near Paris, we will find a poet after our own heart. He is the author of three short poems on the Nativity, the first of which closes with a general invitation to praise : "O te laudum millibus Amanti memoria Domino in altis: Cœlicis a psaltis." Men of every rank and station who were able wrote hymns in those days. One of the loveliest, if not the grandest, of the Latin hymns was written by Robert, second King of France, in the beginning of the eleventh century. It is an address to the Holy Spirit. "Sine tuo numine Nihil est in homine, Lava quod est sordidum Sava quod est saucium." Many of these poems of the Middle Ages were, and still are, cherished among the Reformed Churches of Germany: they are often used in the original Latin, sometimes in German translations. I would be glad if they were better known among ourselves;-if every library, however small, contained Trench's "Sacred Latin Poetry," how much pleasure would be derived, and how much good obtained! There is one short poem which has always struck me very much: it is called "Cygnus Expirans;" it can hardly be called a Christian poem, as it seems more like a lament over the world which could be no longer enjoyed. "The Dying Swan," indeed, is a striking poem, giving an awful description of the sinner's farewell to the world, and all the scenes of his former pleasures and amusements : "Ter centies, ter millies The poem is far too long to copy; we will only add a literal translation of the first three verses : The works of Cowper, Wesley, and Heber, contain many most beautiful and striking hymns,-hymns which we have known and loved from our childhood; but none can attain the place which these Latin hymns hold in our estimation. If there be any writer whose hymns can compare in terseness and originality with the monkish poems, it is the gentle, revered George Herbert, whose poems, indeed, breathe forth that mildness and love of God and man which filled his soul, and that deep knowledge of the Latin Classics for which he was celebrated. His poems are not general favourites: the quaintness and occasional oddity of his rhymes and metres must ever prevent this. But to those who have drank deep "of the well of English undefiled," who have studied the poems, not merely of their own land, but those of other climes, to them Herbert's poems must ever be a legacy, beloved for their own sake and that of their sainted author. We have been led to speak of Herbert, as his rhymes and metres often closely resemble those of the late Latin poets: the same strange analogies may often be traced, the same striking comparisons. We will only bring one more hymn before my readers—a hymn which may well close an article on "Sacred Latin Poetry." It was composed, probably, not later than the eighth or ninth century; and though in parts rough and rugged, yet is most beautiful. It is composed "On the Dedication of the Temple," which subject gives a wide field for the poet to disport himself in. "It is truly," as Dean Trench says, "a hymn of degrees an ascending from earthly things to things heavenly, and a making of the first the interpreters of the last. This the poem before us, indeed, does: from the stones of the Temple directing our thoughts to the living stones of the heavenly Jerusalem,turning our eyes from the earthly building to the Temple made without hands." This poem has been slightly changed in the Romish Breviary: the rough, terse verses, at the commencement, have been altered into smooth iambics; a change certainly for the worse, as much of the beauty of expression is thus lost. There is a perfect translation of this hymn to be found in a work not otherwise of any celebrity, the "Lyra Apostolica." The hymn we allude to is the last in the volume, and is almost a literal translation from the Paris Breviary :: "The Holy Jerusalem From highest heaven descending, Of angel bands attending. The living city built on high Bright with celestial jewelry! "She comes, the Bride, from heaven's gate, The nuptial new adorning, To meet the Immaculate, Like coming of the morning. Her streets of purest gold are made, "There with pearls the gates are dight Upon that holy mountain; And thither come, both day and night, Who, in the Living Fountain, Have washed their robes from earthly stain, And bow below Christ's lowly chain. Or, dying, did her listening ear, "What of my sister?-Is she wed, And have ye seen the marriage throng- My youth's companions, where are they- Do they yet from our village stray? "Ere now, perhaps, that valley dear C. A. HOGARTH. "OH! life and Menander," said Aristophanes the grammarian, “which of you two has imitated the other ?" It is the development of the idea embodied in this expression that has acquired, and still retains, for Hogarth the laurel wreath with which the great majority of his efforts has been crowned. In reviewing the merits and demerits of Hogarth as a painter, the impartiality indispensable to the true critic is attended with especial difficulties. By some he has been raised to the rank of a Titian, by others lowered to the grade of a Bunbury. According to Charles Lamb, there is a depth of pathos, an intensity of woe, that is yet so intertwined with laughter as to find its only utterance in the " very tragical mouth" of Lear; while, in the minds of others, his counterpart will be found in Foote, and his only ambition |