Page:The Roman Breviary Bute 1908 - vol. 1.djvu/12

 in the extracts from the Fathers and in the biographical notices. Where (a) the quotations are very fragmentary, he has usually given them in full, but wherever this has been done to a very considerable extent, as by the insertion of whole clauses or sentences, it is indicated either by a footnote or by the inserted words being put in brackets^ and where (ft) the quotations are from some version of the Scriptures different to the present Vulgate, such as the so-called Itala, or literally translated from the LXX., or seem to be inaccurate quotations from memory, or various readings created by copyists blunders, he has harmonised them with the rest of his text, as it seemed to him that to embalm these eccentricities in an English rendering would be, even were it always possible, a mere useless piece of Antiquarianism. An exception is made in the case of a few passages where the sense is clearly and curiously affected, and these have been invariably pointed out in footnotes.

In the biographical sketches of the lives of the Saints, a few passages will be found inserted in brackets. These are almost always proper names, dates, or geographical identifications. They have been inserted with the idea of making these biographies more interesting and valuable, and are almost always taken either from Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints, or from the very valuable French work in seventeen volumes, intituled, Les Petits Bollandistes. The constant changes in the Translator's place of abode, and his frequent journeys, rendered it naturally impossible for him to have always at hand a copy of the Acta Sanctorum them selves, even had it been needful for his purpose.

The poetical portions of the Breviary have given the Translator peculiar trouble. Only a few, and those of the more obscure, of the Hymns, are presented in his own paraphrase. For the rest, he has sought to obtain the use of the versions which, as far as he could judge, combined the largest amount of poetical merit with accuracy in rendering the sense of the originals, and he has not felt it necessary to take into consideration the religious opinions of those by whom such translations have been executed. In all his applications, he has been met with uniform courtesy and compliance with his wishes, and he here begs to ask pardon for any breach of copyright which he may have unknodlgly committed by reprinting hymns of which he did not know