PREFACE
and later saints. It is not too much to say then that, judging by what we know of the Hymns of the primitive Church, we should not be dissatisfied with the paucity of those which custom has, with a sort of tacit authority, introduced among us in the course of several centuries.
More, doubtless, might be selected from the writings of our sacred Poets; but since, from unhappy circumstances, such a work does not seem likely at the present day, thoughtful minds naturally revert to the discarded collections of the ante-reform era, discarded because of associations with which they were then viewed, and of the interpolations by which they were disfigured; but which, when purified from these, are far more profitable to the Christian than the light and wanton effusions which are their present substitute among us. Nay, even such as the Parisian, which are here first presented to the reader, which have no equal claims to antiquity, breathe an ancient spirit; and even where they are the work of one pen, are the joint and invisible contribution of many ancient minds. Moreover, the ancient language used has a tendency to throw the reader out of every-day thoughts and familiar associations, and to make him fervent without ceasing to be mortified. Many a man could bear to read the Canticles in a foreign language who is unequal to it in his own.
It only remains to say, that the following selection of Hymns, from the Paris Breviary, has been confined to such
