the Franciscan Breviary, as the now authorized one may be called, in consequence of a Bull of Pius V. The Cardinal's Breviary was drawn up on principles far more agreeable to those on which the Reformation was conducted, and apparently with the same mixture of right and wrong in the execution. With a desire of promoting the knowledge of Scripture, it showed somewhat of a rude dealing with received usages, and but a deficient sense of what is improperly called the imaginative part of religion. His object was to adapt the Devotions of the Church for private reading, rather than chanting in choir, and so to encourage something higher than that almost theatrical style of worship, which, when reverence is away, will prevail, alternately with a slovenly and hurried performance, in the performance of Church Music. Accordingly he left out the Versicles, Responses, and Texts, which, however suitable in Church, yet in private took more time, as he says, to find out in the existing formularies than to read when found. He speaks in his preface expressly of the "perplexus ordo," on which the offices were framed. But his great reform was as regards the reading of Scripture. He complains that, whereas it was the ancient rule that the Psalms should be read through weekly and the Bible yearly, both practices had been omitted. The Ferial or week-day service had been superseded by the Service for feast-days, as being shorter : and for that reason every day, even through Lent, was turned into a festival. To obviate the temptation which led to this irregularity, he made the Ferial service about the length of that of the old feast day; and he found space in these contracted limits for the reading of the Psalms, and the whole Bible, except part of the Apocalypse, in the week and the year respectively, by omitting the popular legends of the Saints which had been substituted for them. He observes, that these compositions had been sometimes introduced without any public authority, or sanction of the Popes, merely at the will of individuals. Those which he retained, he selected from authors of weight, whether of the Greek or Latin Church. Besides, he omitted the Officium Parvum B. M. V., on the ground that there were sufficient services in her honour independently of it. In all his reforms he professes to be returning to the practice of antiquity; and he

made use of the assistance of men versed "in Latin and Greek, in divinity, and the jus pontificium."

This Breviary was published in Rome, A. D. 1536, under the sanction, as has been said, of Paul III. However, it was not of a nature to please the divines of an age which had been brought up in the practice of the depraved Catholicism then prevalent; and its real faults, as they would appear to be, even enabled them to oppose it with justice. The Doctors of the Sorbonne proceeded to censure it as running counter in its structure to antiquity and the Fathers; and though they seem at length to have got over their objections to it, and various editions at Venice, Antwerp, Lyons, and Paris, showed that it was not displeasing to numbers in the Roman Communion, it was at length superseded by the Bull of Pius V. establishing the Franciscan Breviary, which had more or less grown into use in the course of the preceding three hundred years.

This account of Cardinal Quignonius's Breviary, and the circumstances under which it was compiled, will remind the English reader of the introductory remarks concerning the Service of the Church, prefixed to our Ritual; which he may read more profitably than heretofore, after the above illustrations of their meaning. For this reason they shall be here cited:

"There was never any thing by the wit of man so well devised, or so sure established, which in continuance of time hath not been corrupted; as, among other things, it may plainly appear by the Common Prayers in the Church, commonly called Divine Service. The first original and ground whereof, if a man would search out by the Ancient Fathers, he shall find that the same was not ordained but of a good purpose, and for a great advancement of godliness. For they so ordered the matter, that all the whole Bible, (or the greatest part thereof,) should be read over once every year; intending thereby that the Clergy, and especially such as were Ministers in the Congregation, should (by often reading and meditating on God's Word) be stirred up to godliness themselves, and be more able to exhort others by wholesome doctrine, not to confute them that were adversaries to the truth; and further, that the people (by daily hearing of Holy Scripture read in the Church,) might continually

profit more and more in the knowledge of GOD, and be the more inflamed with the love of His true religion.

"But these many years past, this godly and decent order of the ancient Fathers hath been so altered, broken, and neglected, by planting in uncertain Stories and Legends, with multitude of Responds, Verses, vain Repetitions, Commemorations, and Synodals; that commonly when any book of the Bible was begun, after three or four chapters were read out, all the rest were unread. And in this sort the book of Isaiah was begun in Advent, and the book of Genesis in Septuagesima; but they were only begun, and never read through. After like sort were other books of Holy Scripture used. And furthermore, notwithstanding that the ancient Fathers have divided the Psalms into seven portions, whereof every one was called a Nocturn, now of late time a few of them have been daily said, and the rest utterly omitted. Moreover, the number and hardness of the rules called the Pie, and the manifold changings of the service, was the cause, that, to turn the book only was so hard and intricate a matter, that many times there was more business to find out what should be read, than to read it when it was found out.

"These inconveniences therefore considered, here is set forth such an Order, whereby the same shall be redressed. And for a readiness in this matter, here is drawn out a Calendar for that purpose, which is plain and easy to be understood; wherein (so much as may be) the reading of Holy Scripture is so set forth, that all things shall be done in order, without breaking one piece from another. For this cause be cut off Anthems, Responds, Invitatories, and such like things as did break the continual course of the reading of the Scripture."

It remains but to enumerate the selections from the Breviary which follow. First has been drawn out, an Analysis of the Weekly Service, as well for Sunday as other days. This is followed by an ordinary Sunday Service at length, as it runs when unaffected by the occurrence of special feast or season, in order to ground the reader, who chooses to pursue the subject, in the course of daily worship as a whole. With the same object a Week-day Service has also been drawn out. Two por

tions of extraordinary Services are then added, one from the Service for the Transfiguration, the other for the Festival of St. Lawrence, with a view of supplying specimens of a more elevated and impressive character. Next follows a design for a Service for March 21st, the day on which Bishop Ken was taken from the Church below, and another for a Service of thanksgiving and commemoration for the anniversaries of the days of death of friends or relations. These have been added, to suggest to individual Christians a means of carrying out in private the principle and spirit of those inestimable forms of devotion which are contained in our authorized Prayer-Book. The series is closed with an abstract of the Services for every day in Advent, fitting on to sections 2 and 3, which contain respectively the types of the Sunday and Week-day Service. Except by means of some such extended portion, it is impossible for the reader to understand the general structure, and appreciate the harmony of the Breviary.

Lastly, the writer of these pages feels he shall have to ask indulgence for such chance mistakes, in the detail of the following Services, as are sure to occur when an intricate system is drawn out and set in order, with no other knowledge of it than is supplied by the necessarily insufficient directions of a Rubric.

§ 1. Analysis of the Seven Daily Services of the Church

Catholic, as preserved in the Breviary.

EVERY Service but Compline is commenced with privately saying the Lord's Prayer, and the Ave Mary, to which the Creed is added before Matins and Prime. In like manner, after Compline, all three are repeated. Every other Service ends with the Lord's Prayer in private, unless another Service immediately follows. Concerning the introduction of the Ave Mary, vid. supra, p. 11. This use of the Lord's Prayer in private before the beginning of the Service seems to have led the compilers of King Edward's First Book to open with the Lord's Prayer, only said aloud, not in private; but a pious custom has brought in again the private prayer, as before, though without prescribing any particular form. The compilers of King Edward's Second Book prefixed to the Lord's Prayer, the Sentences, and an Exhortation, Confession, and Absolution of their own. After these follows, "O Lord, open thou our lips," &c. which stands first in the Breviary Service.

1. "MATINS, or Night Service, (after One, A.M.)

Introduction.

Verse. O Lord, open Thou my lips.

Resp. And my mouth shall shew forth Thy praise.
(Each person to sign his lips with the Cross.)

Verse. O God, make speed to save me.

Resp. O Lord, make haste to help me.

(Each person to sign himself from the forehead to the breast.) Glory be to the Father, &c.

As it was, &c. Amen."

(Ordinarily added) Hallelujah. (i. e. Praise ye the Lord.) Psalm 95.-" O come let us sing," &c. with a verse called an Invitatory, "Let us worship the Lord: our Maker," divided into two parts, the whole being used before the 1st, 3rd, and 8th verse, and at the end, and again after the Gloria Pati, and the latter part after the 4th and 9th, and between the Gloria and the whole. This Invitatory varies with the season, but its general character is always preserved; e. g. in Advent, "O come VOL. III.-75.

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