And bright with many an angel, And many a martyr throng; Are clad in robes of white." (Mediaval Hymns, etc., pp. 55-57.) A considerable number of Latin hymns is classed under the general title of "Sequences," a term primarily applied, as Mr Neale informs us, to words composed to fit in with the Gregorian prolongation of the "Alleluia." They were first written in the tenth century. We are anxious rather to introduce Latin hymns to our readers than to theorize about them, and therefore we shall make no apology for quoting rather than describing them. The first example which we shall give of a sequence, exhibits their more primitive form. It is full of an admirable simplicity, which has ten times the power of an elaborate complexity, doing effectually the work which we maintain that Latin hymns are espe cially calculated to do-the work of stirring up the soul, and preaching to the heart. We may notice, in this instance too, how great a remove there is from the Mariolatry of later times, and even of later hymns, the "Stabat Mater," for example. The ruggedness of the English metre is a close imitation of the original : "Death and life, In wondrous strife, Came to conflict sharp and sore: Life's Monarch, He that died, now dies no more. What thou sawest, Mary, say, As thou wentest on thy way? 'I saw the slain One's earthly prison ; The witness-angels by the cave, And the garments of the grave. The Lord, my hope, hath risen: and He shall go before to Galilee.' Thou victor Monarch, for thy suppliants plead." (Hymnal Noted, p. 63.) We have reserved until now, as the cope-stone of our quotations, a sequence which stands unequalled among sacred metrical compositions, we refer to the "Dies Ira" of Thomas de Celano. Unearthly in its pathos-magnificent in its diction-thrilling in its versification-it comes upon our souls with the sweep of a rushing wind, lifting them up on its breast of swelling might until they seem to be already hearing the first note of the archangel's trump as it echoes up from the realms of infinity, and momently expecting it to ring fully through the abodes of quick and dead. If we seek for an instance of the force of subjectivity, we find it in its fulness here; if we seek to know the power of words, we have here the very limit of expressiveness, and these two are welded together firmly and indissolubly by a metre which will serve at once as the best apology for the renunciation of classicalism, and the best example of the heartfelt significance of Christian Latinity. Until Dr Irons' version appeared in the Hymnal Noted, English readers had been entirely without a translation which gave even a tenth rate lithograph (if we may use the expression) of this gorgeous picture, and we regret that it is only popularly known through such corrupted media. The version of which we speak has, however, left little to be desired, since it faithfully represents not merely the language, but also the metre, and what is more, the rhyming triplet of the original. We feel compelled to quote its more striking verses, referring our readers to Daniel's "Thesaurus," or Mr Trench's "Sacred Latin Poetry." "Day of wrath! O day of mourning! To its Judge an answer making! "What shall I, frail man be pleading? When the just are mercy needing. We think that Daniel's will continue to be the best work of reference for ordinary purposes, embracing, as it does, not merely Western, but also Eastern hymnology, although, in some respects, the new German "Hymni Latini Medii Evi, Edid. F. J. Mone" will be more complete. "King of Majesty tremendous, Who dost free salvation send us, Faint and weary Thou has sought me, Ere that reck'ning day's conclusion! All my shame with anguish owning; "Low I kneel with heart-submission; "Ah! that day of tears and mourning! But now we must close our brief sketch of Latin hymnology. We had intended to have pursued the subject further, by tracing the coincidences between the voices of the Christian life in those ages, and the voices of the Christian life in later times, but our limits compel us to forbear. ART. IX.-1. The Inspiration of Holy Scripture, its Nature and Proof. Eight Discourses preached before the University of Dublin. By WILLIAM LEE, M.A. London: Rivington. 1854. 2. The Inspiration of Holy Scripture. Five Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge. By the Rev. LORD ARTHUR HERVEY, M.A. Cambridge: Macmillan. 1856. 3. The Doctrine of Inspiration. Being an Inquiry concerning the Infallibility, Inspiration, and Authority of Holy Writ. By the Rev. JOHN MACNAUGHT, M.A. London: Longman. 1856. 4. Inspiration a Reality: or a Vindication of the Plenary Inspiration and Infallible Authority of Holy Scripture, in reply to a Book lately published by the Rev. J. Macnaught. By the Rev. JOSIAH B. LOWE, A.B. London: Longman. 1856. 5. The Infallibility of Holy Scripture. A Lecture in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, on Tuesday, April 7, 1857. By ROBERT S. CANDLISH, D.D. Manchester: Wm. Bremner. "HAVE you seen," says the late Dr Arnold, in one of his letters to Mr Justice Coleridge, "your uncle's Letters on Inspiration, which, I believe, are to be published? They are well fitted to break ground in the approaches to that momentous question which involves in it so great a shock to existing notions, the greatest, perhaps, that has ever been given since the discovery of the falsehood of the doctrine of the Pope's infallibility." We believe that Dr Arnold's estimate of the importance of the question of the nature and measure of that authority that is to be ascribed to inspired scripture is not an over-estimated one. From the very nature of the case, indeed, the inquiry as to whether or not we have an infallible interpreter of the record which claims to rule our belief and our conduct, is a secondary and inferior one to the inquiry whether we have a record at all entitled to make such a claim. There is a previous and a higher question to be settled before we need trouble ourselves about the infallibility to be conceded to the word of Pope or council. We must see whether there is any infallibility at all to be ascribed to the Word of God; and, without being guilty of forming any under-estimate of the results of the discovery which the world made when Luther challenged and overthrew the authority of the Pope, we may rest assured that history will have to write upon its page results stranger and more momentous still, when the discovery shall come to be made and acknowledged, that the Church has been wrong from the beginning, and that men have really no standard of truth apart from their own nature, and distinguished by the two marks of infallible certainty and Divine authority. The posthumous work of Coleridge, to which Dr Arnold alludes, has given currency in this country to principles and views on the subject of the Inspiration of Scripture unfamiliar to British theology before, and which Coleridge only borrowed and translated from Germany. The influence of his name and school has, to no inconsiderable extent, gained for them popularity and acceptance both within and without the Church, and they have been zealously advocated and disseminated by the band of remarkable men, consisting of Arnold, Hare, Maurice, Morell, and others, who sat at his feet, and were trained more or less in his habits of thinking; and yet never was there a book less entitled than the "Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit" to the honour of effecting a revolution in theology, or becoming the manifesto of any school of inquirers accustomed to habits of sound and accurate reasoning. With not a little to remind us of the reach and originality of thought which distinguish the other writings of Coleridge, it is marked to a most vicious excess with looseness and inaccuracy of conception; it betrays a painful ignorance of the main facts and fundamental principles involved in the question at issue; and, by the confident, but impotent attempt which he makes to marry a mystical philosophy to an unsound theology, he only shows that he has strayed into a province of speculation with whose guiding landmarks he was completely unacquainted. Nor is this failure to grasp, and inability to deal with, the necessary conditions of the problem to be solved, so conspicuous in Coleridge's discussion of the doctrine of inspiration, altogether due to his limited and defective preparation for dealing with the subject; it is in no small measure to be attributed to the exigencies of his position and argument. In bondage to the school and habits of a merely subjective philosophy, and bent on reducing and assimilating his theology to the same standard and form, his very position imposed upon him the temptation, or rather the necessity, of discarding almost everything objective from his doctrine of inspiration, and even of revelation. In doing this, he has of necessity missed the real point in debate, and substituted for that ancient article of the Church, which asserts an external revelation and a real inspiration of it, the modern theory of an inward and subjective illumination. The same subjective tendencies have led to similar results in the case of almost every writer in recent times, who has rejected and repudiated the former doctrine on the subject of the infallibility of Scripture. Under the name of revelation, or under the name of inspiration, they have advocated and disguised principles and views, which, in one shape or other, and to a greater or less extent, evacuate both of the objec |