[Footnote 303:  Mr. Douce imagined that this alludes to a common practice at that time among the Puritans of burlesquing the plain chant of the Papists, by adapting vulgar and ludicrous music to psalms and pious compositions.—­Illust. of Shakspeare, i. 355.  Mr. Douce does not recollect his authority.  My idea differs.  May we not conjecture that the intention was the same which induced Sternhold to versify the Psalms, to be sung instead of lascivious ballads; and the most popular tunes came afterwards to be adopted, that the singer might practise his favourite one, as we find it occurred in France?]

[Footnote 304:  Ed. Philips in his “Satyr against Hypocrites,” 1689, alludes to this custom of the pious citizens—­

——­Singing with woful noise,
Like a cracked saint’s bell jarring in the steeple,
Tom Sternhold’s wretched prick-song to the people.
* * * * *
Now they’re at home and have their suppers eat,
When “Thomas,” cryes the master, “come, repeat.” 
And if the windows gaze upon the street,
To sing a Psalm they hold it very meet.

]

[Footnote 305:  Crescembini, at the close of “La bellezza della Volgar Poesia.”  Roma, 1700.]

[Footnote 306:  History of the Middle Ages, ii. 584.  See also Mr. Rose’s Letters from the North of Italy, vol. i. 204.  Mr. Hallam has observed, that “such an institution as the society degli Arcadi could at no time have endured public ridicule in England for a fortnight.”]

[Footnote 307:  Niceron, vol. xliii., Art.  Porta.]

[Footnote 308:  See Tiraboschi, vol. vii. cap. 4, Accademie, and Quadrio’s Della Storia e della Ragione d’ogni Poesia. In the immense receptacle of these seven quarto volumes, printed with a small type, the curious may consult the voluminous Index, art. Accademia.]

[Footnote 309:  Ugo Foscolo was born in Padua, where he achieved an early success as an author.  He entered the Italian army in 1805, but soon quitted it, and became Professor of Literature in the university of Pavia; but his lectures alarmed Napoleon by their boldness of speech, and he suppressed the professorship.  He came to England in 1815, and was exceedingly well received; he wrote much in the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, besides publishing several books.  He died in 1827, and is buried at Chiswick.]

[Footnote 310:  Edinburgh Review, No. 67-159, on Jacobite Relics.]

[Footnote 311:  In a pamphlet entitled “Mercurius Menippeus; the Loyal Satyrist, or Hudibras in Prose,” published in 1682, and said to be “written by an unknown hand in the time of the late Rebellion, but never till now published,” is the following curious notice of Sir Samuel, which certainly seems to point him out as the prototype of Hudibras;

    Whose back, or rather burthen, show’d
    As if it stoop’d with its own load.