It bruised out for us all manner of medicines, whereby the wounded are healed, the hungering are restored.'

The only other Sequence-writer of this school who need be mentioned is Hermann Contractus, who flourished about A. D. 1070. His Proses are chiefly remarkable as shewing how rhyme gradually crept into this species of composition. Sometimes in the middle of his Sequence he gives a complete rhymed stanza in exact metre. The most celebrated Sequence in this style is the anonymous Victima Paschali.' The Sarum Missal gives it a different ending from that generally known, or rather inserts two additional lines :

'Believe we Mary's word alone; refuse

To heed the sayings of the lying Jews.'

We quote Mr. Pearson's translation.

We now come to the second great division of Sequences, the Victorine, so called from Adam of S. Victor, 'the greatest of medieval poets,' as Dr. Neale and Archbishop Trench agree in calling him. I do not doubt or dispute his claims to excellence, but yet I must be allowed to doubt the possibility of adapting many of his compositions to the use of our own Church. Heri mundus exsultavit' is beautiful enough in the original; but 'Yesterday with exultation' has few admirers, I should imagine, except those who care to study it for the sake of that original. The following is a translation, hitherto unpublished, of one of Adam's Sequences for Easter Day,' kindly placed at my disposal by Dr. Kynaston :

THE BEGINNING OF MONTHS.'

Now the world new pleasure finds;
Hastes its votive sweets to pay;
All its wintry shroud unwinds,
Casts its grave-clothes all away;
Wakes to see its SAVIOUR rise,
Wakes on earth and in the skies;
Keeps His Paschal Holy-day.

Nimbly glide the ductile fires;
Rolls the light its tidal joys;
Ocean's axles smooth their tires;
All things purge them from alloys:
Clouds ascend the highest blue,
Weights their lowest depths pursue,
Earth upholds its equipoise.

Heaven itself, now more serene,

Tempers all its breezes keen;

Brightly smiles the water's sheen:

'Mundi Renovatio.

Valleys, terrassed high in flowers,
All their drought with streamlets flush,
Pearl their dews with sunlight's gush;
Spring leads on his joyous hours.

Now the prince of all the world
Winter's icy flag has furled;
Downward all his might is hurled;
For the tyrant of mankind,
When he sought the spotless Soul
Of the SAVIOUR to control,
Cast his kingdom to the wind.

Life has triumphed over death;
Sinking to the hell beneath,
Man recovers living breath;
Open sees before his eyes
All the joys of Paradise;

For the Cherub's flaming sword

Turns but one way,-to the Lord.

The next example is of a Sequence which has not yet, I believe, appeared in English.'

'THE LORD'S DAY.'

Now shines the Day CHRIST calls His own,
Greatest of days, and blest alone;

The Day of joy, the Day of light,

Day with immortal glory bright!

This was the day that first had birth

In the Creation of the earth,

To which CHRIST, rising from the grave,

His own peculiar blessing gave.

In hope of everlasting joys

Let all the sons of light rejoice,

And by their works CHRIST's members prove

True likeness to their Head above.

This is our solemn festal Day,
And solemn are the vows we pay ;
This Day, which first of all we name,
Our first and greatest joys must claim.

Each solemn act of worship done
Tells of the Paschal Victory won;
By many figures darkly told
In promise to the saints of old.

See opened by the veil rent wide
All the old Law had prophesied ;
Types vanish in Reality,

And Light bids every shadow flee.

'Lux illuxit Dominica.

What the unblemished Lamb had meant,
And Scape-goat to the desert sent,
By taking all our guilt away,

To us MESSIAH doth display.

The death He undeserving bore
Doth us from death deserved restore;
The wrongful booty Death would seize
Made him his rightful prey release.

The Flesh that knew no stain of sin
Our flesh from all reproach makes clean,
Blooms the third day fresh sprung from death,
And fills each doubting heart with faith.

O Death of CHRIST, now make us strive
To prove ourselves to CHRIST alive;
Thou wondrous Death that ne'er shall die,
O grant us Life eternally.'

Adam of S. Victor is said to have been born in Britain, but it is disputed whether the French province of Bretagne is not meant. He was for a short time a pupil of Hugh of S. Victor, but soon surpassed his teacher. The richness of his imagery, the boldness of his mystical interpretations, the facility with which he handles metres absolutely bristling with rhymes, will always make his writings attractive to students of medieval lore. Neale has given many specimens of his metres in his Epistola de Sequentiis, but perhaps it may suffice here to give some account of his rhymes. These are distinguished intoLeonines, rhyming the middle with the end of the line, thus:

'Urit ira tua dira

O Trajane inhumane
Proprio ex vitio

Sanctum CHRISTI quum jussisti
Flagellari, cruciari

Nimio supplicio.'

Caudate, or tail-rhymes, are final rhymes following each other closely, as in the English of the hymn last translated, and as in the first three stanzas of the Latin from which it is taken.

Interlaqueate, or interlaced rhymes, are such as we find in the Spenserian stanza, or in the poetry of Dante, retained in the translation now appearing in this Magazine.

(To be continued.)

For another translation from Adam, see 'Medieval Hymns and Sequences,' in The Monthly Packet, (New Series,) Vol. VI., p. 1.

545

VOL. 11.

SUNDAY MORNING.

FROM THE GERMAN OF HEBEL.

SAITH Saturday to Sunday, 'Friend,
I've brought the week to peaceful end;
The labouring folk are gone to rest,
Right weary, that must be confessed.
Myself, I've worked so hard, I vow
My legs will scarce support me now.'
The clock strikes twelve in yonder town,
And Saturday hath laid him down :
'Tis Sunday's turn, good Sunday knows;
He opes his door, and forth he goes.
Slowly he mounts the eastern sky,—
His wits will brighten by-and-bye.

Onward he glides, with noiseless feet,
To seek the Sun in her* retreat;
And, if he find her still asleep,
Taps at her window, tries to peep,
Whispers, 'Tis time for you to rise;'
'I'm well aware of that,' she cries.

Then softly onward doth he go,
Stands on the mountain top, tip-toe;
Slips through the valley all unseen,
Trips lightly o'er the village green;
Disturbs not sleep in lowly cot,
Says to the cock, 'Betray me not.'

But when the long sound sleep is o'er,
And people look abroad once more,
They see him in the sunshine stand,
Beneath their windows, close at hand,
With gentlest looks of love and light,
And in his hat a nosegay bright.

How glitter grass and flowers anew!
In silver showers of early dew!
How sweet the breath of morning air,
Perfumed by fruit-tree blossoms fair!
The bees are humming to and fro—
Naught of the Sunday rest they know.

*The German feminine has been preserved.
37

PART 66.

Your letter is the counterpart of several which I have lately received; the same difficulties are afloat everywhere, and they cannot be answered easily. I am afraid you will be disappointed when I say that the utmost I can hope to do is to lead you to acquiesce in them. Perhaps you will do so the more readily if I can shew you that you are living in similar uncertainty-or what you call doubt-with regard to moral questions, as you are with those more immediately religious; that uncertainty-in a greater or less degree-is in fact the very condition of our nature and the means of our probation.

You say, Oh! if I could only be assured of Truth! and you marvel why Pilate's question, 'What is Truth?' was not answered. With all reverence I would venture to say-because it could not be answered in