The Hymns of the Breviary and Missal - Paperback

by Brother Hermenegild Tosf (Editor), Matthwe Britt Osb (Author)

AFTER years of patient but loving labor, the compiler of this volume has achieved a, vork of scholarly distinction, of elegant artistry, and withal of practical utility. It is a work of scholarly distinction. The field of Latin hymnology is vast in extent and rich in resources, and translators have roamed far and wide amid its fertile reaches for highly varied blooms and fruits. The compiler has therefore had many rich stores to draw upon, but he has wisely restricted himself to very definite limits of choice. The hymns of the Roman Missal and Breviary form a thesaurus by themselves. Many of them are world famous classics. Some of them have won translation and commentary that fill volumes devoted to them singly. All of them deserve rendition into English verse and, indeed, have been more than once so rendered. Father Caswall and Archbishop Bagshawe, each for his own day, translated all of the Missal and Breviary hymns. Caswall did more, it is true, finding other treasures in the Parisian and various Monastic Breviaries. His competency for the task he essayed, vas manifold and excellent, and his Lyra Catholica will doubtless forever remain a Catholic classic. Bagshawe confined his attention to the Roman liturgical hymns, setting himself the somewhat ungrateful task of closely literal translation. In our own day, Judge Donahoe has published two series of Early Christian Hymns, including very many from the Roman liturgy, and has merited the high praise accorded him by critics. Catholic renderings into English of individual liturgical hymns are well-nigh innumerable. While Catholics have naturally been active in such appropriate work, it may seem at first blush astonishing that Protestants should hayc issued so many volulnes of translation, history, commentary and appreciation of our Latin hymnody, and should have exhausted the language of eulogy in appraisal of the masterpieces-the Dies Irae, the Stabat Mater, the Lauda Sion, the Golden Sequence, and the like. Charles Warren found sufficient matter in the history and the translations of the Dies Irae for a good-sized volume. Dr. Colcs, an American physician, gave a volume to the Stabat Mater. Judge Noyes unostentatiously issued his Seven Great Hymns of the Medieval Church, and the book ran through many editions. The name of Protestant editors and translators of our Latin hymns is legion. One of the most earnest and reverent students of Latin hymnody, and perhaps the nlost felicitous of all the translators, 'vas an Anglican clergyman, the Rev. J. M. Neale, D.D. The distinction achieved by Father Britt in the present volume, ho, vever, does not lie in the fact that he has ventured, with catholicity of literary taste, to include renderings by other than Catholic pens. Orby Shipley in his Annus Sanctus and the Marquess of Bute in his Roman Breviary had already drawn a sharp contrast-the former excluding, the latter including, non-Catholic renderings. But the present compiler has, more largely than any other, given representation to non-Catholic pens. He has mainly sought for translations that should best combine a just literalness, vith the just freedom ill phrase and form accorded by literary canons in the art of translation. There is obvious danger, on the one hand, that the ray of doctrinal truth will suffer refraction when it passes from the medium of the Latin idiom into the medium of the English tongue. On the other hand, there is danger that excessive devotion to literalness in phrase rather than in thought will issue in idiomatic awkwardness, questionable rhyming, stilted or crabbed rhythm