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Woods Rogers, Ainsworth's Tower of London and four old volumes of Punch these were among the chief exceptions. I knew them almost by heart ... and I remember my surprise when I found long afterward that they were famous, and signed with a famous name; to me, as I read and admired them, they were the works of Mr. Punch." Two old Bibles interested him particularly.
John Cotton's account of the Salem church written in 1760, says, "On June 19, 1692, the pastor propounded to the church that seeing many of the psalms in Mr. Ainsworth's translation which had hitherto been sung in the congregation had such difficult tunes that none in the church could set, they would consider of some expedient that they might sing all the psalms.
Ainsworth's "Jack Sheppard," and the immortal Fagin of "Oliver Twist." Whereabouts lies the comic vis in these persons and things? Why should a beadle be comic, and his opposite a charity boy? Why should a tall life-guardsman have something in him essentially absurd? Why are short breeches more ridiculous than long?
Before the Holland exiles had this version of Ainsworth's to sing from, they used the book known as "Sternhold and Hopkins' Psalms." They gave it up gladly to show honor to the work of their loved pastor, and perhaps also with a sense of pleasure in not having to sing any verses which had been used and authorized by the Church of England.
It was a subterranean passage, although of a larger bore than we were accustomed to in Ainsworth's novels; and these two words, "subterranean passage," were in themselves an irresistible attraction, and seemed to bring us nearer in spirit to the heroes we loved and the black rascals we secretly aspired to imitate.
Nor was it creditable to them, that they passed through Oroomiah without even calling on the American missionaries there.1 1 See Dr. Grant and the Mountain Nestorians, pp. 151-154. For Mr. Ainsworth's account of this visit, see Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, etc., vol. i. p. 1, and vol. ii. pp. 243-255. It is not necessary here to correct the erroneous statements in the passage referred to.
Boz, and the Chairman, and Vice, and the Traditional Priest sang the 'Deep deep sea, in his deep deep voice; and then we drank to Procter, who wrote the said song; also Sir J. Wilson's good health, and Cruikshank's, and Ainsworth's: and a Manchester friend of the latter sang a Manchester ditty, so full of trading stuff, that it really seemed to have been not composed, but manufactured.
In a record of the Salem church is this entry of a church meeting: "4 of 5th month, 1667. It is significant enough of the "low state of the musik in the meetings" when we find that the simple tunes written in Ainsworth's Version were too difficult for the colonists to sing.
Salem church had a peculiar connection in its origin with the church of Plymouth, which would account, doubtless, for its protracted use of the version so loved by the Pilgrims; but the Puritans of the Bay, coming directly from England, must have brought with them the version which they had used in England, that of Sternhold and Hopkins; and they would hardly have wished, nor would it have been possible for them to acquire speedily in the new land the Ainsworth's Version used by the Pilgrims from Holland.
Arthur had been watching his companions and smoking in silence. He smiled brilliantly at Ainsworth's challenge. "I'm overwhelmed by Bently's oaths," he said. "He outdoes himself to-night." "When it comes time for Tom's epitaph," observed Rangely, "I shall suggest that it be a dash." "Why do you swear so?" inquired Ainsworth. "Don't you think it in execrable taste?" "Taste?" laughed Bently.
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