By John Lambert, Esq. 329 
“There are also certain prosaic Chants which adhere less to the 
foregoing rules, and in which we find the newmes and phrases some 
greater, and some less throughout, without any fixed order, as is 
the case in prose compositions.” 
“TJ call certain Music metrical, because we often sing it as if we 
were scanning the feet in Poetry; but we must be careful not to 
use too many neumes of two notes only, without a due admixture 
of others containing three and four. For there is a great resem- 
blance between Poetry and Music, since the neumes stand in the 
place of feet, and phrases in the place of verses: so that one newme 
runs in dactylic, another in spondaic, and a third in iambic meter; 
and you at the same time perceive that the whole phrase, or dis- 
tinction, is either tetrameter, pentameter, or hexameter, or some 
other kind of measure.” 
“We also frequently impart to certain notes the grave or the 
acute accent; sometimes they require to be more strongly marked 
than at others.” 
I think it would be impossible to have more conclusive or satis- 
factory testimony as to the character of the Music of the Middle 
Ages, or indeed a more profound estimate of the various elements 
required in the composition of a Melody, than in these few extracts 
from a monk of the eleventh century, written at a time when 
Musical Notation was very imperfect, and the various appliances of 
modern Harmony almost unknown. 
Such testimony leaves no doubt whatever that Time and Rhythm 
were perfectly understood; and that even those compositions which 
were not strictly metrical consisted of melodious phrases, containing 
a due admixture of long and short notes. 
But if any doubt should still exist on this point, after the quota- 
tions from Guido, it would be removed by the Treatise of Aribo 
the scholar: who, a century afterwards, illustrated those very pas- 
sages which I have quoted by examples, adding that in the more 
ancient antiphonaries the letters C, T, M, were placed over the 
Music,—which letters represented the words Celeritas, Tarditas, 
and Mediocritas, and indicated whether the passage was to be 
quick, slow, or in moderate time. 
