ny of the hymns of the Roman Breviary have not
the elegance of the Odes of Horace, of the hymns of Santeuil and
of Coffin.

Proof:-(1) The holy Fathers had outlined in a rough sketch rather than
perfected their hymns (Pope Urban VIII., Bull Quamvis, 17th June, 1644).

(2) Speaking of the new Hymnal of Ferreri, Pope Clement VIII. says that
the new work could only add to the splendour of worship and help to the
common interest, implying that the new hymns helped religion by their
accuracy and grace of correct poetic forms.

(3) Pimont, the author of a classic work on the Breviary Hymns, in a
number of comments, notes the crudities of the Breviary hymns, even in
their revised forms. Thus, in the hymn for Prime, he notes apparent
ruggedness. He passes similar comments on the hymns assigned to the
little hours.

(4) Bacquez states that all the hymns do not join beauty of expression
to the merit of the thought expressed, and that a certain number lack
style and good prosody.

These opinions should not be extended to all, nor even to very many of
the Breviary hymns. All serious critics agree about the beauty of such
hymns as the _Aeterne rerum Conditor_, the _Somno refectis artubus,
Splendor Aeternae gloriae, Verbum supernum prodiens_, and a good number
of others.

The greater part of the Breviary Hymns are composed according to the
rules of prosody, and their form is lyric, the popular form of Latin
song, which preceded in Italy the prosodical system borrowed from the
Greeks, and used by the classic pagan poets. The critics of the
Renaissance period are very loud and very wrathful over the form of
these hymns. Some of them accuse St. Ambrose, Prudentius and Gregory the
Great of gross ignorance of the rules of Latin verse and, what to the
critics was worse, ignorance of the ways of pagan classical models. But,
was the rhymed, tonic accented lyric, which was to be sung by all sorts
and conditions of men, in public, such an outrageous literary sin? Was
it ignorance or prudence that guided the early hymn writers in their
adoption of popular poetic form? It is not certain by any means that the
early hymn writers wished to copy or adopt the classic forms of the
Augustinian age. Nor is it clear that such men of genius as St. Ambrose,
Prudentius, St. Gregory the Great, were ignorant of the rules and models
of the best Latin poets. It seems that they did not wish to follow them.
They wilfully and designedly adopted the popular