Note 212 — The Library.

When Queen Elizabeth deputed a set of commissioners to examine into the superstitious books belonging to All-Souls library, there was returned, in the list of these superstitious works, "eight grailes, seven antiphoners of parchment and bound." Gutch's Collectanea Curiosa, vol. ii., 276. At page 115, ante, the reader will find a definition of the word "Antiphoner." He is here informed that a "gradale" or "grail," is a book which ought to have in it "the office of sprinkling holy water: the beginnings of the masses, or the offices of Kyrie, with the verses of gloria in excelsis; the gradales, or what is gradually sung after the epistles; the hallelujah and tracts, the sequences, the creed to be sung at mass, the offertories, the hymns holy, and Lamb of God, the communion, &c., which relate to the choir at the singing of a solemn mass." This is the Rev. J. Lewis's account; idem opus, vol. ii., 168.