The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-22 00:00:00

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Lyra Liturgica. Burns, Lambert, and Oates.
Side by side with The Christian Year we at once
and unhesitatingly place the Lyra Liturgica. This
is high praise, no doubt, but it is praise to which
the lovely little volume under notice is eminently
well entitled. " Reflections in Verse for Holy
Days and Seasons" is the sub-title of the Lyra
Liturgica. " Thoughts in Verse for Sundays and
Holydays" is that of The Christian Year. The
motto of the latter is from Isaiah (xxx. 15) " In
quietness and in confidence shall be your strength."
The motto of the former is from the Psalms (exviii.
54) " Cantabiles mihi erant justificationes Tum in
loco peregrinationis mew." May 30, 1827, is the
date appended to the prefatory advertisement of
" The Christian Year." The Feast of Corpus
Christi, otherwise June 15, 1865, is the date affixed
to the introductory remarks addressed to the reader
at the opening of the " Lyra Liturgica." The present
issue of the last-mentioned work marking the date
of its first publication, there appears, as a matter
of course, no intimation whatever of that fact
upon the reverend author's titlepage. Whereas
upon the titlepage of the latest reprint of " The
Christian Year" there appears conspicuously a no
less magnificent timbre of its popularity than is con-
veyed by the intimation that this most recent edi-
tion is the EIGHTY-EIGHTH of that famous work's
publication. And no wonder ! For, to whom does
it not come home with its gentle utterances ? In
what heart does its music not awaken some respon-
sive vibration ? It is dear to others besides the Rev.
John Keble's co-religionists. It is beloved far be-
yond the pale of the Anglican communion. High
Churchmen and Low Churchmen, Conformists and
Non-Conformists, Dissenters and Catholics take it
alike home into their affections—readinn it arw
mdunLeu oy its harmonious numbers with an equally
delicate sense of delight in its appreciation.
Echoing here an appropriate stanza from the very
first poem in the work itself—the tenth stanza of
the "Morning Hymn" opening up the varied strains
of The Christian Year—we may best indicate how it
is that we, one and all of us, turn back to it, again
and yet again, so very frequently for joy and con-
solation : by saying—
" As for some dear familiar strain
Unfired we ask, and ask again,
Ever in its melodious store,
Finding a spell unheard before."
Disclaiming, as he says—with a very charming,
though, as it appears to us, a very exaggerated
humility—even "the suspicion of any such pre-
sumptuous and hopeless design as that of produc-
ing a counterpart to a work in many ways so in-
imitable as the ' Christian Year,' " the author
of the " Lyra Liturgica " has somehow
contrived, as it were, in spite of himself
to produce precisely such a counterpart neverthe-
less ! Mr. Keble's plan, as he takes occasion to re-
mind the reader, " has furnished meditations for
every Sunday in the year and for all the received
Holydays of the Anglican Calendar, as well as the
Occasional Services"—such, let us say, for example,
as " Catechism," " Matrimony," " Commination"
and so forth. The work thus being, in a manner,
as we may say, rounded and complete. With
regard to the " Lyra Liturgica," on the con-
trary, as its author tells us—" this little work
embraces but a limited portion of the mighty range
of devotional illustration opened by the Liturgy
of the Catholic Church." Nevertheless, according
to his subsequent remark, as if in deprecation of the
charge of the incompleteness otherwise possibly im-
putable to the work as a whole—the series being
" regular, so far as it goes, the verses have been
referred to the Successive Quarters of the Ec-
clesiastical Year, according to the arrange-
ment of the Breviary." The Winter Quar-
ter embracing within it, Christmas—the Spring
Quarter, Easter and Whitsuntide.—the Sum-
mer Quarter, Trinity, Corpus Christi, and
the Assumption—the Autumn. Quarter, such feasts
as those of All Saints and All Souls, of St.
Michael and of St. Charles Borromeo. Previously,
however, to the celebration thus in turn of the
more important festivities distributed after this
fashion over the Four Quarters of the Ecclesiastical
Year, the author of the Lyra Liturgica, by way of
introduction to the whole, commemorates, as it were,
en masse, the complete glory and solemnity of the
"Holy Ceremonies"—enforcing thus beautifully
(and logically, as it appears to us) the reasonableness
of solemnizing Divine Worship by some degree of
pomp and ceremonial, instead of stripping it puri-
tanically of every outward token of reverence on the
part of the worshippers :

Rings have their marshals, palaces their state,
E'en Christian homes their forms and courtesies ;
For Reverence must on Love obsequious wait,
And Love that lacks Respect decays and dies.
And shall Thy House, 0 King of kings alone,
No signal tokens of Thy power display ?
Shall no glad Courtiers muster near Thy throne,
No duteous escort guard Theo on Thy way ?
Adding, very tenderly and very reverently, after-
wards--

Each symbol of Thy presence, Lord, is dear;
Tha consecrated vase, the goodly vest ;
The Altar, where Thy Spirit comes so near,
The Tabernacle, where Thou deign'st to rest.
But chiefly dear, because to Thee, most high,
Thy Priests and Levites, princes of Thy choice,
And they who at Thy Board their service ply,
And they who lift in choir their gladsome voice ;
By reverent gesture, or by staid salute,
Their faith they witness or their fealty prove,
And yield in studious form, by acts minute,
The thoughtful homage of punctilious love.
And Thou who count'st the numbers of the sand,
And track'st the sparrow as it falls to earth,
Shalt note and recompense with bounteous hand
Each least and lowest deed of Christian worth.
Gracefully lyrical and flowing, though the verifica-
tion is throughout, it is occasionally compacted,
oven to the coademity as of 0,4 epigram. Instance