This metrical version (see SDAH 16) of Psalm 42 was included in Tate and Brady’s New Version of the Psalms of David, London, 1696 (see SDAH 139). It is a paraphrase of verses l , 2, and 11. The original had six double stanzas of four lines each, and no doxology, So the present hymn is one quarter of the metrical psalm, but considered the best part by centuries of hymnbook editors.

The historian John Julian records that there were some 326 different metrical psalters, by all kinds of poets and theologians, including Queen Elizabeth, Lord Bacon, and Philip Sidney. Few of them enjoyed a very good rating, and most of them would be considered by present standards of poetic quality as downright terrible! It is understandable why, as a teenager, Isaac Watts was unhappy with the singing of the psalms in church!

The tune MARTYRDOM has an intriguing history. About the end of the eighteenth century it was first printed on single sheets for use in music classes in connnnon, or 4/4, time. In 1825 Robert A. Smith arranged it in 3/4 time and published it in Sacred Music Sung in St. George’s Church, Edinburgh, where he called it an “Old Scottish Melody.” Two years later it appeared in The Seraph, a Selection of Psalms and Hymns, Glasgow, again in triple time, with a footnote: “The above tune FENWICK or MARTYRDOM, and by some called DRUMCLOG, was composed by Mr. Hugh Wilson, a native of Fenwick.” After Wilson’s death, a legal battle over who really owned the copyright turned up evidence that he was entitled to be the legal owner. Later research by the noted specialist in the correlation of British folk tunes to hymn tunes, Anne G. Gilchrist, showed that Wilson may have arranged it from the traditional Scottish secular air, “Helen of Kirkconnel.” At any rate, the longevity of the tune can almost certainly be credited to Smith’s lovely version in 3/4 time that we have now.

Other names by which this tune has been known are AVON and ALL SAINTS. With the exception of the upper c in the third line, the melody, like so many Scottish airs, is in the pentatonic (five-note) scale.

Hugh Wilson was born in 1766, in Fenwick, Ayrshire, Scotland. He became a shoemaker after his father; later he learned to construct sundials, and worked as a master draftsman and calculator. As a talented amateur musician, he often led the singing of the psalms at the Secession Church in Fenwick. He was the cofounder of the first Sunday school in the church in the town of Duntocher, on the north bank of the Clyde. Strangely, while on his deathbed, August 14, 1824, he gave instructions that all his manuscripts be destroyed. MARTYRDOM and one other tune, CAROLINE, are the only tunes of his that have survived.

Robert Archibald Smith was born November 16, 1780, in Reading, Berkshire, England, the son of a weaver who returned with his family to Scotland when Robert was 20 years old, As a boy Robert was naturally musical, becoming accomplished on the cello and violin, and at age 23 a music teacher. From 1 807 he served as precentor (song leader) and session clerk at the Abbey Church in Paisley. In 1823 he went to St. George’s Church ‘ Edinburgh, where he was the leader of psalm singing and where he edited the book Sacred Music, mentioned above. One of his most significant works was the compilation of Scottish songs in his six-volume The Scottish Minstrel’ 1820-1824. He died January 3, 1829.