It is the composition of a man who was the Admirable Crichton of his time—Hildebert of Lavardin, a student under Berenger and Hugo of Cluny. This is the same poet who, with Wichard of Lyons, is mentioned by Bernard of Cluny in his preface to the _Hora Novissima_. He says there, that even these eminent versifiers had never dared to attempt the measure of his own three thousand lines. And we have abundant other testimony that Hildebert was an accomplished orator, a successful controversialist, a brilliant rhetorician, a poet of ten thousand lines, and the author of this majestic and beautiful composition. He was born in the year 1057 (or 1055) at Lavardin, near Vendôme, in France, was first head-master of a school, then an archdeacon, then instructor in theology and Bishop of Le Mans (1097), and finally (1125), Archbishop of Tours, from which he derives his name of “Turonensis.” He was of humble origin and not connected with the celebrated family of Lavardia, except through the accident of his birthplace being in their vicinity. Perhaps—if we follow one scurrilous old biographer—we may fancy the holy Hildebert to have been very little of a saint in his early days. Baronius indeed lends color to the assertion (made originally by Godfrey, the Dean of Le Mans) that the vices which Hildebert afterward attacked were matters of personal experience with himself. A certain coarse assault was undoubtedly made upon him; but envy and malignity went even to greater lengths then than now—and they are not noticeably moderate or truthful at present. He was a “wise and gentle prelate,” says Trench, “although not wanting in courage to dare, and fortitude to endure, when the cause of truth required it.” Neander’s estimate of his character (_The Life of St. Bernard_) is also kind. I doubt, therefore, whether any such statements can be maintained. But we all know too well what that age was, for us to be over-enthusiastic in the defence of our favorites. And still it can truly be said that Hildebert established his innocence there and then. He finally died in 1134, and his works, with those of Marbod, were collected and published in Paris by the Benedictines, at the comparatively recent date of 1708. His hymn, _Oratio devotissima ad tres Personas Sanctissimae Trinitatis_, first appeared in the Appendix to Archbishop Ussher’s _De Symbolis_ (1660), and again was published by the Norman Jacques Hommey in 1684.