The study of the Latin hymns is so much a thing of its own kind that one owes it to himself as well as to his readers to begin at the beginning. This beginning in the present instance happened to be on the North River, on a bright, fresh April morning in the year of grace 1882. It was at that time, with the clear sky overhead and the hearty breeze coming full in our faces from the Narrows, that my friend, the Rev. F. N. Zabriskie, D.D., broached the following proposition:

It was, he said, a matter of great surprise to him that no one had done for the Latin hymn-writers what had been done for those of later date. We had their hymns, but for his part he confessed to a love for the personality of the poets themselves, and for the circumstances which conspired to produce their poems. Now, if it seemed good to myself, who had already given time and study to the hymns, he would gladly open the columns of the Christian Intelligencer (the organ of the Reformed Church in America) to a series of articles bearing such a character. And there and then the book began.

But my original ideas modified greatly as I went on. In place of my mastering the subject, the subject mastered me. My previous studies went for but very little, and my confidence in my ability to prepare the articles without taking much time from regular and important duties diminished with every number. I found myself on new ground and was perpetually referred back to the original authorities. French and German and Latin—I had to investigate them all in order to satisfy that insatiate creature, a scholar’s conscience. I discovered that, except for rare and slight notices, this sort of work had neither been done nor was likely to be done, and conferences with our best hymnologists only made me more interested in doing it, and doing it as well as I could. Doubtless those whose specialities lie in mediaeval days will find much to criticise, but no one can be a severer critic than myself according to my means of information.

These chapters, like this Introduction, will be found to be written in the American language. Their purpose is to reach the popular desire for better knowledge, and it would be absurd to offer these facts in any dry or pedantic style. Yet the scholar and the hymnologist will both find that a positive value and a careful accuracy attach to the work that has been done. I found I could take nothing for granted, and I took nothing for granted. Even the Archbishop of Dublin and the principal of Sackville College have their idiosyncrasies and predilections, and a quite easy way of writing on these topics is to copy what has been said already. A very notable case to the contrary is Lord Selborne’s splendid article on “Hymns” in the new Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Therefore life and song and color are not absent, I trust, from these pages. I should not like to give all the authorities consulted or rummaged through; for, indeed, I have kept no record of them. Like the famous sun-dial I have registered none but the serene hours, and many a time the scarce and long-sought volume before me has been jejune enough. While, on the other hand, a book like Morison’s Life of St. Bernard has turned out to be precisely the help I was seeking, bright in its style and careful and original in its researches. I have verified its quotations too often not to pay it at least this faint tribute of approval.

It would be also beyond measure ungrateful in me if I did not here acknowledge the kindnesses I have received in this quest after the Sangreal of a true psalmody. Let me name, then, the Astor Library. Its superintendent, Mr. Little, and its librarians, Mr. Frederick Saunders (author of Evenings with the Sacred Poets), and his assistant, Mr. Bierstadt, have been uniformly courteous and obliging. So has been the Rev. Professor Charles A. Briggs, D.D., in whose care is the fine theological library of Union Seminary. So have been the authorities of the Society Library (New York), and of the Philadelphia Library, and of the Boston Athenaeum and Public libraries.

Personally, I am deeply indebted to the culture and friendship of Miss Marion L. Pelton, Assistant Professor of Literature in Wellesley College, who has made for me many valuable notes; and to the assistance and counsel of Professor F. A. March, LL.D., Professor F. M. Bird, Professor Philip Schaff, D.D., and Judge W. H. Arnoux.

It will be readily seen that I have not concerned myself with the matter of the host of English translations, or with that of the comparison and criticism of the text of the hymns. These branches of hymnology are in a scientific sense the most valuable, but in a popular sense they are the least interesting. And I could not hope to rival, far less to equal, such illustrious scholarship as that of Daniel or Mone. I have therefore been content to pipe to a lesser reed, and in a more familiar and gossiping way to attempt the history of the hymns. And for the rest I can only add what Master Robert Burton saith in his Anatomy of Melancholy: “If through weakness, folly, passion, ignorance, I have said amiss, let it be forgotten and forgiven.... I earnestly request every private man, as Scaliger did Cardan, not to take offence.... If thou knewest my modesty and simplicity, thou wouldest easily pardon and forgive what is here amiss, or by thee misconceived.”

Samuel Willoughby Duffield.

Bloomfield, N. J., U. S. A.