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The first monks were foreigners, by the advice of Lanfranc, and, as a great favour, Saint Bernard sent three of his own brethren from Clairvaux, who taught the good people of Lewes to sing "Jesu dulcis memoria."
And to that essence of prayer composed by Peter of Compostella or Hermann Contract, Saint Bernard, in an excess of hyperdulia, added the three invocations at the end, "O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria," sealing the inimitable prose with a triple seal, by those three cries of love which recall the hymn to the affectionate adoration of its beginning.
"Pressitque jacentem Dulcis et alta quies, placidæque simillima morti." Æn., vi., 522.
"softening and concealing; and busy with a hand of healing." Tale tuum carmen nobis, divine poeta, Quale sopor fessis in gramine, quale per æstum Dulcis aquæ saliente sitim restinguere rivo. But with the advent of babies poetry declined, and the sympathetic wife became more and more motherly. The father retired sadly into the dreamland of books. He will not emerge again.
A man who takes Christ seriously and will "examine life," will often find in those great hymns, it may be with some surprise, an anticipation of his own experience as Bunyan did in Luther's Commentary on Galatians. Livingstone had "Jesu dulcis memoria" the Latin of it ringing in his head as he travelled in unexplored Africa.
And though since I agree with the divine Petrarca, when he declares, quoting the `Aulularia' of Plautus, who again was indebted for the truth to the supreme Greek intellect, `Optimam foeminam nullam esse, alia licet alia pejor sit' I cannot boast that thou art entirely lifted out of that lower category to which Nature assigned thee, nor even that in erudition thou art on a par with the more learned women of this age; thou art, nevertheless yes, Romola mia," said the old man, his pedantry again melting into tenderness, "thou art my sweet daughter, and thy voice is as the lower notes of the flute, `dulcis, durabilis, clara, pura, secans aera et auribus sedens, according to the choice words of Quintilian; and Bernardo tells me thou art fair, and thy hair is like the brightness of the morning, and indeed it seems to me that I discern some radiance from thee.
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