It is time to bring this paper to a close; and I will only briefly call attention to two points more. One is that Shakespeare, by an incidental remark, shows that he knows how to reason on such technical matters as value and market price. Wise Hector is arguing against the impetuous youth Troilus, and urging the fitness of surrendering Helen to the Greeks: Brother, she is not worth what she doth cost TROILUS. What's aught but as 'tis valued? As well wherein 'tis precious of itself As in the prizer.-"Troilus and Cressida," ii. 2. The second point is, that although Shakespeare did not professedly treat the question of the organization of labour-indeed, it did not form a "question " in his time-still, we can have little doubt as to what his opinion would have been on the disorganization and economical anarchy of our own time and country. If there is anything he advocates it is order, organization, obedience; if there is anything he deprecates, it is headstrong liberty, it is the dominion of appetite, it is the discord, the " oppugnancy," the chaos, that follows. And he expressly alludes to organized industry, namely, to instruction (i.e., proper apprenticeship), to mysteries and trades (i.e., industry organized in guilds or associations), to communities, to degrees in schools, to brotherhoods in cities, as fundamental portions of man's life in society. He who wrote that wonderful imprecation in "Timon of Athens," iv. 1 (I have cited a part of it), and that still grander speech of Ulysses in "Troilus and Cressida," i. 3 (less well known than it ought to be because of the play in which it is set), would never have sanctioned that devouring of the weak by the strong, of the simple by the crafty, which we euphemistically call by the name of free competition. In conclusion, let me again point out that the writings of Shakespeare are a mine of economical and also of political wisdom, worth a great deal more than many of our professed and classical economists. And why? Was he far "in advance" of his time? Was he an inspired teacher? Was he a sort of demigod? Nothing of the kind, and something much simpler. He was a great master of language, a great and acute observer of life both individual and social, and last and not least he had the key to interpret life. Now this key was the thorough knowledge of Christian doctrine. But Christian doctrine provides a great code of ethics; indeed, every ethical code without it, is but feeble at the best. Moreover, economics and politics are not separate from, but a part and parcel of, ethics; they are particular as opposed to general ethics; merely the working of the general principles in particular fields. No wonder, then, that Shakespeare, who knew so well both the principles and the fields, was a good economist and political teacher. If indeed we want to be professors of some bran-new science of "political economy" or "sociology," or something else, and to fill pages with discussion of impossible hypotheses or disputes on terminology, to abound in fine phrases and wordy declamation, we shall find Shakespeare very simple and old-fashioned. But he might say of us (for he is a little uncivil at times) what Lorenzo said of Launcelot Gobbo's conversation: O dear discretion, how his words are suited! Defy the matter." Merchant of Venice," iii. 5. C. S. DEVAS. ART. V. ANCIENT BENEDICTINE CUSTOMS. 1. The Rule of Our Most Holy Father St. Benedict. Edited, with an English Translation and Explanatory Notes, by A MONK OF ST. BENEDICT'S ABBEY, FORT AUGUSTUS. London: Burns & Oates. 2. Exposicio sive Glossa Regula Beati Benedicti. A MS. in the Library of Christ Church, Canterbury. Written at Rome by JOHN WHYTEFELDE, Monk of Canterbury, in the month of August, the third year of Pope Urban Vİ. 3. PAULI WARNEFRIDI DIACONI CASINENSIS in Sanctam Regulam Commentarium. Typis Montis Casini. 1880. 4. Vita et Regula SS. P. Benedicti, una cum Expositione Regulæ a HILDEMARO edita. Ratisbona: Sumptibus Friderici Pustet. 1880. 5. Regula S. Benedicti, cum Commentariis EDMUndi MartÈne. Migne's "Patrologia Latina," tom lxvi. 6. CALMET.-Commentaire sur la Règle de Saint-Benoît. Paris. 1732. O much has been written on the Order of St. Benedict and its relation to the outer world that its inner and domestic history has been comparatively ignored. I mean the history of its progress or decay in the observance of the monastic rule. This is all the more to be regretted as its influence for good on the world without has ever depended on the degree in which the children of St. Benedict have remained faithful to the tenor of life inculcated by their Father and Lawgiver. It is not to be wondered at, however. The daily round of life, with its domestic details, as practised at Monte Cassino or Subiaco, at Fleury or Fulda or Hirschau, at Canterbury or Iona, during the sixth, seventh, eighth, or ninth centuries, was not thought worthy of record by writers, whose imagination was carried away by the conversion and civilization of barbarous races, by the rearing of splendid cathedrals or the foundation of seats of learning. And yet such achievements are the less important part of monastic history. If we could know to what extent silence and monastic simplicity were in favour or languished within the cloisters, we might be able to answer many a puzzling question in our history -as, for example, how it came to pass that, during six hundred years, the growth of the monastic order advanced with seemingly boundless energy, and that after A.D. 1200, as Mabillon says, new foundations became exceedingly rare ("novæ monasteriorum fundationes rarissimæ fuerunt"). To write that inner history, however, would be an arduous task. All I propose to do at present is to trace out from original sources, and confining myself to the earliest times of the Order (not later than 1100), the usages of Benedictine life in such matters as the daily routine of hours, food, clothing, buildings, penitential practices, silence, manual labour, study, and so forth. I know I cannot exhaust half my subject-matter within the limits of an article, so I shall leave aside things liturgical, which would require at least another such article to themselves, with much else, I hope, for some other occasion. I must be permitted to begin with a word or two on the works whose tities I have placed at the head of this article. The Fort Augustus translator of the Holy Rule must be congratulated on the faithful and readable version he has given to the public. To be impartial, however, it must be admitted that, over and over again, he betrays a wish to smooth over by something very like a paraphrase passages which he did not think would bear literally translating, and in some few instances I doubt if he has seized the true meaning. Thus, in chapter lxxii., St. Benedict, repeating what he had laid down in the preceding chapter on mutual obedience among the brethren, expresses himself with his usual conciseness and vigour: "Obedientiam sibi certatim impendant." The translator renders this, "Let them vie with one another in obedience," missing the idea of mutual obedience, and leaving it open to be supposed that it is simply in obedience to their superior that they have to emulate VOL. XVII. NO. 1. [Third Series.] G one another. In chapter lxxiii. St. Benedict distinguishes between the "initium conversationis" and the "perfectionem conversationis." In the first instance, "conversatio" is translated "goodness of life;" in the second, "religion." I doubt if either gives quite the real idea. "Conversatio" with St. Benedict is rather the monastic life itself considered as a special profession, and he refers to the beginning, the progress (Prologue), and the perfection of the "conversatio," and calls the life of unsettled or vagabond monks a "miserrima conversatio." So St. Gregory calls the monastic habit "sanctæ conversationis habitus." It is simply testifying to the excellence of the translation when one can find nothing to criticize but minutiæ of this kind, and only a natural anxiety for a strictly literal version leads one to wish that "exeuntes a Completorio" should not be rendered by "when that (Compline) is finished;" or "obedientia bonum" by "the excellence of obedience;" or that the translator had not sometimes begun and ended his sentences otherwise than in his Latin text, or paraphrased by a gloss the simple word "digesti," in chapter viii., into "having had their full sleep." Enough has been said on the merits of this really well-executed translation. In the preface we read that the Latin text, adopted from the edition printed in 1659 by D. Augustine de Ferrariis, has been collated with the thirteenth century MS. actually at Fort Augustus. This suggests a few remarks on the variations in the text of the Benedictine Rule, a subject that has employed the learned labours of the Bavarian Benedictines in their critical edition published at Ratisbon in 1880, and on some of the most ancient extant MSS. of the Rule. We have no autograph of St. Benedict, though we know that two copies of the Rule, written by his hand, formerly existed, one of them seen by Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, in the Abbey of Marmoutier, at Tours, and the other, which, according to Leo Ostiensis, was taken to Rome from Monte Cassino when the monastery was destroyed by the Lombards, brought back to Monte Cassino by Abbot Petronax, to whom it was given by Pope Zachary, in 718, and destroyed by fire in the time of Abbot Ragemprand. From this latter codex a copy was made by Abbot Theudemar as a present to Charles the Great. As regards existing MSS., with the help of Bishop Haneberg, O.S.B.; Mr. W. H. Bliss; Canon Giuliari, of Verona; D. Gregorio Palmieri, O.S.B.; the Rev. D. Keitz, librarian at Fulda; and D. Celestine Wolfsgrüber, O.S.B., the Bavarian editors had the satisfaction of being able to collate the oldest fifteen codices known. Of these, two are in the Royal Library at Munich, two in the British Museum, one in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, one in the Bodleian, one at Fulda, two at Verona, one at St. Gall, one in the Vatican, one in the library of the Cathedral Chapter at Augsburg, one at Vienna, and one at Einsidlen. The earliest in date is the Oxford manuscript, written about the end of the seventh century; next come the Tegernsee (Munich Library) and St. Gall MSS., belonging to the eighth; while the others were written in the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries. The comparison of these manuscripts has thrown much light on the origin of the wellknown and exceedingly ancient variantes in the text of the Rule. The manuscripts clearly belong to two families, represented respectively by the Oxford and Tegernsee codices. This is remarkably distinct in the seven earliest, all the MSS. of one class agreeing throughout in their peculiar readings, and differing from the other. The later ones get mixed, though one family predominates. Further, on comparing the Oxford and Tegernsee MSS., the latter looks very much like a revised edition of the former. The solution adopted by the Bavarian editors is that the Saint wrote his rule twice, with slight but frequent textual variations. The two autographs, one taken to Glanfeuil by St. Maurus and the other left at Monte Cassino, became the sources of the two recensions. The older edition is represented by the Bodleian codex. The Fort Augustus MS. belongs to the Tegernsee recension, though, being of late date, it is slightly mixed; so that, out of sixteen variantes, taken at random, thirteen agree with the Tegernsee, three only with the Bodleian. The centenary year of 1880 saw the publication of the two oldest commentaries on the Benedictine Rule, which for upwards of a thousand years had lain hidden in manuscript. From the press of Monte Cassino issued that of Paul Warnfrid, usually known as Paul Deacon. A Lombard by birth, and Chancellor of the Lombard Kingdom under the last of its kings, he was taken prisoner by Charles the Great, whose esteem and favour he won by his learning and piety. His last years were spent as a monk at Monte Cassino, where he died in April 799. Manuscripts of his commentary on the Rule are rare: two are at Monte Cassino, from one of which it was printed in 1880; one in the Royal Library at Munich; while a fourth, the title of which is at the head of this Article, is in the Library of Christ Church, Canterbury. Abbot Hildemar's commentary, first published by the Bavarian Fathers in 1880, is in great part copied from Paul Warnfrid's. It has many additions, however, to Warnfrid's text. Hildemar died in France, in 850. The name of the monastery he governed is unknown. The other works, whose titles head this Article, need no special description. Glancing through the six centuries that intervene between the foundation of Subiaco and that of Citeaux, one's attention is arrested by the reform or revival of St. Benedict of Anian, who |