DIES IRS.
[To THE EDrfOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—In the able article in to-day's Spectator comparing the Dies Iris with the verses suggested by it in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, there is, I think, an error of inadvertence to which I wish to call your attention. The stanza,
"Turn liber scriptus proferottu. In quo totum continetur Untie munclus jndicetur,"
is translated,—
" Then shall the book divine appear, Where every word of God stands clear, For which the world must answer here."
And further on the writer says, "Then the Bible is cited."
Surely it is obvious that the "liber scriptus " of the medimval hymn is not the Bible, but the book in which an account of the doings of mankind is kept, and from which judgment is pronounced. It is frequently referred to in hymns and other religious literature
of all periods, and is the book in which Sterne's "recording angel" entered the oath.
It forms part of the imagery of the Apocalypse :—" Libri aperti aunt, et alMs liber apertus eat, qui est. vitas ; et judicati sunt mortui ex his qum scripta erant in libris, secundum opera ipsorum." (Rev. xx. 12, and also Dan. vii. 10.) Du rests, we have to thank Mr. Gladstone's somewhat extrava- gant praise of Sir Walter Scott's poem for the dispute between the Pall Mall Gazette and one of your correspondents, which has been summed up by so appreciative a critic as the writer of the article [refer to.-1 am, Sir, &c., M. D.
London, March 7.
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