Of the Ambrosian hymns themselves a great deal may be said. It is better to confine one’s self rather, therefore, to results than to the long processes which have led thither. But it is impossible to agree with Dr. Neale and Archbishop Trench, who say of them that “there is a certain coldness in them—an aloofness of the author from his subject.” This is one of those bits of critical misapprehension which lead us to doubt the infallibility of even so admirable a judgment as that of the warden of Sackville College. The truth is that Dr. Neale admired gorgeousness and the splendor of ritual. He praises the _Pange lingua_ of Aquinas altogether too much and he praises Ambrose altogether too little. A simple and reverent spirit cannot be said to experience, as he does, a “feeling of disappointment” before this which he calls “an altar of unhewn stone.” This single phrase exposes the delusion. “_Unhewn_ stone” is not to Dr. Neale’s nor to Archbishop Trench’s churchly taste, while it is precisely upon such an altar as that (Ex. 20:25) that God was ready to let His flame descend. The latest judgment—that of Mr. Simcox—(_Latin Literature_, vol. ii., 405) is decidedly preferable: “They all have the character of deep, spontaneous feeling, flowing in a clear, rhythmical current, and show a more genuine literary feeling than the prose works.” To any one who is at all familiar with the Ambrosian hymns this will at once commend itself as the better criticism. We may pause a moment to inquire about the chants which bear his name, but we shall have slight enough information. Four tunes are traditional: the Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, and Mixed Lydian. What these were and how they were sung, we do not accurately know. We do know, however, that Ambrose employed but four notes (the _tetrachord_) where we have subdivided the various tones into the octave. The Germans do not profess to tell us anything more definite than this. The actual hymns are to be reckoned up in several ways. First comes the mass of _Ambrosiani_, including hymns of Gregory the Great and of other and much later authors. Many have been foisted into this category because they were found in old breviaries and manuscripts. Then from these we may separate the _presumed originals_—of which a large proportion are now known to belong to other writers. These misapprehensions are due to such compilers as Fabricius, Cassander, Clichtove, and Thomasius, who were not invariably correct and who perpetuated their designations through later works. Still a third class are the _possible originals_, selected by the judicious but not always accurate zeal of the Benedictines of St. Maur when they edited the collected works of the great bishop. And last of all can be placed the _probable originals_—those hymns which are authenticated by Augustine and by St. Caelestin (A.D. 430), together with those in structure closely resembling them.