After years of patient but loving labor, the compiler of this volume has achieved a work of scholarly distinction, of elegant artistry, and withal of practical utility.It is a work of scholarly distinction. The field of Latin hymnology is vast in extent and rich in resources, and translators have roamed far and wide amid its fertile reaches for highly varied blooms and fruits. The compiler has therefore had many rich stores to draw upon, but he has wisely restricted himself to very definite limits of choice. The hymns of the Roman Missal and Breviary form a thesaurus by themselves. Many of them are world-famous classics. Some of them have won translation and commentary that fill volumes devoted to them singly. All of them deserve rendition into English verse and, indeed, have been more than once so rendered. Father Caswall and Archbishop Bagshawe, each for his own day, translated all of the Missal and Breviary hymns.