“Stellam sequentes praeviam Lumen requirunt lumine,” he wrote what was original with him, but which was sheer theft in the hands of the author of _Hymnis laudum preconiis_, who nevertheless takes the couplet to grace the feast of the Three Kings. Latin hymns are by no means all beautiful or all graceful. The earlier pieces appear and reappear—fragments from the better workmanship of the past—throughout the Dark Ages. And here we must leave Sedulius. If he was indeed the companion of Hildebert, his story belongs to that fabulous age of the British Church when bishops were but simple pastors and when great purity and truth prevailed. In the Alphabet Hymn there are references to the direct Scripture narrative; to the “enclosed John” who greets the Saviour; to Him fed with a little milk, who Himself feeds the birds; to the great Shepherd revealed to shepherds; to Herod who seems to fear a King who does not covet earthly dignities; to the Magi who seek their Light from the light; to the healing of the sick and the raising of the dead; to the water that blushes into wine, as perhaps Crashaw had read; to Peter who fears by nature and walks the wave by faith; to Lazarus “his own survivor;” to Judas the _carnifex_ who professed peace by his kiss which was not in his soul; to Him who triumphing over Tartarus returned of Himself to heaven. Such is the hymn, and upon reading it one is not surprised that Fortunatus called its author _Sedulius dulcis_—the sweet Sedulius. Nay, Rudolph of Dunstable goes so far as to perpetrate a pun, and declares that Sedulius _sedulously_ sings of things that are old and new. And the dear man of God, Dr. Martin Luther of blessed memory, who had no relish for Ambrose’s hymns, called our Irishman a _poeta Christianissimus_, and translated into his massive German both the hymns the Breviary had extracted from his chief poem. CHAPTER IX. VENANTIUS FORTUNATUS THE TROUBADOUR. Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus was a man not satisfied with four names. In jest or earnest he assumed another, Theodosius. In point of time he had an interesting position; in regard to residence his story becomes really valuable; and when we add that he gave to the Church several of her best-known hymns, he appears before us as a person unfamiliar, but highly attractive.