Summa Minutiae

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Cranmer's collects

Online from the 1549 Book of Common Prayer, courtesy of William S Peterson. Please, take a look and read a couple of them aloud. That there is what the English language was meant to do. Note how gracefully and easily the tongue and lips move when they pronounce perfectly-composed English. Cranmer may have been a crazed schismatic, but he sure could write.

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick & the dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through him who liveth & reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.

B. Franklin on the pleasure of conversation

How unfortunate I was, that I did not press you and Lady Kames more strongly to favour us with your company farther. How much more agreeable would our journey have been, if we could have enjoyed you as far as York. We could have beguiled the way, by discoursing of a thousand things, that now we may never have an opportunity of considering together; for conversation warms the mind, enlivens the imagination, and is continually starting fresh game, that is immediately pursued and taken, and which would never have occurred in the duller intercourse of epistolary correspondence. So that whenever I reflect on the great pleasure and advantage I received from the free communication of sentiment, in the conversations we had at Kames, and in the agreeable little rides to the Tweed side, I shall for ever regret our premature parting.

-- Benjamin Franklin, in a 1760 letter to Henry Home, Lord Kames, in volume 4, pages 3-4, of The Writings of Benjamin Franklin. Edited by Albert Henry Smyth. New York: Macmillan Co., 1905--7.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Seven quick takes

Fresh-picked basil atop the pizza sauce and below the rest of the toppings!
America's Funniest Home Videos is our guilty teevee pleasure.
I tuned my acoustic guitar down a few steps and now it won't stay in tune.
I'm working on a texinfo edition of the King James Bible.
Irish breakfast tea is stronger and tastier than English breakfast tea.
I've rediscovered http://www.universalis.com
You can hear the influence of Pete Townsend in this 1969 video from Shocking Blue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2DBcbZc3ck

Thursday, October 1, 2009

A government program I can get behind

The Afghan oxymoron

"Afghan democracy" is one of those phrases like "jumbo shrimp" or "honest politician" - one term contradicts the other. The key point from Michael Yon's latest dispatch: "Democracy" does not grow on land where most people don't vote. It's a fool's game to try to establish a democracy in Afghanistan.

Monday, September 21, 2009

An 1892 primer of Ecclesiastical Latin

The Mantrina, at the Internet Archive. I stumbled upon it while googling fruitlessly for Fr Hunwicke's The English Missal.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Catena aurea: new location

This has moved to my website at work: http://members.wolfram.com/billw/CatenaAurea/

Butler's Lives: new location

They've moved to my website at work: http://members.wolfram.com/billw/ButlersLives/

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Catena aurea: Matthew 23

Butler's Lives: September 19

Thursday, September 17, 2009

CUA Fathers: Chrysostom's homilies on the Gospel of John

Title page
Table of contents
Introduction
- Homily 48: John 7:1-8
- Homily 49: John 7:9-24
- Homily 50: John 7:25-36
- Homily 51: John 7:37-44
- Homily 52: John 7:45-8.19
- Homily 53: John 8:20-30
- Homily 54: John 8:31-47
- Homily 55: John 8:48-59
- Homily 56: John 9:1-5
- Homily 57: John 9:6-16
- Homily 58: John 9:17-35
- Homily 59: John 9:35-10:13
- Homily 60: John 10:14-21
- Homily 61: John 10:22-42
- Homily 62: John 11:1-29
- Homily 63: John 11:30-41
- Homily 64: John 11:41-48
- Homily 65: John 11:49-12:8
- Homily 66: John 12:9-24
- Homily 67: John 12:25-33
- Homily 68: John 12:34-41
- Homily 69: John 12:42-50
- Homily 70: John 13:1-12
- Homily 71: John 13:12-19
- Homily 72: John 13:20-35
- Homily 73: John 13:36-14:7
- Homily 74: John 14:8-15
- Homily 75: John 14:15-30
- Homily 76: John 14:31-15:10
- Homily 77: John 15:11-16:4
- Homily 78: John 16:5-15
- Homily 79: John 16:16-33
- Homily 80: John 17:1-5
- Homily 81: John 17:6-13
- Homily 82: John 17:14-26
- Homily 83: John 18:1-36
- Homily 84: John 18:37-19:15
- Homily 85: John 19:16-20:9
- Homily 86: John 20:10-23
- Homily 87: John 20:24-21:14
- Homily 88: John 21:15-25

Sidneian Psalms: Psalm 6

Domine, ne in furore.

Lord, lett not mee a worm by thee be shent,
      While thou art in the heate of thy displeasure;
Nor let thy rage of my due punnishment
                  Become the measure.

But mercy, Lord, lett mercy thine descend,
      For I am weake, and in my weaknes languish:
Lord, help, for ev'n my bones their marrow spend
                  With cruel anguish.

Butler's Lives: September 17

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Sidneian Psalms: Psalm 5

Verba mea auribus.

Ponder the wordes, O Lord, that I do say,
      Consider what I meditate in me:
      O, harken to my voice which calls on thee,
My king; my God, for I to thee will pray.
      Soe shall my voice clime to thine eares betime:
For unto thee I will my praier send
      With earliest entry of the morning prime,
And will my waiting eies to thee-ward bend.