from all scandal, with the Queen. It is impossible to deny that there is some truth in the portraiture of the poet which he draws. Even Guizot (Civilisation en France, 18me Leçon) must be taken to allow it. Yet had Fortunatus been merely that clever, frivolous, selfindulgent and vain character, which Thierry describes, he would scarcely have risen to the height and elevation which, in two or three of his poems, he has certainly attained;-poems, it is true, which are inconceivably superior to the mass of those out of which they are taken. In Barth's Adversaria there is the same exaggerated estimate of Fortunatus which there is of Prudentius, and with far less in his poetry to justify or excuse it. It would indeed have been otherwise, had he often written as in the lines which follow. CRUX XIX. DE CRUCE CHRISTI. YRUX benedicta nitet, Dominus quâ carne pependit, Atque cruore suo vulnera nostra lavat; Mitis amore pio pro nobis victima factus, Traxit ab ore lupi quâ sacer agnus oves; Transfixis palmis ubi mundum a clade redemit, Atque suo clausit funere mortis iter. XIX. Thomasius, Hymnarium, Opp. vol. ii. p. 433; Daniel, Thes. Hymnol. vol. i. p. 168.—These lines are only the portion of a far longer poem; yet have a completeness in themselves which has long caused them to be current in their present shape, till it is almost forgotten that they only form part of a larger whole. Hic manus illa fuit clavis confixa cruentis, Nullum uret æstus sub frondibus arboris hujus, 8. Paulum Petrum] Cf. Acts ix. 5; xii. 7. 13, 14. Cf. Ps. cxx. 6. 14. The double false quantity of meridie, which it would be impossible to ascribe to ignorance, must be taken as a token of the breaking up of the metrical scheme of verse which had already begun, and the coming in of quite another in its room. 15. secus] The use of secus as a preposition governing an accusative (here understand loca), and equivalent to secundum, though unknown to Augustan Latinity, belongs alike to the anterior and the subsequent periods of the language, at once to Cato and to Pliny. And thus we have Ps. i. 3 (Vulg.), words which doubtless were in the poet's mind when he wrote this line: Et erit tanquam lignum, quod plantatum est secus decursus aquarum, quod fructum suum dabit in tempore suo. 17. vitis] The cross as the tree to which the vine is clinging, and from which its tendrils and fruit depend, is a beautiful weaving in of the image of the true Vine with the fact of the Crucifixion. The blending of one image and another comes perhaps yet more beautifully out, though not without a certain incoherence in the images, in that which sometimes appears in ancient works of Christian Art,-namely, Christ set forth as the Lamb round which the branches of a loaded vine are clustering and clinging. Q XX. DE PASSIONE DOMINI. UISQUIS ades, mediique subis in limina templi, Siste parum, insontemque tuo pro crimine passum Respice me, me conde animo, me in pectore serva. Ille ego qui, casus hominum miseratus acerbos, Huc veni, pacis promissæ interpres, et ampla Communis culpæ venia: hic clarissima ab alto Reddita lux terris, hic alma salutis imago; Hic tibi sum requies, via recta, redemptio vera, Vexillumque Dei, signum et memorabile fari. Te propter vitamque tuam sum Virginis alvum Ingressus, sum factus homo, atque horrentia passus Funera, nec requiem terrarum in finibus usquam Inveni, sed ubique minas, et ubique labores. 5 10 XX. Fabricius, Poëtt. Vett. Christ. Opp. Basileæ, 1562, p. 759; Lactantii Opp. Antverpiæ, 1555, p. 589.—This poem, consisting of about eighty lines, of which I have here given something less than half, appears in Fabricius, with the title De Beneficiis suis Christus. It is there ascribed to Lactantius, in most editions of whose works it in like manner appears, with the title De Passione Domini. Although Barth (Advers. xxxii. 2) maintains the correctness of this its ascription to Lactantius, there cannot be any doubt that it pertains to a somewhat later age. But whoseever it may be, it does, in Bähr's words (Die Christl. Dichter Rom's, p. 22), "belong to the more admirable productions of Christian poetry, and in this respect would not be unworthy of Lactantius," having something of the true flow of the Latin hexameter, which so few of the Christian poets, or indeed of any of the poets who belonged to the silver age, were able to catch. Nunc me, nunc vero desertum, extrema secutum 15 20 25 30 35 DESER XXI. MEDITATIONES. ESERE jam, anima, lectulum soporis, Intus cor efferveat facibus amoris, Mens, affectus, ratio, simul convenite, Dum pertractat animus sacramenta vitæ. XXI. Bibl. Max. Patrum, vol. xxvii. p. 444.--These stanzas form part of a very long rhymed contemplation of our Lord's life and death, sometimes ascribed to Anselm, bishop of Lucca, a cotemporary of his more illustrious English namesake. He died 1086. These trochaic lines of thirteen syllables long, disposed in mono-rhymed quatrains, were great favourites in the middle ages, and much used for narrative poems; and though, when too long drawn out, wearying in their monotony, and in the necessity of the pause falling in every line at exactly the same place, are capable both of strength and beauty. These Meditations have both; and Du Méril has lately published, for the first time, a long poem on the death of Thomas à Becket (Poésies Popul. Lat. 1847, p. 81), which will further yield a stanza or two, if such were wanted, in proof. They relate to the feigned reconciliation of Henry with the archbishop, by which he drew him from his safer exile in France: Ægras dat inducias latro viatori, Sabulo vis turbinis, vis procellæ flori; Lupi cum oviculâ ludus est dolori ; Vere lupus lusor est qui dat dolo mori. Ut post syrtes mittitur in Charybdim navis, Ut laxatis laqueis inescatur avis, Sic remisit exulem male pax suävis, Miscens crucis poculum sub verborum favis. |