Poeticum* of Gregorius Bulzius, and in the Annus Sacert of the Jesuit Sautel. These men lived not in dark ages, nor in ignorant countries, and they thought that by embellishing this very story, and putting it into the hands of youth for edification, they were performing...I will not say a religious, but a professional‡ duty. Seu de Calitibus Epigrammata. Novocomi, 1665. The most remarkable thing in this book is the account which the author gives of himself, as finding two or three hours sleep sufficient. Being too much employed in his sacred functions to have any leisure for so light an occupation as poetry by day, he borrowed part of the night, he says, for the composition of these verses. Ut natura omnium, si velimus, paucis est contenta, sic mea breviori ut plurimum somno contentissima. Bind vel trina horá a cubitu experrectus, aliquod crebro spatium temporis, meditandis epigrammatum argumentis, pangendisque versibus insumebam, quos dein, appetente die, exscribebam, unde tandem hi duodecim de Calitibus libelli sunt enati. Ad Lectorem. † Annus Sacer Poeticus, sive Selecta de Divis Calitibus Epigrammata, in singulos Anni dies tributa.-Lugduni. 1679. 2 tom. Sautel's work was published after his death by his friend and fellow Jesuit Calmels, to whom the manuscript had been bequeathed for that purpose; and the editor speaks thus of these Romish Fasti, which actually contain more fables than the Fasti of Ovid, with the Metamorphoses to boot. Ausim meo periculo spondere futurum, ut hoc egregium Viri optimi monumentum, non modò apud pium, sed et eruditum Lectorem recto stet talo, plausum et ɛñɩonpariav ferat, dum Religio Catholica stabit. Etenim Annus Sacer, Sanctorum qui per anni currentis singulos dies occurrunt elogia et πανηγυρίκοι λόγοι, mirum dictu quantum hi valeant ad bene maratos homines efficiendos, &c. Before we dismiss the story, it will be proper to notice Dr. Lingard's remark, that it was "unknown* to the contemporary author of his life." As if that author were so free from the original sin of monkish nature, that his work contains no such tales! If he does not relate this "nocturnal conflict with the Devil," (as the historian phrases it) does he relate no other conflicts with the same personage? no other interviews and adventures with him quite as miraculous,... and quite as authentic, though not indeed so picturesque, and therefore not so popular? Had the Romish historian of his Church forgotten that in this contemporary piece of biography the Devil figures in the various forms of a bear, a dog, a viper, and a fox?† that it relates how the Saint struck at him once with a stick, and, missing his blow, the sound of the stick against the wall was heard through the whole church? how he threw a stone§ at the Saint, which knocked off his cap; and how the Saint saw him dancing || for joy?... for it appears by these sanctified writers that the Devil dances and sings when he is pleased. Could he hope that Bredfirth's cha * Anglo-Saxon Church, 397. N. 6. + Acta SS. Mai. t. iv. 352. + Ibid. § Ibid. || Ibid. 357. racter for veracity or discretion (if he be indeed the author) was to be established by showing that he has not related this one fable, when so many other fables of the same kind are woven with the web of his work! But these things are no more peculiar to Bredfirth than they are to Osbern, whom Dr. Lingard, and you, Sir, after him, would make the scape-goat on this occasion. Poets have not made more free in all ages with the Muse, than monkish biographers with the Devil. You and I, Sir, have been voluminous writers; but if all the anecdotes of the Devil which the Bollandists have inserted in their collection were selected and put together, they would fill more volumes than we have both committed to the press. No man that ever wore a cowl could swallow camels more easily than the Spanish Benedictine Antonio de Yepes: an elephant, with a castle on his back, would not have choked him yet he strains at a gnat sometimes; and, when relating how the verse for Bede's epitaph was completed by an invisible hand, boldly professes his incredulity, and delivers a grave opinion that it was a stratagem* of the Devil's to invent such tales and insert them in the lives * Coronica de S. Benito, t. iii. ff. 55. of the Saints. The motive which he imputes to Satan for this refined policy is, that men of learning might disdain to read such lives, or to employ themselves in writing sacred biography, like the Theodorets, the Jeromes, and the Gregories of other times. Were then the Theodorets, the Jeromes, and the Gregories, so free from all alloy of fiction in their works? And did this erudite and sagacious Benedictine (for sagacious as well as erudite he was) overlook the necessary inference, that if such fables were inspired by the father of lies, Monks, Prelates and Popes, Doctors and Fathers of the Church, and even Saints themselves were his instruments for publishing them? Nevertheless, well as it would suit my argument to take up this opinion, and press the legitimate consequence, the Devil must, I think, be acquitted of all share in inventing any of the numerous tales wherein he bears a part. The well-known story of the Pious Painter (which is as authentic as any other of this class, and as gravely recorded for an edifying fact) represents him as warmly resenting any thing which tended to disparage him in public opinion. He could not even bear to have his likeness unfavourably painted; and as no tribunal would award him damages when he had been thus caricatured, was at such pains to revenge himself, that some extraordinary miracles were worked to disappoint him. If then the Prince of Darkness be so tenacious in matters relating merely to his personal appearance, how could the good Benedictine imagine that he (who "is a gentleman") would compose libels upon himself which tended to render him despised and ridiculous as well as odious? Would he have represented himself as defied and insulted by every Saint in the Kalendar,... holding a candle for St. Dominic (for example) in the shape of a monkey, and compelled to hold it till it was * * That the reader may see the manner in which such fables were promulgated as serious and even sacred truth, I insert the original account of the miracle, as it stands in the Acta Ampliora of this prodigious Saint, quæ F. Theodoricus de Appoldia, suppar Ordinis Prædicatorum scriptor, ex variis antiquioribus monumentis collegit. exercere. "Accidit...cu cum Vir Dei in oratione usque ad noctis medium vigilasset, ut egressus de ecclesiá, ad lumen candela in capite dormitorii sedens scriberet. Et ecce dæmon in specie simiæ apparens, cæpit gestus illusorios cum torsione vultús coram ipso deambulans Tunc Sanctus ei manu innuit, ut fixus staret, dans ei candelam, ut ante se teneret, accensam; qui tenens nihilominus gestus cum irrisione cultus faciebat. Interea finitur candela, cæpitque ardere digitus simiæ, et quasi præ dolore torquendo se lamentari, cum tamen Gehennæ ignibus ardens flammam non timeat corporalem. Sanctus autem ei, ut staret adhuc, innuit. Quid plura? Tam diu stans permansit, donec digitus indicialis usque ad juncturam manûs totus crematus est, et mugis ac magis se tor |