Читать книгу The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 565, September 8, 1832 - Various - Страница 2

In D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature, there is an amusing and instructive account of the Origin of Psalm-Singing. It appears that Psalms in verse were first written by that elegant French poet, Clement Marot, the favoured court bard of Francis I., who was termed by his un-envious brother poets, "the poet of princes." They were published at Paris, and the volume contained fifty Psalms, written in various measures, and, which, from the beauty of their composition, (some specimens of which we have seen,) appear to be worthy of the muse of Marot. This "Holy Song Book," as he entitled it, was "humbly dedicated to the powerful King of France," and being considered by the volatile French people as an amusing novelty, it sold faster than any book of that period. In fact, the printers could not supply impressions fast enough for the demand; and, as the Psalms were considered in the light of ballads, they were set by the people to popular tunes, and were commonly sung as ballads.

This good reception of Marot's Psalms induced the celebrated Theodore Beza to continue the collection; and another volume was printed, of which 20,000 were immediately sold: this was a considerable circulation, when we consider the few readers that then existed, in comparison with the number of readers in the present age. These had the advantage over Marot's of being set to tunes of greater spirit. Beza, in his preface, says, that "these Psalms are admirably suited for the violin and other musical instruments;" and our readers will learn, not without surprise, that through the instrumentality of the gloomy Calvin, these compositions were set to most beautiful and simple airs. He wisely took advantage of popular feeling to spread his religious opinions, through the means of melody, and, in furtherance of this plan, he engaged the most celebrated composers of his time to furnish tunes to these Psalms. At first, the scheme was not discovered: for Catholics sang the Psalms as well as Hugonots; but, when Calvin appointed these Psalms, with their music, to be sung at his meetings, there was an end to the solace of the dreary hours of the poor Catholics. Marot himself was compelled to quit Geneva; Psalm-singing became an open declaration of Lutheranism; and "woe to the poor wight" who was caught in the diabolical act of singing these "pernicious Psalms."

The history of Psalm-singing in our own island can be comprised in very few words. When the enthusiasm of the French in favour of their Psalms was at its height, one Sternhold, undertook to be our Marot, and wrote a Book of Psalms, which captivated the hearts of the Puritans, by whom they were practised at their chapels in the Protectorate of Cromwell, but were more particularly set and sung in the reign of Elizabeth. Psalms, about this time, were sung at City and Lord Mayors' feasts, and turtle-eaters delighted to honour Psalm-singers. Soldiers used them as stimulants to exertion on their march, and even on parade; and there was scarcely a regiment but could boast of its Marot. About this time, too, it was customary for the inhabitants of houses which had windows facing the street, to regale the passenger with the "holy songs" of Sternhold.

E.J.H.

[By way of an appropriate pendent to our Correspondent's paper, we quote the following excellent passage on Psalmody, by the Rev. W.S. Gilly, in his Memoir of Felix Neff.]

The effect produced by the words, or by the music, or by the combination of the two, is such, that the cultivation of psalmody has ever been earnestly recommended by those who are anxious to excite true piety. Tradition, history, revelation, and experience, bear witness to the truth, that there is nothing to which the natural feelings of man respond more readily. Every nation, whose literary remains have come down to us, appears to have consecrated the first efforts of its muse to religion, or rather all the first compositions in verse seem to have grown out of devotional effusions. We know that the book of Job, and others, the most ancient of the Old Testament, contain rhythmical addresses to the Supreme Being. Many of the psalms were composed centuries before the time of king David, and it is not extravagant to imagine, that some of them may have been sung even to Jubal's lyre, and were handed down from patriarch to patriarch by oral tradition. Nor did the fancy of Milton take too bold a flight when it pleased itself with the idea that our first parents, taught by the carols of the birds in the garden of Eden, raised their voices in tuneful notes of praise to the Creator of all, when they walked forth in the cool of the day to meet their God before the fall. But this is certain, that one of our Lord's last acts of social worship on earth was to sing a hymn with his disciples. Few, therefore, can be slow to understand, that if Christ and his disciples broke forth in holy song, immediately after the solemnities of the Last Supper, and just before the Shepherd was smitten, and the sheep were scattered; and if Paul and Silas sung praises unto God in their prison-house, congregational worship may always be the better for such helps. Add to these examples, the apostolical exhortation to the merry hearted to sing psalms, and the apostolical descriptions of the choral strains which resound in the courts of heaven, and we cannot but feel certain, that the services of the Christian church were cheered from the earliest times by hymns and psalms. "Those Nazarenes sing hymns to Christ," said Pliny, in contempt. We thank him for recording the fact. The words of the Te Deum were composed by a native of Gaul, (for the use probably of one of the churches on the Rhone, or of the Alps) about the third century; and at the same period, men, women, youths of both sexes, and even children joined in the psalmody of the sanctuaries, in such cordial and harmonious unison, that a father of the church has well compared the sound to the loud, but not discordant, noise of many waves beating against the sea shore.

At the time of the Reformation, sacred music, which had begun to run wild, was brought back to its first principles. The melodies of religious worship were rendered more heart-touching, by being set to words in the vernacular tongues, which every body could understand. Luther's hymn, "Great God, what do I hear and see," led the way. Henry VIII. hated the German reformer, and all that he did, but he burned to rival him in every thing, and he gave a stimulus to the public taste, by composing words and music for the service of the English church. In France, soon after the middle of the sixteenth century, when it was doubtful whether the nation would become Protestant or remain Roman Catholic, the pathetic tunes and devotional stanzas of the reformers obtained so great an influence over the minds of men, that the music of the temples, as the Protestant sanctuaries were called, to distinguish them from the Roman Catholic churches, became the fashionable melodies of the day. This taste found its way even to the court, and to the great alarm of the Romish party, some of the sweetest and most stirring of the psalms, which had been translated into French metre by Clement Marot, were set to music by Lewis Guadimel, and were constantly in the mouths not only of the Protestant families of the provinces, but of the ornaments of the saloons of Paris, and of the palace of the Louvre. It is said to have been quite astonishing how much this pious and simple device found favour for the Protestant cause, and induced people, who had never read Scripture before, to search the holy volume out of which those treasures were drawn, which so charmed their ears and their imagination. It is still the practice in most of the mountain churches to make sacred music a part of family devotion, and many of the tunes which Guadimel composed with such success are still sung to the praise of God. I can bear witness to the forcible manner in which these strains, rising to heaven from the lips of parents, children and domestics, quicken piety, and stir up the best affections of the heart towards God and man. I have seen and felt the effect produced by them in the humble dwelling of the village pastor, where none but human voices swelled the notes; and in the chateau, where the harp and the organ have mingled their fine sounds with the well modulated tones of an accomplished family of sons and daughters. My thoughts, at the moment I am writing this, are at Chateâu Blonay, but most of the voices, which I heard there, are now silent in death! I am thoroughly convinced that family worship, and congregational worship lose a great auxiliary to piety, when there is not the power or the inclination to join in psalmody.