Part 6 (1/2)
The name of the author of this version was Henry Ainsworth; he was the greatest of all the Holland Separatists, a typical Elizabethan Puritan, who left the church in which he was educated and attached himself to the Separatists, or Brownists, as they were called. He went into exile in Amsterdam in 1593, and worked for some time as a porter in a book-seller's shop, living (as Roger Williams wrote) ”upon ninepence in the weeke with roots boyled.” He established, with the Reverend Mr. Johnson, the new church in Holland; and when it was divided by dissension, he became the pastor of the ”Ainsworthian Brownists” and so remained for twelve years.
He was a most accomplished scholar, and was called the ”rabbi of his age.”
Governor Bradford, in his ”Dialogue,” written in 1648, says of Ainsworth, ”He had not his better for the Hebrew tongue in the University nor scarce in Europe.” Hence, naturally, he was constantly engaged upon some work of translating or commentating, and still so highly prized is some of his work that it has been reprinted during this century. He also, being a skilful disputant, wrote innumerable controversial pamphlets and books, many of which still exist. It is said that he once had a long and spirited controversy with a brother divine as to whether the ephod of Aaron were blue or green. I fear we of to-day have lost much that the final, decisive judgment from so learned scholars and students as to the correct color has not descended to us, and now, if we wish to know, we shall have to fight it all over again.
In spite of his power of argument (or perhaps on account of it) the most prominent part which Ainsworth seemed to take in Amsterdam for many years was that of peacemaker, as many of his contemporaries testify: for they quarrelled fiercely among themselves in the exiled church, though they had such sore need of unity and good fellows.h.i.+p; and they had many church arguments and judgments and lawsuits. They quarrelled over the exercise of power in the church; over the true meaning of the text Matthew xviii. 17; whether the members of the congregation should be allowed to look on their Bibles during the preaching or on their Psalm-books during the singing; whether they should sing at all in their meetings; over the power of the office of ruling elder (a fruitful source of dissension and disruption in the New England congregations likewise) and above all, they quarrelled long and bitterly over the unseemly and gay dress of the parson's wife, Madam Johnson. These were the terrible accusations that were brought against that bedizened Puritan: that she wore ”her bodies tied to the petticote with points as men do their doublets and hose; contrary to I Thess. v: 22, conferred with Deut. xx: 11;” that she also wore ”lawn coives,” and ”busks,” and ”whalebones in the petticote bodies,” and a ”veluet hoode,”
and a ”long white brest;” and that she ”stood gazing bracing and vaunting in the shop dores;” and that ”men called her a bounceing girl” (as if she could help that!). And one of her worst and most bitterly condemned offences was that she wore ”a topish hat.” This her husband vehemently denied; and long discussions and explanations followed on the hat's topishness,--”Mr. Ainsworth dilating much upon a greeke worde” (as of course so learned a man would). For the benefit of unlearned modern children of the Puritans let me give the old Puritan's precise explanation and cla.s.sification of topishness. ”Though veluet in its nature were not topish, yet if common mariners should weare such it would be a sign of pride and topishness in them. Also a gilded raper and a feather are not topish in their nature, neither in a captain to weare them, and yet if a minister should weare them they would be signs of great vanity topishness and lightness.” I wonder that topish hat had not undone the whole Puritan church in Holland.
In settling all these and many other disputes, in translating, commentating, and versifying, did Henry Ainsworth pa.s.s his days; until, worn out by hard labor, and succ.u.mbing to long continued weakness, he died in 1623. This romantic story of his death is told by Neal. ”It was sudden and not without suspicion of violence; for it is reported that, having found a diamond of very great value in the streets of Amsterdam, he advertised it in print; and when the owner, who was a Jew, came to demand it, he offered him any acknowledgment he would desire, but Ainsworth though poor would accept of nothing but conference with some of his rabbis upon the prophecies of the Old Testament relating to the Messiah, which the other promised, but not having interest enough to obtain it he was poisoned.” This rather ambiguous sentence means that Ainsworth was poisoned, not the Jew. Brooks's account of the story is that the conference took place, the Jews were vanquished, and in revenge poisoned the champion of Christianity afterwards. Dexter most unromantically throws cold water on this poisoning story, and adduces much circ.u.mstantial testimony to prove its improbability; but it could hardly have been invented in cold blood by the Puritan historians, and must have had some foundation in truth. And since he is dead, and the thought cannot harm him, I may acknowledge that I firmly believe and I like to believe that he died in so romantic a way.
The Puritans were psalm-singers ever; and in Holland the Brownist division of the church came under strong influences from Geneva and Wittenberg, the birth-places of psalm-singing, that made them doubly fond of ”wors.h.i.+p in song.” Hence the Pilgrim Fathers, Brewster, Bradford, Carver, and Standish, for love of music as well as in affectionate testimony to their old pastor and friend, brought to the New World copies of his version of the Psalms and sang from it with delight and profit to themselves, if not with ease and elegance.
Dexter says very mildly of Ainsworth's literary work that ”there are diversities of gifts, and it is no offence to his memory to conclude that he shone more as an exegete than as a poet.” Poesy is a gift of the G.o.ds and cometh not from deep Hebrew study nor from vast learning, and we must accept Ainsworth's pious enthusiasm in the place of poetic fervor. Of the quality of his work, however, it is best to judge for one's self. Here is his rendition of the Nineteenth Psalm, so well known to us in verse by Addison's glorious ”The s.p.a.cious firmament on high.” The prose version is printed in one column and the verse by its side.
1. To the Mayster of the Musik: A Psalm of David
2. The heavens, doo tel the glory of G.o.d: and the out-spred firmament shevveth; the work of his hand.
3. Day unto day uttereth speech: and night unto night manifesteth knowledge:
4. No speech, and no words: not heard is their voice
5. Through all the earth, gone-forth is their line: and unto the utmost-end of the world their speakings: he hath put a tent in them for the sun.
6. And he; as a bridegroom, going-forth out of his privy-chamber: joyes as a mighty-man to run a race
7. From the utmost end of the heavens is his egress; and his compa.s.sing-regress is unto the utmost-ends of them: and none _is_ hidd, from his heat.
2. The heav'ne, doo tel the glory of G.o.d and his firmament dooth preach.
3. work of his hands. Day unto day dooth largely-utter speach and night unto night dooth knowledge shew
4. No speach, and words are none.
5. thier voice it-is not heard. Thier line through all the earth is gone: and to the worlds end, thier speakings: in them he did dispose,
6. tent for the Sun. Who-bride-groom-like out of his chamber goes: joyes strong-man-like, to run a race
7. From heav'ns end, his egress: and his regress to the end of them hidd from his heat, none is:
In order to show the proportion of annotation in the book, and to indicate the mental traits of the author, let me state that this psalm, in both prose and metrical versions, occupies about one page; while the closely printed annotations fill over three pages; which is hardly ”explaining with brevitie,” as Ainsworth says in his preface. With this psalm the notes commence thus:--
”2. (the out-spred-firmament) the whole cope of heaven, with the aier which though it be soft and liquid and spred over the Earth, yet it is fast and firm and therefore called of us according to the common Greek version a firmament: the holy Ghost expresseth it by another term Mid-heaven.
This out-spred-firmament of expansion G.o.d made amidds the waters for a separation and named it Heaven, which of David is said to be stretched out as courtayn and elsewhere is said to be as firm as moulten gla.s.s. So under this name firmament be commised the orbs of the heav'ns and the aier and the whole s.p.a.cious country above the earth.”
These annotations must have formed to the Pilgrims not only a dictionary but a perfect encyclopaedia of useful knowledge. Things spiritual and things temporal were explained therein. Scientific, historic, and religious information were dispensed impartially. Much and varied instruction was given in Natural History, though viewed of course from a strictly religious point of view. The little Pilgrims learned from their Psalm-Book that the ”Leviathan is the great whalefish or seadragon, so called of the fast joyning together of his scales as he is described Job 40: 20, 41 and is used to resemble great tyrants.” They also learned that ”Lions of sundry-kinds have sundry-names. Tear-in-pieces like a lion. That he ravin not, make-a-prey; called a plueker Renter or Tearer, and elsewhere Laby that is, Harty and couragious; Kphir, this lurking, Couchant. The reason of thier names is shewed, as The renting-lion as greedy to tear, and the lurking-Lion as biding in covert places. Other names are also given to this kind as Shachal, of ramping, of fierce nature; and Lajith of subduing his prey. Psalm LVI Lions called here Lebain, harty, stowt couragious, Lions.
Lions are mentioned in the Scriptures for the stowtness of thier hart, boldnes, and grimnes of thier countenance.”
Here are other annotations taken at hap-hazard. The lines,