Of the _Stabat Mater Dolorosa_, carried by the Flagellants into every corner of Europe as they flogged themselves in public to its anthem, it can be said that it is one of the very greatest hymns—if not actually the greatest—of the Roman Catholic Church. The _Dies Irae_, the _Veni, Sancte Spiritus_, and the Hymn of Bernard of Cluny, are catholic rather than Roman. This is Roman rather than catholic. It is full of Mariolatry. Take a stanza from a prose translation by way of example: “Virgin of virgins, illustrious, be not now bitter to me, make me mourn with thee, make me carry about the death of Christ, make me a sharer in His passion, adoring His suffering.” And again: “O Christ, when I go hence, give me, through Thy mother, to attain the palm of victory,” etc. For this reason the Protestant metrical versions of the _Stabat Mater_ are few in number and generally accompanied by disclaimers of one kind or another. Of course the music, on whose wings the hymn has now flown world-wide, will need no word of mine. If the _Stabat Mater_ itself receives commonly the second rank among hymns, it follows that Rossini, Pergolesi, Palestrina and Haydn have not detracted from its glory. And though in the terse language of one of our best hymnologists, we say, “It is simple Mariolatry, most of it,” the human pathos of the verses appeals strongly to those who refuse the added errors of the poem. Of the _Stabat Mater Speciosa_ I confess to a decided doubt. It is in the nature of a paraphrase, almost of a parody. It is unworthy of the brain that formed the _Mater Dolorosa_, and the jester must have gone beyond common folly if he descended to this imitation of himself. It is more likely—and there is good ground for the opinion—that it is the work of some later hand. Archbishop Trench, by the way, will not include either of them in his collection. Of the other writings of Jacoponus it may be interesting to say that he composed hymns and satires in great abundance, both in Latin and in Italian, which were collected by Franciscus Tressatus, a Minorite brother, and published in seven books. The _Cur mundus militat_ (which Wadding quotes at length) meets this editor’s highest praise. Of the Italian poems we can say that they are now regarded by Symonds and others as the fountain-head of Italian literature, and that they contained many of the crude expressions of the common people mixed with an elegance of phraseology to which Dante and Petrarch were accustoming their mother tongue. Indeed, I know no other similar poet, unless it be John Skelton, rector of “gloomy Dis” in England, who about a century later shot the same kind of shafts at the same manner of target and with much the same bitter, gibing wit.