Now it has never been established that Charles was even a ready writer of prose, to say nothing of verse. Berington, following Einhard, Charles’s secretary, says in his _History of the Literature of the Middle Ages_ (1814), that Charles was not a literary man. “He seems never to have acquired the easy practice of writing,” is his strong language (p. 102). The hymn, on the contrary, bears the evident marks of accustomed skill and practice in the art of verse as well as the accuracy of a mind trained in theologic discriminations. Moreover, if Maitland (he of the Dark Ages) is to be credited, then this life of the Blessed Notker, by Ekkehard Junior, is full of errors, of ignorance, and wilful design. It naturally celebrates whatever is likely to add to the credit of St. Gall. Hence we need not be astonished when it tells us that Notker composed the sequence, _Spiritus Sancti adsit nobis gratia_, and sent it to Charles the Great, receiving in return his composition the _Veni, Creator Spiritus_. Nor should we be surprised when this turns out (as it is now conceded to be) a mere legend without any historic basis. When Thomasius follows this story, and Daniel follows Thomasius, and Trench follows Daniel, and the compilers follow Trench, it really appears that but little independent judgment has been exercised on the subject. Notker died in 912, and as Charles the Great was dead in 814, the absurd anachronism of the Ekkehard legend is clear to a glance. It should perhaps be added that Trench, although allowing Charles as author, believes the hymn to be possibly of earlier date. Mone takes a new departure when he gives up the common opinion and announces that the hymn ought to be assigned to Gregory the Great (540-606). In his first volume he taxes Daniel with having been altogether too prompt to agree to the cardinal’s dictum. He finds no reason to give the hymn to Charles, but he regards the classical style of its composition to be very fitting to the culture and well-known powers of Gregory. He rejects the doxology _Sit laus_, etc., and considers, very justly, that the stanza _Per te sciamus_, etc., is the true conclusion of the hymn. Wackernagel agrees with Mone. He thinks that the only way in which Charles could have secured the authorship would have been by getting the composition effected by the intervention of Alcuin. He therefore believes that Gregory was the poet of the _Veni, Creator_, and so publishes it in his exhaustive work upon the German church hymns. Professor March, always careful and scholarly in his assignments, adopts this opinion also.