Of it, Dr. Neale says: "I have no hesitation in saying that I look on these verses of Bernard as the most lovely, in the same way that the 'Dies Ira' is the most sublime, and the 'Stabat Mater' the most pathetic of me .iæval poems."

It is curious that to one Bernard (of Clairvaux) we should owe some of the most prized of our hymns concerning Christ, and to another Bernard (of Morlaix or Clugny) the hymns most frequently sung concerning Heaven.

The “Veni Sancte Spiritus" ("Holy Spirit, Lord of Light"), the loveliest, in Archbishop Trench's opinion, of all the hymns in the whole circle of sacred Latin poetry, is admitted by all the great authorities to be by King Robert II. of France (997-1031), who was singularly addicted to church music, which he enriched, as well as hymnody, with many compositions of his own. It is said that "he placed himself, robed and crowned, among the choristers of St. Denis, and led the musicians in singing psalms and hymns of his own composition."

To this period belong those forms of hymns called Sequences. A specimen of these, familiar to all, may be found in the well-known "The strain upraise of joy and praise," translated from Godescalcus by Dr. Neale. I cannot do better than give Dr. Neale's beautiful account of the origin of Sequences:

"It is well known that the origin of sequences themselves is to be looked for in the Alleluia of the Gradual, sung between the Epistle and Gospel. During this melody it was necessary that the deacon should have time to ascend from his place at the altar to the rood-loft,

Hence the pro

that he might thence sing the Gospel. longation of the last syllable in the Alleluia of the Gradual, in thirty, forty, fifty, or even a hundred notes; the neuma of which ritualistic writers speak so much. True, there was no sense in this last syllable and its lengthening out, but the mystical interpreters had their explanation: 'the way in which we praise God in our country is yet unknown.'

"And good people were content for some three hundred years with this service; and, as it has been very truly observed, the attempt itself, if one may use the expression, to explain the sound into sense, manifests a little of the rationalism with which the Eastern has always taunted the Western Church. But, towards the beginning of the eleventh century, there was a certain Swiss monk, by name Notker. The defects of every religious person were well known in the house where he resided, and a slight lisp in his speech gave him the surname of Balbulus. He had resided for some years in that marvellous monastery of S. Gall; the church of which was the pattern of all monastic edifices, till it was eclipsed by a church, the description of which now reads like a most glorious dream-Clugny. While watching the samphire gatherers on the precipitous cliffs that surrounded S. Gall, Notker had composed the world-famous hymn, In the midst of life we are in death.' But desirous of obtaining the best education which Christendom could afford, he afterwards betook himself to the monastery of Jumièges, and there formed an acquaintance with many of its monks. With one of them he had, it seems, a friendly discussion, whether the interminable ia

of the Alleluia might not be altered into a religious sense; a discussion which, for the time, had no result. But Jumièges, in common with so many other French monasteries, was desolated by the barbarian Normans. Whereupon Notker's friend, bethinking himself of S. Gall, took refuge in that great house; and the discussion which, years before, had commenced, was again carried on between the two associates. At length Notker deter. mined to put words to the notes which had hitherto only interminably prolonged the Alleluia. He did so; and, as a first attempt, produced a sequence which began with the line

Laudes Deo concinat orbis universus,'

and which has lately been republished. He brought this, notes and all, on a parchment rolled round a cylinder of wood, to Yso, precentor of what we should now call the Cantoris side. Yso looked kindly on the composition, but said that he must refer it to Marcellus, the precentor on the Decani side. These two sang the sequence over together, and observed that sometimes two notes went to one syllable in a slur, sometimes three or four syllables went to one note in a kind of recitative. Yso thereupon was charged with the message that the verses would not answer their purpose. Notker, not much discouraged, revised his composition; and now, instead of (for the first line) Laudes Deo concinat orbis universus, he substituted Laudes Deo concinat orbis ubique totus; instead of the second line, Coluber Ada deceptor, he now wrote Coluber Adæ male-suasor; which, as he himself tells us, when the good-natured Yso had sung over to himself, he gave thanks to God, he commended the new composition to the

brethren of the monastery, and more especially to Othmar,

Yso's brother by blood.

Such then was the origin of sequences, at first called Proses, because written rather in rhythmical prose than with any attention to metre. St. Notker died about 912."

The introduction of such sequences into the worship of nearly all our English churches, furnishes one illustration, out of many which might be given, of the strange ways in which churches most remote from one another in doctrine and ritual, profit each other.

64

CHAPTER VI.

THE METRICAL PSALMS.

We have, in previous chapters, considered the hymns of the first ages of the Church and Medieval times, although their introduction, in an English dress, to the hymnals of this country belongs to the later years of the present century. Those of the Latin Church were, doubtless, used in their original forms in the times before the Reformation, and came to our land in the Breviaries of the Roman Church, but those of the Eastern Church were used neither in their original nor translated forms till our own time. When England belonged to the Roman Church, her service of praise doubtless consisted of the Psalms in the Vulgate version, and the Breviary hymns in their original Latin. But when she threw off the yoke of Rome, the Psalms of the English Prayer Book, which were at first only said, began not long after through metrical versions, to be sung. "Song has

*It should not be forgotten that the "said or sung" of the Prayer Book is a simple euphemism taken from the old Offices, and really meaning monotoned, which is equivalent to "said," or with inflexions which is equivalent to "sung." Even up to 1662 there remained a rubric by which not only the Psalms and Canticles but also the Lessons were directed to be " sung after the manner of distinct reading to a plain tune."