SOURCE: Janelle, Pierre. “The Earlier Prose Works.” In Robert Southwell, the Writer: A Study in Religious Inspiration, pp. 173-205. London: Sheed and Ward, 1935.

In the following excerpt, Janelle compares Southwell's Mary Magdalens Funeral Teares with the Italian original, praising the emotional force and literary craftsmanship of the translation, and also comments on the neglected Epistle of Comfort.

A considerable portion of Southwell's work is made up of translations, adaptations and imitations. This may to some extent mean that he lacked self-confidence; but the chief reason is that the directions of his superiors did not require the creation of an original literature, but merely the transformation for pious purposes of what already existed. In his early years especially, he adhered to this plan most conscientiously. Mary Magdalens teares is a case in point; for like the [Hundred] Meditations, this work had an Italian original, and was begun at Rome...