is indeed strange, that while
he was stripping religion not merely of its pageantry, but even of its
decent ceremonies, this levelling reformer should have introduced this
taste for _singing_ psalms in opposition to _reading_ psalms. "On a
parallel principle," says Thomas Warton, "and if any artificial aids to
devotion were to be allowed, he might at least have retained the use of
pictures in the church." But it was decreed that statues should be
mutilated of "their fair proportions," and painted glass be dashed into
pieces, while the congregation were to sing! Calvin sought for
proselytes among "the rabble of a republic, who can have no relish for
the more elegant externals." But to have made men sing in concert, in
the streets, or at their work, and, merry or sad, on all occasions to
tickle the ear with rhymes and touch the heart with emotion, was
betraying no deficient knowledge of human nature.

It seems, however, that this project was adopted accidentally, and was
certainly promoted by the fine natural genius of Clement Marot, the
favoured bard of Francis the First, that "prince of poets and that poet
of princes," as he was quaintly but expressively dignified by his
contemporaries. Marot is still an inimitable and true poet, for he has
written in a manner of his own with such marked felicity, that he has
left his name to a style of poetry called _Marotique_. The original La
Fontaine is his imitator. Marot delighted in the very forms of poetry,
as well as its subjects and its manner. His life, indeed, took more
shapes, and indulged in more poetical licences, than even his poetry.
Licentious in morals,--often in prison, or at court, or in the army, or
a fugitive, he has left in his numerous little poems many a curious
record of his variegated existence. He was indeed very far from being
devout, when his friend, the learned Vatable, the Hebrew professor,
probably to reclaim a perpetual sinner from profane rhymes, as Marot was
suspected of heresy (confession and meagre days being his abhorrence),
suggested the new project of translating the Psalms into _French verse_,
and no doubt assisted the bard; for they are said to be "traduitz en
rithme Francais selon la verite Hebraique." The famous Theodore Beza was
also his friend and prompter, and afterwards his continuator. Marot
published fifty-two Psalms, written in a variety of measures, with the
same style he had done his ballads and rondeaux. He dedicated his work
to t