and awaked the church with dulcet
harmonies: a pitch-pipe often the sole instrument. And then--what
terrible hymns were sung! Well did Campbell say of Sternhold and
Hopkins, the co-translators of the Psalms of David into English metre,
"mistaking vulgarity for simplicity, they turned into bathos what they
found sublime." And Tate and Brady's version, the "Dry Psalter" of
"Samuel Oxon's" witticism, was little better. Think of the poetical
beauties of the following lines, sung with vigour by a bald-headed
clerk:

"My hairs are numerous, but few
Compared to th' enemies that me pursue."

It was of such a clerk and of such psalmody that John Wilmot, Earl of
Rochester, in the seventeenth century wrote his celebrated epigram:

"Sternhold and Hopkins had great qualms
When they translated David's Psalms,
To make the heart more glad;
But had it been poor David's fate
To hear thee sing and them translate,
By Jove, 'twould have drove him mad."

When the time for singing the metrical Psalm arrived, the clerk gave out
the number in stentorian tones, using the usual formula, "Let us sing to
the praise and glory of God the one hundred and fourth Psalm, first,
second, seving (seven), and eleving verses with the Doxology." Then,
pulling out his pitch-pipe from the dusty cushions of his seat, he would
strut pompously down the church, ascend the stairs leading to the west
gallery, blow his pipe, and give the basses, tenors, and soprano voices
their notes, which they hung on to in a low tone until the clerk
returned to his place in the lowest tier of the "three-decker" and
started the choir-folk vigorously. Those Doxologies at the end! What a
trouble they were! You could find them if you knew where to look for
them at the end of the Prayer Book after Tate and Brady's metrical
renderings of the Psalms of David. There they were, but the right one
was hard to find. Some had two syllables too much to suit the tune, and
some had two syllables too little. But it did not matter very greatly,
and we were accustomed to add a word here, or leave out one there; it
was all in a day's work, and we went home with the comfortable
reflection that we had done our best.

But a pitch-pipe was not usually the sole instrument. Many village
churches had their band, composed of fiddles, flutes, clarionets, and
sometimes bassoons and a drum. "Let's go and hear the baboons," said a
clerk mentioned by the R