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Si rex, ubi purpura,

Vel clientum murmura,
Ubi aula regis?

Hic omnis penuria,
Paupertatis curia,
Forma novæ legis.

Istuc amor generis
Me traxit humani,
Quod se noxâ sceleris
Occidit profani.
His meis inopiis
Gratiarum copiis
Te pergo ditare :
Hocce natalitio,
Vero sacrificio,
Te volens beare.

O te laudum millibus

Laudo, laudo, laudo;
Tantis mirabilibus

Plaudo, plaudo, plaudo:

Gloria, sit gloria,

Amanti memoria

Domino in altis:

Cui testimonia

Dantur et præconia
Cœlicis a psaltis.

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from that here presented, I may say that mine has been obtained, not from any secondary source, but from the Rosetum itself; not indeed from the original edition, Basle, 1491, which lay not within my reach, but from that referred to above, which has much appearance of having been carefully edited.

XIV. DE NATIVITATE DOMINI.

0

TER fœcundas, o ter jucundas

Beatæ noctis delicias,

Quæ suspiratas e cœlo datas
In terris paris delicias!

Gravem primævæ ob lapsum Evæ
Dum jamjam mundus emoritur,
In carne meus, ut vivat, Deus,
Sol vitæ, mundo suboritur.

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Sol mundi friget, et flamma riget:
Quid sibi volunt hæc omnia?

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XIV. [Walraff,] Corolla Hymnorum, Coloniæ, 1806, p. 8; Daniel, Thes. Hymnol. vol. ii. p. 339.-This pretty poem, for it can claim no higher praise, is certainly not old, can scarcely be earlier than the fifteenth century; and thus belongs, if I am right in my conjecture, to a period when the fountains of inspiration, at least of that inspiration which has given us the great medieval hymns, were very nearly exhausted.

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XV. Corner, Prompt. Devot. p. 367; Daniel, Thes. Hymnol. vol. v. p. 48.

14. Compare on these Eastern Magi the grand lines of Prudentius (Cathemer. xii. 1—76), which rank among the noblest passages of his poetry.

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10

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Myrrham ferunt, tus, et aurum,
Plus pensantes, quam thesaurum,
Typum, sub quo veritas;
Trina dona, tres figuræ:
Rex in auro, Deus in ture,
In myrrhâ mortalitas.

Turis odor deitatem,
Auri splendor dignitatem
Regalis potentiæ:

Myrrha caro Verbo nupta,
Per quod manet incorrupta
Caro carens carie.

Tu nos, Christe, ab hâc valle
Duc ad vitam recto calle

Per regum vestigia ;

Ubi Patris, ubi Tui,

Et Amoris Sacri, frui

Mereamur gloriâ. Amen.

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36. The following lines, blending into a single stanza the twofold homage of the Jewish shepherds and the Gentile sages, were great favourites at and after the Reformation. They belong probably to the fourteenth century (Rambach, Anthol. Christl. Gesänge, p. 333).

Quem pastores laudavere,
Quibus angeli dixere,
'Absit vobis jam timere

Natus est Rex gloriæ :

Ad quem reges ambulabant,

Aurum, tus, myrrham, portabant;
Hæc sincere immolabant

Leoni victoriæ.

A

PRUDENTIUS.

URELIUS Clemens Prudentius was born, as there is good reason to suppose, in Spain. But the evidence from certain expressions which he uses, in favour of Saragossa as his birth-place, is equally good in favour of Tarragona, and of Calahorra; and therefore, since he could not have been born in more places than one, is worthless in regard of them all. All that we know with any certainty about him, is drawn from a short autobiography in verse, which he has prefixed to his poems, and which contains a catalogue of them. From this we gather that he was born A.D. 348; that, having enjoyed a liberal education, and for a while practised as a pleader, he had filled important judicial posts in two cities which he does not name, and had subsequently received a high military appointment at the Court; but that now, in his fifty-seventh year, in which this sketch of his life was given, he looked back with sorrow and shame to the sins and follies of his youth, to the worldliness of his middle age, and desired to dedicate what remained of his life to an earnest and devoted service of God. The year of his death is not known.

Barth, who in his Adversaria is always prodigal in his commendations of the Christian poets, is most prodigal of all in regard of Prudentius. Poëta eximius -eruditissimus et sanctissimus scriptor-nemo divinius de rebus Christianis unquam scripsit-such is the

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