As now the sun’s declining rays

As now the sun’s declining rays.  Charles Coffin* (1676-1749), translated by John Chandler* (1806-1876). Coffin’s hymn, beginning ‘Labente jam solis rota’ was written for the revised Paris Breviary of 1736, edited by the Archbishop of Paris, Charles-Gaspard de Vintimille, who encouraged Coffin to write new Latin hymns. It was set for the service of None. It was published in the same year as the Breviary in Hymni Sacri Auctore Carolo Coffin (1736). John Chandler’s translation appeared in his Hymns of the Primitive Church, now first Collected, Translated, and Arranged (1837). Chandler printed it for Sunday, ‘Ninth Hour, or 3 in the Afternoon’, corresponding to the Paris Breviary’s None. It...