garb which rendered it ridiculous.  He finished one psalm, and then another, and found the work so agreeable and pleasing, that all the psalms were in a short time compleated; and having shewn the version to some friends of whose judgment he had a high opinion, he could not resist their importunity (says Wood) of putting it to the press, or rather he was glad their sollicitations coincided with his desire to be thought a poet.

He was the more discouraged, says the antiquary, as Mr. George Sandys’s version and another by a reformer had failed in two different extremes; the first too elegant for the vulgar use, changing both metre and tunes, wherewith they had been long acquainted; the other as flat and poor, and as lamely executed as the old one.  He therefore ventured in a middle way, as he himself in one of his letters expresses it, without affectation of words, and endeavouring to leave them not disfigured in the sense.  This version soon after was published with this title;

The Psalms of David from the New Translation of the Bible, turned into Metre, to be sung after the old tunes used in churches, Lond. 1651, in 12mo.

There is nothing more ridiculous than this notion of the vulgar of not parting with their old versions of the psalms, as if there were a merit in singing hymns of nonsense.  Tate and Brady’s version is by far the most elegant, and best calculated to inspire devotion, because the language and poetry are sometimes elevated and sublime; and yet for one church which uses this version, twenty are content with that of Sternhold and Hopkins, the language and poetry of which, as Pope says of Ogilvy’s Virgil, are beneath criticism.—­

After episcopacy was silenced by the Long Parliament, he resided in the house of Sir Richard Hobbart (who had married his sister) at Langley in Bucks.  He was reinstated in his See by King Charles ii. and was much esteemed by the virtuous part of his neighbours, and had the blessings of the poor and distressed, a character which reflects the highest honour upon him.

Whether from a desire of extending his beneficence, or instigated by the restless ambition peculiar to the priesthood, he sollicited, but in vain, a higher preferment, and suffered his resentment to betray him into measures not consistent with his episcopal character.  He died on the first day of October 1669[2], and was buried on the south side of the choir, near the communion table, belonging to the cathedral church in Chichester.  Soon after there was a monument put over his grave, with an inscription, in which it is said he was,

Antiqua, eaque regia Saxonium apud Danmonios in agro Devoniensi,
prosapia oriundus,

That he was,

Natalium Splendore illustris, pietate, Doctrina, et virtutibus
illustrior, &c.

This monument was erected at the charge of his widow, Anne daughter of Sir William Russel of Strensham in Worcestershire, knight and baronet.