Ah! vieni, o Paracleto,
Dono del Sommo Dio
Ed il mar turbato, e rio
Tosto si calmerà."
The whole of these three lines are founded on the three words, Altissimi donum Dei; and so, in the remainder of the paraphrase, the six stanzas following; the second are founded on single lines of the original. The paraphrase of the Stabat Mater, also given in the Raccolta, is not, indeed, so free as that of the Veni Creator; but still it is in no sense a literal translation. These quotations, made from the Raccolta itself, will, it is presumed, be sufficient to show how great a license is consistent with the requisition that the translation should be a versio fidelis; the conclusion we are justified in arriving at being, that the sense and general import of the text must not be altered, and that nothing more than this is necessary. The translator has, however, adhered far more strictly than, as has been shown, he was bound to do to the words of the original; nor has he, he believes, departed in any case from the strict sense of the Italian, the chief liberty he has taken being with the adjectives in the superlative degree, which he has frequently, nay commonly, rendered by the positive, as being in English at once more forcible and more according to the genius of the language. In order, however, to secure the validity of the Indulgences attached to the prayers for those who make use of this translation, he has obtained a pontifical Rescript authorising this translation, on condition of its being subjected to the censure of his Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. Accordingly his Eminence appointed an eminent divine to revise it; and to him the work has been regularly submitted as it passed through the press, and such alterations as he suggested carefully conformed to.
It now only remains to say, that the translation is entirely new, no use having been made of any existing translations of prayers occurring in the Raccolta which have appeared in various books of devotion from time to time. The hymns, however, form an exception, as they have been taken from the Lyra Catholica of his dear friend and brother in St. Philip, Father Ed-
