largest sense of the word; but there is also a large proportion, in which either their exceeding simplicity and plainness, or their practical and didactic tone, deprives the writer of all the ordinary aids to poetry. There is no sublimity to elevate his verse, no passion to give it power; and very often there is little tenderness, at least in the common sense of the word, to make it steal to the heart. The very language itself presents a fresh embarrassment. A sentiment which may be terse and pointed enough in the close and expressive phrase of the Latin original, becomes vague, and loose, and weak, when expanded into the lengthy English equivalent; and when, to these inherent difficulties of the subject, we add the trammels imposed by the necessity of more than ordinarily literal translation and adherence to the metres adapted to congregational uses, we shall have some data by which to estimate the full requirements of the task.
"It is no ordinary merit on Mr. Caswall's part, therefore, that his success appears to us to be greatest in those very portions of his work which presented the greatest difficulty. His translations of the great and striking hymns, are, no doubt, eminently successful. But we cannot help regarding it as a still greaterPage:Lyracatholicacaswall.djvu/17
AMERICAN EDITOR.
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