May marks the anniversary of the death of Nicholas Brady, who co-wrote the ‘New Version of the Psalms of David' with Nahum Tate. This image shows the beginning of Psalm 98, exhorting the faithful to Sing to the Lord a new-made song, set to music by J.Z. Triemer for use in the English Church at Amsterdam.

Brady was born into a Protestant family in Bandon, co. Cork, on 28 October 1659.  After being educated at schools in Ireland and England, he began his university career at Oxford in 1678, but was sent down in 1682 for reasons that, unfortunately for lovers of scandal, are now unclear.  He later graduated MA from Trinity College, Dublin.  He was ordained priest in Cork in 1687, and looked set for a quiet career in the Irish Church.  However, thanks to his support for the Glorious Revolution of 1688, events soon led him to England.  Nicholas Brady became a popular and fashionable London preacher, and remained in England until his death on 20 May 1726.

Brady published large numbers of his sermons, and also produced a play. However, his most enduring work came from his collaboration with the Poet Laureate and ‘improver' of Shakespeare, Nahum Tate.  Together, they created a new metrical version of the Psalms better suited to newly-Enlightened taste than the existing ‘Sternhold and Hopkins' Psalter, which had been written in the early days of the reign of Elizabeth I.  Tate and Brady, as the ‘New Version' is often known, hit the shelves in 1696, and became a runaway success, leading to more than 300 subsequent editions.  It remained in use as the semi-official Anglican hymn book for 150 years until public worship was revolutionized in the Victorian era.