by the humiliation they felt at the defeat and banishment, seven years ago, of Eschines, their most distinguished champion, which had for a while left their great adversary in undisputed possession of the battle field. Such personal and political foes would naturally be keenly on the look-out for any opportunity of undermining the credit of their rival with the people, whether by calumniating his motives, or working upon their fears.

And the long looked-for occasion had now arisen. Alexander the Great, a year before his death, in the plenitude and wantonness of his power, had adopted two most despotic measures towards the Greeks. The first was a requisition sent round to the several states, demanding divine honours for himself. The second was the publication of a decree at the Olympic games, that all exiles, except those who had been banished for murder or sacrilege, should at once be restored to their civic rights. From the former proposal the Athenians did not feel justified in withholding their assent. The decree about the exiles involved far greater difficulties. To recall all those who for political offences had suffered banishment, at the command of the Macedonian king, was tantamount to admitting a Macedonian garrison into their city. The Athenians, degenerate as they were, could not tamely brook such an indignity, and although they had not courage to bid defiance to Alexander's power, yet they despatched an embassy to await the Conqueror's return at Babylon, deprecating his interference. Meanwhile Harpalus had been received as a suppliant; had notoriously made the best possible use of the unrighteous mammon; had been demanded minaciously by the Macedonian regency at home and Alexander's representative in Asia Minor. Let us picture to ourselves the wretched plight of the Athenian people -conscious of their weakness-terrified at their own remonstrance about the exiles-terrified at the thought of the generosity they had shown in sheltering one, whom their religion and laws alike obliged them to protect-above all, terrified at the threatening demands of Antipater and Olympias1- and finally galled and exasperated to madness by the escape of the man whom they had, against their better feelings, consented to incarcerate. Now was the time for deeds of darkness. If the enemies of Demosthenes did not take advantage of the opportunity which fortune had placed in their hands-then indeed

'We have but mistook them all the while.'

But we fearlessly avow our conviction, that they did take

In this respect, they were much in the same case with the Ottoman Porte, when Russia demanded the extradition of the Hungarian rebels-though without two powerful states to back their refusal.

advantage-undue advantage, of the misfortunes and terrors of the Athenians, and that the orator, who had hitherto maintained unbroken the confidence of his countrymen, despite the eloquence of Eschines and the disasters of Chæronea, fell a victim to the rancour and persecution of the Macedonian party at Athens.

Upon this supposition, though we do our orator less than justice in calling it a supposition, how manly and straightforward is the course adopted by Demosthenes. When Harpalus first appeared off the coast, Demosthenes opposed his landinga courtesy due to Alexander with whom Athens was at peace, and a precaution necessary for his country, unless she desired to measure her strength with the Macedonian king. When Harpalus had been received as a suppliant, Demosthenes felt too much of his earth-born ancestors' blood in his veins, to brook submission to Antipater's demand. When it became evident that the money of Harpalus had found too ready a welcome among the Athenian orators, Demosthenes, in the proud consciousness of his integrity, (not as Hyperides, p. 20, asserts, from dementation and reckless effrontery,) demands an investigation of the treason-even although in the present frensied state of his excitable fellow-citizens, he may have foreboded the issue.

We will conclude this imperfect notice, tending we hope to the vindication of the foremost orator of antiquity, with the delineation of his character by Niebuhr's own hand.

6

History furnishes no example of exertions crowned with such happy effects as those of Demosthenes: his great success, the resolutions to which he animated his own and other cities in so wonderful a manner, would have been the least of his glory, even if a fortunate issue had changed the order of the world's history. A greater result than this, and one independent of fortune, was, that he cultivated and ennobled the character of his countrymen: his eloquence breathed a second youth into the elder men of susceptible minds, and a new generation had started up among them whose fresh spirits had caught his fire.'

For this it was principally that I called him a saint: I do not envy the man who judges of him differently. His whole political life, his honour, are without spot or change. And surely it is time that the old strain about his bribe from Harpalus should cease. Providence, which permitted the honour of the most magnanimous of all statesmen to be long degraded in the judgment of the credulous, has caused all the circumstances of the transaction to be so well preserved, that the vileness of the calumny is as apparent as if we were his contemporaries.'

1 Niebuhr alludes to an attack upon himself for applying this epithet to Demosthenes in a number of the Rhenish Museum. The attack had been made in a small pamphlet from the pen of M. Delbrueck, a Professor at the University of Bonn. 2 Niebuhr refers to the statement of Pausanias (ii. 33), before quoted.

285

ART. II.-I. Breviarium Romanum, ex decreto SS. Concilii Tridentini restitutum: S. Pii V. Pontificis maximi jussu editum: Clementis VIII. et Urbani VIII. auctoritate recognitum: cum officiis Sanctorum, novissime per summos pontifices usque ad hanc diem concessis. Mechliniæ. Typis J. Hanicq. 1846. 2. Breviarium Insignis Ecclesia Aberdonensis. Londini. J. Toovey. [Reprint.]

THE Breviary! How many persons have the words constantly in their mouths without attaching a tangible idea to the phrase! How many have a misty notion that it contains a monstrous jumble of incredible legends, invocations of saints, mediæval miracles, fictions, and deceits of all sorts! How many, even a degree further in ignorance, mix it up in some way with the mass, and expend a vocabulary of Protestant indignation on both in one! How few realize to themselves that it is, to the rest of the Western Church, their office of Morning and Evening Prayer, their Collects, their daily and Sunday Lessons, and Psalter! Nay, that it is the source from which our own Prayers and Collects have been transcribed. An English Breviary, indeed, would be a very convenient book, and we recommend the idea to the consideration of some of our church publishers.

We beg, at the outset, that our design in this paper may be distinctly understood. We have not the slightest intention of attempting anything approaching to a history of the Breviary, its gradual formation-its various branches-its different corruptions-its several reforms-the manner in which Rome. has steadfastly set herself to have one recognised Breviary throughout the Churches of her obedience-to how great an extent she has succeeded, where she has failed;-all this, though most deeply interesting, is utterly out of our field at present. We may, indeed, at some future time, enter on this subject, should that we have taken in hand prove agreeable to our readers; and we should do it the more readily, because the History of the Breviary, not only from the time that it came as a book, so-called, into use, about 1050, but from the very commencement of the gradual process of its formation, is a great desideratum, perhaps the great desideratum in ritualistic works: the treatise of Grancolas supplying but a very small part of what is wanted. But we now propose to explain what the Breviary is, and how it is used; and we believe that the majority of our readers will be obliged to us if we take nothing for granted as known, and begin from the beginning. It may be as well to say also, that we propose to include in our inquiry, besides the

modern Roman, the various French Breviaries, those of England, in some degree those of western Germany, and those of some of the monastic orders. With the Breviaries of Germany, (generally speaking,) Poland, Prussia, Italy, Sweden, Holland, &c., we shall not concern ourselves; and we also propose to consider the Breviary as it is intended for the Church, and not for individual recitation.

It may seem that the crowd of French Breviaries which have had their origin within the last hundred and fifty years, must be utterly worthless for ritual studies; but this is not quite the case. Just as an ecclesiologist will, in a modernised church, trace a string here, a capital there, a jamb on this side, a piscina on that, which speaks of older and better work; so, in these officebooks, many an old rite may be noted, if looked for, though perhaps disfigured, perhaps dislocated. And such discovery will be the more likely to be made, if the Breviaries in question are studied together with the invaluable Voyages Liturgiques of De Moleon, (Le Brun,) who wrote while the old provincial uses of France were still, in great degree, kept up, and who had that quickness of liturgical tact which let nothing noticeable escape his observation. Those who are not acquainted with this rare book may form a very tolerable idea of it from Mr. Webb's Continental Ecclesiology, except that Mr. Webb, while inferior to De Moleon as a ritualist, far surpasses him as an ecclesiologist.

Although not concerned with the History of the Breviary, it will be necessary to say a few words on Cardinal Quignon's reform, both because we shall frequently have occasion to refer to it in the following pages, and because it is very interesting to English Churchmen as a kind of connecting link between their own Prayer-book and the Roman Breviary. From the time that Pope Nicolas III., about 1180, substituted Franciscan for then Roman uses, (we need not here discuss with what limitations the statement is to be taken,) various proposals were made for a reform, which, as was natural, grew more requisite with each century. At length Clement VII. entrusted a thorough revision to Fernandez de Quiñones, of a noble family in Leon, a Franciscan, and Cardinal Presbyter of the title of Holy Cross. The first edition appears to have been published in 1535; and by the audacity of its alterations excited great opposition. It had been approved however, by Clement VII., and was so again by Paul III., Feb. 5, 1535; but the Theological Faculty of Paris censured it on July 27 of the same year, as infringing on the ancient order of the Church, by the omission of antiphons, by reducing all days to a level in a perpetual monotony of three lessons, &c. Quignon made some alterations in his second edition, in the preface of which he says that he had rather published the former as a

feeler, than as a final arrangement. The Breviary, in some respects amended, and with antiphons inserted, became a favourite in France; there are Paris editions of 1536', 1539, 1542, 1545, 1546; and twelve Lyonnese editions between 1538 and 1557. The last edition, we believe, is that of Antwerp, 1566.

The Brief of Paul III. gives leave to all secular priests to recite the new Breviary, on condition that they apply for licence to the Apostolic See, which licence is to be granted gratis. S. Francis Xavier, writing to S. Ignatius, (Lisbon, Nov. 1, 1540,) wishes to obtain the privilege of himself granting this licence to six priests at a time, of his own election, as likely to persuade some to follow him to India-certainly rather a strange reason for missionary enterprise.

The new Breviary, it is clear, was principally intended for private recitation; and we find a Bishop of Verona, and in Spain of Huesca, protesting against its introduction into the choir. The prefaces to the Breviaries of Ilerda and Huesca, printed about that time, bitterly complain of those of three lections. At Saragossa, the people, justly enraged at the loss of the Tenebræ office, absolutely rose against the Clergy, and the secular churches were almost deserted. At length the Cardinal Peter John Caraffa, elected Pope by the title of Paul IV., prohibited (Aug. 8, 1558,) the granting any fresh licences; yet, such was the number already issued, that four editions were subsequently called for. Finally, S. Pius V, by his bull, Quod a nobis postulat, in 1568, absolutely abolished the Breviary. We would recommend, as a very curious inquiry, to some such scholar as Dr. Maitland, what traces can be found in the writings of the Reformers of the influence exercised on the English Prayer-book by this Breviary; to which it certainly owes, as we shall see, a portion of its preface, and probably the first hint of its table of lessons.

The principle of the French reforms is, as we shall see, to admit into the Breviary as little as possible that is not taken from Scripture; with the exception of hymns, prayers, and lections from Homilies, this rule is strictly observed. There was some countenance of it in earlier times. The Council of Braga, 561, forbade all poetical compositions not taken from Scripture; and S. Agobard, who was Bishop of Lyons about 813, wrote against the use of hymns and antiphons on that very

1 Or rather, we suspect, two of 1536. For Arevalus, in his Breviarium Quignonianum, speaks of the Paris edition of 1536 as a reprint of the second Roman edition. Now the copy we use is clearly a reprint of the first, because it does not contain Antiphons; but, in (what appears to be) a careful copy of the lost titlepage, in an old hand, it is dated 1536.