delivers the same sentiments against interments in churches.

Ecclesiastical News.

ON the 16th inst. the Bishop of Connecticut, with a number of his Presbyters, assembled at the Episcopal Church in Bridgeport, when the Church was consecrated, and called by the name of St. John's Church; at which time also Mr. David Baldwin, of Guilford, Mr. Benjamin Benham, of New-Milford, and Mr. Zalmon Wheaton, of Stamford, were admitted to the holy order of Deacons. Prayers were read by the Rev. Philo Shelton, and an appropriate Sermon was delivered by the Rev. Daniel Burhans.

On the 17th the Bishop attended at the Church in Trumbull, and administered the rite of confirmation to forty-one persons. The prayers were read by the Rev. Mr. Shelton, and the Sermon was delivered by the Rev. Mr. Todd.

On the 18th the Episcopal Church at New-Stratford was consecrated by the Bishop, and named St. Peter's Church; prayers were read by the Rev. Mr. Burhans, and an appropriate Sermon was delivered by the Rev. Mr. Baldwin. At this Church the rite of confirmrtion was administred to thirty-six persons. On Sunday the 20th the Bishop admitted Mr. Virgel Horace Barber, and Mr. Asa Cornwall to the holy order of Priests; the Rev. Mr. Baldwin deliver. ed a Sermon on the occasion; in the afternoon the rite of confirmation was administered by the Bishop to twenty-seven persons. Evening prayers were read by the Rev. Mr. Barber, and a Sermon was delivered by the Rer. Mr. Cornwall.

Memoirs of the Right Reverend Samuel Horsley, LL.D. F. R. and A. SS. late Lord Bishop of St. Asaph.

[Continued from page 326.]

IN 1782 bishop Lowth presented his chaplain with the rectory of South Weald, in Essex, to which was added, about the same period, the honorable distinction of Archdeacon of St. Alban's.

The publication of Dr. Priestley's history of the corruptions of christianity, in 2 volumes 8vo, attracting considerable notice, on account of the boldness of its positions, our archdeacon took occasion at his visitation in 1783, to enter in his charge on a critical review of that history, or rather of that part which relates to the faith of the three first ages in the doctrine of the trinity. This charge was soon afterwards published at the request of the reverend auditors; and, its reception by the public justified that request, for it shook the unitarian edifice, pompous and gaudy as it seemed, entirely to the foundation, and exposed the plagiarism and ignorance of the arch itect in the clearest manner. Dr. Priestly, however, was not to be convinced; and he immediately addressed a series of letters to the archdeacon, in which, though his confidence remained, and his tone was elevated, his weakness and insufficiency to the contest were but the more apparent. Dr. Horsley replied in seventeen letters, in a style of mingled dignity and irony, tempered with the manners of a gentleman, and the spirit of a christian. The argument from tradition for the divinity of Christ was decided; and any other man than, Priestley would have acknowleged his conviction and recanted, or been silent. But this would have been out of his' character. The modern patriarch of Socinianism was become in furiate, and, without consideration, issued from the press a second series of letters to the archdeacon, in which he repeated all his for mer assertions, without refuting, and sometimes without noticing, the arguments and proofs by which they had been confuted. The spirit in which these epistles were composed, will appear from the following extracts. "At length," says he, "you have condescend ed to gratify my wishes, and have favored me with a series of letters in answer to mine; but as they are written with a degree of insolence, which nothing in your situation or mine can justify, and indicate a temper that appears to me to be very far from being the most pro

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