O Spirit, Fount of love

Translator: Isaac Williams

Isaac Williams was born in London, in 1802. His father was a barrister. The son studied at Trinity College, Oxford, where he gained the prize for Latin verse. He graduated B.A. 1826, M.A. 1831, and B.D. 1839. He was ordained Deacon in 1829, and Priest in 1831. His clerical appointments were Windrush (1829), S. Mary the Virgin's, Oxford (1832), and Bisley (1842-1845). He was Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, from 1832 to 1842. During the last twenty years of his life his health was so poor as to permit but occasional ministerial services. He died in 1865. He was the author of some prose writings, amongst which are Nos. 80, 86 and 87 of the "Oxford Tracts." His commentaries are favourably known. He also published quite a large num… Go to person page >

Author: Charles Coffin

Coffin, Charles, born at Buzaney (Ardennes) in 1676, died 1749, was principal of the college at Beauvais, 1712 (succeeding the historian Rollin), and rector of the University of Paris, 1718. He published in 1727 some, of his Latin poems, for which he was already noted, and in 1736 the bulk of his hymns appeared in the Paris Breviary of that year. In the same year he published them as Hymni Sacri Auctore Carolo Coffin, and in 1755 a complete ed. of his Works was issued in 2 vols. To his Hymni Sacri is prefixed an interesting preface. The whole plan of his hymns, and of the Paris Breviary which he so largely influenced, comes out in his words. "In his porro scribendis Hymnis non tam poetico indulgendunv spiritui, quam nitoro et pietate co… Go to person page >

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Text Information

Text Information

First Line:	O Spirit, Fount of love
Author:	Charles Coffin
Translator:	Isaac Williams
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Notes

O fons amoris, Spiritus. C. Coffin. [Sunday Morning.] Appeared in the Paris Breviary, 1736, as the Ferial hymn at Terce, in 3 stanzas of 4 lines, and again in Coffin's Hymni Sacri, 1736, p. 92. It is also in J. Chandler's Hymns of the Prim. Church, 1837, p. 4; and Cardinal Newman's Hymni Ecclesiae, 1838 and 1865. It is a recast of the "Nunc sancte nobis." It is translated as:—
1. 0 Spirit, Fount of love, Unlock Thy temple door. By I. Williams, in the British Magazine, Jan., 1834, vol. v. p. 30, and again in his Hymns, translated from the Parisian Breviary, 1839, p. 7. In the English Hymnal, 1856 and 1861, No. 9 is the same translation rewritten in C.M. as "0 Holy Spirit, Fount of love, Unlock," &c.
2. 0 Holy Spirit, Lord of grace. By J. Chandler, in his Hymns of the Prim. Church, 1837, p. 4. This is repeated with slight changes in several collections. In Hymns Ancient & Modern another doxology is substituted for that in Chandler.
3. 0 Holy Spirit, Fount of love. Blest Source, &c. By Jane E. Leeson, and published in her Paraphrases [of the Scottish Translations and Paraphrases] & Hymns, &c, 1853, in 4 stanzas of 4 lines, and again in the Irvingite Hymns for the Churches, 1864 and 1871.
4. 0 Spirit, Fount of Holy Love. In the 2nd edition 1863, of the Appendix to the Hymnal Noted, No, 280.
Other translations are:—
1. 0 Fount of love! blest Spirit. W. J. Blew. 1852 and 1855.
2. 0 Fount of love! Thou Spirit blest. J. D. Chambers. 1857.
3. All-gracious Spirit, Fount of love. D. T. Morgan, 1880.