Caswall-Lyracatholica-1851.Pdf
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
LYRA CATHOLICA. BIBLIOTHÈQUE " Les Fontaines " S J 60 - chantillV LYRA CATHOLICA: ALL THE HYMNS OP tBS KOMAN BKEVIAEY AND MISSAL, l WITH OTHERS FROM VARIOUS SOURCES. ABBANQBD FOB EVERY DAY IN THE WEEK, AND THE FESTIVAIS AND SAINTS' DAYS THROUGHOUT THE YEAR. 1851. BIBLIOTH&QUI " Les Fontaines" S J 60 - CHANTILLY Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty-one, By Edward Dunigan * Brother, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. PREFACE OF THE AMEBICAN EDITOE. An apology can scarcely be necessary for the fol lowing attempt towards supplying the want, so long and deeply felt in the Catholic community, of a suit able collection of Hymns and Psalms, for the pur poses of general devotion. While adequate translations have opened wholly, or in great part, to the other languages of modern Europe, the entire range of the finest sacred poetry that ever flowed from uninspired pens, in the pages of the Koman Breviary and Missal ; and even while the value of those compositions for the purposes of private devotion has been strikingly attested by more than one attempt to embody them into the collections of other denominations, — they have been known to our own tongue by a few scattered ver sions, made at various periods, without any unity 6 PREFACE OF THE of purpose, of which it may with entire truth be said, that they were, with few exceptions, wholly inadequate in point of style, almost always inelegant, and quite frequently so rude as to border on the grotesque. The first systematic and successful attempt to remedy a defect so remarkable, was the Lyra Catho- lica of Edward Caswall, M. A. ; one of the zealous and accomplished men whom the present religious movement in England is continually bringing into the fold of Christ. His version (Collection, published in London, 1849) comprises all the hymns of the Ro man Breviary, all the hymns and sequences of the Missal, with a selection from the Breviaries of Paris and Cluny, and from the Italian Raccolta delle Indul- genze. Of these pieces, every one is newly translated by Mr. Caswall, and probably more than half of them appear in English for the first time, from his hand. As a whole, his version combines, in a very high degree, elegance, vigor, and poetical fire of thought and diction, with the still more important requisites of fidelity to the lofty religious spirit of his originals, and a most exact transfusion of their Catholic faith, fervent piety, and doctrinal integrity. It is not too AMERICAN EDITOR. 7 much to say that it wholly supersedes all other translations, and is a most valuable addition to our devotional literature. A very high critical authority (the Dublin Review for June, 1849) renders to Mr. Caswall and his work the following emphatic and discriminating tribute of its approbation : — "Mr. Caswall could not, in our judgment, have ' earned a stronger title to the gratitude of the Catho- I lie body in England, than that which he may rest ' upon the volume now before us. His collection is exempt from all the striking defects of those which preceded it. It is complete, supplying a metrical ; version of every hymn in every office and mass . throughout the year ; it is free from those arbitrary and capricious mutilations which destroy the unity and pervert the character of the original ; it is, above ' all, fully and fearlessly Catholic in its spirit, in its tone, in its imagery, and in its language. And, in addition to these negative, but yet very important excellencies, its positive merits, in a literary point of view, are of the very highest order. " Indeed, a person who would be disposed to esti mate the merit of a poetical translation of the hymns of the Breviary, by comparison with almost any other species of poetical composition, would render 8 PREFACE OF THE but a scanty measure of justice to the Translator. It would be difficult to imagine any task, whether in sacred or in profane literature, which involves so many and so peculiar difficulties. It is not alone that the hymns in themselves present almost every possible shade of variety ; — the accumulated growth of every age, from the days of Oonstantine to our own ; the work of an endless variety of authors, from St. Ambrose and St. Jerome to the Roman academi cians of the seventeenth century ; embodying every variety of subject — history, biography, doctrine, piety, asceticism, spirituality, theology, and even dogmatism ; embracing every variety of metre, from the classic measures of the Horatian epoch to the jingling rhyme of the middle age — and every shade of latinity, from the studied purity of Prudentius to the rude though expressive scholasticisms of St. Thomas. The necessity of accommodating himself to the varie ty which all this supposes, forms but one of the em barrassments of a poetical translator of the Breviary. The real difficulty of the task lies in the nature of a large proportion of the hymns themselves, many of which differ in almost every particular from the ordinary standard of poetical composition. Many of the hymns, it is true, are highly poetical, even in the AMERICAN EDITOH. 9 largest sense of the word ; but there is also a large proportion, in which either their exceeding sim plicity and plainness, or their practical and didactic tone, deprives the writer of all the ordinary aids to poetry. There is no sublimity to elevate his verse, no passion to give it power ; and Very often there is little tenderness, at least in the common sense of the word, to make it steal to the heart. The very language itself presents a fresh embarrassment. A sentiment which may be terse and pointed enough in the close and expressive phrase of the Latin original, becomes vague, and loose, and weak, when expanded into the lengthy English equivalent ; and when, to these inherent difficulties of the subject, we add the trammels imposed by the necessity of more than ordinarily literal translation and of adherence to the metres adapted to congregational uses, we shall have some data by which to estimate the full requirements of the task. " It is no ordinary merit on Mr. Caswall's part, therefore, that his success appears to us to be great est in those very portions of his work which presented the greatest difficulty. His translations of the great and striking hymns, are, no doubt, eminently success ful. But we cannot help regarding it as a still greater 10 PREFACE OF THE evidence of his peculiar adaptation for the task which he undertook, that in the most plain and un- poetical of them all, he has, generally speaking, suc ceeded in preserving all the plainness and simplicity of the original, without permitting it to degenerate into commonplace, or, at least, into inelegance." A very great merit of Mr. Caswall's collection is its completeness. Catholics need not be told that any mere arbitrary selection of a portion of the hymns of the Breviary, — of the Missal, — a portion of the Sequences, — involves in itself a contradiction and an injury. Not that many of these compositions are wanting in poetical and devotional beauties of a very high order. But the hymns of the Breviary office of the Church, for instance, though the work of many hands, the production of different times, and the off spring of various circumstances and occasions, form now, as presented to us by the Church, a harmonious and connected whole; of which, no part, even the smallest, is without its settled purpose and signifi cance, — hidden and mystical it may be, but all con tributing to the general fitness and beauty, — none which can be separated without damage to itself and the unity of the design. Thus, to quote again the journal already alluded AMERICAN EDITOR. 1] to : — " To make an arbitrary selection among these parts — to adopt some and exclude others — to muti late, or in any way to modify, the portions thua selected — even to disturb their order or arrangement — is to destroy the harmony as well as the fitness of the general design. A stranger, reading an occasion al hymn of the Roman Breviary, may, no doubt, be struck by the many beauties and excellencies which he will discover therein. But, to those who are familiar with that most wonderful work of piety, we need to say that much, at the same time, will escape him, unless he knows the antecedents and the con sequents. The offices of Advent lose half their signifi cance, unless they be read with relation to the great festival which they introduce. The offices of Lent have a necessary reference to the Passion and to the Paschal mysteries ; and yet, although each of these classes thus differs from the other in its object and tendency, it would be easy to show, nevertheless, that they have such a common relation to one an other, that neither is in itself complete and perfect, even as a part of the great annual circle. The offices of Apostles, or of martyrs, or of bishops, receive their complement in those of confessors, of virgins, or widows, and vice versa ; and the common offices of 12 . PBEFACE OF THE these several classes find not only a pleasing and grateful variation, but a useful and edifying com mentary, in the proper offices of particular saints. To select the proper hymns of Advent, of Christmas, of Lent, of Easter, and to pass by those of the great saints, whose offices, as arranged in the Breviary, relieve and diversify them — to translate every hymn and every sequence of the Pentecostal office, and to suppress altogether the noble hymns and sequences of the office of Corpus Christi — is to mutilate and deform instead of translating ; it is to suppress the most essential and characteristic elements of the great design — to present the building without the portico, or to leave the portico in solitary and un meaning loneliness." Mr.