“This English version of the Book of Psalms,” says the Most Rev. Dr. Manning in the preface, “may be regarded as one more of the many gifts bequeathed to us by my learned and lamented predecessor [Cardinal Wiseman]. One-half, at least, of the psalms were revised by his own hand.” Critics will regret that there is nothing to enable them to distinguish the precise psalms on which the illustrious cardinal brought his great Biblical learning and his pure English taste to the task of revision.
The term “Douay Version” in the title is used in the loose way which his eminence himself opposed, and the basis is not the Douay, but Dr. Challoner’s text.
This edition is made in a cheap popular form, and is intended to diffuse more generally among the faithful the psalms as a manual of prayer. They are the great storehouse from which the church draws her offices, and supply the pious with ejaculations, short and fervent prayers, which are of wonderful value. No greater boon has been added recently, for, though there is no lack of pocket Bibles, they are unhandy, and the type too small for those who wish the psalms alone.
To meet this want a new translation was issued in 1700, in a neat little volume, the version being by John Caryl, a friend of Pope, and faithful adherent of the Stuarts. His Psalms is a very uncommon work, though highly esteemed.
We had thus Gregory Martin’s version in the original Douay, Caryl’s, Bishop Challoner’s, and Archbishop Kenrick’s, and we have now a version due in part at least to Cardinal Wiseman. It is a little volume that will reward study among those who wish to compare the versions, and as a convenient, well-printed manual commends itself to the pious.
“In the Book of Psalms,” says his grace, Dr. Manning, “the Spirit of Praise himself has inscribed the notes and the words of thanksgiving to be learned here, and to be continued before the eternal throne. For this use and aid I commend the present volume to the piety of the faithful.”
Some common errors have, we see, been retained in this edition, which we hope to see corrected, such as the omission of “angry” before enemies in Ps. xvii. 48; “and,” in Ps. xliii. 12; “in form,” Ps. xliv. 4.
A Journey around my Room. By Count Xavier de Maistre. New York: Hurd & Houghton.
This work, so full of the author’s delicate humor and sentimental reverie, is the very thing for a winter evening, when one feels like giving himself up to dream away a few hours.