They corrected more than nine hundred false quantities found scattered through the Breviary, 58 in the psalter per hebdomadam, 359 in the proper de Tempore, 283 in the proper of Saints, and 252 in the common of Saints. They changed the opening words of more than thirty hymns. Some hymns were untouched—e.g., the three hymns of the Blessed Sacrament, the Ave Maris Stella, which is rhythmic prose, not verse, and the hymn of the Angels, which was sufficiently perfect. The metre of three hymns, Tibi Christe splendor Patris, and the Urbs Jerusalem and Angularis fundamentum were changed.
The Jesuits have been censured very bitterly for their work of correction. Perhaps they merited some censure, but surely they did not merit the censures heaped on them by hostile critics like Thiers, Henri Valois, and the Franciscan, Cavalli. They answered their critics splendidly and triumphantly by the works of Father Arevalo, S.J. But the wordy war lasts to the present day. Students who wish to see the unrevised and the revised hymnal of Urban VIII. may consult Daniel's Thesaurus hymnologicus for examples. Other examples are given in Monsignor Battifol's work, and others in Dom Baudot's. If the reader read in the Breviary, the hymn Te lucis ante terminum, he may note a difference in that, the revised form, and this, the unrevised:—
Te lucis ante terminum,
Rerum Creator poscimus,
Ut solita clementia
Sis praesul ad custodiam.
Praesta pater omnipotens
Per Jesum Christum Dominum
Qui tecum in perpetuum regnat
Cum Sancto Spiritu
Again, see Lauds for Passion Sunday, Lustra sex, second verse, unrevised reads:—
Hic acetum fel arundo
Sputa clavi lancea
Mite corpus perforator
Sanguis unda profluit
Terra, pontus, astra, mundus
Quo lavantur flumine.
Iste Confessor, unrevised reads:—
Iste confessor domini sacratus
Festa plebs cujus celebrat per orbem
Hodie laetus meruit secreta
Scandere coeli.
Qui Pius, prudens humilis judicus,
Sobrius, castus fuit et quietus
Vita dum praesens vegetavit ejus
Corporis artus.
The imitation of Breviary hymns has for centuries formed a notable part of sacred Latin poetry. A great amount of Latin poetry dealing with sacred themes finds no place in Missal or Breviary. Every nation has ancient Latin hymns, generally modelled on the then existing liturgical models; and these hymns are found in national hymnals and in works dealing with Christian antiquities, but they find no place in modern liturgy. Thus the Latin poetry of the ancient Irish Church is formed for private and not choral use. The oldest purely rhythmical Latin hymn is that of St. Sechnall (1448), "Audite omnes amantes Deum, sancta merita." But neither it, nor any other of the old Latin hymns by Irish writers, finds place in the Breviary. Collections of Latin hymns by Irish writers of early Christian Ireland are to be found in Todd's Book of Hymns of the Ancient Irish Church (Dublin, 1885-1891); the Irish Liber Hymnorum (London, 1898), the Antiphonary of Bangor (Warren's Edition, London, 1893).