THE DIES IRjE. 103 



yonder. It's old, and contains an early copy of the ' Dies 

 Iras.' Just read the rhyming words of the fourth stanza 

 aloud, will you ?" 



STEEN BURGER (reads). "JVatura, creatura, responsura." 

 PHILIP. " Do you call those rhyming words ? Now try 

 the seventh." 



STEENBURGER (reads]. "Dicturus, rogaturus, securus." 

 PHILIP. " Two terminations identical in both stanzas, 

 and of course no rhyme. In the eighth you will find tatis 

 and tatis ; in the eleventh tionis and tionis ; in the thir- 

 teenth audisti rhymes vi\\kfdedisti ; and the fifteenth is ab- 

 solutely destitute of rhyme, the terminations being prasta, 

 questra, and dextra, neither of which rhymes with anoth- 

 er. The sixteenth stanza has three lines ending in dictis. 

 Now observe, John, Horace could write very good Latin 

 without rhyme, but, if he had ever attempted to rhyme, he 

 would not have accomplished it by repeating the same 

 syllables. For the purposes of rhyme, the 'Dies Irae' is 

 not to be praised. As to the Latin, I fancy you don't 

 need my criticism. You were always a better Latin schol- 

 ar than I, and you know that there is very poor Latin, 

 and a very weak construction in the whole hymn. The 

 sonorous character of the hymn in a foreign language, 

 where the thought fails to follow the sense, alone saves it 

 from condemnation. And, I confess, that the English 

 translation of the hymn by our lamented friend, Slosson, 

 is, to my notion, a better poem than the original Latin. 

 And it is the most truthful, as well as the most musical 

 translation I know of." 



THE DOCTOR. "The last stanza always bothered me." 

 PHILIP. " I suppose that Thomas de Celano did not 

 write that stanza. It appears to have been a later addi- 

 tion ; and I incline to think that it has been changed by 



