these several classes find not only a pleasing and grateful variation, but a useful and edifying commentary, 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 unmeaning loneliness."

Mr. Caswall has avoided this fatal error. His collection comprises not only the hymns of Vespers, but those of Matins, Lauds, and the lesser hours, as well as the hymns of the common, and also the proper ones, both of the seasons and the saints, throughout the year; so as, by means of the table prefixed, to serve as a complete manual of devotional poetry for every day, and for all holydays, and saints' days, of the ecclesiastical year.

It has, therefore, been transferred entire and un

changed (save in a few unimportant points) to the present collection, of which it forms the first part, under the title of the "Sacred Year."

The second part of this publication comprises a selection of hymns and anthems, for particular occasions of devotion, from various approved sources,chiefly "Jesus and Mary, or Catholic Hymns," by Rev. F. W. Faber, (London, 1849,) and "Hymns of the Heart," by Matthew Brydges, Esq.; both of them the contributions of the taste, genius, and piety of their authors to the service of the Church, to which the mercy of God has led their wandering feet; and "The Catholic Choralist," by Rev. Wm. Young, (Dublin, 1842.)

The third part is devoted to sacred poetry of a less strictly devotional cast.

It contains, in addition to a few pieces from modern poets, usually found in collections like the present, a selection from the compositions of writers of, it may be, less than the highest genius, but of unquestioned Catholicity, genuine piety, and pure morality.

The Catholic reader will indulge the effort, so far as a very few selections may go, to snatch from the neglect to which the fanaticism of some, and the pre

14 PREFACE OF THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

occupation of others, would consign them, the Catholic poets of our earlier English literature,―the simple and earnest strains of Southwell, a poet, priest, and martyr, whose unshaken soul passed away in song from the fires of persecution,-Crashaw, whose tender fancy and graceful zeal have extorted the highest praises of unfriendly judges, the manly virtue of Habington, pure in an age of license,-the later compositions of Dryden, the atonements laid by his repentant muse on the altar of religion.

And if there should be one or two yet standing apart, admitted to be of this goodly company, be it in virtue of the spirit which inspires them with strains not theirs, but "of a higher mood," and makes them bear witness unconsciously to the truth: whereunto let us humbly hope, it is in the uncovenanted mercies of God, that they are yet to attain.

A classified Table of the principal Hymns adapted to particular occasions of devotion has been added, which, with the very full classified Table for the week-days, Sundays, and holydays, throughout the year, render the present work a complete manual of devotional exercises, and make it acceptable and advantageous to the faithful.

Feast of the Visitation, July, 1850.

PREFACE

Of EDWARD CASWALL, M. A., to his Lyra Catholica,

"THE Breviary Office of the Church," remarks the reverend author of the Catholic Choralist, "is, next to the august Sacrifice of the Altar, the most acceptable tribute of praise that man can offer to his Maker; and although, by reason of their various secular avocations, the laity are not bound, like the clergy, to its recital, yet that portion of it which includes the Hymns and Canticles, might be frequently, if not daily, recited by them, with great spiritual benefit and fruit. Thus, besides the happiness of uniting with the Church in an important portion of her most acceptable service, the Faithful would become daily more and more enlightened on the sublime truths and mysteries of Religion, and furnished with the most pathetic and edifying subjects of instruction and meditation." He adds, that it was his wish to have inserted in his collection, together with the Vesper hymns which he gives,

those also of Matins and Lauds, but that his engagements had not allowed him the necessary leisure for their translation, with the exception of a few only of the Matutinal hymns.

The want thus intimated, it has been the object of the present Translator to supply. How imperfectly he has succeeded in his task, none can feel more than himself; yet, circumstances having afforded him, during the past year, an unlooked-for amount of leisure, he thought he could not employ it more dutifully to the Church (feeling, at the same time, strongly attracted to the subject) than in an attempt to exhibit, for the first time in an English form, the entire series of those divine Hymns, which, in their Latin originals, have through ages been, and still continue to be, to countless saintly souls, the joy and consolation of their earthly pilgrimage.

The present contribution to the existing store of Catholic vernacular Hymns, consists of three portions. The first, and by far the largest portion, comprehends all the Hymns in the Roman Breviary, including those in the Officia Sanctorum Angliæ; the second portion comprises the Hymns and Sequences of the Roman Missal; and the third consists of Hymns from various sources. Of these latter it may be