Almighty God, which art the contynuall ioye and perpetuall felicitye of all thy sayntes, whom thou doost inwardly water with the dew of thy heauenly grace, whereby thou makest them to floryshe like the palme tree in the celestiall courts of thy Church: we besech thee that thou would so discusse from vs the burdenous weight of sinne, that we may enioye their felowship. Through Christ etc.
Note 1. II. Archbishop Parker.—This eminent prelate of the English Protestant Church was a native of the city of Norwich. He was born in 1504, and was educated in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. After he had taken orders, and during the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., he had various preferments bestowed upon him: of these he was deprived in the reign of Queen Mary; but when Elizabeth ascended the throne, he was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury. He died in 1575. Before Archbishop Parker became primate, he executed a metrical version of the entire Psalter, either, as Warton remarks, “for the private amusement, and exercise of his religious exile, or that the people, whose predilection for psalmody could not be suppressed, might at least be furnished with a rational and proper translation.” This work was subsequently printed without date or translator’s name, under the title of “The whole Psalter translated into English Metre, which contayneth an hundredth and fifty Psalmes. The first Quinquagene. Cum gratia et privelegio Regiæ Majestatis per decennium.” The other two quinquagenes are indicated by half titles. Warton states that this translation was never published; and Strype says that he could never get a sight of it from its great scarcity. There are, however, copies extant in the Bodleian Library, the British Museum, and Lambeth Palace Library, beside others in private libraries. [back]
