Page:The glory of Paradise a rhythmical hymn.djvu/12

viii revision would both destroy in the Scriptures, and cut off in our people for ever? A somewhat similar experiment was tried, it is well known, on many of these very hymns, with the view of rearranging them in accordance with more classical rules as regards metre and expression; with what success let those judge who compare the recasting of the Roman and Paris Breviaries with the authenticated editions of ancient days.

Damiani's Hymn has been republished in the "Thesaurus Hymnologicus" of Daniel, where it is, of course, not generally accessible, and in the Dean of Westminster's elegant selection of "Sacred Latin Poetry." It is mentioned also, with deserved commendation, by the Dean of St. Paul's, in his learned and eloquent "History of Latin Christianity," a considerable portion of the poem being given in a note (vol. vi. p.492). It seems entitled to a separate, and more conspicuous publication, after lying so long embedded in the tertiary strata of a doubtful treatise of Augustine. It is more in accordance with the rules of the rhythm formerly adopted to arrange the poem in triplets, as is done by Prudentius, Fortunatus, and all the trochaic tetrameter writers, save, so far as I recollect, the author of the "Dies Judicii," where the alphabetic arrangement of the alternate lines precludes the application of the rule. Damiani's triplets do not, however, always keep themselves entirely distinct as regards their subject-matter; and I venture to print them as I find them arranged in the Cardinal's works, and in the Benedictine editions of Augustine: the more so because they better adapt themselves thus for translation, rhymed triple trochaics being a less suitable medium, and the alternative of eight and seven syllable divisions of the lines, which Mr. Wackerbarth adopts, giving an appearance of that prolixity which was the rock on which so many of the ancient hymn writers—Prudentius, Bernard, Hildebert, for instance—lost half the beauty of their poems.