e whom the archbishop had justly
described as having been first _prudently appointed to lead and direct
them_; and who, by their subsequent proceedings, evidently discovered,
what they might have safely conjectured, that such an universal
suffrage, where every man was to have a voice, must necessarily end in
clatter and chaos.[301]

Thomas Warton, however, regards the metrical psalms of Sternhold as a
puritanic invention, and asserts, that notwithstanding it is said in
their title-page that they are "set forth and _allowed_ to be sung in
all churches," they were never admitted by lawful authority. They were
first introduced by the Puritans, from the Calvinists of Geneva, and
afterwards continued by connivance. As a true poetical antiquary, Thomas
Warton condemns any _modernisation_ of the venerable text of the old
Sternhold and Hopkins, which, by changing obsolete for familiar words,
destroys the texture of the original style; and many stanzas, already
too naked and weak, like a plain old Gothic edifice stripped of its few
signatures of antiquity, have lost that little and almost only strength
and support which they derived from ancient phrases. "Such alterations,
even if executed with prudence and judgment, only corrupt what they
endeavour to explain; and exhibit a motley performance, belonging to no
character of writing, and which contains more improprieties than those
which it professes to remove." This forcible criticism is worthy of our
poetical antiquary; the same feeling was experienced by Pasquier, when
Marot, in his _Rifacciamento_ of the Roman de la Rose, left some of the
obsolete phrases, while he got rid of others; _cette bigarrure de
langage vieux et moderne_, was with him writing no language at all. The
same circumstance occurred abroad, when they resolved to retouch and
modernise the old French metrical version of the Psalms, which we are
about to notice. It produced the same controversy and the same
dissatisfaction. The church of Geneva adopted an _improved_ version, but
the charm of the old one was wanting.

To trace the history of modern metrical psalmody, we must have recourse
to Bayle, who, as a mere literary historian, has accidentally preserved
it. The inventor was a celebrated French poet; and the invention, though
perhaps in its very origin inclining towards the abuse to which it was
afterwards carried, was unexpectedly adopted by the austere Calvin, and
introduced into the Geneva discipline. It