It is in the ecclesiastical hymns, religious lessons, and legends couched in the form of ballads, coming into use in the eighth and ninth centuries, that we have the germs, the rudiments, of a new literature; not only so, but also the introduction of formal music gradually displacing music that is recitative. Of melodies there are two kinds, the first used as a handmaid to poetry; in it there is nothing formal. A musical phrase may be repeated or may not, as required to give force to the words employed. This was the music of the Greek and Roman theatre. The lyrics of Horace and Tibullus could be sung to no other. This, and this alone, was the music adopted by the Church, and which we have still in the Nicene Creed, Gloria, Sanctus, and Pater Noster. But this never could have been the music of the people—it could not be used by soldiers to march to, nor by the peasants as dance tunes. Did rhythmic music exist among the ancients side by side with recitative? Almost certainly it did, utterly despised by the cultured. When Julius Cæsar was celebrating his triumph at Rome after his Gaulish victories, we are informed that the soldiery marched singing out:— “Gallias Cæsar subegit Mithridates Cæsarem. Ecce Cæsar nunc triumphat, Qui subegit Gallias, Nicomedes non triumphat, Qui subegit Cæsarem.” This must have been sung to a formal melody, to which the soldiers tramped in time. So also Cæsar, in B.C. 49, like a liberal-minded man, desired to admit the principal men of Cisalpine Gaul into the Senate. This roused Roman prejudice and mockery. Prejudice, because the Gauls were esteemed barbarians; mockery, because of their peculiar costume—their baggy trousers. So the Roman rabble composed and sang verses, “_illa vulgo canebantur_.” These may be rendered in the same metre:— “Cæsar led the Gauls in triumph, Then to Senate-house admits. First must they pull off their trousers, Ere the laticlavus fits.” Now, it may be noted that in both instances the rhythm is not at all that of the scientifically constructed metric lines of Horace, Tibullus, and Catullus, but is neither more nor less than our familiar 8.7. time. The first piece of six lines in 8.7. is precisely that of “Lo! He comes in clouds descending.” The second of four lines is that of the familiar Latin hymn, _Tantum ergo_, and is indeed that also of our hymn, “Hark! the sound of holy voices.”[4] Nor is this all. Under Cæsar’s statue were scribbled the lines of a lampoon; that also was in 8.7. Suetonius gives us another snatch of a popular song relative to Cæsar, in the same measure. Surely this goes to establish the fact that the Roman populace had their own folk-music, which was rhythmic, with tonal accent, distinct from the fashionable music of the theatre. Now, it is quite true that in Latin plays there was singing, and, what is more, songs introduced. For instance, in the _Captivi_ of Plautus, in the third act, Hegio comes on the stage singing—