ly they determined to rewrite a
great part of the Prayer Book. It was a bold undertaking; for in general
the style of that volume is such as cannot be improved. The English
Liturgy indeed gains by being compared even with those fine ancient
Liturgies from which it is to a great extent taken. The essential
qualities of devotional eloquence, conciseness, majestic simplicity,
pathetic earnestness of supplication, sobered by a profound reverence,
are common between the translations and the originals. But in the
subordinate graces of diction the originals must be allowed to be far
inferior to the translations. And the reason is obvious. The technical
phraseology of Christianity did not become a part of the Latin language
till that language had passed the age of maturity and was sinking into
barbarism. But the technical phraseology of Christianity was found in
the Anglosaxon and in the Norman French, long before the union of those
two dialects had, produced a third dialect superior to either. The Latin
of the Roman Catholic services, therefore, is Latin in the last stage
of decay. The English of our services is English in all the vigour and
suppleness of early youth. To the great Latin writers, to Terence and
Lucretius, to Cicero and Caesar, to Tacitus and Quintilian, the noblest
compositions of Ambrose and Gregory would have seemed to be, not merely
bad writing, but senseless gibberish, [493] The diction of our Book of
Common Prayer, on the other hand, has directly or indirectly contributed
to form the diction of almost every great English writer, and has
extorted the admiration of the most accomplished infidels and of the
most accomplished nonconformists, of such men as David Hume and Robert
Hall.

The style of the Liturgy, however, did not satisfy the Doctors of the
Jerusalem Chamber. They voted the Collects too short and too dry: and
Patrick was intrusted with the duty of expanding and ornamenting them.
In one respect, at least, the choice seems to have been unexceptionable;
for, if we judge by the way in which Patrick paraphrased the most
sublime Hebrew poetry, we shall probably be of opinion that, whether he
was or was not qualified to make the collects better, no man that ever
lived was more competent to make them longer, [494]

It mattered little, however, whether the recommendations of the
Commission were good or bad. They were all doomed before they were
known. The writs summoning the Convocation of the province of