Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/119

 s. in. FEB. 4, 1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

95

title- page reads "Panthea : or Divine Wishes

and Meditations Revised by J. M., Master

of Arts......Whereunto is added an appendix,

presence as a server of one who should not serve, e g., a woman. This rubric has since been modified to some extent, as may be

containing an excellent elegy written by the ' gathered from consulting " Deer. Auth.S.R.C.

L. Discount St. Albans," &c._ This elegy is 2745 ad 8," where it is clearly stated that a

woman may "answer" Mass urgente necessi- tate, but may not "serve."

St. Thomas Aquinas (iii. 83, v. ad 12) quotes a Papal decree to the effect that no

the poem referred to " The world ; s a bubble," &c. The verses therefore were recognized in 1630 as the work of Bacon. GEORGE STRONACH.

" WALKYN SILVER " (10 th S. iii. 29). This seems to have been a payment which carried with it a right of way through certain part of an estate. Walkers were forest officers appointed to walk about a certain space of ground committed to their care. A " walk" was a footpath. J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

SOLITARY MASS (10 th S. iii. 8). The follow- ing passage from O'Brien's ' History of the Mass,' fifteenth ed., pp. 8, 9, may be of use to

MB. ACKERLEY :

" When Mass is said by a priest alone, without the attendance of people, or even of a server, it is called a Solitary Mass. Masses of this kind were once very common in monasteries and religious communities (Bona, p. 230), and they are still practised to a great extent in missionary countries. -They cannot, however, be said without grave neces- sity ; for it is considered a serious offence by theo- logians to celebrate without a server, and this server must always be a male, never a female, no matter how pressing the necessity be. Strangely enough fcolitary Masses were forbidden, in days gone by, by several local councils, and this principally for the reason that it seemed ridiculous to say, 'Dominus vobiscum,' the Lord be with you, ' Oremus,' let us fray, and 'Orate, fratres,' pray, brethren, when there were no persons present. The Council of Mayence, held in the time of Pope Leo III. (A D 815;, directly forbade [by its 43rd Canon] a priest to say Mass alone. The prohibition not merely to sing it, but to celebrate at all without witnesses, was repeated by the Council of Nantes, and for the reasons alleged. Gratian cites a canon in virtue of which two witnesses at least were required for the due celebration of every Mass : and this we find to > the rule among the early Cistercians. Cardinal Bona ('Rer. Liturg.,' p. 230), from whom we copy these remarks, seems much in doubt as to whether solitary Masses were wholly abrogated in his day f instances, however, a well-known exception in Jase of a certain monastery which enjoyed the >rmlege from the Holy See of celebrating without ivmg any person to respond. According to the iresent discipline of the Church, whenever necessity compels a priest to celebrate alone he must recite id a full congregation listening to him. He must t omit, abridge, add, or change anything, to suit the peculiar circumstances of the occasion, but must dp everything that the rubrics prescribe for ordinary Mass, and this under pain of sin."'
 * e responses himself, and otherwise act as if he

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT. The rubrics of the Roman Missal ('De >efectibus,' X.) censure as "defects" the

priest may celebrate High Mass (missarum solemnia) unless two persons be present to answer his "Dominus vobiscum" and "Orate pro me." The Angelic Doctor adds, however, that one server is sufficient at Low Masses, that the one server stands for the people and answers for them.

To say a Low Mass, then, without a server but with some one to answer, is permissible, and, in fact, not uncommon. But I once had the misfortune to be without a server or even a congregation. This was in a country place on a dark winter morning. A devout old lady had answered my Mass daily for several weeks, and I had every reason to suppose that she was present on the day in question. As she was rather hard of hear- ing, and sometimes a little uncertain as to the part of the Mass that I had reached, I had on other occasions been obliged to supply some of the responses myself. Hence I was not surprised on this particular morning to have to "answer" more than usual. When

did at last discover that I was the only person present in the church, I determined [ went on to the end of my one and only ' Solitary Mass." S. G. OULD.
 * hat I had gone too far to draw back, and so

St. Benedict's Abbey, Fort Augustus, Scotland.

The priest must have some one to serve lirn at Mass, but the Romanists do not require a communicant. Dr. Pusey never "celebrated :) in his house without a communi- cant as a rule, his son, who resided with him

at Oxford.

F. FABER-BROWNE.

39, Alexandra Road, Hornsey, N.

SPLIT INFINITIVE (10 th S. ii. 406 ; iii. 17, 51). By the voice of the pundits it has been decided that the split infinitive is not un- grammatical. I venture none the less, with reprehensible rashness, to declare it inele- gant and detestable. In the instances ad- vanced its employment weakens the sentence. Surely "rapidly to march" and "gloriously to die," the latter especially, are more vigo- rous than "to rapidly march" and "to gloriously die." For the mere sake of euphony it is to be avoided. In writers such as Fanny Burney you will constantly

i ' --' i. ww*a LUC sucii a.s raiiuy Duruov ^uu win (juustetiii/iy

ilerk or other server, and the encounter it. But it is not in Shakespeare