satisfaction of all present,
he from that period until the time of his death, in 1849,
performed this service, being absent only on one occasion. Those
who have attended Commencement dinners during the latter part of
this period cannot but associate with this hallowed Psalm the
venerable appearance and the benevolent countenance of this
excellent man.

In presenting a list of the different versions in which this Psalm
has been sung, it must not be supposed that entire correctness has
been reached; the very scanty accounts which remain render this
almost impossible, but from these, which on a question of greater
importance might be considered hardly sufficient, it would appear
that the following are the versions in which the sons of Harvard
have been accustomed to sing the Psalm of the son of Jesse.

1.--_The New England Version_.

"In 1639 there was an agreement amo. ye Magistrates and Ministers
to set aside ye Psalms then printed at ye end of their Bibles, and
sing one more congenial to their ideas of religion." Rev. Mr.
Richard Mather of Dorchester, and Rev. Mr. Thomas Weld and Rev.
Mr. John Eliot of Roxbury, were selected to make a metrical
translation, to whom the Rev. Thomas Shepard of Cambridge gives
the following metrical caution:--

"Ye Roxbury poets, keep clear of ye crime
Of missing to give us very good rhyme,
And you of Dorchester, your verses lengthen,
But with the texts own words you will y'm strengthen."

The version of this ministerial trio was printed in the year 1640,
at Cambridge, and has the honor of being the first production of
the North American press that rises to the dignity of _a book_. It
was entitled, "The Psalms newly turned into Metre." A second
edition was printed in 1647. "It was more to be commended,
however," says Mr. Peirce, in his History of Harvard University,
"for its fidelity to the text, than for the elegance of its
versification, which, having been executed by persons of different
tastes and talents, was not only very uncouth, but deficient in
uniformity. President Dunster, who was an excellent Oriental
scholar, and possessed the other requisite qualifications for the
task, was employed to revise and polish it; and in two or three
years, with the assistance of Mr. Richard Lyon, a young gentleman
who was sent from England by Sir Henry Mildmay to attend his son,
then a student in Harvard College, he produced a work, which,
under the appellation of the 'Bay Psalm-Book