Who did write the hymn " Veni, Creator Spiritus," described
as second only to the Te Deum among mediaeval Christian com- positions, and translated into English in the seventeenth century by Bishop Cosin as the well-known "Come, Holy Ghost, our hearts inspire " ? It is popularly ascribed to Charlemagne, which would invest it with a peculiar interest ; but Julian, in his Dictionary of Hymnology, demonstrates that the legend to that effect is based on chronological impossibilities. Sir George Adam Smith, referring to the hymn in his commentary on Isaiah, says it was not the work of Charlemagne, as usually supposed, but of his grandson, Charles the Bald. Others attribute it, with perhaps more probability, to another grandson, Charles the Fat. (For reasons which need not be entered into I deprecate these descriptive appellations.) Further possibilities are St. Ambrose and Gregory the Great. Decisive proof is hardly likely to be forthcoming now, but to connect the hymn with some member of the Carolingian dynasty seems fairly safe. How often hymns are sung lustily without interest in their words or their origin.
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