The tranſlator of The Celestial Country is Dr. John Maſon Neale, Warden of Sackville College, Suſſex, England, the moſt ſucceſſful tranſlator of mediæval hymns, and one of the moſt varied and voluminous writers of the time. "Lays and Legends of the Church of England;" "A Church Hiſtory for Children;" ſeven volumes of romances; a hiſtory of Greece; a hiſtory of Portugal; of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, and of the Janſeniſt Church of Holland; a large number of tales and hymns
for children, and a moſt learned and elaborate commentary on the Book of Pſalms, are included in the long catalogue of his works.
This ſcholar of Cambridge, and this monk of Cluni, have given to the religious world the ſweeteſt and deareſt religious poem that our language contains. Dr. Neale ſays that he looks upon the lines of Bernard "as the moſt lovely, in the ſame way that the Dies Iræ is the moſt ſublime, and the Stabat Mater the moſt pathetic of mediæval poems," but his own poem may claim more juſtly that word. The Celestial Country is better than De Contemptu Mundi.
