A Dictionary of Hymnology/Appendix/Notices
The following notices were omitted in error:—
Salis-Seewis, Johann Gaudenz, Baron von, was b. Dec. 26, 1762, at the castle of Bodmer (Bothmar), near Malans, Grisons, Switzerland. From 1779 to 1792 he was an officer in the French army; and alter 1798 he held various offices connected with the Swiss Militia, and with his native canton. He d. at Bodmer, Jan. 29, 1834, and was buried at Seewis, near Malans (Allg., Deutsche Biog., xxx., 245, &c.). His Poems appeared as his Gedichte at Zürich, 1793; 2nd ed., 1794; 3rd, 1797; 4th, 1800; 4th enlarged ed., 1803; new ed., 1808 [all in Berlin Library], and many later eds. The most famous of his poems is "Das Grab ist tief und stille" (in his Gedichte, 1793, p. 35, entitled "The Grave, 1783"), of which there are at least 7 trs. into English. The only one in English C. U. as a hymn is:—
Ins stille Land! Wer leitet uns hinüber. For the Dying. 1st pub. in his Gedichte, Neue Auflage, Zürich, 1808, p. 146, in 3 st. of 7 l., each ending "Ins stille Land." In his Gedichte, Cologne, 1815, p. 134. The tr., in C. U. is:—
Into the Silent Land! Ah! who shall lead us thither. In full by H. W. Longfellow in his Voices of the Night, Cambridge, U. S., 1840, p. 141, repeated in the later eds. of his Poetical Works. Included in Hedge and Huntington's Hys. for the Church of Christ, 1853, and many later American collections. It has been retranslated into Greek verse by Dr. B. H. Kennedy, in his Between Whiles, 1877. There are at least three other versions in English. [J. M.]