JAM LUCIS ORTO SIDERE.

Divina cujus charitasSacrum propinat sanguinem,Almique membra corporisAmor sacerdos immolatSparsum cruorem postibusVastator horret angelus:Fugitque divisum mareMerguntur hostes fluctibus.Jam Pascha nostrum Christus estPaschalis idem victima,Et pura puris mentibusSinceritatis azymaO vera coeli victimaSubjecta cui sunt tartara,Soluta mortis vincula,Recepta vitae praemiaVictor subactis inferisTrophaea Christus explicat,Coeloque aperto, subditumRegem tenebrarum trahit.Ut sis perenne mentibusPaschale, Jesu, gaudium:A morte dira criminumVitae renatos libera.Now it is impossible to deny to the revised version merits of its own. Not only does it use the Latin words which classic usage requires—asdapesin poetry forcoena,receptaforreddita,inferisforbarathro—but it brings into clearer view the facts of the Old Testament story which the hymn treats as typical of the Christian passover. The (imperfect) rhyme of the original is everywhere sacrificed to the demands of metre, which probably is no loss. But the gain is not in simplicity, vigor, and freshness. In these the old hymn is much superior. The last verse but one, for instance, presents in the old hymn a distinct and living picture—the picture Luther tells us he delighted in when a boy chorister singing the Easter songs of the Church. But in the recast the vividnessis blurred, and classic reminiscence takes the place of the simple and direct speech the early Church made for itself out of the Latin tongue.Take again the first part of the dedication hymn, of whichAngulare fundamentumis the conclusion:Urbs beata HierusalemDicta pacis visioQuae construitur in coelisVivis ex lapidibusEt angelis coronataUt sponsata comiteNova veniens e coeloNuptiali thalamoPraeparata, ut sponsataCopulatur domino,Plateae et muri ejusEx auro purissimoPortae nitent margaritisAdytis patentibus,Et virtute meritorumIlluc introduciturOmnis, qui pro Christi nomineHoc in mundo premiturTunsionibus, pressurisExpoliti lapidesSuis coaptantur locisPer manum artificis,Disponuntur permansuriSacris aedificiis.Coelestis urbs JerusalemBeata pacis visioQuae celsa de viventibusSaxis ad astra tolleris,Sponsaeque ritu cingerisMille angelorum millibus.O sorte nupta prospera,Dotata Patris gloria,Respersa Sponsi gratiaRegina formosissima,Christo jugata principiCoelo corusca civitas.Hic margaritis emicantPatentque cunctis ostia,Virtute namque praeviaMortalis illuc duciturAmore Christi percitusTormenta quisquis sustinent.Scalpri salubris ictibusEt tunsione plurima,Fabri polita malleoHanc saxa molem construunt,Aptisque juncta nexibusLocantur in fastidia.Daniel in his first volume prints fifty-five of these recasts in parallel columns with the originals, and to that we will refer our readers for further specimens. It is gratifying to know that not all the scholarship of that age was insensible to the qualities which the revisers sacrificed. Henry Valesius, although only a layman and a lover of good Latin—as his versions of the historians of the early Church show—uttered a fierce but ineffectual protest in favor of the early and mediaeval hymns. And the Marquis of Bute, a convert to Catholicism, who published an English translationof the Breviary in 1879, says that the revisers of 1602 “with deplorable taste made a series of changes in the texts of the hymns, which has been disastrous both to the literary merit and the historical interest of the poems.” He hopes for a further revision which shall undo this mischief, but in other respects return to the type furnished by the Breviary of Quiñonez.The translations from the hymns of the Roman Breviary have been very abundant. Those by Protestants have been due to the fact that the texts even of ancient hymns were so much more accessible in their Breviary version than in their original form. Among Roman Catholics, of course, other considerations have weight; and in Mr. Edward Caswall’sLyra Catholicaand Mr. Orby Shipley’sAnnus Sanctuswill be found some very admirable versions. The latter book is an anthology from the Roman Catholic translators from John Dryden to John Henry Newman.From the Breviary text Mr. Duffield has made the following translations of two hymns by Gregory the Great:JAM LUCIS ORTO SIDERE.Now with the risen star of dawn,To God as suppliants we pray,That he may keep us free from harm,And guide us through an active day.May he, restraining, guard the tongue,Lest it be found to strive and cry,And, lest it drink in vanities,May he protect the wayward eye.Let all our inmost thoughts be pure,And heedlessness of heart be gone;Let self-denying drink and foodHold pride and flesh securely down,That when the day at length is past,And night in turn has come to men,Through abstinence from earth, we mayGive thee the only glory then.To God the Father be the praise,And to his sole-begotten Son,And to the Holy Paraclete,Now and until all time be done.ECCE JAM NOCTIS TENUATUR UMBRA.Lo, now, the shadows of the night are breaking,While in the east the rising daylight brightens,Therefore with praises will we all adore thee,Lord God Almighty!How doth our God, commiserating mortals,Drive away sorrow, offering them safety,Since he shall give us, through paternal kindness,Rule in the heavens!This let the blessed Deity afford us,Father and Son and equal Holy Spirit,Whose through the earth be glory in all placesEver resounding.Also this translation of the Breviary recast of theUrbs beata Hierusalemof the seventh or eighth century:COELESTIS URBS JERUSALEM.O heavenly town, Jerusalem,Thou blessed dawn of peace,How lofty from the living rockThy starry walls increase,Where thousand, thousand angels stand,And praises never cease.O bride, whose lot is aye serene,The Father’s state is thine;Thou art the ever-fairest queenAdorned with grace divine;United unto Christ, thy Head,Thy heavenly form doth shine.How softly gleam thy pearly gatesWhich open wide to all,Here virtue entered long ago,And unto men doth call,Who loved the Lord through mortal pain,And fought and did not fall.Thy beauty came by chisel strokeAnd many a hammer-blow;The workman’s hammer wrought the stoneWhich buildeth thee below;And joined with bonds of aptest skillThy splendid turrets glow.Then honor unto God most highAs it was due of yore;And thus the Father’s only SonAnd Spirit we adore,To whom be glory, power, and praiseThrough ages evermore.To these Dr. A. R. Thompson permits us to add, as a specimen of the later hymns of the Latin Church, his translation ofCUR RELINQUIS, DEUS, COELUM.O God, why didst thou put asideFor this vile earth thy heaven above?Didst thou expect there would betideThee here the ministry of love?That earth had honor, Lord, for thee?Honor and love! nay, verily,Lying in wickedness, earth knowsNot how to love thee, but thy foes.Bethlehem proved what love for theeThis present evil world hath, whenShe shut against thee cruellyThe doors left wide for other men,And forced thee to the hovel, where—Wide open to the winter air—The very beasts could scarcely live;No other shelter would she give.Come, Jesus, from that hovel cold,Exposed to all the winds that blow,Chilled by discomfort manifold,From the poor couch all wet with snow.My all a couch for thee I make,My heart the shelter thou shall take.I give it all, I give my best,That were for thee a better rest.My heart to love thee, Lord, desires,And, loving, proffers love’s warm kiss.The kiss, to give which she aspires,Honor and adoration is.Take thou from me this honor true;Take thou the love which is thy due;For this, my loyal offering,Out of my very heart I bring.My heart, all burning with the fireOf love to thee, would cherish thine;But thou that love canst kindle higher,And thou wilt rather cherish mine.For thou art Love, and canst inflameThe hearts of them that love thy nameWith thine own self, and not with wood;Thou art the very Fire of God.Come, then, O Fire of God, to me!Come, Love, and never more depart!Enter the place prepared for thee,The shelter of my loving heart!I’ll spread thee there a couch of rest,And deem myself supremely blest,If I may evermore abideLoving, belovèd, at thy side.While we have to treat rather of hymns than of hymn-writers in dealing with the Roman Breviary, there is much of personal interest attaching to the Breviary of Paris, its great rival in hymnological interest. A slight revision of the hymns of this Breviary was effected in 1527—of which theUrbs Jerusalem beatais a type—and only with the idea of correcting corruptions of the text. But the Roman revision of 1568-1631 affected the Gallican Church’s services very slightly. In no part of the Roman Catholic world were the rights of the national Church guarded so carefully as in France, until Napoleon bargained them away by the Concordat of 1801. The French bishops and monastic orders continued to retain their old service-books long after uniformity had been established, under plea of unity, in other parts of the Church; and they made such alterations in them as they thought necessary to the edification of their people.It was the Order of Cluny which first took steps toward the substitution of new hymns for those whose use had been sanctioned by long tradition. The general chapter of that branch of the great Benedictine family in 1676-78 charged Paul Rabusson and Claude de Vert with the preparation of a new Breviary. On Rabusson, who was teaching theology in the monastery of St. Martin des Champs in Paris, the labor chiefly fell. He applied to Claude Santeul, a pensioner of the ecclesiastical seminary attached to the Abbey of St. Magloire, asking him to prepare thenew hymns. Claude Santeul (Santolius Maglorianus) agreed to do so, and made some progress in the work. He finished six hymns, which were inserted in the new Breviary, and at his death (1684) he left two manuscript volumes of unfinished hymns among his papers. But he found that his being selected had excited the jealousy of his younger brother, Jean Santeul, a canon of the monastery of St. Victor (Santolius Victorinus), who already was recognized as the finest, but by no means the most edifying of the Latin poets of the France of his time.Claude gladly gave place to his brother—who was accepted by the Cluny Fathers—in the hope that the work of writing hymns would divert him from the pagan poetizing, which was regarded as unbecoming to his cloth. Jean Santeul is the oddest figure in the annals of Latin hymnology, which is saying a good deal. He is “a man of whom it is hard to speak without falling into caricature,” Sainte-Beuve says (Causeries de Lundi, XII., 20-56). He combined the talent of a poet of nature’s making with the simplicity of a child and the vanity and wit of a genuine Frenchman. He recalls La Fontaine by many of his traits, and, under the name of “Theodas,” he has furnished La Bruyère with the materials for one of the cleverest portraits in theCaractères(1687). His mode of life was a scandal to De Rance and other severe Churchmen, who were laboring for the restoration of strict monastic discipline. His love of good living and the charm of his society and his talk carried him off from his monastery and his hours, sometimes for weeks together. His Latin inscriptions, which adorned the fountains, bridges, and public monuments of Paris, at once gave him recognition as the poet laureate and pensioner of thegrande monarque, and as a priest whose poetry dealt more in the pagan deities than in any distinctively Christian references. He was not an immoral man in any gross sense. Even as abon vivant, he does not seem to have transgressed what were recognized as the bounds of sobriety, and his poetry is as free as was his life from licentiousness. But he was frivolous, gay, reckless, and as worldly as was consistent with his being a grown-up child. Everybody, even severe and silent De Rance at La Trappe, liked him, but everybody shook his head over the inconsistency of his life with his monastic vocation, and none more sorrowfully than his good brother Claude at St. Magloire.Now at last there seemed to be the opportunity to reclaim him by occupying his mind and his art with serious subjects, and by bringing him into edifying associations with good men. That he was not enough of a theologian to discharge the task satisfactorily of himself, was rather an advantage from this point of view. The eloquent and learned Jansenist, Nicolas le Tourneux, undertook the work of coaching him. The partnership worked reasonably well. Of course hymns produced by this kind of division of labor, in which one took care of the sense and another of the expression, have the defects of their method. But Le Tourneux was as careful of the poet as of his verse. His severe eye detected the play of Santeul’s vanity even in the work of writing hymns. “Reflect, my dear brother,” he wrote, “that while in the visible and militant Church one may sing the praises of God with an impure heart and defiled lips, it will not be so in heaven. You have burnt incense in your verse, but there was strange fire in the censer. Vanity furnishes your motive where it ought to be charity.” He objects to Santeul’s calling himself “the poet of Jesus Christ,” while he admits that vain glory leads him to write hymns. “If you and I were all we ought to be,” wrote the severe Jansenist, “we would quake with fear at having dared, you to sing and I to preach of the holiness of God, without a right sense of it. We shall be only too happy if He pardon our sermons and our verses.” Perhaps the severity was needed and did good.So Le Tourneux suggested and all but wrote the prayer in which Santeul dedicated his hymns to our Lord: “Receive what is Thine; forgive what is mine. Thine is whatever I have uttered that is good and holy. Mine that I have handled Thy good things unworthily, and not from desire to please Thee, but from an undue pride of poetry, of which I am ashamed. Thou hast given me songs to praise Thee. Give me prayers, give me tears to wash away the stains of a life less than Christian.”His hymns must have circulated in manuscript before their publication, for we find De Rance in 1683 praising those in commemoration of St. Bernard, while noticing that the old hymns, if less excellent as literature, had a more reverential spirit. In 1685, a year in advance of the new Breviary, Santeul published them in the first collection he made of them.[21]Their merits made a muchdeeper impression than their defects. Scholars and Churchmen alike were struck by their rhetorical vigor, the frequent boldness of their conception, the beautiful succession of sentiments and images, the exquisite clearness of the sense, and not by the factitious character of their enthusiasm, as Sainte-Beuve puts it, or the frequent monotony in the treatment of cognate themes. The Breviary, in fact, had ceased to be the voice of the Christian congregation. The supersession of Latin by the national languages of Western Europe had made it the prayer-book of a class educated to relish only the classic forms of Latin verse, and to regard the simplicity of the early hymn-writers as barbarous. Santeul wrote for priests whose tastes had been formed on Horace and Virgil, and he brought into these rigid forms as much of genuine Christian feeling and doctrine as the age required. He was all the happier in these respects, as Le Tourneux, who himself contributed to the new Breviary, was of that Jansenist school in which religion, belittled by the pettiness and the casuistry of the Jesuits, once more presented itself in its grandeur and its severity.The excellence of Santeul’s hymns at once created a demand for their introduction in other churches and dioceses, and for his services as a hymn-writer. Several of the best were introduced by Archbishop Harlay into the later editions of his revised Paris Breviary, which had appeared in 1680. So the bishops of many other French dioceses—Rouen, Sens, Narbonne, Massillon of Clermont, and others—adopted his hymns into their breviaries after his death. And as he gallantly said, he had the pleasure while still living of hearing them “sung by the angels at Port Royal.” Other orders begged him to commemorate their founders and their especial saints; dioceses and churches in other parts ofFrance invoked his good offices. Hence it is that of his two hundred and twenty-eight hymns not one in five is occupied with the great festivals of the Church year, but are specific or general hymns to the honor of the saints, martyrs, and doctors of the Church of France especially.The rush of popularity—not unaccompanied by solid rewards, for the good fathers of the Cluny Order gave him a pension—seems to have turned Santeul’s not very well-balanced head. Le Tourneux’s admonitions were forgotten. He ran from church to church to hear his hymns sung, and scandalized congregations by his demonstrations of delight or disgust as the music was appropriate or otherwise; he declaimed them in all sorts of places, suitable and unsuitable, to extort the admiration he loved so dearly. He did not forget to tell that even the severe De Rance had written from La Trappe to thank him for his hymn on St. Bernard, but that for his own part he valued the general hymn on the Doctors of the Church above any other. Naturally he had little good to say of the hymns his were to displace. If anything could make a pagan of him, it would be the bad grammar of those old monkish poets, who sacrificed sense and grammar alike to their stupid rhymes. And so he would run on by the hour to anybody who would listen, with an egotism whose very childishness and frankness made it inoffensive.Of course he claimed the distinction of being the best Latin poet in France. French poetry he despised, as being written in a language incapable of the terse elegance of Latin. But in Latin verse he would hear of no rival. Du Périer, who had quite as much vanity, with only a fraction of his genius, challenged his pretensions. The two poets wrote verses on the same theme, and then set out to find an arbiter. The first friend to whom they appealed was Ménage, who evaded the responsibility by declaring them equally excellent. The next they met was Racine. He first got possession of the stakes and deposited them in the poor’s box at the door of a church near by, and then gave the poets a round scolding for their absurd rivalry!The hymns of Santeul are best known to English readers throughHymns Ancient and Modern, which contain some very fine versions, original and selected. Not included there is that which Sainte Beuve pronounces his finest hymn, and for whose retentionin the Breviary he pleads against the crusaders, who in the name of antiquity insist on replacing Santeul and Coffin by Strada and Galucci. Out of respect for the greatest of modern critics, we reprint it, with a translation from the pen of Dr. A. R. Thompson. It commemorates the Presentation of our Lord in the Temple.Stupete gentes, fit Deus hostia:Se sponte legi Legifer obligat:Orbis Redemptor nunc redemptus:Seque piat sine labe mater.De more matrum, Virgo puerperaTemplo statutos abstinuit dies.Intrare sanctam quid pavebas,Facta Dei prius ipsa templum?Ara sub una se vovit hostiaTriplex: honorem virgineum immolatVirgo sacerdos, parva mollisMembra puer, seniorque vitam.Eheu! quot enses transadigent tuumPectus! quot altis nata doloribus,O Virgo! Quem gestas, cruentamImbuet hic sacer Agnus aram.Christus futuro, corpus adhuc tener,Praeludit insons victima funeri:Crescet; profuso vir cruore,Omne scelus moriens piabit.Sit summa Patri, summaque Filio,Sanctoque compar gloria Flamini:Sanctae litemus TrinitatiPerpetuo pia corda cultu.Wonder, ye nations! divine is the sacrifice.Lo, his own law the Lawgiver obeys!Now the Redeemer redeemed is, and purifiesHerself the mother pure. Look with amaze!All the days set by the law for a mother,She from the temple of God hath delayed.Why should she stay without, as might another,She who the temple of God hath been made?At the one altar threefold is the sacrifice.Mother, who offers her pure virgin heart;Babe, his fair body that in her fond arms lies;Aged saint, life, ready now to depart.Oh but what sword through her heart shall be going!Oh to what sorrow is born her fair child!Over what altar his blood will be flowing!He whom she bears, the Lamb holy and mild.Christ, in his infantile body so tender,Spotless in purity, here hath foreshown,Sign of the sacrifice he shall yet render,Dying the sin of the world to atone.Now to the Father in glory supernal,Now to the Son, and the Spirit above,Now to the Triune, all holy, eternal,Worship be ever in faith and in love!As a poet Santeul fell from grace in 1689, when he fell back on his pagan divinities in a poem addressed to the keeper of the royal gardens. Bossuet made a great ado over it, but Fénelon and others judged him more gently. Next year he goes to see La Trappe, and writes a fine poem on Holy Solitude (Sancta Solitudo), which extorted fresh praise from De Rance, and afterward from Sainte-Beuve. But four years later he got into the worst scrape of his life by a flattering epitaph on the great Arnauld, who died in 1694. Santeul always had been more or less associated with the Jansenist party, a fact which was not forgotten when his hymns were expelled from the churches of France in our own century. There is preserved an account of a visit he paid to Port Royal, in which he chattered to the nuns with equal freedom of his own hymns and of their virtues. But he was not of the stuff of which martyrs are made. The Jesuits had the king’s ear, and he was a pensioner of the king’s bounty. They assailed him for his eulogy of the arch-Jansenist, and threatened him with the disfavor of Louis XIV.; and he hastened to make amends in a poetical epistle, of which he made two copies. By the adroit change of the tense of a single word he made the copy for the Jesuits retract his praises of his great friend, while that for the general public did nothing of the sort. As a consequence he came off with no crediton either side. Both Jesuits and Jansenists resented his duplicity, and a fine shower of squibs and pamphlets fell on him from both the hostile forces, until he was forced to cry for quarter, and Bourdaloue made his peace.He died in 1697 in Burgundy, whither he had accompanied the younger Condé to the meeting of the Estates. St. Simon has told a very unpleasant story of the cause of his death. He ascribes it to Condé’s having made him drink a bowl of wine into which he had emptied his snuff-box, “just to see what would come of it.” But the prince of scandalmongers has been disproven on this point. Santeul’s death was due to no such cause, but to an inflammation of the bowels and to the malpractice of his doctors, who gave him emetics under the false impression that he was suffering from a surfeit. He made a good end, dying with resignation, and begging pardon for the scandal his life had caused.His hymns were not without their critics in his own age. Jean Baptiste Thiers, a parish priest of great learning and bad temper, assailed the Breviary of Cluny (in hisCommentarii de novo Breviario Cluniacensi, Brussels, 1702), and did not spare Santeul’s hymns, which he declared to be much inferior to those which had come down from the earlier days of the Church. He declared that Santeul had a greater abundance of words than of sense, that he had almost no powers of thought, and that some of his images, such as that in which he wreathes a garland of stones for the martyr Stephen, were simply ridiculous. He was answered not by Rabusson, but by his associate, Claude de Vert, after what fashion I do not know.It was in 1736 that the Breviary of the Diocese of Paris was published in its third and final revision by a commission of three ecclesiastics: François-Antoine Vigier, François-Philippe Mesengui, and Charles Coffin. It is a significant fact that the second belonged to that Jansenist party in the Church which the relentless efforts of the Pope, the hierarchy, and the kings of France had not been able to exterminate. Archbishop de Vintimille was as eager to accomplish that as his predecessors had been, and he was ably seconded by that pious and orthodox prince, Louis XV. But this revision, like that of 1670-80, was a concession to the historical criticism which the Jansenists had brought to bear upon theChurch books both as to the legends of the saints and the extravagances of the growing devotion to the Mother of our Lord. Mesengui had been dismissed from the post Coffin had given him in the University of Paris for his opposition to the bullUnigenitus, which condemned Quesnel’s JansenistReflections on the New Testament. Coffin’s sympathies lay in the same direction.Charles Coffin is the man of the three who chiefly concerns us here. Born at Buzancy, hard by Rheims, in 1676, he very early distinguished himself as a Latin poet and an educator. He graduated at Paris in 1701, and became a teacher in the College of Dormans-Beauvais, and then its principal in 1713. Five years later he was chosen to succeed Rollin as Rector of the University of Paris. He at once showed his force of character by revolutionizing the relation of the university to the public through abolishing the fees exacted of the students. To replace them he extended and developed the system of posts and messages, which the university had established in the thirteenth century and which coexisted with the post-office system of the government, of which it was the forerunner. He devoted its revenues to the support of the colleges. He must have been a character of great administrative capacity, as his plans had entire success, and probably did much to foster the development of the post-office system of France. After remaining rector for three years, he went back to his place at the head of the Dormans-Beauvais College, and remained there till his death.It was in 1727 that Charles Coffin published his first volume of Latin poetry. The most notable piece in the collection was a fine ode in praise of Champagne. So much were the people of the Champagne country pleased with it, that they sent him a hamper of every vintage as long as he lived, which was twenty-two years. He also had a hand in carrying Cardinal de Polignac’s great poem,Anti-Lucretius, to the state of completeness in which it was given to the public in 1745, three years after its author’s death. He undertook the work of revising the old hymns and preparing new with great reluctance, yielding only to the entreaties of the archbishop.It was in 1736 that the Breviary Commission finished their labors and the archbishop gave to the diocese the new Breviary, which was adopted by more than fifty French dioceses. Its general character does not concern us here. It is with its hymnsalone we have to do. About seventy of the primitive and mediaeval hymns still held their place in the Breviary of 1680, nearly half of them the work of Ambrose and his school. The revisers spared very few of these. Only twenty-one hymns of the earlier period were left, while eighty-five of Jean Santeul’s, nearly a hundred by Coffin himself—including some recasts of old hymns—and ninety-seven by other authors, chiefly Frenchmen of later date, were inserted. There were eleven by Guillaume de la Brunetière, a friend of Bossuet’s; six each by Claude Santeul, Nicolas le Tourneux, and Sebastian Besnault, a priest of Sens; five by Isaac Habert, Bishop of Vabres; four by the Jesuit Jean Commire; two each by the Jesuit Francis Guyet and Simon Gourdan of the Abbey of St. Victor; one each by Marc Antoine Muretus, Denis Petau, and Guillaume du Plessis de Geste; one (or three) by M. Combault, a young friend of Charles Coffin’s. This was modernism with a vengeance! New hymns were nearly thirteen to one in proportion to those from the great storehouse of the ages before the Reformation. It is not wonderful that so extreme a policy called forth a reaction as soon as the Romanticist movement, with its juster appreciation of the Middle Ages, had reached France. But by the end of the eighteenth century the old Latin hymns were banished practically from France.As compared with Jean Santeul, Charles Coffin displays much less poetic audacity than his predecessor. You do not feel that poetry filled the same place in his intellectual existence, or that he was under the same necessity to write it. He has less genius, but a great talent for verse. And—what the critics of that age valued the most—he was more correct in his handling of the vocabulary and the metre of Latin versification. Santeul found classic Latin, much as he admired it, something of a fetter to the free movement of his genius. It was a dead language he was trying to put intense life into—an old bottle for his new wine—and at times the bottle burst. Just because Charles Coffin’s wine is not so new, his inspiration not so fresh, the bottle holds out better. And then he had the greater advantage of a closer familiarity with the ideas he wished to embody in his hymns, and with their sources in the Scriptures, and a more practical capacity for the application of his powers to the object in hand. His hymns are always in place; they are hymns of the Breviary, not brilliant poems onBreviary subjects by a poet writing for glory. I do not say that Charles Coffin was the better man; God only knows; and I must confess to a liking for “the gay canon of St. Victor” which the rector of the university does not inspire in me. There is a Burns-like humanity in him and his harmless vanities which wins our love still, as it did that of his contemporaries. But Charles Coffin had a certain suitableness to his work which Jean Santeul lacked. He was an eminently dignified, respectable, and useful character, who impressed himself upon a whole generation of young Frenchmen, many of whom rose to eminence at the bar, in the public service, and even in the army. They all looked back to him with great respect. I wonder if they loved him as Mark Hopkins and George Allen are loved by those who studied under them. And in Charles Coffin’s hymns you meet the same admirable traits as in his public work. He is a man of enlightenment, dignity, devoutness, and eminent usefulness, without a touch of Rabelaisianabandonto remind you of Béranger’s saying: “All weFrançaisare children of the great François.” Of that he reminds you only in his sparkling, effervescent ode to Champagne, in reply to Bénigne Grenan’s overpraise of Burgundy. It was to be expected that when the advocates of liturgical uniformity made their attack upon the Paris Breviary, beginning with Gueranger’sInstitutions Liturgiques(1840-42), it was Santeul whom they especially attacked, although not he but Coffin was responsible for its hymnology.Charles Coffin’s hymns have a high level of excellence, which makes it difficult to anthologize among them. Certainly not the worst are the four Advent hymns (Instantis adventum Dei;Jordanis oras praevia;Statuta decreto Dei; andIn noctis umbra desides); that for Christmas (Jam desinant suspiria) and the Vesper hymn (O luce qui mortalibus); the Passion hymn (Opprobriis Jesu satur); the fine series of seven hymns for the nocturn services throughout the week, based on the seven days of Creation; and the hymn for Epiphany (Quae stella sole pulchrior). These and most of his acknowledged hymns are known to us in the translations of Williams, Chandler, and Mant, and several of these are inHymns Ancient and Modern.As an editor he altered and even tinkered, as well as adapted and wrote hymns. Even Jean Santeul did not escape his hand.One of the hymns ascribed to him in the Paris Breviary is a cento from no less than twelve of his own hymns. From the wrath he showed when such changes were made in his lifetime, we may infer that he would have liked this as little as did John Wesley. And the older hymns were handled in the same way. A good example of Charles Coffin’s method of recasting old hymns is furnished by his version of theAd coenam Agni providi, which already has been given in its original shape and in that of the Roman Breviary. With these the reader may compare Coffin’s revision, which will be seen to vary very widely from the old text of the ninth century:Forti tegente brachio,Evasimus Rubrum mare,Tandem durum perfidiJugum tyranni fregimus.Nunc ergo laetas vindiciGrates rependamus Deo;Agnique mensam candidisCingamus ornati stolis.Hujus sacrato corpore,Amoris igne fervidi,Vescamur atque sanguine:Vescendo, vivimus Deo.Jam Pascha nostrum Christus est,Hic agnus, haec est victimaCruore cujus illitosTransmittit ultor angelus.O digna coelo victima,Mors ipsa per quam vincitur,Per quam refractis inferiPraedam relaxant postibus.Christi sepulchri faucibusEmersus ad lucem redit;Hostem retrudit tartaro,Coelique pandit intima.Da Christe, nos tecum moriTecum simul da surgere:Terrena da contemnere;Amare da coelestia.It will be observed that while the ideas, and even to some extent the phraseology of the old hymn are retained in the first six verses, their order is so changed as to suggest that we have an original hymn before us, if we do not look closely. But the last verse is altogether different. The old poet prayed that the paschal joy might be made unending through the deliverance of the regenerate from the death eternal. The modern prays that we may share mystically in the death and resurrection of Christ, and learn thereby to set our affections on things above. Similar are his recasts of theSalvete flores Martyrumof Prudentius, and the AmbrosianJam lucis orto sidere.Mr. Duffield has left only one completed version of a hymn from the Paris Breviary, and that one whose authorship I am unable to determine. It attracted him as one of the surprisingly few hymns in which the comparison of the Christian life to a warfare, so frequently used by our Lord and the Apostle Paul, is employed as a leading idea. His interest in such hymns no doubt was first awakened by his father’s admirable and popular one:“Stand up, stand up for Jesus,”suggested by the dying words of Dudley Tyng. We give both the Latin and his English version:Pugnate, Christi milites,Fortes fide resistite:Immensa promisit DeusPio labori praemia.Non ille fluxas ac levesPalmas dabit vincentibus;Sed lucis aeternae decus,Et pura semper gaudia.Mentes beatas excipitFormosa coelitum domus:Hic turba, coelis altior,Subjecta calcat sidera.Caduca vobis praemiaOffert levis mundi favor:Vultus ad astra tollite;Hic ipse fit merces Deus.Qui nos coronat, laus Patri,Laus qui redemit, Filio;Alma juvans nos gratia,Sit par tibi laus, Spiritus.Fight on, ye Christian soldiers,And bravely keep the faith,For great reward shall follow,As God’s own promise saith.Not palms that wave and flutterShall be the victor’s crown,But grace of light eternal,And joy of pure renown.That blessed heavenly mansionShall take each happy soul;Their throng, high raised in glory,Shall tread the starry pole.Earth’s honor is but failing,Her gifts are light as air;Lift up your eyes to heaven,For God’s reward is there.Praise God, who crowns the battle,And Christ, who comes to save,And praise the Holy Spirit,Whose grace our spirits crave.By kindness of Dr. A. R. Thompson we add two translations from Charles Coffin’s hymns:QUA STELLA SOLE PULCHRIOR.What star is this whose glorious lightOutshines the morn,The herald of the King new-born!Its radiance bright,A heavenly sign,Streams o’er the cradle of the Babe divine.Faith, standing with the prophets old,Sees down the skiesThe promised Star from Jacob rise.The sign foretoldShe knows full well,And straightway seeks the wondrous spectacle.The lustrous star gives warning fairTo all the earth,But chiefly men of Eastern birth,With pious care,The warning heed,And seeking Christ upon their journey speed.Their eager love knows no delay;Danger nor toilTheir purpose resolute can foil.They haste awayFrom home and kind,And country, at God’s call, the Christ to find.O Christ our Lord, thy star of graceLeads us to thee!Help these dull hearts of ours to beFirst at the place,Intent to proveTo thee, O Lord, our faith and hope and love.LABENTE JAM SOLIS.Now with the declining sun,Day to night is passing on.So doth mortal life descendSwiftly to its destined end.From the cross, thine arms spread wideFold the world, O Crucified!Help us love the cross. In thyDear embrace help us to die!

Divina cujus charitasSacrum propinat sanguinem,Almique membra corporisAmor sacerdos immolat

Divina cujus charitas

Sacrum propinat sanguinem,

Almique membra corporis

Amor sacerdos immolat

Sparsum cruorem postibusVastator horret angelus:Fugitque divisum mareMerguntur hostes fluctibus.

Sparsum cruorem postibus

Vastator horret angelus:

Fugitque divisum mare

Merguntur hostes fluctibus.

Jam Pascha nostrum Christus estPaschalis idem victima,Et pura puris mentibusSinceritatis azyma

Jam Pascha nostrum Christus est

Paschalis idem victima,

Et pura puris mentibus

Sinceritatis azyma

O vera coeli victimaSubjecta cui sunt tartara,Soluta mortis vincula,Recepta vitae praemia

O vera coeli victima

Subjecta cui sunt tartara,

Soluta mortis vincula,

Recepta vitae praemia

Victor subactis inferisTrophaea Christus explicat,Coeloque aperto, subditumRegem tenebrarum trahit.

Victor subactis inferis

Trophaea Christus explicat,

Coeloque aperto, subditum

Regem tenebrarum trahit.

Ut sis perenne mentibusPaschale, Jesu, gaudium:A morte dira criminumVitae renatos libera.

Ut sis perenne mentibus

Paschale, Jesu, gaudium:

A morte dira criminum

Vitae renatos libera.

Now it is impossible to deny to the revised version merits of its own. Not only does it use the Latin words which classic usage requires—asdapesin poetry forcoena,receptaforreddita,inferisforbarathro—but it brings into clearer view the facts of the Old Testament story which the hymn treats as typical of the Christian passover. The (imperfect) rhyme of the original is everywhere sacrificed to the demands of metre, which probably is no loss. But the gain is not in simplicity, vigor, and freshness. In these the old hymn is much superior. The last verse but one, for instance, presents in the old hymn a distinct and living picture—the picture Luther tells us he delighted in when a boy chorister singing the Easter songs of the Church. But in the recast the vividnessis blurred, and classic reminiscence takes the place of the simple and direct speech the early Church made for itself out of the Latin tongue.

Take again the first part of the dedication hymn, of whichAngulare fundamentumis the conclusion:

Urbs beata HierusalemDicta pacis visioQuae construitur in coelisVivis ex lapidibusEt angelis coronataUt sponsata comite

Urbs beata Hierusalem

Dicta pacis visio

Quae construitur in coelis

Vivis ex lapidibus

Et angelis coronata

Ut sponsata comite

Nova veniens e coeloNuptiali thalamoPraeparata, ut sponsataCopulatur domino,Plateae et muri ejusEx auro purissimo

Nova veniens e coelo

Nuptiali thalamo

Praeparata, ut sponsata

Copulatur domino,

Plateae et muri ejus

Ex auro purissimo

Portae nitent margaritisAdytis patentibus,Et virtute meritorumIlluc introduciturOmnis, qui pro Christi nomineHoc in mundo premitur

Portae nitent margaritis

Adytis patentibus,

Et virtute meritorum

Illuc introducitur

Omnis, qui pro Christi nomine

Hoc in mundo premitur

Tunsionibus, pressurisExpoliti lapidesSuis coaptantur locisPer manum artificis,Disponuntur permansuriSacris aedificiis.

Tunsionibus, pressuris

Expoliti lapides

Suis coaptantur locis

Per manum artificis,

Disponuntur permansuri

Sacris aedificiis.

Coelestis urbs JerusalemBeata pacis visioQuae celsa de viventibusSaxis ad astra tolleris,Sponsaeque ritu cingerisMille angelorum millibus.

Coelestis urbs Jerusalem

Beata pacis visio

Quae celsa de viventibus

Saxis ad astra tolleris,

Sponsaeque ritu cingeris

Mille angelorum millibus.

O sorte nupta prospera,Dotata Patris gloria,Respersa Sponsi gratiaRegina formosissima,Christo jugata principiCoelo corusca civitas.

O sorte nupta prospera,

Dotata Patris gloria,

Respersa Sponsi gratia

Regina formosissima,

Christo jugata principi

Coelo corusca civitas.

Hic margaritis emicantPatentque cunctis ostia,Virtute namque praeviaMortalis illuc duciturAmore Christi percitusTormenta quisquis sustinent.

Hic margaritis emicant

Patentque cunctis ostia,

Virtute namque praevia

Mortalis illuc ducitur

Amore Christi percitus

Tormenta quisquis sustinent.

Scalpri salubris ictibusEt tunsione plurima,Fabri polita malleoHanc saxa molem construunt,Aptisque juncta nexibusLocantur in fastidia.

Scalpri salubris ictibus

Et tunsione plurima,

Fabri polita malleo

Hanc saxa molem construunt,

Aptisque juncta nexibus

Locantur in fastidia.

Daniel in his first volume prints fifty-five of these recasts in parallel columns with the originals, and to that we will refer our readers for further specimens. It is gratifying to know that not all the scholarship of that age was insensible to the qualities which the revisers sacrificed. Henry Valesius, although only a layman and a lover of good Latin—as his versions of the historians of the early Church show—uttered a fierce but ineffectual protest in favor of the early and mediaeval hymns. And the Marquis of Bute, a convert to Catholicism, who published an English translationof the Breviary in 1879, says that the revisers of 1602 “with deplorable taste made a series of changes in the texts of the hymns, which has been disastrous both to the literary merit and the historical interest of the poems.” He hopes for a further revision which shall undo this mischief, but in other respects return to the type furnished by the Breviary of Quiñonez.

The translations from the hymns of the Roman Breviary have been very abundant. Those by Protestants have been due to the fact that the texts even of ancient hymns were so much more accessible in their Breviary version than in their original form. Among Roman Catholics, of course, other considerations have weight; and in Mr. Edward Caswall’sLyra Catholicaand Mr. Orby Shipley’sAnnus Sanctuswill be found some very admirable versions. The latter book is an anthology from the Roman Catholic translators from John Dryden to John Henry Newman.

From the Breviary text Mr. Duffield has made the following translations of two hymns by Gregory the Great:

Now with the risen star of dawn,To God as suppliants we pray,That he may keep us free from harm,And guide us through an active day.

Now with the risen star of dawn,

To God as suppliants we pray,

That he may keep us free from harm,

And guide us through an active day.

May he, restraining, guard the tongue,Lest it be found to strive and cry,And, lest it drink in vanities,May he protect the wayward eye.

May he, restraining, guard the tongue,

Lest it be found to strive and cry,

And, lest it drink in vanities,

May he protect the wayward eye.

Let all our inmost thoughts be pure,And heedlessness of heart be gone;Let self-denying drink and foodHold pride and flesh securely down,

Let all our inmost thoughts be pure,

And heedlessness of heart be gone;

Let self-denying drink and food

Hold pride and flesh securely down,

That when the day at length is past,And night in turn has come to men,Through abstinence from earth, we mayGive thee the only glory then.

That when the day at length is past,

And night in turn has come to men,

Through abstinence from earth, we may

Give thee the only glory then.

To God the Father be the praise,And to his sole-begotten Son,And to the Holy Paraclete,Now and until all time be done.

To God the Father be the praise,

And to his sole-begotten Son,

And to the Holy Paraclete,

Now and until all time be done.

Lo, now, the shadows of the night are breaking,While in the east the rising daylight brightens,Therefore with praises will we all adore thee,Lord God Almighty!

Lo, now, the shadows of the night are breaking,

While in the east the rising daylight brightens,

Therefore with praises will we all adore thee,

Lord God Almighty!

How doth our God, commiserating mortals,Drive away sorrow, offering them safety,Since he shall give us, through paternal kindness,Rule in the heavens!

How doth our God, commiserating mortals,

Drive away sorrow, offering them safety,

Since he shall give us, through paternal kindness,

Rule in the heavens!

This let the blessed Deity afford us,Father and Son and equal Holy Spirit,Whose through the earth be glory in all placesEver resounding.

This let the blessed Deity afford us,

Father and Son and equal Holy Spirit,

Whose through the earth be glory in all places

Ever resounding.

Also this translation of the Breviary recast of theUrbs beata Hierusalemof the seventh or eighth century:

O heavenly town, Jerusalem,Thou blessed dawn of peace,How lofty from the living rockThy starry walls increase,Where thousand, thousand angels stand,And praises never cease.

O heavenly town, Jerusalem,

Thou blessed dawn of peace,

How lofty from the living rock

Thy starry walls increase,

Where thousand, thousand angels stand,

And praises never cease.

O bride, whose lot is aye serene,The Father’s state is thine;Thou art the ever-fairest queenAdorned with grace divine;United unto Christ, thy Head,Thy heavenly form doth shine.

O bride, whose lot is aye serene,

The Father’s state is thine;

Thou art the ever-fairest queen

Adorned with grace divine;

United unto Christ, thy Head,

Thy heavenly form doth shine.

How softly gleam thy pearly gatesWhich open wide to all,Here virtue entered long ago,And unto men doth call,Who loved the Lord through mortal pain,And fought and did not fall.

How softly gleam thy pearly gates

Which open wide to all,

Here virtue entered long ago,

And unto men doth call,

Who loved the Lord through mortal pain,

And fought and did not fall.

Thy beauty came by chisel strokeAnd many a hammer-blow;The workman’s hammer wrought the stoneWhich buildeth thee below;And joined with bonds of aptest skillThy splendid turrets glow.

Thy beauty came by chisel stroke

And many a hammer-blow;

The workman’s hammer wrought the stone

Which buildeth thee below;

And joined with bonds of aptest skill

Thy splendid turrets glow.

Then honor unto God most highAs it was due of yore;And thus the Father’s only SonAnd Spirit we adore,To whom be glory, power, and praiseThrough ages evermore.

Then honor unto God most high

As it was due of yore;

And thus the Father’s only Son

And Spirit we adore,

To whom be glory, power, and praise

Through ages evermore.

To these Dr. A. R. Thompson permits us to add, as a specimen of the later hymns of the Latin Church, his translation of

O God, why didst thou put asideFor this vile earth thy heaven above?Didst thou expect there would betideThee here the ministry of love?That earth had honor, Lord, for thee?Honor and love! nay, verily,Lying in wickedness, earth knowsNot how to love thee, but thy foes.

O God, why didst thou put aside

For this vile earth thy heaven above?

Didst thou expect there would betide

Thee here the ministry of love?

That earth had honor, Lord, for thee?

Honor and love! nay, verily,

Lying in wickedness, earth knows

Not how to love thee, but thy foes.

Bethlehem proved what love for theeThis present evil world hath, whenShe shut against thee cruellyThe doors left wide for other men,And forced thee to the hovel, where—Wide open to the winter air—The very beasts could scarcely live;No other shelter would she give.

Bethlehem proved what love for thee

This present evil world hath, when

She shut against thee cruelly

The doors left wide for other men,

And forced thee to the hovel, where—

Wide open to the winter air—

The very beasts could scarcely live;

No other shelter would she give.

Come, Jesus, from that hovel cold,Exposed to all the winds that blow,Chilled by discomfort manifold,From the poor couch all wet with snow.My all a couch for thee I make,My heart the shelter thou shall take.I give it all, I give my best,That were for thee a better rest.

Come, Jesus, from that hovel cold,

Exposed to all the winds that blow,

Chilled by discomfort manifold,

From the poor couch all wet with snow.

My all a couch for thee I make,

My heart the shelter thou shall take.

I give it all, I give my best,

That were for thee a better rest.

My heart to love thee, Lord, desires,And, loving, proffers love’s warm kiss.The kiss, to give which she aspires,Honor and adoration is.Take thou from me this honor true;Take thou the love which is thy due;For this, my loyal offering,Out of my very heart I bring.

My heart to love thee, Lord, desires,

And, loving, proffers love’s warm kiss.

The kiss, to give which she aspires,

Honor and adoration is.

Take thou from me this honor true;

Take thou the love which is thy due;

For this, my loyal offering,

Out of my very heart I bring.

My heart, all burning with the fireOf love to thee, would cherish thine;But thou that love canst kindle higher,And thou wilt rather cherish mine.For thou art Love, and canst inflameThe hearts of them that love thy nameWith thine own self, and not with wood;Thou art the very Fire of God.

My heart, all burning with the fire

Of love to thee, would cherish thine;

But thou that love canst kindle higher,

And thou wilt rather cherish mine.

For thou art Love, and canst inflame

The hearts of them that love thy name

With thine own self, and not with wood;

Thou art the very Fire of God.

Come, then, O Fire of God, to me!Come, Love, and never more depart!Enter the place prepared for thee,The shelter of my loving heart!I’ll spread thee there a couch of rest,And deem myself supremely blest,If I may evermore abideLoving, belovèd, at thy side.

Come, then, O Fire of God, to me!

Come, Love, and never more depart!

Enter the place prepared for thee,

The shelter of my loving heart!

I’ll spread thee there a couch of rest,

And deem myself supremely blest,

If I may evermore abide

Loving, belovèd, at thy side.

While we have to treat rather of hymns than of hymn-writers in dealing with the Roman Breviary, there is much of personal interest attaching to the Breviary of Paris, its great rival in hymnological interest. A slight revision of the hymns of this Breviary was effected in 1527—of which theUrbs Jerusalem beatais a type—and only with the idea of correcting corruptions of the text. But the Roman revision of 1568-1631 affected the Gallican Church’s services very slightly. In no part of the Roman Catholic world were the rights of the national Church guarded so carefully as in France, until Napoleon bargained them away by the Concordat of 1801. The French bishops and monastic orders continued to retain their old service-books long after uniformity had been established, under plea of unity, in other parts of the Church; and they made such alterations in them as they thought necessary to the edification of their people.

It was the Order of Cluny which first took steps toward the substitution of new hymns for those whose use had been sanctioned by long tradition. The general chapter of that branch of the great Benedictine family in 1676-78 charged Paul Rabusson and Claude de Vert with the preparation of a new Breviary. On Rabusson, who was teaching theology in the monastery of St. Martin des Champs in Paris, the labor chiefly fell. He applied to Claude Santeul, a pensioner of the ecclesiastical seminary attached to the Abbey of St. Magloire, asking him to prepare thenew hymns. Claude Santeul (Santolius Maglorianus) agreed to do so, and made some progress in the work. He finished six hymns, which were inserted in the new Breviary, and at his death (1684) he left two manuscript volumes of unfinished hymns among his papers. But he found that his being selected had excited the jealousy of his younger brother, Jean Santeul, a canon of the monastery of St. Victor (Santolius Victorinus), who already was recognized as the finest, but by no means the most edifying of the Latin poets of the France of his time.

Claude gladly gave place to his brother—who was accepted by the Cluny Fathers—in the hope that the work of writing hymns would divert him from the pagan poetizing, which was regarded as unbecoming to his cloth. Jean Santeul is the oddest figure in the annals of Latin hymnology, which is saying a good deal. He is “a man of whom it is hard to speak without falling into caricature,” Sainte-Beuve says (Causeries de Lundi, XII., 20-56). He combined the talent of a poet of nature’s making with the simplicity of a child and the vanity and wit of a genuine Frenchman. He recalls La Fontaine by many of his traits, and, under the name of “Theodas,” he has furnished La Bruyère with the materials for one of the cleverest portraits in theCaractères(1687). His mode of life was a scandal to De Rance and other severe Churchmen, who were laboring for the restoration of strict monastic discipline. His love of good living and the charm of his society and his talk carried him off from his monastery and his hours, sometimes for weeks together. His Latin inscriptions, which adorned the fountains, bridges, and public monuments of Paris, at once gave him recognition as the poet laureate and pensioner of thegrande monarque, and as a priest whose poetry dealt more in the pagan deities than in any distinctively Christian references. He was not an immoral man in any gross sense. Even as abon vivant, he does not seem to have transgressed what were recognized as the bounds of sobriety, and his poetry is as free as was his life from licentiousness. But he was frivolous, gay, reckless, and as worldly as was consistent with his being a grown-up child. Everybody, even severe and silent De Rance at La Trappe, liked him, but everybody shook his head over the inconsistency of his life with his monastic vocation, and none more sorrowfully than his good brother Claude at St. Magloire.

Now at last there seemed to be the opportunity to reclaim him by occupying his mind and his art with serious subjects, and by bringing him into edifying associations with good men. That he was not enough of a theologian to discharge the task satisfactorily of himself, was rather an advantage from this point of view. The eloquent and learned Jansenist, Nicolas le Tourneux, undertook the work of coaching him. The partnership worked reasonably well. Of course hymns produced by this kind of division of labor, in which one took care of the sense and another of the expression, have the defects of their method. But Le Tourneux was as careful of the poet as of his verse. His severe eye detected the play of Santeul’s vanity even in the work of writing hymns. “Reflect, my dear brother,” he wrote, “that while in the visible and militant Church one may sing the praises of God with an impure heart and defiled lips, it will not be so in heaven. You have burnt incense in your verse, but there was strange fire in the censer. Vanity furnishes your motive where it ought to be charity.” He objects to Santeul’s calling himself “the poet of Jesus Christ,” while he admits that vain glory leads him to write hymns. “If you and I were all we ought to be,” wrote the severe Jansenist, “we would quake with fear at having dared, you to sing and I to preach of the holiness of God, without a right sense of it. We shall be only too happy if He pardon our sermons and our verses.” Perhaps the severity was needed and did good.

So Le Tourneux suggested and all but wrote the prayer in which Santeul dedicated his hymns to our Lord: “Receive what is Thine; forgive what is mine. Thine is whatever I have uttered that is good and holy. Mine that I have handled Thy good things unworthily, and not from desire to please Thee, but from an undue pride of poetry, of which I am ashamed. Thou hast given me songs to praise Thee. Give me prayers, give me tears to wash away the stains of a life less than Christian.”

His hymns must have circulated in manuscript before their publication, for we find De Rance in 1683 praising those in commemoration of St. Bernard, while noticing that the old hymns, if less excellent as literature, had a more reverential spirit. In 1685, a year in advance of the new Breviary, Santeul published them in the first collection he made of them.[21]Their merits made a muchdeeper impression than their defects. Scholars and Churchmen alike were struck by their rhetorical vigor, the frequent boldness of their conception, the beautiful succession of sentiments and images, the exquisite clearness of the sense, and not by the factitious character of their enthusiasm, as Sainte-Beuve puts it, or the frequent monotony in the treatment of cognate themes. The Breviary, in fact, had ceased to be the voice of the Christian congregation. The supersession of Latin by the national languages of Western Europe had made it the prayer-book of a class educated to relish only the classic forms of Latin verse, and to regard the simplicity of the early hymn-writers as barbarous. Santeul wrote for priests whose tastes had been formed on Horace and Virgil, and he brought into these rigid forms as much of genuine Christian feeling and doctrine as the age required. He was all the happier in these respects, as Le Tourneux, who himself contributed to the new Breviary, was of that Jansenist school in which religion, belittled by the pettiness and the casuistry of the Jesuits, once more presented itself in its grandeur and its severity.

The excellence of Santeul’s hymns at once created a demand for their introduction in other churches and dioceses, and for his services as a hymn-writer. Several of the best were introduced by Archbishop Harlay into the later editions of his revised Paris Breviary, which had appeared in 1680. So the bishops of many other French dioceses—Rouen, Sens, Narbonne, Massillon of Clermont, and others—adopted his hymns into their breviaries after his death. And as he gallantly said, he had the pleasure while still living of hearing them “sung by the angels at Port Royal.” Other orders begged him to commemorate their founders and their especial saints; dioceses and churches in other parts ofFrance invoked his good offices. Hence it is that of his two hundred and twenty-eight hymns not one in five is occupied with the great festivals of the Church year, but are specific or general hymns to the honor of the saints, martyrs, and doctors of the Church of France especially.

The rush of popularity—not unaccompanied by solid rewards, for the good fathers of the Cluny Order gave him a pension—seems to have turned Santeul’s not very well-balanced head. Le Tourneux’s admonitions were forgotten. He ran from church to church to hear his hymns sung, and scandalized congregations by his demonstrations of delight or disgust as the music was appropriate or otherwise; he declaimed them in all sorts of places, suitable and unsuitable, to extort the admiration he loved so dearly. He did not forget to tell that even the severe De Rance had written from La Trappe to thank him for his hymn on St. Bernard, but that for his own part he valued the general hymn on the Doctors of the Church above any other. Naturally he had little good to say of the hymns his were to displace. If anything could make a pagan of him, it would be the bad grammar of those old monkish poets, who sacrificed sense and grammar alike to their stupid rhymes. And so he would run on by the hour to anybody who would listen, with an egotism whose very childishness and frankness made it inoffensive.

Of course he claimed the distinction of being the best Latin poet in France. French poetry he despised, as being written in a language incapable of the terse elegance of Latin. But in Latin verse he would hear of no rival. Du Périer, who had quite as much vanity, with only a fraction of his genius, challenged his pretensions. The two poets wrote verses on the same theme, and then set out to find an arbiter. The first friend to whom they appealed was Ménage, who evaded the responsibility by declaring them equally excellent. The next they met was Racine. He first got possession of the stakes and deposited them in the poor’s box at the door of a church near by, and then gave the poets a round scolding for their absurd rivalry!

The hymns of Santeul are best known to English readers throughHymns Ancient and Modern, which contain some very fine versions, original and selected. Not included there is that which Sainte Beuve pronounces his finest hymn, and for whose retentionin the Breviary he pleads against the crusaders, who in the name of antiquity insist on replacing Santeul and Coffin by Strada and Galucci. Out of respect for the greatest of modern critics, we reprint it, with a translation from the pen of Dr. A. R. Thompson. It commemorates the Presentation of our Lord in the Temple.

Stupete gentes, fit Deus hostia:Se sponte legi Legifer obligat:Orbis Redemptor nunc redemptus:Seque piat sine labe mater.

Stupete gentes, fit Deus hostia:

Se sponte legi Legifer obligat:

Orbis Redemptor nunc redemptus:

Seque piat sine labe mater.

De more matrum, Virgo puerperaTemplo statutos abstinuit dies.Intrare sanctam quid pavebas,Facta Dei prius ipsa templum?

De more matrum, Virgo puerpera

Templo statutos abstinuit dies.

Intrare sanctam quid pavebas,

Facta Dei prius ipsa templum?

Ara sub una se vovit hostiaTriplex: honorem virgineum immolatVirgo sacerdos, parva mollisMembra puer, seniorque vitam.

Ara sub una se vovit hostia

Triplex: honorem virgineum immolat

Virgo sacerdos, parva mollis

Membra puer, seniorque vitam.

Eheu! quot enses transadigent tuumPectus! quot altis nata doloribus,O Virgo! Quem gestas, cruentamImbuet hic sacer Agnus aram.

Eheu! quot enses transadigent tuum

Pectus! quot altis nata doloribus,

O Virgo! Quem gestas, cruentam

Imbuet hic sacer Agnus aram.

Christus futuro, corpus adhuc tener,Praeludit insons victima funeri:Crescet; profuso vir cruore,Omne scelus moriens piabit.

Christus futuro, corpus adhuc tener,

Praeludit insons victima funeri:

Crescet; profuso vir cruore,

Omne scelus moriens piabit.

Sit summa Patri, summaque Filio,Sanctoque compar gloria Flamini:Sanctae litemus TrinitatiPerpetuo pia corda cultu.

Sit summa Patri, summaque Filio,

Sanctoque compar gloria Flamini:

Sanctae litemus Trinitati

Perpetuo pia corda cultu.

Wonder, ye nations! divine is the sacrifice.Lo, his own law the Lawgiver obeys!Now the Redeemer redeemed is, and purifiesHerself the mother pure. Look with amaze!

Wonder, ye nations! divine is the sacrifice.

Lo, his own law the Lawgiver obeys!

Now the Redeemer redeemed is, and purifies

Herself the mother pure. Look with amaze!

All the days set by the law for a mother,She from the temple of God hath delayed.Why should she stay without, as might another,She who the temple of God hath been made?

All the days set by the law for a mother,

She from the temple of God hath delayed.

Why should she stay without, as might another,

She who the temple of God hath been made?

At the one altar threefold is the sacrifice.Mother, who offers her pure virgin heart;Babe, his fair body that in her fond arms lies;Aged saint, life, ready now to depart.

At the one altar threefold is the sacrifice.

Mother, who offers her pure virgin heart;

Babe, his fair body that in her fond arms lies;

Aged saint, life, ready now to depart.

Oh but what sword through her heart shall be going!Oh to what sorrow is born her fair child!Over what altar his blood will be flowing!He whom she bears, the Lamb holy and mild.

Oh but what sword through her heart shall be going!

Oh to what sorrow is born her fair child!

Over what altar his blood will be flowing!

He whom she bears, the Lamb holy and mild.

Christ, in his infantile body so tender,Spotless in purity, here hath foreshown,Sign of the sacrifice he shall yet render,Dying the sin of the world to atone.

Christ, in his infantile body so tender,

Spotless in purity, here hath foreshown,

Sign of the sacrifice he shall yet render,

Dying the sin of the world to atone.

Now to the Father in glory supernal,Now to the Son, and the Spirit above,Now to the Triune, all holy, eternal,Worship be ever in faith and in love!

Now to the Father in glory supernal,

Now to the Son, and the Spirit above,

Now to the Triune, all holy, eternal,

Worship be ever in faith and in love!

As a poet Santeul fell from grace in 1689, when he fell back on his pagan divinities in a poem addressed to the keeper of the royal gardens. Bossuet made a great ado over it, but Fénelon and others judged him more gently. Next year he goes to see La Trappe, and writes a fine poem on Holy Solitude (Sancta Solitudo), which extorted fresh praise from De Rance, and afterward from Sainte-Beuve. But four years later he got into the worst scrape of his life by a flattering epitaph on the great Arnauld, who died in 1694. Santeul always had been more or less associated with the Jansenist party, a fact which was not forgotten when his hymns were expelled from the churches of France in our own century. There is preserved an account of a visit he paid to Port Royal, in which he chattered to the nuns with equal freedom of his own hymns and of their virtues. But he was not of the stuff of which martyrs are made. The Jesuits had the king’s ear, and he was a pensioner of the king’s bounty. They assailed him for his eulogy of the arch-Jansenist, and threatened him with the disfavor of Louis XIV.; and he hastened to make amends in a poetical epistle, of which he made two copies. By the adroit change of the tense of a single word he made the copy for the Jesuits retract his praises of his great friend, while that for the general public did nothing of the sort. As a consequence he came off with no crediton either side. Both Jesuits and Jansenists resented his duplicity, and a fine shower of squibs and pamphlets fell on him from both the hostile forces, until he was forced to cry for quarter, and Bourdaloue made his peace.

He died in 1697 in Burgundy, whither he had accompanied the younger Condé to the meeting of the Estates. St. Simon has told a very unpleasant story of the cause of his death. He ascribes it to Condé’s having made him drink a bowl of wine into which he had emptied his snuff-box, “just to see what would come of it.” But the prince of scandalmongers has been disproven on this point. Santeul’s death was due to no such cause, but to an inflammation of the bowels and to the malpractice of his doctors, who gave him emetics under the false impression that he was suffering from a surfeit. He made a good end, dying with resignation, and begging pardon for the scandal his life had caused.

His hymns were not without their critics in his own age. Jean Baptiste Thiers, a parish priest of great learning and bad temper, assailed the Breviary of Cluny (in hisCommentarii de novo Breviario Cluniacensi, Brussels, 1702), and did not spare Santeul’s hymns, which he declared to be much inferior to those which had come down from the earlier days of the Church. He declared that Santeul had a greater abundance of words than of sense, that he had almost no powers of thought, and that some of his images, such as that in which he wreathes a garland of stones for the martyr Stephen, were simply ridiculous. He was answered not by Rabusson, but by his associate, Claude de Vert, after what fashion I do not know.

It was in 1736 that the Breviary of the Diocese of Paris was published in its third and final revision by a commission of three ecclesiastics: François-Antoine Vigier, François-Philippe Mesengui, and Charles Coffin. It is a significant fact that the second belonged to that Jansenist party in the Church which the relentless efforts of the Pope, the hierarchy, and the kings of France had not been able to exterminate. Archbishop de Vintimille was as eager to accomplish that as his predecessors had been, and he was ably seconded by that pious and orthodox prince, Louis XV. But this revision, like that of 1670-80, was a concession to the historical criticism which the Jansenists had brought to bear upon theChurch books both as to the legends of the saints and the extravagances of the growing devotion to the Mother of our Lord. Mesengui had been dismissed from the post Coffin had given him in the University of Paris for his opposition to the bullUnigenitus, which condemned Quesnel’s JansenistReflections on the New Testament. Coffin’s sympathies lay in the same direction.

Charles Coffin is the man of the three who chiefly concerns us here. Born at Buzancy, hard by Rheims, in 1676, he very early distinguished himself as a Latin poet and an educator. He graduated at Paris in 1701, and became a teacher in the College of Dormans-Beauvais, and then its principal in 1713. Five years later he was chosen to succeed Rollin as Rector of the University of Paris. He at once showed his force of character by revolutionizing the relation of the university to the public through abolishing the fees exacted of the students. To replace them he extended and developed the system of posts and messages, which the university had established in the thirteenth century and which coexisted with the post-office system of the government, of which it was the forerunner. He devoted its revenues to the support of the colleges. He must have been a character of great administrative capacity, as his plans had entire success, and probably did much to foster the development of the post-office system of France. After remaining rector for three years, he went back to his place at the head of the Dormans-Beauvais College, and remained there till his death.

It was in 1727 that Charles Coffin published his first volume of Latin poetry. The most notable piece in the collection was a fine ode in praise of Champagne. So much were the people of the Champagne country pleased with it, that they sent him a hamper of every vintage as long as he lived, which was twenty-two years. He also had a hand in carrying Cardinal de Polignac’s great poem,Anti-Lucretius, to the state of completeness in which it was given to the public in 1745, three years after its author’s death. He undertook the work of revising the old hymns and preparing new with great reluctance, yielding only to the entreaties of the archbishop.

It was in 1736 that the Breviary Commission finished their labors and the archbishop gave to the diocese the new Breviary, which was adopted by more than fifty French dioceses. Its general character does not concern us here. It is with its hymnsalone we have to do. About seventy of the primitive and mediaeval hymns still held their place in the Breviary of 1680, nearly half of them the work of Ambrose and his school. The revisers spared very few of these. Only twenty-one hymns of the earlier period were left, while eighty-five of Jean Santeul’s, nearly a hundred by Coffin himself—including some recasts of old hymns—and ninety-seven by other authors, chiefly Frenchmen of later date, were inserted. There were eleven by Guillaume de la Brunetière, a friend of Bossuet’s; six each by Claude Santeul, Nicolas le Tourneux, and Sebastian Besnault, a priest of Sens; five by Isaac Habert, Bishop of Vabres; four by the Jesuit Jean Commire; two each by the Jesuit Francis Guyet and Simon Gourdan of the Abbey of St. Victor; one each by Marc Antoine Muretus, Denis Petau, and Guillaume du Plessis de Geste; one (or three) by M. Combault, a young friend of Charles Coffin’s. This was modernism with a vengeance! New hymns were nearly thirteen to one in proportion to those from the great storehouse of the ages before the Reformation. It is not wonderful that so extreme a policy called forth a reaction as soon as the Romanticist movement, with its juster appreciation of the Middle Ages, had reached France. But by the end of the eighteenth century the old Latin hymns were banished practically from France.

As compared with Jean Santeul, Charles Coffin displays much less poetic audacity than his predecessor. You do not feel that poetry filled the same place in his intellectual existence, or that he was under the same necessity to write it. He has less genius, but a great talent for verse. And—what the critics of that age valued the most—he was more correct in his handling of the vocabulary and the metre of Latin versification. Santeul found classic Latin, much as he admired it, something of a fetter to the free movement of his genius. It was a dead language he was trying to put intense life into—an old bottle for his new wine—and at times the bottle burst. Just because Charles Coffin’s wine is not so new, his inspiration not so fresh, the bottle holds out better. And then he had the greater advantage of a closer familiarity with the ideas he wished to embody in his hymns, and with their sources in the Scriptures, and a more practical capacity for the application of his powers to the object in hand. His hymns are always in place; they are hymns of the Breviary, not brilliant poems onBreviary subjects by a poet writing for glory. I do not say that Charles Coffin was the better man; God only knows; and I must confess to a liking for “the gay canon of St. Victor” which the rector of the university does not inspire in me. There is a Burns-like humanity in him and his harmless vanities which wins our love still, as it did that of his contemporaries. But Charles Coffin had a certain suitableness to his work which Jean Santeul lacked. He was an eminently dignified, respectable, and useful character, who impressed himself upon a whole generation of young Frenchmen, many of whom rose to eminence at the bar, in the public service, and even in the army. They all looked back to him with great respect. I wonder if they loved him as Mark Hopkins and George Allen are loved by those who studied under them. And in Charles Coffin’s hymns you meet the same admirable traits as in his public work. He is a man of enlightenment, dignity, devoutness, and eminent usefulness, without a touch of Rabelaisianabandonto remind you of Béranger’s saying: “All weFrançaisare children of the great François.” Of that he reminds you only in his sparkling, effervescent ode to Champagne, in reply to Bénigne Grenan’s overpraise of Burgundy. It was to be expected that when the advocates of liturgical uniformity made their attack upon the Paris Breviary, beginning with Gueranger’sInstitutions Liturgiques(1840-42), it was Santeul whom they especially attacked, although not he but Coffin was responsible for its hymnology.

Charles Coffin’s hymns have a high level of excellence, which makes it difficult to anthologize among them. Certainly not the worst are the four Advent hymns (Instantis adventum Dei;Jordanis oras praevia;Statuta decreto Dei; andIn noctis umbra desides); that for Christmas (Jam desinant suspiria) and the Vesper hymn (O luce qui mortalibus); the Passion hymn (Opprobriis Jesu satur); the fine series of seven hymns for the nocturn services throughout the week, based on the seven days of Creation; and the hymn for Epiphany (Quae stella sole pulchrior). These and most of his acknowledged hymns are known to us in the translations of Williams, Chandler, and Mant, and several of these are inHymns Ancient and Modern.

As an editor he altered and even tinkered, as well as adapted and wrote hymns. Even Jean Santeul did not escape his hand.One of the hymns ascribed to him in the Paris Breviary is a cento from no less than twelve of his own hymns. From the wrath he showed when such changes were made in his lifetime, we may infer that he would have liked this as little as did John Wesley. And the older hymns were handled in the same way. A good example of Charles Coffin’s method of recasting old hymns is furnished by his version of theAd coenam Agni providi, which already has been given in its original shape and in that of the Roman Breviary. With these the reader may compare Coffin’s revision, which will be seen to vary very widely from the old text of the ninth century:

Forti tegente brachio,Evasimus Rubrum mare,Tandem durum perfidiJugum tyranni fregimus.

Forti tegente brachio,

Evasimus Rubrum mare,

Tandem durum perfidi

Jugum tyranni fregimus.

Nunc ergo laetas vindiciGrates rependamus Deo;Agnique mensam candidisCingamus ornati stolis.

Nunc ergo laetas vindici

Grates rependamus Deo;

Agnique mensam candidis

Cingamus ornati stolis.

Hujus sacrato corpore,Amoris igne fervidi,Vescamur atque sanguine:Vescendo, vivimus Deo.

Hujus sacrato corpore,

Amoris igne fervidi,

Vescamur atque sanguine:

Vescendo, vivimus Deo.

Jam Pascha nostrum Christus est,Hic agnus, haec est victimaCruore cujus illitosTransmittit ultor angelus.

Jam Pascha nostrum Christus est,

Hic agnus, haec est victima

Cruore cujus illitos

Transmittit ultor angelus.

O digna coelo victima,Mors ipsa per quam vincitur,Per quam refractis inferiPraedam relaxant postibus.

O digna coelo victima,

Mors ipsa per quam vincitur,

Per quam refractis inferi

Praedam relaxant postibus.

Christi sepulchri faucibusEmersus ad lucem redit;Hostem retrudit tartaro,Coelique pandit intima.

Christi sepulchri faucibus

Emersus ad lucem redit;

Hostem retrudit tartaro,

Coelique pandit intima.

Da Christe, nos tecum moriTecum simul da surgere:Terrena da contemnere;Amare da coelestia.

Da Christe, nos tecum mori

Tecum simul da surgere:

Terrena da contemnere;

Amare da coelestia.

It will be observed that while the ideas, and even to some extent the phraseology of the old hymn are retained in the first six verses, their order is so changed as to suggest that we have an original hymn before us, if we do not look closely. But the last verse is altogether different. The old poet prayed that the paschal joy might be made unending through the deliverance of the regenerate from the death eternal. The modern prays that we may share mystically in the death and resurrection of Christ, and learn thereby to set our affections on things above. Similar are his recasts of theSalvete flores Martyrumof Prudentius, and the AmbrosianJam lucis orto sidere.

Mr. Duffield has left only one completed version of a hymn from the Paris Breviary, and that one whose authorship I am unable to determine. It attracted him as one of the surprisingly few hymns in which the comparison of the Christian life to a warfare, so frequently used by our Lord and the Apostle Paul, is employed as a leading idea. His interest in such hymns no doubt was first awakened by his father’s admirable and popular one:

“Stand up, stand up for Jesus,”

suggested by the dying words of Dudley Tyng. We give both the Latin and his English version:

Pugnate, Christi milites,Fortes fide resistite:Immensa promisit DeusPio labori praemia.

Pugnate, Christi milites,

Fortes fide resistite:

Immensa promisit Deus

Pio labori praemia.

Non ille fluxas ac levesPalmas dabit vincentibus;Sed lucis aeternae decus,Et pura semper gaudia.

Non ille fluxas ac leves

Palmas dabit vincentibus;

Sed lucis aeternae decus,

Et pura semper gaudia.

Mentes beatas excipitFormosa coelitum domus:Hic turba, coelis altior,Subjecta calcat sidera.

Mentes beatas excipit

Formosa coelitum domus:

Hic turba, coelis altior,

Subjecta calcat sidera.

Caduca vobis praemiaOffert levis mundi favor:Vultus ad astra tollite;Hic ipse fit merces Deus.

Caduca vobis praemia

Offert levis mundi favor:

Vultus ad astra tollite;

Hic ipse fit merces Deus.

Qui nos coronat, laus Patri,Laus qui redemit, Filio;Alma juvans nos gratia,Sit par tibi laus, Spiritus.

Qui nos coronat, laus Patri,

Laus qui redemit, Filio;

Alma juvans nos gratia,

Sit par tibi laus, Spiritus.

Fight on, ye Christian soldiers,And bravely keep the faith,For great reward shall follow,As God’s own promise saith.

Fight on, ye Christian soldiers,

And bravely keep the faith,

For great reward shall follow,

As God’s own promise saith.

Not palms that wave and flutterShall be the victor’s crown,But grace of light eternal,And joy of pure renown.

Not palms that wave and flutter

Shall be the victor’s crown,

But grace of light eternal,

And joy of pure renown.

That blessed heavenly mansionShall take each happy soul;Their throng, high raised in glory,Shall tread the starry pole.

That blessed heavenly mansion

Shall take each happy soul;

Their throng, high raised in glory,

Shall tread the starry pole.

Earth’s honor is but failing,Her gifts are light as air;Lift up your eyes to heaven,For God’s reward is there.

Earth’s honor is but failing,

Her gifts are light as air;

Lift up your eyes to heaven,

For God’s reward is there.

Praise God, who crowns the battle,And Christ, who comes to save,And praise the Holy Spirit,Whose grace our spirits crave.

Praise God, who crowns the battle,

And Christ, who comes to save,

And praise the Holy Spirit,

Whose grace our spirits crave.

By kindness of Dr. A. R. Thompson we add two translations from Charles Coffin’s hymns:

What star is this whose glorious lightOutshines the morn,The herald of the King new-born!Its radiance bright,A heavenly sign,Streams o’er the cradle of the Babe divine.

What star is this whose glorious light

Outshines the morn,

The herald of the King new-born!

Its radiance bright,

A heavenly sign,

Streams o’er the cradle of the Babe divine.

Faith, standing with the prophets old,Sees down the skiesThe promised Star from Jacob rise.The sign foretoldShe knows full well,And straightway seeks the wondrous spectacle.

Faith, standing with the prophets old,

Sees down the skies

The promised Star from Jacob rise.

The sign foretold

She knows full well,

And straightway seeks the wondrous spectacle.

The lustrous star gives warning fairTo all the earth,But chiefly men of Eastern birth,With pious care,The warning heed,And seeking Christ upon their journey speed.

The lustrous star gives warning fair

To all the earth,

But chiefly men of Eastern birth,

With pious care,

The warning heed,

And seeking Christ upon their journey speed.

Their eager love knows no delay;Danger nor toilTheir purpose resolute can foil.They haste awayFrom home and kind,And country, at God’s call, the Christ to find.

Their eager love knows no delay;

Danger nor toil

Their purpose resolute can foil.

They haste away

From home and kind,

And country, at God’s call, the Christ to find.

O Christ our Lord, thy star of graceLeads us to thee!Help these dull hearts of ours to beFirst at the place,Intent to proveTo thee, O Lord, our faith and hope and love.

O Christ our Lord, thy star of grace

Leads us to thee!

Help these dull hearts of ours to be

First at the place,

Intent to prove

To thee, O Lord, our faith and hope and love.

Now with the declining sun,Day to night is passing on.So doth mortal life descendSwiftly to its destined end.

Now with the declining sun,

Day to night is passing on.

So doth mortal life descend

Swiftly to its destined end.

From the cross, thine arms spread wideFold the world, O Crucified!Help us love the cross. In thyDear embrace help us to die!

From the cross, thine arms spread wide

Fold the world, O Crucified!

Help us love the cross. In thy

Dear embrace help us to die!

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