His translation of the Psalms
into harmonious verse, which was sung both by the peasants and the
learned, was the cause of his persecution by the doctors of the Sorbonne.
He complains bitterly to the Lyons printer, Dolet, that many obscene and
unworthy poems were ascribed to him and printed amongst his works of which
he was not the author. As an example of his verse I quote the beginning of
Psalm cxli.:--
"Vers l'Eternel des oppressez le pere
Je m'en iray, luy monstrant l'impropere
Que l'on me faict, luy ferai ma priere
A haulte voix, qu'il ne jette en arriere
Mes piteux cris, car en lui seul j'espere."
It is not often that a poet loses his head for a single couplet, but this
seems to have been the fate of Caspar Weiser, Professor of Lund in Sweden.
At first he showed great loyalty to his country, and wrote a panegyric on
the coronation of Charles XI., King of Sweden. But a short time afterwards
he appears to have changed his political opinions, for when the city was
captured by the Danes in 1676, Weiser met the conqueror, and greeted him
with the words:--
_Perge Triumphator reliquas submittere terras,
Sic redit ad Dominum, quod fuit ante, suum_.
This verse was fatal to him. The Swedish monarch recovered his lost
territory; the Danes were expelled, and the poor poet was accused of
treason and beheaded.
The same hard fate befell John Williams in 1619, who was hanged, drawn,
and quartered, on account of two poems, _Balaam's Ass_ and _Speculum
Regis_, the MSS.
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