sequence by the Roman Church. In Quetif and Echard (_Scriptt. Ord.
Præd._ i. 437.), under the name of Latinus Malabranca, we read that it
certainly was not in use in the year 1255; and there does not appear to
be the slightest evidence of its admission, even upon private authority,
into the office for the dead anterior to the commencement of the
fifteenth century.

Your correspondent was not mistaken in his belief that he had met with
an imperfect transcript of this prose, for the original consists not of
"twenty-seven," but of _fifty-seven_ lines. I may add that I do not
remember to have found the text more correctly given than in the
beautiful folio missal of the church of Augsburg, partly printed on
vellum in 1555 (fol. 466. b.).

R.G.


The _Dies Iræ_ is truly said by Mr. SPARROW SIMPSON (Vol. ii., p. 72.)
to be an extremely beautiful hymn. Who was its author is very doubtful,
but the probabilities are in favour of Thomas de Celano, a Minorite
friar, who lived during the second half of the fourteenth century. It
consists of nineteen strophes, each having three lines. Bartholomew of
Pisa, A.D. 1401, in his _Liber Conformitatum_, speaks of it; but the
earliest printed book in which I have ever seen this hymn, is the
_Missale Romanum_, printed at Pavia, A.D. 1491, in 8vo., a copy of which
I have in my possession.

D. ROCK.

Buckland, Faringdon.