"I am weary of my groaning and every night I wash my bed.

"For he lieth waiting secret ly as a lion in his den.

"I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint."

Glory.

"I will talk of thy commandments: and have respect unto thy ways."

Both now.

And let this be most carefully observed: an Ode is simply a Sequence under somewhat different laws. Just when the system of Greek ecclesiastical poetry was fully developed, S. Notker and the Monks of S. Gall hit out a similar one for the Latin Church: the Sequence or the Prose. It was not copied from the East, for we have S. Notker's own account of the way in which he invented it. It prospered to a certain extent; that is, it became one, though the least important, branch of Ecclesiastical verses.

Now the perfection of Greek poetry is

attained by the Canons at Lauds, of which I proceed to speak.

A Canon consists of Nine Odes,-each Ode containing any number of troparia from three to beyond twenty. The reason for the number nine is this: that there are nine Scriptural canticles, employed at Lauds, (εἰς τὸν Ὄρθρον), on the model of which those in every Canon are formed. The first: that of Moses after the passage of the Red Sea-the second, that of Moses in Deuteronomy (chap. xxxiii.)-the third, that of Hannah-the fourth, that of Habakkukthe fifth, that of Isaiah (xxvi. 9—20)—the sixth, that of Jonah-the seventh, that of the Three Children, (verses 3—34, of our 66 Song" in the Bible Version)—the eighth, Benedicite-the ninth, Magnificat and Benedictus.

From this arrangement two consequences follow. The first, that, as the Second Canticle is never recited except in Lent, the Canons never have any second Ode. The

This

second, that there is generally some reference, either direct or indirect, in each Ode, to the Canticle of the same number: in the first Ode, e g., to the Song of Moses at the Red Sea in the third to that of Hannah. gives rise, on the one hand, to a marvellous amount of ingenuity, in tracing the most far-fetched connexions-in discovering the most remote types;-it brings out into the clearest light the wonderful analogies which underlie the surface of Scripture narration; and so far imbues each Ode with a depth of Scriptural meaning which it could scarcely otherwise reach. On the other, it has a stiffening and cramping effect; and sometimes, especially to the uninitiated, has somewhat of a ludicrous tendency. It would be curious to sum up the variety of objects of which, in a thousand Sixth Odes, we find Jonah's Whale a type. On the whole, this custom has about the same disadvantages and advantages which Warton points out as resulting from the

four rhymes of a Spenserian stanza ;-the advantages,-picturesqueness,

ingenuity,

discovery of new beauties: the disadvantages,-art not concealed by art, tautology, imparity of similitudes, a caricature of typology, painful and affected elaboration.

The Hirmos, on which each Ode is based, is sometimes quoted at length at the commencement, in which case it is always distinguished by inverted commas; or the first few words are merely cited as a note to the singer, for whose benefit the Tone is also given.

The next noticeable matter is that these Odes are usually arranged after an acrostich, itself commonly in verse: sometimes alphabetical. The latter device was probably borrowed from the Psalms; as for example, the 25, 112, 119.

The arrangement is not to be considered as an useless formality or pretty-ism: it was of the greatest importance, when so

v Canons had to be remembered by

heart. We know to what curious devices the Western Church, in matters connected with the Calendar, had recourse as a Memoria Technica; and not a few of her short hymns were alphabetical, either by verses or by lines: I know no instance of any other kind of acrostich. Besides the line which forms the initials of Greek Canons, the name of the composer likewise finds a frequent place. And it is worth noticing that, whereas the authors of the worldfamous hymns of the West, with a few exceptions (such as the Vexilla Regis, the Dies Ira, the Veni Sancte Spiritus), are unknown, the case in the East is reversed. The acrostich may, or may not, run through the Theotokia, of which I now proceed to speak.

Each Ode is ended by a troparion, dedicated to the celebration of S. Mary, and thence named Theotokion. Sometimes there is another, which commemorates her at the Cross; and then it is a Stauro-theotokion.