The chaunt or music used by the papal choir, and indeed in most catholic cathedrals and abbey churches is, excepting in some instances, ancient. Gregory the Great, though not the author of it, collected it into a body and gave it the form in which it now appears. The chaunt of the psalms is simple and affecting, composed of Lydian, Phrygian, and other Greek and Roman tunes, without many notes, but with a sufficient inflection to render them soft and plaintive or bold and animating. St. Augustin, who was a good judge of music, represents himself as melted into tears by the psalms as then sung in the church of Milan, under the direction of St. Ambrose, and seems to apprehend, that the emotions produced by such harmonious airs might be too tender for the vigorous and manly spirit of Christian devotion.