pealed in 1889. At present Rhode Island is a local option state, the question of licence or no-licence being submitted annually to the voters of the several cities and towns. The licensing boards may in their discretion refuse any application. The number of licences in any town may not exceed the proportion of one licence to each 500 inhabitants. The owners of the greater part of the land within two hundred feet of any location may bar its licence. No licence can be granted for a location within two hundred feet, measured on the street, of any public or parochial school. Maximum and minimum licence fees are fixed by statute, and the exact sum is determined by the licensing boards. For retail licences the minimum fee is $300, and the maximum, $1000. In the City of Cranston are located the State institutions", so-called, including the State prison, the county jail, the State workhouse, a reform school for girls, and another for boys. The probation system is extensively employed, and in the case of juvenile offenders especially, the State makes every effort to prevent their becoming hardened criminals. Probation officers have the power of bail over persons committed to them. In proper cases, probation officers may provide for the maintenance of girls and women apart from their families. Capital punishment does not exist in the State except in cases where a life convict commits murder. Wills disposing of personal property may be made by persons eighteen years of age or over; wills disposing of real estate, by persons twenty-one years of age or over. Probate clerks are required to notify corporations and voluntary associations of all gifts made to them by will. If a gift for charity is made by will to a corporation and the acceptance thereof would be ultra vires, the corporation may at once receive the gift, and may retain it on condition of securing the consent of the legislature within one year. It has been held that a legacy for Masses should be paid in full even if the estate were insufficient to pay general pecuniary legacies in full, on the ground that the gift for Masses is for services to be rendered and is not gratuitous, furthermore that a gift for Masses is legal and is not void as being a superstitious use (Sherman v. Baker, XX R. I., 446, 613). Cemeteries are regulated to the extent that town councils may prevent their location in thickly populated districts, and for the protection of health may pass ordinances regarding burials and the use of the grounds. Desecration of graves is punished. Towns may receive land for burial purposes, and town councils may hold funds for the perpetual care of burial lots. Cemeteries are generally owned by corporations specially chartered, by churches and families. FIELD, State of R. I. and Providence Plantations (Boston, 1902); ARNOLD, Hist. of R. I. (New York, 1860); STAPLES, Annals of Providence (Providence, 1843); DOWLING, Hist. of the Catholic Church in New England (Boston, 1899); R. I. Colonial Records. ALBERT B. WEST. Rhodes, ALEXANDRE DE, missionary and author, b. at Avignon, 15 March, 1591; d. at Ispahan, Persia, 5 Nov., 1660. He entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Rome, 24 April, 1612, with the intention of devoting his life to the conversion of the infidels. He was assigned to the missions of the East Indies, and inaugurated his missionary labours in 1624 with great success in Cochin China. In 1627 he proceeded to Tongking where, within the space of three years, he converted 6000 persons, including several bonzes. When in 1630 persecution forced him to leave the country, the newly-made converts continued the work of evangelization. Rhodes was later recalled to Rome where he obtained permission from his superiors to undertake missionary work in Persia. Amidst the numerous activities of a missionary career, he found time for literary productions: "Tunchinensis historiæ libri duo" (Lyons, 1652); "La glorieuse mort d'André, Catéchiste (Paris, 1653); "Catechismus", published in Latin and in Tongkingese at Rome in 1658. DE BACKER-SOMMERVOGEL, Biblioth. de la Comp. de Jésus, VI (9 vols., Brussels and Paris, 1890-1900), 1718-21; CARAYON, Voyages et Missions du P. Rhodes (Paris and Le Mans, 1854). N. A. WEBER. Rhodes, KNights of. See HOSPITALLERS OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM. This Rhodes (RHODUS), titular metropolitan of the Cyclades (q. v.). It is an island opposite to Lycia and Caria, from which it is separated by a narrow arm of the sea. It has an area of about 564 sq. miles, is well watered by many streams and the river Candura, and is very rich in fruits of all kinds. The climate is so genial that the sun shines ever there, as recorded in a proverb already known to Pliny (Hist. natur., II, 62). The island, inhabited first by the Carians and then by the Phoenicians (about 1300 B.C.) who settled several colonies there, was occupied about 800 B.C. by the Dorian Greeks. In 408 B.c. the inhabitants of the three chief towns, Lindus, Ialysus, and Camirus founded the city of Rhodes, from which the island took its name. town, built on the side of a hill, had a very fine port. On the breakwater, which separated the interior from the exterior port, was the famous bronze statue, the Colossus of Rhodes, 105 feet high, which cost 300 talents. Constructed (280) from the machines of war which Demetrius Poliorcetes had to abandon after his defeat before the town, it was thrown down by an earthquake in 203 B.C.; its ruins were sold in the seventh century by Caliph Moaviah to a Jew from Emesus, who loaded them on 900 camels. After the death of Alexander the Great and the expulsion of the Macedonian garrison (323 B.C.) the island, owing to its navy manned by the best mariners in the world, became the rival of Carthage and Alexandria. Allied with the Romans, and more or less under their protectorate, Rhodes became a centre of art and science; its school of rhetoric was frequented by many Romans, including Cato, Cicero, Cæsar, and Pompey. Ravaged by Cassius in 43 B.C., it remained nominally independent till A.D. 44, when it was incorporated with the Roman Empire by Claudius, becoming under Diocletian the capital of the Isles or of the Cyclades, which it long remained. The First Book of Machabees (xv, 23) records that Rome sent the Rhodians a decree in favour of the Jews. St. Paul stopped there on his way from Miletus to Jerusalem (Acts, xxi, 1); he may even have made converts there. In three other passages of Holy Writ (Gen., x, 4; I Par., i, 7; Ezech., xxvii, 15) the Septuagint renders by Rhodians what the Hebrew and the Vulgate rightly call Dodanim and Dedan. If we except some ancient inscriptions supposed to be Christian, there is no trace of Christianity until the third century, when Bishop Euphranon is said to have opposed the Encratites. Euphrosynus assisted at the Council of Nicea (325). As the religious metropolitan of the Cyclades, Rhodes had eleven suffragan sees towards the middle of the seventh century (Gelzer, "Ungedruckte.... Texte der Notitia episcopatuum", 542); at the beginning of the tenth century, it had only ten (op. cit., 558); at the close of the fifteenth, only one, Lerne (op. cit., 635), which has since disappeared. Rhodes is still a Greek metropolitan depending on the Patriarchate of Constantinople. On 15 August, 1310, under the leadership of Grand Master Foulques de Villaret, the Knights of St. John captured the island in spite of the Greek emperor, Andronicus II, and for more than two centuries, thanks to their fleet, were a solid bulwark between Christendom and Islam. In 1480 Rhodes, under the orders of Pierre d'Aubusson, underwent a memorable siege by the lieutenants of Mahomet II; on 24 October, 1522, Villiers de l'Isle Adam had to make an honorable capitulation to Solyman II and deliver the island definitively to the Turks. From 1328 to 1546 Rhodes was a Latin metropolitan, having for suffragans the sees of Melos, Nicaria, Carpathos, Chios, Tinos, and Mycone; the list of its bishops is to be found in Le Quien (Oriens christ., III, 1049) and Eubel (Hierarchia catholica medii ævi, I, 205; II, 148; III, 188). The most distinguished bishop is Andreas Colossensis (the archdiocese was called Rhodes or Colossi) who, in 1416 at Constance and 1439 at Florence, defended the rights of the Roman Church against the Greeks, and especially against Marcus Eugenicus. After the death of Marco Cattaneo, the last residential archbishop, Rhodes became a mere titular bishopric, while Naxos inherited its metropolitan rights. On 3 March, 1797 it became again a titular archbishopric but the title was thenceforth attached to the See of Malta. Its suffragans are Carpathos, Leros, Melos, Samos, and Tenedos. By a decree of the Congregation of the Propaganda, 14 August, 1897, a prefecture Apostolic, entrusted to the Franciscans, was established in the Island of Rhodes; it has in addition jurisdiction over a score of neighbouring islands, of which the principal are Carpathos, Leros, and Calymnos. There are in all 320 Catholics, while the island, the capital of the vilayet of the archipelago, contains 30,000 inhabitants. The Franciscans have three priests; the Brothers of the Christian Schools have established there a scholasticate for the Orient as well as a school; the Franciscan Sisters of Gemona have a girls' school. The most striking feature of the city, in addition to a series of medieval towers and fortifications, is the Street of the Knights, which still preserves their blason (Order of St. John) and the date of the erection of each house or palace; several of the mosques are former churches. MEURSIUS, Creta, Cyprus, Rhodus (Amsterdam, 1675); CORONELLI, Isola di Rodi geographica, storica (Venice, 1702); LE QUIEN, Oriens christ., I, 923-30; PAULSEN, Commentatio exhibens Rhodi descriptionem macedonica ætate (Göttingen, 1818); MENGE, Ueber die Vorgesch. der Insel Rhodus (Cologne, 1827); ROTTIERS, Description des monuments de Rhodes (Brussels, 1828); Ross, Reisen auf den griech. Inseln, III, 70-113; IDEM, Reisen nach Kos, Halikarnassos, Rhodos (Stuttgart, 1840); BERG, Die Insel Rhodos (Brunswick, 1860); SCHNEIDERWIRTH, Gesch. der Insel Rhodos (Heiligenstadt, 1868); GUERIN, L'ile de Rhodes (Paris, 1880); BILLIOTI AND COTTERET, L'ile de Rhodes (Paris, 1891); BECKER, De Rhodiorum primordiis (Leipzig, 1882); TORR, Rhodes in Ancient Times (Cambridge, 1885); IDEM, Rhodes in Modern Times (Cambridge, 1887); SCHUMACHER, De Republica Rhodiorum commentatio (Heidelberg, 1886); VON GELDER, Gesch. der alten Rhodier (La Haye, 1900); SMITH, Dict. of Greek and Roman Geogr., s. v.; FILLION in VIGOUROUX, Dict. de la Bible, s. v.; Missiones catholica (Rome, 1907). S. VAILHÉ. Rhodesia, a British possession in South Africa, bounded on the north and north-west by the Congo Free State and German East Africa; on the east by German East Africa, Nyassaland, and Portuguese East Africa; on the south by the Transvaal and Bechuanaland; on the west by Bechuanaland and Portuguese West Africa. Cecil John Rhodes, to whom the colony owes its name, desired to promote the expansion of the British Empire in South Africa. The Dutch South African Republic and Germany were contemplating annexations in the neighbourhood of the Zambesi River. To thwart these enemies of unity without delay and without the aid of the British Parliament was the task to which Mr. Rhodes and his colleagues set themselves. Early in 1888 Lobengula, King of Matabeleland, entered into a treaty with Great Britain and on 30 October of the same year he granted to Rhodes's agents "the complete and exclusive charge over all metals and minerals" in his dominions. On 28 October, 1889, the British South Africa Company was formed under a royal charter. The company, on Lobengula's advice, first decided to open up Mashonaland, which lies north and west of Matabeleland and south of the Zambesi. In September, 1890, an expeditionary column occupied that country and, in the next four years, much was done to develop its resources. In 1893 the company, who questioned the right of the Matabele to make annual raids among their neighbours the Mashonas, came to blows with King Lobengula. Five weeks of active operations and the death of the king, probably by self-administered poison, brought the whole of Southern Rhodesia under the absolute control of the company. After the war, the settlement and opening up of the country was carried on under the direction of Mr. Rhodes who, on the ruins of Lobengula's royal kraal at Bulawayo, built Government House, and in the vicinity, laid out the streets and avenues of what was intended soon to become a great city. At one time Bulawayo had a population of some 7000 white inhabitants and seemed to be fulfilling the dreams of its founder when its progress and that of the whole country was cut short by the cattle pest, the native rebellion of 1896, and by years of stagnation and inactivity consequent upon the Boer War. Its white population (1911) is 5200. Besides Southern Rhodesia the chartered company own the extensive territories of North-western and North-eastern Rhodesia which lie north of the Zambesi and which, with the more populous southern province, cover an area of some 450,000 square miles and form a country larger than France, Germany, and the Low Countries combined. The black population is less than 1,500,000, while the whites hardly exceed 16,000. All the native tribes of Rhodesia belong to the great Bantu family of the negro race. Before the arrival of the pioneer columns the dominant race south of the Zambesi were the Matabele, an off-shoot of the Zulus, who conquered the country north of the Limpopo River in the middle of the last century. They formed a military caste which lived by war and periodical raids upon their weaker neighbours. The destruction of this military despotism was a necessary step to the evangelizing of the country. Before the arrival of the Matabele warriors the principal inhabitants of Southern Rhodesia were the Makaranga whose ancestors had formed the once powerful empire of Monomotapa. North-western Rhodesia or Barotseland is ruled partly by an administrator residing at Livingstone, near the Victoria Falls of the Zambesi and partly by its native King Lewanika, the chief of the Barotse, who has been heavily subsidised by the company. The predominant people in North-eastern Rhodesia are the Awemba and the Angoni whose raiding propensities and coöperation with the Arab slave drivers caused much trouble and expense until their definitive annexation by the company in 1894. The earliest attempt to evangelize Matabeleland was made in 1879 when three Jesuit Fathers, travelling by ox-wagon, accomplished the journey of some twelve hundred miles between Grahamstown and Bulawayo. They were hospitably received by King Lobengula who had been assured by some resident traders that the missionaries had come for his people's good. He granted them a free passage through his dominions and allowed them to train his subjects in habits of industry but not to preach the Gospel of Christ which, as he well knew, would lead to drastic changes, not only in the domestic life of his people, but in his whole system of government. For some fourteen years the missionaries held their ground awaiting events and it was only through the conquest of the country by the company that free missionary work was rendered possible. It was during this period that Baron von Hubner, who was not without personal experience of South Africa, declared that he would never contribute a penny to the Zambesi Mission, since he thought it contrary to his duty to foster an enterprise doomed to failure and disaster. Events seemed to justify his prognostications, for the mission, owing to fever and the hardships of travel, seemed to be losing more workers than it made converts. In 1893, however, the power of Lobengula was broken and mission stations began to grow up in the neighbourhood of Salisbury, the capital, and of Bulawayo. In Matabeleland there are two mission stations, one at Bulawayo and the second at Empandeni, some sixty miles away. This last station owns a property of about one hundred square miles most of which formed the original grant of Lobengula and the title to which was confirmed by the company. The principal station among the Mashonas or Makaranga is Chishawasha, fourteen miles from Salisbury (founded in 1892). There are other stations of more recent date at Salisbury, Driefontein, Hama's Kraal, and Mzondo, near Victoria, all under the charge of the Jesuit Fathers. The Missionaries of Marianhill, recently separated from the Trappists, have two missions in Mashonaland at Macheke and St. Trias Hill. The Makaranga who are thus being evangelized from seven mission stations are the descendants of the predominant tribe who received the faith from the Ven. Father Gonçalo de Silveira in 1561. Among the Batongas, who owe a somewhat doubtful allegiance to King Lewanika in North-western Rhodesia, there are two Jesuit mission stations on the Chikuni and Nguerere Rivers. These missions are under the jurisdiction of the Jesuit Prefect Apostolic of the Zambesi, resident in Bulawayo. There are 35 priests, 30 lay brothers, and 83 nuns in charge of the missions. The Catholic native population is about 3000. For the missions of North-eastern Rhodesia see NYASSA, VICARIATE, APOSTOLIC OF. The land of the mission stations in Rhodesia is usually a grant from the Government made on condition of doing missionary work and is therefore inalienable without a special order in Council. Native schools, in some cases, are in receipt of a small grant from the Government. The Jesuit Fathers have one school for white boys (120) at Bulawayo, while the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Dominic have three: at Bulawayo (210), Salisbury (130), and Gwelo (40). These schools are undenominational and receive grants from the Government. Hence Catholics, who were first in the field, have a very considerable share in the education of the country. New Government schools have been built recently in Salisbury, Bulawayo, and Gwelo and other places in order to meet the growing demand for education and they have, so far, succeeded in filling their school-rooms without taking many pupils from the schools managed by Catholics. The chief source of information about the Zambesi Mission is the Zambesi Mission Record, issued quarterly (Roehampton, England); HENSMAN, A History of Rhodesia (London, 1900); HONE, Southern Rhodesia (London, 1909); HALL, Prehistoric Rhodesia (London, 1909); MICHELL, Life of C. J. Rhodes (2 vols., London, 1910). JAMES KENDAL. Rhodiopolis, titular see of Lycia, suffragan of Myra, called Rhodia by Ptolemy (V, 3) and Stephanus Byzantius; Rhodiapolis on its coins and inscriptions; Rhodiopolis by Pliny (V, 28), who locates it in the mountains to the north of Corydalla. Its history is unknown. Its ruins may be seen on a hill in the heart of a forest at Eski Hissar, vilayet of Koniah. They consist of the remains of an aqueduct, a small theatre, a temple of Escalapius, sarcophagi, and churches. Only one bishop is known, Nicholas, present in 518 at a Council of Constantinople. The "Notitiæ episcopatuum" continue to mention the see as late as the twelfth or thirteenth century. LE QUIEN, Oriens christianus, I, 991; SPRATT AND FORBES, Travels in Lycia, I, 166, 181; SMITH, Dict. of Greek and Roman geogr., s. v. S. PÉTRIDÈS. Rhodo, a Christian writer who flourished in the time of Commodus (180-92); he was a native of Asia who came to Rome where he was a pupil of Tatian's. He wrote several books, two of which are mentioned by Eusebius (Hist. eccl., V, xiii), viz., a treatise on "The Six Days of Creation" and a work against the Marcionites in which he dwelled upon the various opinions which divided them. Eusebius, upon whom we depend exclusively for our knowledge of Rhodo, quotes some passages from the latter work, in one of which an account is given of the Marcionite Apelles. St. Jerome (De vir. ill.) amplifies Eusebius's account somewhat by making Rhodo the author of a work against the Cataphrygians-probably he had in mind an anonymous work quoted by Eusebius a little later (op. cit., V, xvi). HARNACK, Altchrist Lit., p. 599; BARDENHEWER, Patrology (tr. SHAHAN, St. Louis, 1908), 117. F. J. BACCHUS. Rhosus, a titular sec in Cilicia Secunda, suffragan to Anazarba. Rhosus or Rhossus was a seaport situated on the Gulf of Issus, now Alexandretta, southwest of Alexandria (Iskenderoun or Alexandretta). It is mentioned by Strabo (XIV, 5; XVI, 2), Ptolemy (V, 14), Pliny (V, xviii, 2), who place it in Syria, and by Stephanus Byzantius; later by Hierocles (Synecd. 705, 7), and George of Cyprus (Descriptio orbis romani, 827), who locate it in Cilicia Secunda. Towards 200, Serapion of Antioch composed a treatise on the Gospel of Peter for the faithful of Rhosus who had become heterodox on account of that book (Eusebius, "Hist. eccl.", VI, xii, 2). Theodoret (Philoth. Hist., X, XI), who places it in Cilicia, relates the history of the hermit Theodosius of Antioch, founder of a monastery in the mountain near Rhosus, who was forced by the inroads of barbarians to retire to Antioch, where he died and was succeeded by his disciple Romanus, a native of Rhosus; these two religious are honoured by the Greek Church on 5 and 9 February. Six bishops of Rhosus are known (Le Quien, "Or. Christ.", II, 905): Antipatros, at the Council of Antioch, 363; Porphyrius, a correspondent of St. John Chrysostom; Julian, at the Council of Chalcedon, 451; a little later a bishop (name unknown), who separated from his metropolitan to approve of the reconciliation effected between John of Antioch and St. Cyril; Antoninus, at the Council of Mopsuestra, 550; Theodore, about 600. The see is mentioned among the suffragans of Anazarba in "Notitia episcopatuum" of the Patriarchate of Antioch, of the sixth century (Vailhé in "Echos d'Orient", X, 145) and one dating from about 840 (Parthey, "Hieroclis synecd. et notit. gr. episcopat.", not. Ia, 827). In another of the tenth century Rhosus is included among the exempt sces (Vailhé, ibid., 93 seq.). In the twelfth century the town and neighbouring fortress fell into the hands of the Armenians; in 1268 this castle was captured from the Templars by Sultan Bibars (Alishan, "Sissouan", Venice, 1899, 515). Rhosus is near the village of Arsous in the vilayct of Adana. S. PETRIDES. Rhymed Bibles.-The rhymed versions of the Bible are almost entirely collections of the psalms. The oldest English rhymed psalter is a pre-Reformation translation of the Vulgate psalms, generally assigned to the reign of Henry II and still preserved in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The Bodlepsalter of much the same style, assigned epigraphician Library, Oxford, has another Catholic rhyming ally to the time of Edward II. Thomas Brampton did the Seven Penitential Psalms, from the Vulgate, into rhyming verse in 1414; the MS. is in the Cottonian collection, British Museum. These and other pre-Reformation rhyming psalters tell a story of popular use of the vernacular Scripture in England. which they ignore who say that the singing of psalms in English began with the Reformation. Sir Thomas Wyat (d. 1521) is said to have done the whole psalter. We have only "Certayne Psalmes chosen out of the Psalter of David, commonlye called the VII Penitential Psalmes, Drawen into English metre". Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (d. 1547), translated Pss. lv, lxxiii, lxxxviii into English verse. Miles Coverdale (d. 1567) translated several psalms in "Goastly psalmes and spirituall songs drawen out of the Holy Scripture". The old Version of the Anglican Church, printed at the end of the Prayer Book (1562) contains thirty-seven rhyming psalms translated by Thomas Sternhold, fifty-eight by John Hopkins, twenty-eight by Thomas Norton, and the remainder by Robert Wisdom (Ps. cxxv), William Whittingham (Ps. cxix of 700 lines) and others. Sternhold's psalms had been previously published (1549). Robert Crowley (1549) did the entire psalter into verse. The Seven Penitential Psalms were translated by very many; William Hunnis (1583) entitles his translation, with quaint Elizabethan conceit, "Seven Sobs of a Sorrowful Soul for Sinne". During the reign of Edward VI, Sir Thomas Smith translated ninety-two of the psalms into English verse, while imprisoned in the Tower. A chaplain to Queen Mary, calling himself the "symple and unlearned Syr William Forrest, preciste", did a poetical version of fifty psalms (1551). Matthew Parker (1557), later Archbishop of Canterbury, completed a metrical psalter. The Scotch had their Psalmes buickes from 1564. One of the most renowned of Scotch versifiers of the Psalms was Robert Pont (1575). Zachary Boyd, another Scotchman, published the Psalms in verse early in the seventeenth century. Of English rhyming versifications of the Psalms, the most charming are those of Sir Philip Sidney (d. 1586) together with his sister, Countess of Pembroke. This complete psalter was not published till 1823. The rich variety of the versification is worthy of note; almost all the usual varieties of lyric metres of that lyric age are called into requisition and handled with elegance. The stately and elegant style of Lord Bacon is distinctive of his poetical paraphrases of several psalms. Richard Verstegan, a Catholic, published a rhyming version of the Seven Penitential Psalms (1601). George Sandys (1636) published a volume containing a metrical version of other parts of the Bible together with "a Paraphrase upon the Psalmes of David, set to new Tunes for Private Devotion, and a Thorow Base for Voice and Instruments"; his work is touching in its simplicity and unction. The Psalm Books of the various Protestant churches are mostly rhyming versions and are numerous: New England Psalm Book (Boston, 1773); Psalm Book of the Reformed Dutch Church in North America (New York, 1792); The Bay Psalm Book (Cambridge, 1640). Noteworthy also, among the popular and more recent rhymed psalters are: Brady and Tate (poet laureate), "A new Version of the Psalms of David" (Boston, 1762); James Merrick, "The Psalms in English Verse" (Reading, England, 1765); I. Watts, "The Psalms of David' (27th ed., Boston, 1771); J. T. Barrett, "A Course of Psalms" (Lambeth, 1825); Abraham Coles, "A New Rendering of the Hebrew Psalms into English Verse" (New York, 1885); David S. Wrangham, "Lyra Regis" (Leeds, 1885); Arthur Trevor Jebb, "A Book of Psalms" (London, 1898). Such are the chief rhyming English psalters. Other parts of Holy Writ done into rhyming English verse are: Christopher Tye's "The Acts of the Apostles translated into English Metre" (1553); Zachary Boyd's "St. Matthew" (early seventeenth cent.); Thomas Prince's "Canticles, parts of Isaias and Revelations" in New England Psalm Book (1758); Henry Ainswort, "Solomon's Song of Songs" (1642); John Mason Good's "Song of Songs" (London, 1803); C. C. Price's "Acts of the Apostles" (New York, 1845). The French have had rhyming psalters since the "Sainctes Chansonettes en Rime Française" of Clement Marot (1540). Some Italian rhymed versions of the Bible are: Abbate Francesco Rezzano, "II Libro di Giobbe" (Nice, 1781); Stefano Egidio Petroni, "Proverbi di Salomone" (London, 1815); Abbate Pietro Rossi, "Lamentazioni di Geremia, Sette Salmi Penitenziali e il Cantico di Mose" (Nizza, 1781); Evasio Leone, "Il Cantico de' Cantici" (Venice, 1793); Francesco Campana, "Libro di Giuditta" (Nizza, 1782). Bibliotheca Sussexiana, II (London, 1839); WARTON, History of English Poetry (1774-81); HOLLAND, The Psalmists of Britain (London, 1843). WALTER DRUM. Rhythmical Office.-I. DESCRIPTION, DEVELOPMENT, AND DIVISION.-By rhythmical office is meant a liturgical horary prayer, the canonical hours of the priest, or an office of the Breviary, in which not only the hymns are regulated by a certain rhythm, but where, with the exception of the psalms and lessons, practically all the other parts show metre, rhythm, or rhyme; such parts for instance as the antiphons to each psalm, to the Magnificat, Invitatorium, and Benedictus, likewise the responses and versicles to the prayers, and after each of the nine lessons; quite often also the benedictions before the lessons, and the antiphons to the minor Hora (Prime, Terce, Sext, and None). The old technical term for such an office was Historia, with or without an additional "rhytmata" or rimata, an expression that frequently caused misunderstanding on the part of later writers. The reason for the name lay in the fact that originally the antiphons or the responses, and sometimes the two together, served to amplify or comment upon the history of a saint, of which there was a brief sketch in the readings of the second nocturn. Gradually this name was transferred to offices in which no word was said about a "history", and thus we find the expression "Historia ss. Trinitatis". The structure of the ordinary office of the Breviary in which antiphons, psalms, hymns, lessons, and responses followed one another in fixed order, was the natural form for the rhythmical office. It was not a question of inventing something new, as with the hymns, sequences, or other kinds of poetry, but of creating a text in poetic form in the place of a text in prose form, where the scheme existed, definitely arranged in all its parts. A development therefore which could eventually serve as a basis for the division of the rhythmical offices into distinct classes is of itself limited to a narrow field, namely the external form of the parts of the office as they appear in poetic garb. Here we find in historical order the following characters: (1) a metrical, of hexameters intermixed with prose or rhymed prose; (2) a rhythmical, in the broadest sense, which will be explained below; (3) a form embellished by strict rhythm and rhyme. Consequently one may distinguish three classes of rhythmical offices: (1) metrical offices, in hexameters or distichs; (2) offices in rhymed prose, i. e., offices with very free and irregular rhythm, or with dissimilar assonant long lines; (3) rhymed offices with regular rhythm and harmonious artistic structure. The second class represents a state of transition, wherefore the groups may be called those of the first epoch, the groups of the transition period, and those of the third epoch, in the same way as with the sequences, although with the latter the characteristic difference is much more pronounced. If one desires a general name for all three groups, the expression "Rhymed Office", as suggested by "Historia rimata" would be quite appropriate for the pars major et potior, which includes the best and most artistic offices; this designation: "gereimtes Officium" (Reimofficium) has been adopted in Germany through the "Analecta Hymnica". The term does not give absolute satisfaction, because the first and oldest offices are without rhyme, and cannot very well be called rhymed offices. In the Middle Ages the word "rhythmical" was used as the general term for any kind of poetry to be distinguished from prose, no matter whether there was regular rhythm in those poems or not. And for that reason it is practical to comprise in the name "rhythmical offices" all those which are other than pure prose, a designation corresponding to the "Historia rhytmata". Apart from the predilection of the Middle Ages for the poetic form, the Vita metrica of the saints were the point of departure and motive for the rhythmical offices. Those Vita were frequently composed in hexameters or distichs. From them various couples of hexameters or a distich were taken to be used as antiphon or response respectively. In case the hexameters of the Vito metrica did not prove suitable enough, the lacking parts of the office were supplemented by simple prose or by means of verses in rhymed prose, i. e., by text lines of different length in which there was very little of rhythm, but simply assonance. Such offices are often a motley mixture of hexameters, rhythmical stanzas, stanzas in pure prose, and again in rhymed prose. An example of an old metrical office, intermixed with Prose Responses, is that of St. Lambert (Anal. Hymn., XXVII, no. 79), where all the antiphons are borrowed from that saint's Vita metrica, presumably the work of Hucbald of St. Amand; the office itself was composed by Bishop Stephen of Liège about the end of the ninth century: Antiphona I: Orbita solaris præsentia gaudia confert Præsulis eximii Lantberti gesta revolvens. Antiphona II: Hic fuit ad tempus Hildrici regis in aula, Dilectus cunctis et vocis famine dulcis. A mixing of hexameters, of rhythmical stanzas, and of stanzas formed by unequal lines in rhymed prose is shown in the old Office of Rictrudis, composed by Hucbald about 907 (Anal. Hymn., XIII, no. 87). By the side of regular hexameters, as in the Invitatorium: Rictrudis sponso sit laus et gloria, Christo, Pro cuius merito iubilemus ei vigilando. we find rhythmical stanzas, like the first antiphon to Lauds: Honestis alta et instituta moribus. From the metrical offices, from the pure as well as from those mixed with rhymed prose, the transition was soon made to such as consisted of rhymed prose merely. An example of this kind is in the Offices of Ulrich, composed by Abbot Berno of Reichenau (d. 1048); the antiphon to the Magnificat of the first Vespers begins thus: Venerandi patris Wodalrici sollemnia . . etc. ... Much more perfectly developed on the other hand, is E senatorum sanguine Dum præclarior præclaris This author does not yet make use of pure rhyme, but only of assonance, the precursor of rhyme. Hence we have before us an example of transition from offices of the first epoch to those of the second. With these latter the highest development of the rhythmical office is reached. It is marvellous how in many offices of this artistic period, in spite of all symmetry in rhythm and rhyme, the greatest variety exists in the structure of the stanzas, how a smooth and refined language matches the rich contents full of deep ideas, and how the individual parts are joined together in a complete and most striking pic ture of the saint or of the mystery to be celebrated. A prominent example is the Office of the Trinity by Archbishop Pecham of Canterbury. The first Vespers begins with the antiphons: (1) Sedenti super solium Congratulans trishagium (2) Sequamur per suspirium, Quod geritur et gaudium In sanctis cæli choris; Levemus cordis studium In trinum lucis radium Splendoris et amoris. It is interesting to compare with the preceding the antiphons to the first nocturn, which have quite a different structure; the third of them exhibits the profound thought: Leventur cordis ostia: Nato intelligentia, again the first response to the third nocturn: In Egypti venit ergastulum. Mel mandentem et butyrum. upon which follows as second response the beautiful picture of the Trinity in the following form: A Veterani facie manavit ardens fluvius: Prophetis luxit Trinitas, Quam post pandit ecclesiæ In carne fulgens veritas. II. HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE.-It cannot be defi nitely stated which of the three old abbeys: Prüm. Landévennec, or Saint-Amand can claim priority in composing a rhythmical office. There is no doubt however that Saint-Amand and the monasteries ir Hainault, Flanders, and Brabant, was the real starting-point of this style of poetry, as long ago as the |