Introduction.
The Mater Specioſa is not one of the Seven Great Hymns. It has been inſerted here becauſe it is cloſely aſſociated with the other poem and in ſome degree an expoſition of it. Like the Stabat Mater, it has generally been aſcribed to Jacobus de Benedictus, and I have left his name as the reputed author. My own opinion, however, is that it was neither written by him nor before the Stabat Mater. Theſe concluſions reſt on what we know of Jacobus and on the internal evidence of the two poems. 1. One of them is undiſputably ſecondary—a companion-piece to the other. 2. The Stabat Mater is founded on the ſcriptural basis of the text in John, "there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother," as the Dies Iræ is founded on the scriptural basis of the terrible text in Joel. This fact alone is ſuficient to be termed concluſive; i. e., the poem ſprings from that text and not from another poem. Converſely, the Mater Specioſa ſprings from the other poem and not from a ſcriptural image. The picture in John was the germ of both poems. 3. The Stabat Mater is the poem of the great tragedy of the world; the Mater Specioſa runs upon
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