described, as appertaining to the Catholic ritual. There is something, no doubt, in the modifications introduced by the translators in the tone and expression, but infinitely more in the style. It is extremely difficult to arrive at an unbiassed judgment on the merits of a composition with which we have been familiar from our infancy; which we lisped in the arms of the nurse; and which we have been taught, in our progress to manhood, to regard with partial veneration; more especially when there is so much beauty and pathos, so much brevity and vigour, so much, in short, of the best characteristics of elegance, as are to be found in our Book of Prayer. Be this, however, as it may, the difference in style alone,-the one being in the purest English, the other in the most corrupted Latin,-is amply sufficient to account for the apparent inconsistency in our account of the Catholic liturgy. We shall come, bye-and-bye, to parts of the latter which correspond with passages in the former, and which will exhibit the contrast we speak of in so obvious a form, as to spare the necessity of further disquisition on the subject.

It is well known, that the Sacrifice of the Mass is the great leading mystery of the Romish church; a mystery, of whose importance, dignity, and divinity, it exceeds the strength of the human mind to attain the most distant conception ~'profunda sunt quippe nimis, et sacro tecta velamine'—it is too deep for mental penetration, and hidden by a sacred veil from the eye of flesh and blood. The terror, the reverence, the apprehension, with which so mysterious a sacrifice is calculated to affect the imagination of the votary, is not even adequately described by Saint Ambrose.-"Quantâ cordis contritione, et lacrymarum fonte, quantâ reverentiâ et tremore, quantâ corporis castitate et animæ puritate istud divinum et celeste sacrificium est celebrandum, ubi caro Christi in veritate sumitur: ubi sanguis Christi in veritate bibitur: ubi summis ima conjunguntur: ubi adest præsentia sanctorum angelorum : ubi Christus est sacerdos et sacrificium, mirabiliter et ineffabiliter constitutus!"- -"With what contrition of the heart and store of weeping, with what reverence and trembling, with how great purity of body and mind is so divine and heavenly a sacrifice to be consummated, in which the very body of Christ is eaten, and the very blood of Christ is drunk; in which, what is mortal is conjoined with what is immortal; in which the holy angels are witnesses; in which Christ, by an ineffable and stupendous miracle, is, at once, the priest and sacrifice!"

In the compilation of this portion of the ritual, the Romish clergy may, therefore, be supposed to have expended their whole stock of ingenuity. And such is, in fact, the case.

If we had intended, like Eustace, to describe the ceremonial of the mass, although we never witnessed its celebration at St. Peter's, we should, probably, draw a similar picture, as far, at least, as the difference of descriptive power would have permitted, to that with which he has presented us. This, however, is not our object. We want to look a little behind the scenes, and to scrutinize the effect this show is meant to exercise on the mind as well as on the eye. Our critique will be less imposing, but, probably, not less instructive.

On the literary pretensions of the Missal we have already made some remarks. We have described the latinity as the most barbarous of the middle ages, and the style as a tissue of barren exaggerations, of which the imaginative part consists in expressing ordinary ideas in adjectives of the superlative degree, and in attempting to make up in big words what was wanting in copiousness of thought and felicity of diction. When we add, that the dogma is happily suited to the style; that it is equally distinguished by a straining after sublimity by means of out-of-the-way ideas and images; we have finished the description. For an example, taken at random, the reader is presented with the "Rythmus Sti. Thoma ad sacram Eucharistiam ;" or, "St. Thomas's rhymes for the Lord's Supper."

"Adoro te devotè, latens Deitas,
Quæ sub his figuris verè latitas.
Tibi se cor meum totum subjicit,
Quia te contemplans totum deficit;
Visus, gustus, tactus in te fallitur,
Sed additu solo tutè creditur.
Credo quidquid dixit Dei Filius,
Nihil veritatis hoc verbo verius.
In cruce latebat sola deitas,
Sed hic latet simul et humanitas.
Ambo tamen credens atque confitens,
Peto quod petivit latro pœnitens.
Plagas sicut Thomas non intueor,
Deum tamen meum te confiteor.
Fac me tibi semper magis credere,
In te spem habere, te diligere.
O memoriale mortis domini !
Panis verus, vitam præstans homini:
Præsta meæ menti de te vivere,
Et te illi semper dulce sapere.
Pie Pelicane Jesu Domine,

Me immundum munda tuo sanguine:

Cujus una stilla salvum facere,
Totum mundum posset omni scelere.
Jesum quem velatum nunc aspicio,
Quando fiet istud, quod tam sitio;
Ut te revelata cernens facie,
Visu sim beatus tuæ gloriæ ?"

It is difficult to name any of the minor tricks of writing which St. Thomas has not pressed into his service in this delectable composition. Jingling alliterations, triple rhymes, childish antitheses, but more childish mysticism;-such are the staple commodities of this rhyming dialectician. St. Thomas was as good a logician (for we take this to be the Angelic Doctor) as the Calvinistic disputant, Watts. Both were indifferent rhymesters; but, strange as it may seem, the Catholic was much the worse of the two.

We have Johnson's authority for excluding religious topics from the domain of poetry. His reasons need not be repeated; but there is one remark of his which applies peculiarly to this hymn. It occurs, we believe, in his Life of Waller.-"Whatever is great, desirable, or tremendous, is comprised in the name of the Supreme Being. Omnipotence cannot be exalted; Infinity cannot be amplified; Perfection cannot be improved." We do not question this position; but it is, surely, within the competence of poetry to preserve, if it cannot augment, the natural dignity of such topics. Because they cannot be made more sublime, it does not follow that they should be rendered

mean.

The following loose paraphrase will convey but an imperfect notion of the original. It would be difficult, in any translation, to do it the justice it deserves. St. Thomas was a worthy subject for the pen of Sternhold and Hopkins, however unjust they may have been to the merits of David.

"Devoutly I adore Thee, latent God,

Verily present in these elements

Of outward bread and wine! for so my heart,
Unable to conceive Thee, trusts, through faith,
Implicitly, whate'er the fallible sense

Of sight, and touch, and odour would persuade,
Not doubting whatsoe'er the Son of God
Hath spoken. On the cross, though only God
Were present, here both God and man; which I
Believe, however sensual proofs oppugn,
And trusting, like the penitent thief, in Thee!
Ah, make me still confess Thee more and more;

Assent, believe, not question, but adore!
Thou sweet memorial of a Saviour's death,
True bread, that nourishest eternal life,

May my soul feed on thee, and taste thee sweetly!
Lord Jesu! pious pelican! unlock

The fountain of thy bosom o'er my soul,

From which one drop would purge a guilty world!
Jesus, whom now I gaze on, though unseen,

When shall I drink, who am so much athirst?
When shall I see thee face to face revealed,

Beatified in thy beatitude!"

This, however, is somewhat too solemn, as well as too free a paraphrase. Let us try it in plain prose.

"I adore thee devoutly, Oh latent Deity, who art truly concealed beneath these figures! My whole heart submits itself to Thee, because it is wholly incapable of contemplating Thee. Sight, taste, touch are deceived in Thee; but we safely draw near Thee and believe. I believe whatsoever the Son of God hath said; no truth is truer than that word.* The Deity alone was concealed on the cross; but here his humanity is concealed also. Believing and confessing both, I pray for what was asked by the repentant thief. I do not, like Thomas, see thy wounds, but, nevertheless, I confess Thee to be my God. Make me ever believe more in Thee, hope in Thee, love Thee. Oh, memorial of the Lord's death! true bread, giving life to man, let my mind always live on Thee, and taste thee always sweetly. Pious pelican, Lord Jesu, cleanse me unclean with thy blood, of which one drop could save the whole world from all wickedness. Jesus, whom I now behold veiled, when will that happen which I so much thirst for; that, seeing thy face unveiled, I may be blessed in the sight of thy glory? Amen."

Such was the taste of a despotic church and barbarous age! And such were the strains in which the most illustrious of the Catholic sophisters celebrated the doctrine of the TRANSUBSTANTIATION! ""Tis a pity," some puritan has said, "that the Devil should have all the good tunes :"-he might have added, for aught the Catholic church can shew," and all the good poetry."

It is both amusing and instructive, if, indeed, we should not rather say both ludicrous and horrible, to observe that the doctrinal point of St. Thomas Aquinas's ballad was sometimes made the burden of a more melancholy song, and served up at a less innocent spectacle than a high mass. To have criticised these doggrel rhymes in the reign of Henry VIII., with half the freedom we have ventured on at present, would have subjected us to greater inconveniences than we should have had either zeal or faith enough to have incurred. We subjoin a specimen of the mode in which a reviewal of such performances

was answered in the days of the bluff tyrant, Hal. The account is contained in a letter of the time-serving prelate, Cranmer, lately published by Mr. Ellis, in his Original Letters, &c., and which the more curious reader may find at length in the second volume of that work, in all the glory of the old original spelling. Having given an account of the atrocious divorce of Queen Katharine, the pliant Archbishop goes on to say, that,

"Other news have we none notable, but that one Fryth, which was in the Tower in prison, was appointed by the king's grace to be examined before me, my Lord of London, my Lord of Winchester, my Lord of Suffolk, my Lord Chancellor, and my Lord of Wiltshire, whose opinions were so notably erroneous, that we could not dispatch him, but were fain to leave him to the determination of his Ordinary, (diocesan) which is the Bishop of London. His said opinion is of such nature, that he thought it not necessary to be believed as an article of our faith, that there is the very corporal presence of Christ within the host and sacrament of the altar, and holdeth of this point most after the opinion of Ecolampadius. And, surely, I myself sent for him three or four times to persuade him to leave that his imagination; but for all that we could do therein, he would not apply to any counsel, notwithstanding now he is at a final end with all examinations; for my Lord of London hath given sentence, and delivered him to the secular power, where he looketh every day to go unto the fire."

It has somewhere been said by Cicero-we believe in the De Natura Deorum-that mankind had run through every species of superstitious madness, except eating the deity they worshipped. It did not occur to him, that even this might be exceeded by burning those who eschewed the repast, or partook of it "after the opinion of Ecolampadius."

How much wiser the reasoning of the Procureur of that Abbaye de Chanoines réguliers," whose fame is recorded in the Glutton's Almanack, concerning the same point of doctrine :"Il y a trop de vin dans ce monde pour dire la messe ; il n'y en a point assez pour faire tourner les moulins; donc il faut le boire !"

The first passage we shall notice, in what is called the Ordinarium Missæ-the Common Service of the Mass-or, as it is entitled in our Common Prayer, the Communion Service, is the General Confession. It is well known, that the greater part of the Common Prayer is extracted, with more or less alteration, from the Breviary and Missal of the Catholic church. In the following Confession, the change has been so great, as to leave little in the translation of our church, but the general

* Ecquem tam amentem esse putas, qui illud, quo vescatur, Deum credat esse?