O Thou who dost to man accord

O Thou who dost to man accord. John W. Hewett* (1824-1886). This is a translation of the Latin hymn, ‘Summi largitor praemii’, probably from the 6th century, found in Monastic Breviaries for Matins in the first part of Lent. Hewett attributed the hymn to Gregory the Great* (‘S. Gregorius Magnus’), but this is doubtful. The translation was published in Hewett’s Verses by a Country Curate (Ashby-de-la-Zouche, 1859), entitled ‘A Morning Hymn for Lent’. According to James Mearns* in JJ, p. 1102, this was from the text in Daniel, Thesaurus Hymnologicus. It was included in the First Edition of A&M (1861), in five 6-line stanzas, altered by the compilers to the metre of 886.886 to fit the tune...