cheap edition, published in 1844, makes fewer pretensions to accuracy, and is therefore not so greatly to be blamed for its mistakes; but we are really surprised to find Sir Egerton Brydges sending forth from the Lee

Priory Press passages which, like the following one, read into sheer nonsense for want of a little ingenuity and diligence in decyphering the handwriting in the original MS.

MR. URBAN,

Feb. 5. I HAVE read with great pleasure the answer of PRESBYTER ANGLICANUS, M.A. to my strictures upon two pas sages in the English Liturgy-both because the article had been thought worthy of notice in the proper quarter, and because the reverend respondent has treated the subject, as well as the propounder, with moderation, courtesy, and sound learning. I am not a professed theologian, nor has my course of reading brought me into acquaintance with the learned works to which P. A. refers. "Hymnus Beatorum Episcoporum Ambrosii et Augustini," I had copied from a MS. some time ago; but, in writing out my communication, trusted to memory--and I still think I have seen the name of Athanasius prefixed to the Te Deum. But the question is not who wrote it, but what was written in it.

Two additional considerations enhance the pleasure of my present position. I am laid under no necessity of putting my opponent in the wrong. This, towards a Christian pastor, a scholar, and a gentleman, would be painful. I can subscribe to all his remarks-saving the main point-the mun- and the nunc [sit]. And, in the next place, I have been led to further research; and thereby not only to additional evidence of the truth, in confirmation of my views, but also to a solution of the question-how the original reading came to be perverted. I might add a third consideration, and my cause loses nothing by the avowal. I can plead guilty to the "boldness of

my assertions," without disparaging the good faith in which they were made, (if that may be called good faith which implies any reliance upon Romish infallibility.) It is not the strength but the breadth of my assertion of " all MSS. and printed editions," that makes it too bold. When I extended my line so as to endanger the strength of my position, I neglected to cover my flank with the convenient auxiliaries " that I have seen," or "that appear to be of any critical value." As for MSS. I had on my side one of the eighth century, and one of the eleventh, the former written in uncial letters or Roman capitals. (Cot. MSS. Vespasian A. 1. and Arundel MSS. No. 60.) In print I found it safely (as I thought) landed under the three-fold shelter of the triple tiara (as good as nine ordinary crowns)— the solemn sanction of three Presbyteri Romani, at the top of their profession -Pius V. Clement VIII. and Urban VIII.; so never expected to meet it out at sea again, far less cast ashore by the mismanagement of some unskilful pilot, or headstrong commander. The present reading of the Breviarium Romanum, to which my opponent appeals, is indeed against me-or rather, I am against it. My copy-a fine-paper 8vo. edition of the seventeenth century, the early half of it I think (for I have not brought the book with me), has the sanction here quoted, and the reading for which I contend.

When I wished to introduce to my advanced classical scholars a sample of original English, in as nice and strict

grammatical construction as they found in Latin or Greek, I copied from Turner's History the Anglo-Saxon gloss of this sublime anthem. When I came to the "beon forgyfen" for "to be numbered"-for in the English only had I ever seen it-I was confounded. "What could the drowsy monk be thinking of?-I must see the original." I believe I had not then to seek the Breviarium, but had not made much use of it-only read a few of the Psalms. Now I searched in earnest, found the Te Deum, and saw that the monkish glossist had been neither sleeping nor slumbering when he interlined his Hymnarium. He knew what he was doing when he wrote these words in beautiful small script over the print-like MUNERARI of Vesp. A. 1.; better apparently than he who interlined Arund. 60. These are as good as living witnesses, proving not only the reading, but the understanding not only the body, but the mind of the form before us. The next witness identifies the form, but varies a little in the sense: it is the old High German version, also an interlinear gloss, of the tenth or eleventh century, published by Jacob Grimm from a transcript made by the celebrated Teutonist, Junius, from a MS. now lost. Instead of forgifen, freely gifted, we find "lonot,” which, according to the modern lohnen, may signify rewarded -as if the simple munerari had been confounded with the compound remunerari. And to a similar confusion of ideas I am inclined to impute the gradual corruption of the passage in a fater age. These are two of the translations to which I appealed. If I had my books here I could add the Swedish, the passive form of gifwa, to give, which should be gifwas. In modern German Luther's paraphrase in general use is too general, in the turn of the phrase, for our purpose. But there is an edition of the Psalter in which Luther could scarcely have a hand-Latin and German, 4to. Basil. 1502. Here "munerari stands flanked by "begabet werden "-(gabe, a gift). Most of the Protestant churches on the Continent, I believe, which adopt the hymn, use a translation of the English forms, and can afford no evidence on either side.

I have now to exhibit the new light

which my renewed investigation has thrown upon the subject. When I asserted (as I again assert) that "gloria numerari" was no Latin, I was not aware of the extent-the unlimited extent to which the assertion was true: I merely intimated that such a phrase, if it existed, was too bad to be called Latin. Now, I find it was never even supposed to exist. The change was made, not merely by transposing m, n, but by interpolating the preposition in. This first met my eye in the Sarum Book of Offices, and is also found in a MS. Hymnarium in usum Sarum, of the fifteenth century-in gloria; but whether the last word should be read numerari or munerari, I think no human eye or judgment capable of deciding. It is in a text hand, i. e. woven together, as it were, in one mass. For the first three letters, we find seven down strokes, joined together by hair strokes at top and bottom, making mun, num, mim, nuni, nimi, or anything; for the dotmerely diacritical-no integral part of the letter i, was often omitted. I formerly supposed some such MS. to have been taken as the basis of the English translation; but the English Reformers, whose learning or piety I never called in question, are as innocent of the innovation here as, in my last communication, I showed them to have been in regard to the Gloria. And what astonished me not a little, I found grounds for believing that the process of corruption was the reverse of that which my previous knowledge of the case had suggested. Instead of the natural order, as might be supposed-munerari changed by mistake or design to numerari, and then in supplied to make it Latin of some sort-I was surprised to read in the "Psalmista Monasticvm," Venet. 1583, "Aeterna fac cum sanctis tuis: in gloria munerari." The same absurd reading stands in the Breviarium Monasticum, ib. 1573, and Pontificale, ib. 1572.

As the denounced form "numerari gloriâ" makes no appearance, let the three-MUNERARI gloria, munerari in gloria, and numerari in gloria-have a patient hearing and a fair trial. The evidence in favour of the first is overwhelming. Apart from the age of MS. evidence and papal authority from early times to the seventeenth

century, the translations into languages long since extinct are living witnesses, with memories a thousand years long. The second, which seems to be the transition form, is but feebly supported; while the evidence for the third is multitudinous, but recent and suspicious.

Looking at the whole question, let us try if we can find a solution, if not mathematically certain, at least morally probable. Which is more likely to have sprung out of the other-the first out of the third, or vice versâ? Which makes the better sense-to be gifted with glory, i. e. have glory bestowed upon them, or to be numbered in glory? "To be numbered with saints is precluded by the arrangement of the words, the insertion of gloria between sanctis and the verb. And it is to this inadmissible view that my opponent's quotations are applicable. Next, in a literary view, the construction of the first is perfectly classical; not quite so the passive sense (for I give up the proposed "fac munerari"), which may have weighed with the heads of the Romish Church in admitting the change. And yet another proof in my favour every way-they let the barbarous active form stand unmolested in one of their hymns:

recom

Donis beatis muneret. (lamb. dim.) Here, too, the combining of it with donis establishes my sense of the word, as giving no countenance to the idea of human merit. And yet it is not only scriptural doctrine, but a highly animating motive to well-doing, to contemplate the everlasting glory, as Moses did, in the light of a แ pense of reward." This has brought me into the very midst of the theological view of the question. To my "munerari" MSS. I omitted to add a most respectable volume of the thirteenth century (Arund. 230), between the uncial and text forms, what is by the Germans called fractur, because the letters are not joined, but broken off, so as to stand separate, as in print. Now the Sarum Hymns are written in a later hand, and set to music; so the volume may have been got up after printing had come into use, and be nearly contemporary with the printed ritual of date 1541. Bishop Burnet GENT. MAG. VOL. XXIX.

makes mention of a reform in that Church about the year 1540. Again, we all know what stress the reformers, at home and abroad, laid upon the doctrine of free justification by grace, by faith, or, what is virtually the same, by the righteousness of Christ. The idea of being rewarded with everlasting glory seemed, though undeservedly, to favour a contrary doctrine. The views of the reformers were partially adopted by many in the north of Italy and elsewhere, who did not, however, separate themselves from the Romish communion. These, while they retained the forms of devotion, would naturally endeavour to remove anything that did not harmonise with their enlightened views and conscientious feelings. To be rewarded in glory seemed to be a softening of the expression, as it did not define or imply the means by which they obtained admission to that state of blessed immortality. But, soon finding that "in gloria munerari" was a feeble, drawling mode of expression, or more probably having actually by accident hit upon that mode of deciphering the MSS. of the day, and thinking it might be strained into a connexion with "cum sanctis tuis," "in gloria numerari" was adopted as a convenient compromise. Still the question occurs, how could it get into the authorised editions of the Breviary? Why, one living Pope may undo what has been done by twenty dead ones. Nay, more, "Going over to Rome" has become a fashionable phrase: here is the converse,—Rome coming over to us.

Whether as a matter of taste, to quash the unclassical passive, or for the sake of uniformity, as we have seen diversity of readings, both MS. and letter-press, or to soften down what some considered a high doctrine, there can be no doubt of a change in this originally pious, dignified, and elegant aspiration, "ending sweetly in a dichoreus." (Smith, Myst. of Rh. Unveiled.) The other, "glori-â numerari," gives a Sapphic ending, very bad in prose.

I conclude this part of my subject with a short notice of the hymn quoted above, as it shows the tampering of modern authority with the venerable monuments of ancient times. In MSS. and in the Sarum print it begins thus · 2 L