Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

writers concerned (so far as known) are given. The dates added to the names signify, when without brackets, the time at which each hymn is believed to have been first composed or published: when within brackets, the date of the edition or copy, from which the text of a hymn (known or believed to have been published at an earlier date, not correctly ascertained) has been taken by the Editor. The text has been verified by collation with the original work of the author, or an authentic copy, in every case, except those specified in the notes at the end of the volume. The notes also show in what cases the text consists of any selected parts or part, less than the whole, of an original work. When a double date is appended to a single name, it signifies that the work, published at the earlier date, was afterwards altered by the author himself, the text of the later date being that adopted.

The Editor cannot conclude without returning his thanks to many friends, and to some not personally known to him, for the kind assistance, and offers of assistance, which he has received from them, while this work was in progress. His obligations to some of them will be found specially acknowledged in the notes. He has also to thank the owners of copyrights in many

of the more modern hymns, which are included in the volume, for the consent which they have, in all cases when applied to, kindly given to the use of their works. And if, in any instances, he has, either through ignorance of the existence of a copyright, or for want of means of communication, made use of any work, in respect of which a similar permission ought to have been obtained, without actually obtaining it, he ventures to hope that the oversight may be excused, and the same liberality extended to him, as if a fequest for permission had been previously made.

In the present edition the number of hymns of which the authors are unknown has been reduced to seven and thirty-six Hymns are added, which did not appear in the "Book of Praise," as originally published. Some of these came to the Editor's knowledge too late to be included, and some were undesignedly omitted, in the first edition. Others, which were then intentionally omitted, are now added, in deference to the judgment of critics and friends, whose estimate of their merit is higher than the Editor's own.

The absence, in this volume, of any selection from the Old or New Version of the Psalms, having been the subject of some remark, the Editor wishes to observe, that such a selection would have been foreign to his design. The "Psalms" (so called) of Watts, Lyte, Montgomery, and others, and the

Scotch "Paraphrases," which are included in the "Book of Praise," are compositions, into which, although founded (as many of the best Hymns in all languages are) upon particular passages of Scripture, other elements, for the most part, largely enter. But the Authorized Versions of the Psalms profess to be, in the strict sense of the words, metrical renderings of Holy Scripture. As such, whatever degree of merit they may possess, they differ in kind from ordinary Hymns: and, being universally known, and accessible in every PrayerBook, it did not seem to the Editor either necessary or appropriate to associate any of them, in this place, with compositions of a different class.

With respect to the translations from Latin and German hymns, which are included in this collection, it also seems proper to explain, that the choice has not been made with any reference to the merits of the Latin or German originals; but solely because the labours of the translator had, in each of these cases, resulted in the production (according to the Editor's judgment) of a good English hymn. From the unavoidable difficulties of translation, this does not very often happen; and the excellence or popularity of the original, in in its own language, seems to be no reason for including, in a collection of this kind, an unsuccessful attempt to reproduce it, or even an attempt which, if partially successful, may, nevertheless be wanting in the simplicity, freedom, and ease, of a genuine English composition.

« AnteriorContinuar »