Moreover, the character of the Gregorian music is removed from those secular melodies which delight the ear and fascinate the attention of the world, and which, when transplanted into the choir, sensualise the soul, and render men occupied rather with the melody of sound, than with the accompanying words. Yet it has an inimitable majesty and strength and the very peculiarities which may render it distasteful at first, fasten it more securely in the memory and affections at last. From its very simplicity it is easy of attainment, and yet, from its characteristics, it is not likely ever to be secularised or appropriated to worldly and merely pleasurable objects. As the Abbé Baini, director of the Pope's chapel, as quoted by our author, has said, "The Gregorian melodies are inimitable; they may be copied, adapted, well or ill, to other words, but never will new ones be invented at all comparable to them."

From such like considerations, an earnest effort has lately been made, and with much success, to re-introduce into the Church generally the Gregorian song. From the days of Marbecke to the present, it has ever been theoretically the English song. The spread of puritanism and indifference here, and the perverted taste on the Continent, had abolished all melody, or substituted a corrupt and unequal version; but the rapid sale of Marbecke's works, of "The Parish Choir," "The Hymnal" and "Psalter Noted," and the innumerable collections of anthems in England, -the re-publication of the "Vesperale Romanum" at Mechlin, and previously of similar works in Germany and Italy, and of the "Antiphonal" and "Gradual" which are announced in this present work of Père Lambillote, show that the tide is again turned in its favour.1

One of the first desiderata to those engaged in this restoration would doubtless be, the recovery, if it were possible, of the original Antiphonary of S. Gregory himself, which was for many centuries kept at Rome, but seems now to be lost; in the next place, of an authentic copy or copies; and here we may inform our readers that the work named at he head of this article claims to be nothing less than a true copy of S. Gregory's own MS., so far as concerns the Graduals,—that is, the Psalms or Anthems which intervene between the Gospel and Epistle.

But here we are met with a difficulty which seems insurmountable. The notation of that early age did not consist in lines inscribed with square notes, as at present, but in NEUMES, (from the Greek word pneuma,) BREATHINGS; that is, in numerous small characters, resembling modern short-hand, written, without lines or bars and apparently at random, above the words, and sometimes, but not always, with

1 In connection with this subject, we may here announce that, ere our next publication, will appear, (D.V.,) from the pen of a member of the committee of the Ecclesiological Society, a complete translation of the Hours of the Church according to the Use of Sarum, and of the Litany and Vigils of the Dead, with the variations of the York and Hereford uses so far as important: accompanied by a new version of the hymns for the Week and the Seasons, together with the musical intonation for the hymns and most of the Antiphons, and for the Invitatories for the Season, for the petitions, and litany, and psalms; enriched with other hymns and devotions from Anglo-Saxon and early English sources. Mr. Masters will be the publisher.

letters of the alphabet attached to these neumes, and increasing or interpreting their significance; the whole being manifestly of Eastern origin, as we may gather from the fact of the terminology of the science being then exclusively Greek.

"dis

Now S. Gregory wrote his music necessarily in these neumes : posuit et neumatizavit Antiphonarium." It was more than five centuries after his time that Guido d'Arezzo invented the system of lines, and, by order of Pope John XIX., noted the Antiphonary accordingly. It is clear, therefore, that, unless the key to these characters be discovered, the subject must remain as much in the dark as ever.

It has therefore always been the object of writers on ecclesiastical music to clear up this point. Gerbert in his well-known treatise made many steps in advance towards this end. But it seems to have been reserved for the Père Lambillote to give a more succinct and complete statement; and by an extensive collation of different MSS. to arrive at conclusions which point to a complete system of interpretation.

The volume before us opens with a portrait of S. Gregory with a dove at his ear, dictating neumes to his scribe, taken from a MS. of the Monk Hartker of the 10th century. The first chapter consists of a short but very satisfactory account of the origin of the Gregorian music and of the historical authorities for the same: followed by a particular history of the MS. in question; the whole of which, except two or three damaged leaves, is exhibited in facsimile in 131 pages. The history of the MS. has been written by Ekkeard IV., a monk of S. Gall, in the eleventh century, (Monument. German. tom. ii. p. 72). It appears that about the year 790, Charlemagne demanded of Pope Adrian the First, two chanters, well practised in sacred music, to restore within his dominions the declining purity of the Gregorian intonation. He sent two, Peter and Romanus, along with an exact copy of the Antiphonary of S. Gregory. They were to have gone together to Metz, but Romanus fell ill at S. Gall and remained there whilst Peter proceeded to Metz without him; Romanus keeping one portion of the Antiphonary at S. Gall, where he continued the rest of his life, the other part being taken by Peter to Metz. Charlemagne, hearing of the circumstance, permitted Romanus to keep his portion of the MS. with him at S. Gall: which, to ensure its safe custody, he deposited before his death in a "Cantarium or cabinet near the altar, where it remained in the time of Ekkeard, and became an authority without appeal as to church music in those countries. It is now placed in a very ancient theca or box of ivory, covered with Etruscan or Greek carving of combats of men and dogs, which must have been brought thither from Italy.

Le P. Lambillote, after detailing the means by which he obtained the opportunity to make a facsimile transcript of the MS. in the absence of the authorities of the convent, then enters into an elaborate and satisfactory defence of its authenticity. It is on parchment and of the ordinary octavo size. On the first page is inscribed in Roman uncials, in eight lines, with an ornamental D,-DOMINICA PRIMA DE ADVENTU DNI STATIO AD SCM ANDREAM POST PRESEPE ANTIPHONA AD INTROITUM. On the next page is a large ornamental A, reaching halfway down; AD TE LEVAVI follows: and within three lines of the bottom begin the

neumes appended over the "Responsorium graduale," and which are continued throughout the MS. occasionally accompanied by the explanatory letters. The text is of the usual small type of the Carlovingian era, but almost without abbreviations, indicating transcription from some older document. It differs from the received Antiphonaries in having no festivals of confessors, except S. Silvester, S. Martin, S. Cesarius, and S. Gregory the Great, and none of any Virgin not a martyr. There is no Vigil of the Ascension or of the Epiphany. Many of the Processions are wanting. It assigns night masses to S. John Baptist's day and Holy Saturday, and two to S. John's day and wants the festivals of S. Felix, S. Peter ad vincula, the Nativity of the Blessed Mary, All Saints, and many others, and has several other minor differences which attest its extreme antiquity.

The great question discussed in the latter part of the volume is whether and how far can we hereby or otherwise recover the true and accurate reading of the Gregorian Chant. Some years since the Comitè des Arts et Monumens" in Paris circulated a small pamphlet containing specimens of the various neumes from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries, with a view to elucidate their interpretation. Since that period a discovery has been made in the public library of Montpellier of a MS. purporting to be an Antiphonary of S. Gregory, of the eighth century, (but which P. Lambillote refers to the tenth) which has this remarkable feature, that over every one of the neumes is affixed an interpretative letter determining its exact value. A facsimile of a page of this MS. is given in the present volume. A writer in the Rambler (a Roman Catholic publication) some years since, anticipated thence a complete discovery of the mode of reading the neumes and of the true Gregorian Chant; but P. Lambillote has shown that plain as the notation apparently is, it is impossible to draw any legiti mate conclusion from this MS. because it varies so much from all others, and is so incomplete.

With the view of solving the question, however, P. Lambillote has here laid down certain principles deduced from his laborious researches into the nature of the neumatic notation, which he illustrates by a complete technological dictionary.

NEUMES, then, according to our author, only expressed, 1st, the number of sounds to be uttered; 2nd, whether they ascended, descended, or were unisonal; 3rdly, their numerical or tonal value in respect of the mode to which they belonged; but they had no absolute fixed tonal value, as the notes of our system. He then proceeds to give an elaborate explanation of what each of these neumes was used to denote; and of the nature and characteristics of those used in the S. Gall MS. He states that an additional and explanatory notation is added in the S. Gall and Montpellier and other MSS. of certain Roman letters appended to the neumes. Thus in the S. Gall MS. are found the letters A, B, C, E, J, L, M, S, T, X, used for this purpose; of which the letter A and S for instance, denoted respectively, Altius elevatur or Sursum, Higher or Upward; but the amount of elevation remained indeterminate. So the letter C denoted Quick, Celeriter. It results from these observations that as no absolute tonal value or intervals are fixed either by

these neumes or by the explanatory letters, the teaching of the Gregorian melodies in their nicety, must have been mainly oral and traditionary ; and hence we see the reason why they became so soon corrupted, why they were at that time so difficult of attainment, and why the most experienced masters were alone qualified to teach them.

Yet Père Lambillote has in this volume declared his conviction that they may now be read; nay, that he has deciphered a portion of them, and ascertained by a laborious inductive process, the identity of some of the S. Gall melodies, with the corresponding melodies found in the noted Antiphonaries beginning with the works of Guido d'Arezzo, (who first placed the neumes between lines,) in the 11th, to the 15th and 16th centuries. In order to elucidate the true Gregorian phrase he has hunted for an intonation in which the neumatic and post-neumatic books should all respectively agree. Before consulting the MS. of S. Gall, he had discovered that in the Gradual Responsory, Viderunt omnes fines terræ salutare Dei nostri, jubilate Deo omnis Terra," all these post-neumatic and neumatic books did so agree together: except the neumatic MS. of Montpellier. Upon referring to the S. Gall MS. he found that this last was also in close agreement with the rest of the neumatic series; whence he deduced the just inference that we have, in the example given, a true and pure Gregorian phrase, and that the later copies which have at all departed therefrom are so far corrupt. This his conclusion is supported by a series of facsimiles from MSS. of the eighth, to the printed books of this present century, which amply demonstrate his conclusion.

Of course, in determining the authenticity of other phrases, a similar amount of trouble and labour must be encountered; but with this successful example before the world, who can doubt that it will be undertaken and succeed? Le P. Lambillote announces his intention to continue his researches in that direction, (long and troublesome as he confesses they must be,) adopting as his guiding principle the dictum of the Abbé Gueranger, (Instit. Lit. t. i. p. 306,) in substance this :"When a great number of MSS., differing as to their countries and epochs, agree on a version, we may affirm that we have recovered the true Gregorian phrase." And, consequently, practically we may read the neumes in which it first appears.

We look upon this work as one of the most important that has appeared on this subject, so interesting to all men of Catholic minds, since the days of Gerbert. We heartily join in the sentiments of the concluding paragraph, in which, in anticipation of his complete success, Le Pere Lambillote says:

"Then shall we have all faithful people with one consent intone and sing forth the Church's melodies in perfect accord, as in the times of Robert and Charlemagne. The magnificent unity of the Church will shed a new splendour, and all Catholic people will, in unity of faith and word, and still further, according to the admirable wish of Charlemagne, in unity of modulation, celebrate the praises of their SAVIOUR; so that there shall be no dissimilar order in psalmody where there should be a similar order in believing, and the nations which are at one in the holy reading of GOD's sacred law, should also, according to holy tradition, be in unity in one modulation of His praises.""

384

A WORD ON THE CRYSTAL PALACE.

BY A. REICHENSPERGER.

[OUR readers will, we are sure, thank us for the reprint, in a literal translation, of a very able critique upon the Great Exhibition, by one of the most eminent of living German ecclesiologists. M. Reichensperger, a judge in one of the Courts of Cologne, and a member of the Prussian parliament, takes a leading part in the Cologne Cathedral Restoration Committee.]

(Reprinted from the "Deutschen Volkshalle.")

ALTHOUGH I felt, immediately on my arrival in London, that my first visit ought to be to the Exhibition of Industry," the central point of attraction of all Europe, still I could not withstand the temptation of giving a passing glance to Westminster Abbey and the New Houses of Parliament. Immense progress has been made in the latter since I last beheld them (now four years since), the towers alone remain unfinished, excepting always works still under contemplation. The building has been attacked from many quarters, and is not, I am told, particularly popular in England. The cause of this unpopularity may be found chiefly in the enormous sums of money that have been expended upon it, and then in the aversion John Bull always evinces towards any thing new, especially of a fantastic nature. The adoption of the mediæval style of architecture for public buildings is as new to the London citizen as that of the Gothic is to the German Philister. The objections which I have to make to the New Houses of Parliament are that the building is not well grouped, that the façade along the Thames is too long and monotonous, and that the architect has been too prolific in ornamental detail. On the whole, however, it is in many respects an important monument, and excites our admiration, that it was possible to revive, as it were by the stroke of a magic wand, the past glories of artistic grandeur of bygone centuries. There is a technical finish to every part, as if it had been cast in a single mould; the very statues seem to grow naturally upon their pedestals. Though old models may have been consulted, the spirit of originality is visible throughout. Imitation does not degenerate in a single instance into stiffness. the long run the New Houses of Parliament cannot fail to exercise an important influence upon the developement of architecture in general, not only on account of the master hands that have been perfected in its execution, but far more, because it has provided the striking proof that Gothic architecture is capable of responding to the expectations and demands of even the most sanguine of the age in which we live.

In

A few steps from the Houses of Parliament stands the Pantheon of British glory-Westminster Abbey. The external appearance does not excite great expectations. It has been so often and so badly restored that scarcely a vestige of the old Abbey is visible. In Germany