"Welcome, O May, yet once again we greet

thee !

So alway praise we her, the Holy Mother,
Who prays to God that He shall aid us ever
Against our foes, and to us ever listen.

"Welcome, O May, loyally art thou welcome!
So alway praise wo her, the Mother of kind-

ness,

Mother who ever on us taketh pity,

Mother who guardeth us from woes unnumbered.

and is not without dignity, though wanting in the delicate individual flavour of the Cantigas. Great efforts have been made of late years to recover the remainder of it. Spain has been searched for it, but in vain. If it exists at all, it must be looked for now rather in Paris or Vienna, than in the Escurial.

Alfonso of Castile is not to be described in a few pages. He is not like the Cid, a man of one impulse, and that an Welcome, O May! welcome, O month well- is full of indications, of half-growths and His character easily comprehensible one.

favoured!

So let us ever pray and offer praises
To her who ceases not for us, for sinners,

To pray to God that we from woes be guarded.

"Welcome, O May, O joyous May and stain

less !

So will we ever pray to her who gaineth Grace from her Son for us, and gives each morning

Force that by us the Moors from Spain be

driven.

"Welcome, O May, of bread and wine the giver!

Pray then to her, for in her arms, an infant, She bore the Lord! She points us on our journey,

The journey that to her will bear us quickly!"

complexities. You class him perhaps in your mind as a philosopher, and he is one; then why not more indifference to this world's gains and prospects? But he had the volatile and quickly-moved humanity of a child, and the crown of Charlemagne pleases him like any other bauble. He appears at one time a king jealous of his rights, enumerating with bitter pride those who had knelt at his feet and done him homage; while later we find him directing that he should be buried near his parents on a lower tomb, his head to their feet, because of his unworthiness. And there they rest together, Ferdinand the Saint and Alfonso the Wise, father and son, difficult as it is to realize that the same age produced both the one a noble and adequate There is little depth or subtilty of representative of the best and most charthought in this; but how fresh it is, how acteristic influences of his day; the other entirely without effort or affectation! bewildered by dim ideals for the realizaThere is nothing strained, not an epithet tion of which the world had not yet protoo much, and the allusion to the Moors vided the means, his force wasted percompletes the whole effect of spontaneity. petually in untimely aspirations. Not The more serious poems, such as lit- wholly anything, whether for good or evil, anies, confessions of sin, legends like that it is difficult to understand and represent exquisite one of the nun who leaves her him; but our sympathy with him perhaps convent for the sinful world, and coming transcends that which we are able to acback years afterwards broken and repent- cord to the Saint. ant, finds the Virgin in her place, wearing her forsaken dress, and fulfilling her deserted duties, till she should return to resume them, when, without a word of upbraiding, they are given back to her, and she, heart-broken with love and gratitude, confesses to the amazed and wondering sisters, her flight and her long absence, and dies in an ecstasy, all are characterized by the same fresh simplicity. Not that the book is faultless; here and there the evil influence of the Troubadours has crept in, producing lines so curiously meaningless, and versification so ingeniously unnatural, that we smile and acquit Alfonso of what is his only in name.

The "Querellas," a poem, of which only two stanzas remain to us, was written within a year or two of his death. It was meant to be a lament over his misfortunes,

From The Saturday Review. PAGAN ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. THE ecclesiastical mind of England has of late got plunged into controversies which carry us back to ages which ecclesiastical controversialists must not be allowed to have wholly to themselves. To an exclusively theological view no period of history seems richer than the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries. Those ages are the very paradise of theological controversy. They are the days of theology in the very strictest sense. The disputes of other ages, say the Iconoclast controversy or the vast mass of controversies which we jumble together under the name of the

was the established religion of the Empire.
Except Julian, every Emperor was a Chris-
tian, and it should be remembered that,
while Constantine and Theodosius acted
as zealous Christians long before their
baptism, Julian was not only a baptized
man, but had something of an ecclesias-
tical tinge about him, having in his youth
though, to be sure, he never got beyond
his youth-publicly read the Scriptures
in the congregation. But, on the other
hand, baptized and believing Emperors,
both orthodox and heretical, continued to
be invested, like their heathen predeces-
sors, with the office and badges of the
High Pontiffs of the old religion. It was
Gratian who first felt any scruple as to
such conformity with a false creed, and
his scruple was of evil omen.
It was a
well-hazarded prophecy, if it was really
uttered as a prophecy, that, if Gratian re-
fused to be Pontifex Maximus, there would
before long be a Maximus Pontifex.

Reformation, had commonly more or less [example, and that men no longer disputed
to do with man's practical duties towards whether Christianity were true, but only
his Creator or towards his fellow-creatures. what was the true form of Christianity.
Even within the time of which we speak, But things were far from changing in this
there was one dispute, the Pelagian dis- sudden way. Everything indeed shows
pute, which, as having as much to do with that Christianity was the advancing, and
the human as with the divine nature, had that paganism was the declining, religion.
more in common with disputes of a prac-But the advance and the decline were
tical kind. But this was a Western dis- gradual. Down almost to the end of the
pute, a controversy between Britain and fourth century it was hard to say which
Africa. The true native land of pure the-
ology is the Eastern half of Christendom,
the lands where men spoke the one lan-
guage which has the power of distinguish-
ing with sharp precision the minutest
shades of theological difference. There
lay the true home of the controversies of
those specially controversial ages; there
arose the heretics whose eternal doom we
are bidden to pronounce thirteen times in
the year; and there arose the giants of
orthodoxy who smote off the heads which
arose one after another from the crushed,
but never fully seared, trunk of the hy-
dra of heresy. The centuries between
Constantine and Justinian are a time so
fertile both in heretics and saints that
men are sometimes tempted to speak as
if none but heretics and saints lived in
those days, and as if three centuries and
more of the world's history had only an
ecclesiastical existence. Or, if men look at
those days at all in their secular aspect, they
are tempted simply to despise the weakness But, if Christianity was the religion of
of the decaying Empire, to turn away the Roman Emperor, it was at least not
from the spectacle of shifting Emperors the religion of the Roman Senate. It is
and invading barbarians, of the rule of eu- curious, in the fourth and fifth centuries,
nuchs and favourites, and the ten thousand when the despotic system of Diocletian
crimes of the courts of Byzantium and and Constantine was fully established and
Ravenna. We need not say that this is when legislation went steadily on the rule
no adequate view of the true middle ages, that "Quod principi placuit legis habet
of the transitional period of the world's vigorem," to see how the Roman Senate
history when the Roman and the Teutonic won back again some small portion of its
elements still existed side by side in all old authority. Even the Senate of Cou-
their distinctness, and had not yet been stantinople seems to have acted now and
welded together into a whole different then; but the Senate of Constantinople
from either. But it is worth while to was overawed by the constant presence of
see how religious controversies looked in the Emperor. In the West, on the other
those days in the eyes of that large class hand, when the Emperor lived at Milan
who were neither saints nor heretics. The or Ravenna while the Senate went on in
course of history carries us so suddenly its old place at Rome, it often happened
from heathen persecutions under Dio- that in sudden emergencies the Conscript
cletian to ecclesiastical disputes under Fathers had really to act according to
Constantine, that we are apt to think their own wisdom. But, down to the
that all mankind, or at least all the reign of Theodosius, the Conscript Fathers
inhabitants of the Roman Empire, were
actively engaged on behalf either of
orthodoxy or of heresy. We are apt to
forget how long mere Paganism went on.
We are apt to fancy that. as soon as Con-
stantine set up the Labarum as his stand-
ard, the whole Roman world followed his

were a decidedly heathenish assembly.
They vigorously protested against the dis-
establishing decree of that orthodox Em-
peror, by which sacrifices to the old Gods
were not forbidden, but were no longer to
be offered at the public cost. Later still,
when Alaric was at their gates, men fell

back, not indeed on the genuine worship had on the old. Before Christianity finalof Jupiter Optimus Maximus, but only uprooted paganism, it in a manner some strange rites from Etruria. No Christianized it. The paganism of Julian other story better brings out the strange was not simply a system of State ceremomixture of creeds and feelings at the time. The Præfect of the city consults the Bishop, the first bearer of the famous name of Innocent. His answer, if we may trust the spiteful heathen Zosimos, was the most striking example on record of that "habitual sacrifice of private conviction" which some say is the highest duty, if not of a Bishop, yet at least of a statesman. They were to do the idolatrous rite, but to do it privily (ὁ δὲ τὴν τῆς πόλεως σωτηρίαν ἔμπροσθεν τῆς οἰκείας ποιησάμενος δόξης λάθρα ἐφῆκεν αὐτοῖς ποιεῖν ἅπερ ἴσασιν). To understand this answer, whether really given or not, we must remember that to the mind of Innocent the Gods who were to be called on to save Rome were no mere non-existent beings, no mere creations of the fancy. They were devils, living and powerful; the point of the answer is, that the Roman patriotism of the Bishop carried him so far, that he was ready to see Rome saved by the help of devils rather than not see her saved at all. But the sacrifices would have no virtue unless they were done publicly; the Senate went up into the Capitol and did all things decently and in order, but no man, the heathen historian tells us, dared to have any share in their doings.

nies and poetical tales. It had become a creed; it was a system of faith and morals. Take the history of Zosimos, written in the fifth century, when paganism was fast vanishing. To him the worship of the Gods of Rome was not the subject of playful verse which it was to Horace, nor the matter of state policy which it was to the augur of Cicero. His faith is as firm, his orthodoxy is as rigid, he is as undoubting in his belief in Divine Providence and Divine vengeance as the most fervent disputant on the Christian side. He hates Christianity; but it is not with the blind hatred of earlier times; he clearly has some knowledge of its doctrines, and he even borrows its language in denouncing it. He laments the departure of Constantine from "the right way - a formula which he must surely have learned from his enemies; he has his confessors of the truth; he has his signs and wonders, his special interpositions for the punishment of irrevcrence; he has his general theory "De Gubernatione Deorum" in the plural, as carefully thought out and as firmly believed in as ever Salvianus had in the singular. Of Christianity and its professors he never speaks without some expression of sectarian dislike. In short, in Zosimos the Christian disputant met with a fanatical enemy as bitter, and no doubt as conscientious, as himself.

The revival of paganism under Julian bears its witness both ways. Except that the fires of persecution were not kindled, it has much in common with the reign of From Zosimos let us go back a generaPhilip and Mary in England. It has tion or two to Ammianus. We conceive much in common with it, both in the ease that classical purists will cry out if we say with which the revival was made and in that Ammianus Marcellinus, the historian the ease with which it was got rid of. of the campaigns of Julian, has really a If men's minds had not been floating be- right to rank very high, within one or two tween the old system and the new, if of the top, among the extant Latin histothere had been a large and zealous ma- rians of Rome. Between him and Tacitus jority in favour of either, the change the gap is filled up with the dreary epiteither way would have been far more dif- omes of the Augustan History. But Tacficult, whether in England or in the Ro-itus, as well as Livy and Sallust, is not a man Empire. And when, after the death writer contemporary with what he writes of Julian, victims are slain, and the usual about. And daring people are nowadays rites of divination are gone through on behalf of the Christian Jovian, we are reminded of the fact that Elizabeth was crowned with the oiu ceremonies, and that mass went on, being said in English churches till the summer of 1559.

Both in England and in the Roman Empire there were, during the time of change, many zealous supporters of the old system and many zealous supporters of the new. But in the Roman case it should be noticed what a deep effect the new system

beginning to say that Tacitus wrote with a party object, and is not to be implicitly trusted. But Ammianus was a contemporary, and, in a large part of his story, he was a spectator and an actor, an officer in Julian's army. If we look at his matter, his thorough trustworthiness, his keenness of observation, we might put him in the highest class of writers; if we look at his detestably complicated and affected style, we might put him in the lowest. But what we are concerned with is the

way in which he looks at Christianity. In part of good citizens in professing to bethis respect he has pretty well reached the lieve the religion of the commonwealth. If state attributed by Principal Tulloch to a modern poet talks of Jupiter and ApolMr. Burton, that of a "pitiless impartiali- lo, no one suspects him of believing in ty." He clearly was not a Christian him- them; his poetical talk about them is conself; he always speaks of Christianity sistent with the most devout and orthodox from the outside; but he always speaks belief in another faith. But when Claudof the religion itself with respect. He ian prays Jupiter and the other Gods to clearly felt the sublimity of Christian mar- prosper the arms of Honorius, it must have tyrdom; he speaks with reverence of sounded to every devout Christian as a those who laid down their lives for their direct invocation of the devil and his faith. He despises the Christianity of angels. This way of putting Christianity Constantius, in whose hands it had become utterly out of sight, as if it had never been an old wife's fable ("anilis superstito "), heard of, is far more wonderful than either but he says that Christianity itself is a the fierce hatred of Zôsimos or the cool "religio absoluta et simplex "-words indifference of Ammianus. It would be inwhich are not very easy to understand, teresting to look through the remains of but which are clearly meant to be respect- some of the more fragmentary writers of ful. He strongly blames the pride and the same age with the same object. Euluxury of the Bishops of Rome, but in the napios, for instance, hates Christianity as same breath he bears witness to the sim- fiercely as Zôsimos, while in Malchos and ple and useful lives of the Bishops of Olympiodoros we seem, from such little smaller places. Theodosius, whom Zôsi- light as we have, to have calm outsiders mos pursues with all the bitterness of con- of the school of Ammianus. troversial hatred, he calls "princeps per- A far more difficult question is that of fectissimus." But his strongest expression the religion of Boetius in a later, and of of admiration is bestowed on the tolerant Prokopios in a still later, generation. The policy of Valentinian, who hindered the philosophic Consul and Patrician was for professors of either faith from molesting ages looked on as a saint and a martyr, the professors of the other. Something as a theologian who confuted heretics, must be allowed for the different circum- and who died for his faith at the bidding stances of the time of Ammianus and of of an heretical prince. Yet it is well the generation of Zosimos. Ammianus must have written or revised his book under Theodosius; but it may well have been before the public sacrifices were forbidden, in short before Christianity was, strictly speaking, the established religion of the Empire. Zôsimos wrote when things had altogether gone against the old Gods. But it is plain that we see in the two writers two widely different lines of thought with regard to the advancing creed. Ammianus is an indifferent philosopher; Zôsimos is a fanatical partizan.

Claudian seems to represent a third state of mind. There is indeed something wonderful in the sight of a poet singing the praises of a Christian prince in the very generation which saw the final triumph of Christianity, not only without introducing a single Christian expression or idea, but with the most lavish use of the machinery of the old mythology. The position of Claudian was different from that of the poets of the Augustan age; it was different from that of a modern poet who drags in classical illustrations. If Virgil and Horace did not very fervently believe in the religion which they professed, at all events neither they nor those about them believed in any other; and they at least did the

known that the Consolation of Philosophy does not contain a single expression of Christian faith or Christian hope, for surely such a phrase as "angelica virtus" proves nothing at all. It is a speaking fact that when Alfred translated Boëtius for the edification of Englishmen, he had to Christianize him in the process. We feel convinced with Dr. Stanley, in the Dictionary of Biography, that the theological writings attributed to Boëtius cannot possibly be the work of the author of the Consolatio. Boëtius the Patrician must have been, if not a Pagan, at all events not a Christian. At the same time there can be no greater witness than the writings and the life of Boëtius how deeply Christianity had leavened both the faith and the practice of many who still stood outside the Church as a religious community.

As for Prokopios, the wonderful passage near the beginning of his History of the Gothic War looks as if the contemplation of theological controversies had driven him into pure theism and contemptuous toleration. Christians, he says, were endlessly disputing about the nature of the Godhead. But he holds it for madness to try to define things which the human mind cannot understand. He, Prokopios, is con

man

vinced that God is all-powerful and all-neath the gut strings, and prolonged the good, and he can go no further. As for vibration; the viola di Bardone, a larger. anything else, let each man, clerk or lay- and more complicated instrument, whose ·kaì iɛpevç kaì idúrns, the reference to sympathetic wires, twenty-two in number, Thucydides is obvious. say what he were placed so that they could be struck pleases. Prokopios was perhaps a scoffer; with the thumb, while the fingers played certainly he shows no signs of any special the gut strings; the viola da gamba, called devotion. But this passage really only by Sir Andrew Aguecheek the "viol de puts in another shape what the pious Sal- gamboys," and all the tribe of citterns and vianus had already said, perhaps without ghitterns, that used to hang in every barknowing it. The author of De Guberna- ber's shop for gentlemen to play, when tione Dei would not take upon himself to England was famous as a musical nation, pronounce that Ulfilas and Athaulf would and that was before the monstrous idea of without doubt perish everlastingly. He confining musical education to the less muthought that such good people as the sical sex had entered the national head. Goths, heretics as they were, would have Here, too, are all the instruments the some chance in the next world. Perhaps translators of our Bible have bravely transhis notions really came nearer to those of planted to Assyria and the night of ages Prokopios than he would have liked to acknowledge.

From The Pall Mall Gazette. ANCIENT MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.

the sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, &c.; and here are the children and grandchildren of the dulcimer-viz. the keyed dulcimer, the virginal, the clavichord, the spinet, harpsichord, pianoforte. There are nearly two hundred specimens of the old Cremonese and other Italian violins, violas, violons, and basses, and amongst them I see a vio

On the 1st of June the South Kensing-lin that a friend of mine once gave four ton Museum opened a special exhibition of hundred and fifty pounds for, and a bass ancient musical instruments. They have that was bought for eight hundred pounds been obtained on loan from all quarters; in Paris. But as this is the one branch I money, powerful as it is, could not buy the am well versed in, I postpone it for the greater part; and every man and woman, time, my present object being merely to who loves music, or possesses a mind, indicate the various character of the treashould study them before the unique op-sures, and the profit that may be reaped. portunity runs away, and this multitude of gems is dispersed for ever.

The Marquis of Kildare lends an Irish harp with its one row of metal strings, the Talk of the treasures of the deep! Give wooden frame black with age, exposure, me the treasures of the country house; and methinks a little peat-smoke. To such for there curiosities can always find a cor- a harp Carolan, the last great improvising ner to live in London, novelties jostle Irish harper, sang his traditionary melothem into their graves through mere want dies that lived by ear and now are dead, of space. In a word, private contributors, alas! One comfort: as the devil escaped English and foreign, have peopled one of being put in a pie by shunning Cornwall, the halls of this museum with the spoils of so those divine melodies. -some gay, some time. Here are Egyptian and Indian in- sad have died and gone to Heaven, and struments, Turkish and Chinese, very cu- so escaped the defilement and degradation rious; oriental banjos, &c.; and above all of being hashed and smashed into quada most amazing specimen of roundabout rilles by Jullien and his followers, and resonance a long black wooden tube, played in false time and utter defiance of over which the strings are stretched, and their dominant sentiment. There is an the tube rests on two hollow everlasting older harp, lent by Mr. Dalway, on which pumpkins. But the main feature is a num- is inscribed "Ego sum Rex cithararum." ber of mediæval instruments, exquisite in "Pride goeth before destruction;" so this form and workmanship, and sometimes en- self-trumpeting harp is in pieces. The crusted with gems, and inlaid with oriental epithet of "King of Harps " is better merlavishness and the skill of a Genoese jew-ited by the noble instrument of Lady Llaeller. Here in stringed instruments alone nover a triple-stringed Welsh harp, are full a score of obsolete varieties, and made by the famous John Richards about many specimens of each kind, especially 140 years ago. On such a harp, made by of the lute, the archlute, the mandolin, the the same maker (Richards), blind Parry of sweet viola d'amore, with its sympathetic Ruabon harped his "ravishing tunes a wires that lay and trembled in unison be- thousand years old "to the poet Gray, and