Every Christmas as it returns brings with it as an inseparable adjunct the Adeste Fideles. To a Catholic, as to an Anglican, Christmas would not be Christmas without it. Yet it can claim no great antiquity: it finds no place in Missal or Breviary, nor has it any liturgical association.

Its origin—whether as to words or tune—is ‘wropt in mistery,’ nor has any definite light been thrown upon either. Both have been discussed at intervals for at least fifty years, with little result—I was surprised, on looking up some of the references in Notes and Queries, extending over fifty years, to discover from one of them that in 1879 I knew almost as much about the hymn as I do now. That the mystery as to origin should apply equally to the words and the music is hardly surprising, for both are, and have always been, so inseparably associated that it is difficult to imagine an independent source for either, although, as will be seen, this has been suggested.

It will probably come as a surprise to many, considering the various periods to which the hymn has been assigned, that our first definite knowledge of both words and music dates from the middle of the eighteenth century and comes from an English source. This is supplied by John Francis Wade, a church student who did not go on to the priesthood, though he is referred to as a priest: he compiled collections of church music, the words and notes being beautifully written, of which four copies are extant—the earliest at Clongowes Wood College, Co. Kildare, Ireland, dated 17491; the others in the Ewing Library, Glasgow, at Stonyhurst College, and at St. Edmund’s College, Ware, dated respectively, 1750, 1751, and 1760.