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By all the critics it is admitted that his version of those Nine Psalms is inferior to what we should have expected from him; nor is it, I think, the mere prejudice of habit that leads those that have been accustomed to one particular revision of Rous's version that which has been the Scottish authorized Psalter since 1650 to prefer Psalms LXXX. LXXXVIII. as there given, rude though the versification is, to the Translations of the same Psalms proposed even by Milton.
The inserted words in italics are, nevertheless, almost as numerous as the roman type that represents the original Hebrew. Such conventional mistakes as Rous's cherubims are, however, conspicuously absent from Milton's more scholarly work. Milton writes cherubs.
The Assembly did actually take up Rous's Psalter, his friends pressing it on the old gentleman's account, but others not thinking it good enough; and we find Baillie regretting, Scot-like, when the subject was first brought up, that he had not with him a copy of another version of the Psalms then in MS., by his friend and countryman, Sir William Mure of Rowallan.
They had discussed, revised, and finally approved Mr. Rous's Metrical Version of the Psalms, referred to them by Parliament for criticism as long ago as Nov. 1643. The Lords were too busy, or had hesitations in favour of a rival Version by a Mr. William Barton, so that their concurrence was withheld; but that was not the fault of the Assembly.
Something of this impression may have prevailed even in 1648, if, as is likely enough, Milton took the trouble of showing his translations to some who were interested in the question of the new Psalter, and wavering between Rous's and Barton's. On the faith of dates, however, there is another interest to us now in these careful translations by Milton of Psalms LXXX.-LXXXVIII. in April 1648.
Ought not Sternhold and Hopkins's Version to be disused among other lumber; and, if so, might not Rous's Version be adopted instead, for use in churches? Stewart, then with his Majesty.
At Norwich, the same authority, viz., 'Sir John Rous's Diary, informs us "Mr. Greene was more plaine, insomuch that Judge Harvey, in his charge, broke out thus: 'It seems by the sermon that we are corrupt, but we know that we can use conscience in our places as well as the best clergieman of all."
Rous's Psalter, therefore, as well as the Directory and the Frame of Government being done with, what was to hinder them longer from the Confession and Catechisms? Only one impediment those dreadful jus divinum interrogatories which the Parliament, by Selden's mischief, had hung round their necks! Here also a little management sufficed.
A good deal also had been done in the Catechisms by the Assembly; and, if the Assembly's revised edition of Rous's Metrical Version of the Psalms had not received full Parliamentary enactment, that was because the Lords still stood out for Mr. Barton's competing Version.
Baillie, at the very time he was privately wishing he had his friend Rowallan's Psalms to pit against Rous's, was becoming acquainted with Rous; to whom in a month or two he dedicated a sermon of his preached before the Commons. He there calls Rous his "much honoured friend." Rowallan's Psalms remain in MS. to this day; but specimens of them have been published.
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