It seemed to be exceedingly rash to regard as barbarous the hymns of men like Prudentius, Sedulius, Sidonius, Apollinaris, Venantius, St. Ambrose, St. Paulinus of Aquileia and Rabanus Maurus and to desire to remodel them after the pattern of Horace's Odes....

Some of them accuse St. Ambrose, Prudentius and Gregory the Great of gross ignorance of the rules of Latin verse and, what to the critics was worse, ignorance of the ways of pagan classical models.

Nor is it clear that such men of genius as St. Ambrose, Prudentius, St. Gregory the Great, were ignorant of the rules and models of the best Latin poets.

It may seem to us that to begin the correction, mutilation and reconstruction of the works and words of men so great in church history and liturgy as Prudentius, Sedulius, St. Ambrose, St. Paulinus, was a work of rashness, a sort of sacrilege, attempting to remodel the glowing piety of their poems to the pattern of Horace's verse.

This power of silencing oracles, and putting the devils to flight, is also attested by Arnobius, Lactantius, Prudentius, Minutius, Felix, and several others.

And thus it is we should, it seems, understand the passages of St. Jerom, Eusebius, Cyril, Theodoret, Prudentius, and other authors, who said, that the coming of Christ had imposed silence on the oracles.

In prose and metre of all kynde ywys This lady blyssed had lust for to playe With her was blesens Richarde pophys Farrose pystyls clere lusty fresshe and gay With maters vere poetes in good array Ovyde, Omer, Vyrgyll, Lucan, Orace Alane, Bernarde, Prudentius and Stace.

One author contends for a pitchfork, St. Chrysostom for a sword, Irenæus for a scythe, and Prudentius for a hedging-bill.

"For all intents, places, creatures, they assign gods;" "Et domibus, tectis, thermis, et equis soleatis Assignare solent genios" saith Prudentius.

There he lived about thirty-six years, or until 568, when he died and was buried by his faithful disciple St. Prudentius, later bishop of Tarazona, who had been a companion of the hermit during the last seven years of his life.

PRUDENTIUS, Cont.

Prudence (Aurelius Prudentius Clemens), a Latin Christian poet of the fourth century, has a poem on the subject.

With Tertullian, St Jerome, and St Augustine he was of course acquainted, but of Lactantius, Prudentius, Sedulius, St Fortunatus, Duns Scotus, Hibernicus exul, Angilbert, Milo, &c., he was obliged to admit he knew nothingeven the names were unknown to him.

Even Prudentius, great poet as he was, was manifestly influenced in the choice of metre and the composition of the strophe by the Deus Creator omnium.... "St Ambrose did more than any other writer of his time to establish certain latent tendencies as characteristics of the Catholic spirit.

Then he said, somewhat abruptly, "St Jerome I speak of, or rather I allude to him, and pass on at once to the study of St Augustinethe great prose writer, as Prudentius was the great poet, of the Middle Ages.

"In like manner I trace the origin of the ballad, most particularly the English ballad, to Prudentius, a contemporary of Claudian.

" "You don't mean to say that you trace back our north-country ballads to, what do you call him?" "Prudentius.

In Prudentius' first published work, 'Liber Cathemerinon,' we find hymns composed absolutely after the manner of St Ambrose, in the same or in similar metres, but with this difference, the hymns of Prudentius are three, four, and sometimes seven times longer than those of St Ambrose.

In Prudentius' first published work, 'Liber Cathemerinon,' we find hymns composed absolutely after the manner of St Ambrose, in the same or in similar metres, but with this difference, the hymns of Prudentius are three, four, and sometimes seven times longer than those of St Ambrose.

"I was saying just now that the hymns of Prudentius, by the dramatic rapidity of the narrative, by the composition of the strophe, and by their wit, remind me very forcibly of our English ballads.

"Now, do you not understand what I mean when I say that the hymns of Prudentius are an anticipation of the form of the English ballad?...

Then the 'terza rima' was undoubtedly borrowed from the fourth hymn of the 'Cathemerinon.'"... "You said, I think, that Prudentius was a contemporary of Claudian.

Which do you think the greater poet?" "Prudentius by far.

He preferred to thumb the Psychomachia of Prudentius, that first type of the allegorical poem which was later, in the Middle Ages, to be used continually, and the works of Sidonius Apollinaris whose correspondence interlarded with flashes of wit, pungencies, archaisms and enigmas, allured him.

PRUDENTIUS, MARCUS AURELIUS CLEMENS.