My father used to tell us the rhymes when we were
children, and they have evidently become notorious. The clerk who
composed them lived in Somersetshire[67], and when the Lord Bishop of
the Diocese came to visit his church, he thought that such an occasion
ought not to be passed over without a fitting tribute to the
distinguished prelate. He therefore composed a new and revised version
of Tate and Brady's metrical rendering of Psalm lxvii., and announced
his production after this manner:
"Let us zing to the Praze an' Glory of God part of the zixty-zeventh
Zalm; zspeshul varshun zspesh'ly 'dapted vur t'cazshun.
"W'y 'op ye zo ye little 'ills?
And what var du 'ee zskip?
Is it a'cause ter prach too we
Is cum'd me Lord Biship?
"W'y zskip ye zo ye little 'ills?
An' whot var du 'ee 'op?
Is it a'cause to prach too we
Is cum'd me Lord Bishop?
"Then let us awl arize an' zing,
An' let us awl stric up,
An' zing a glawrious zong uv praze;
An' bless me Lord Bishup."
[Footnote 67: Another correspondent states that the incident occurred at
Bradford-on-Avon in 1806. Mr. Francis Bevan remembers hearing a similar
version at Dover about sixty years ago. Can it be that these various
clerks were plagiarists?]
A somewhat similar effusion was composed by Eldad Holland, parish clerk
of Christ Church, Kilbrogan parish, Bandon, County Cork, in Ireland.
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