ENGLISH HYMNOLOGY.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—The question whether a particular hymn is to be called Anglican or Roman Catholic is surely settled by the religious position of the writer at the date of its publication. The phrase, "Catholic translator," is equivocal. Allowing for verbal altera- tions made subsequently to 1845,—the year in which he joined the Roman Church,—Cardinal Newman's "free translations" of Breviary hymns were, as he himself tells us in "Verses on Various Occasions," p. 203, "made in 1836-8 ;" and nine of them appeared in the 75th "Tract for the Times," published in 1836. I believe, also, that Mr. Campbell of Skerrington's hymns were written by him as a member of the Scottish Episcopal Church ; they appeared as Anglican hymns, in a hymn-book, sanctioned by one of the Bishops of that Church, for his diocese (St. Andrews, Dunkeld, and Dunblane), in 1850.
Of course, if an Anglican publishes a hymn, and afterwards, on becoming a Roman Catholic, alters it in conformity to Roman doctrine, the hymn thereby becomes Roman. The like might be said of two original poems which Mr. Newman contributed to the "Lyra Apostolica," under the headings " Dissent " and "Rest," but which he altered more than verbally in his " Verses " (1867). But no such change has taken place in his translations, nor, so far as I know, in Mr. Campbell's.— I am, Sir, &c.,
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