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wherein to clothe their hallowed thoughts; but this, while it gives to their compositions eternity and universality, goes to shut out very many from reaping ghostly advantage therefrom. With a view to helping such persons to partake in the sweet songs of the saints, many most worthy men have from time to time made translations of these hymns into the tongue of their respective countries, and divers excellent versions have come out in English. It seems however to me that the metre is a very marked feature in all poetical writing, and this seems to have been too often overlooked by translators.
Some of these hymns moreover have been chosen by the Church for the service of the sanctuary, and have been adapted to music of peculiar loveliness and fitness. Of course when the metre is changed in translating, the music must be sacrificed.
It has been my endeavour then in the following pages, to preserve in all cases the metre of the original, and at the same time to translate
