by his people; and that he is eulogized by his

et omnium iniquitatum inflexibilis adversarius.-Osbern in Vita S. Odonis, Acta SS. Jul. t. ii. p. 71.

The same author, in his life of Dunstan, says, that after hamstringing the victim of their barbarity, they put her to death...ipsam quidem juxta Claudiam civitatem repertam, subnervavere, deinde quâ digna fuerat morte mulctavere.-Acta SS. Mai. t. iv. 368.

Dr. Lingard (Antiquities, N. V. pp. 524-527) labours, not only to support the old scandal, but to make it appear that it was the mother of Elgiva, not Elgiva herself, who in his gentle language was compelled to quit the kingdom, and venturing to return, perished during the revolt,"...that is, who had her face burnt with hot irons, for the purpose of disfiguring it, by S. Odo's orders, and was afterwards hamstrung by his people, and put to death. Were his argument conclusive, the conduct of Odo would be not the less atrocious; but it rests upon a subtlety of interpretation wherein he is opposed by every other writer, and upon uncertain dates. Elgiva is as plainly intended by all the elder authors as she is named by Spelman and Father Alford.

It is worthy of remark that Dr. Lingard in his History (vol. i. p. 235) omits all mention of the first barbarity practised upon Elgiva, that of disfiguring her face with red hot irons. These are his words:" Archbishop Odo undertook to remove the scandal by enforcing the punishment which the laws awarded against women living in a stage of concubinage. Accompanied by his retainers, he rode to the palace, arrested Ethelgiva, probably in the absence of her lover, conducted her to the sea-side, and put her on board a ship, in which she was conveyed to Ireland. At his return to court, he waited on Edwy, and in respectful and affectionate language endeavoured to justify his

biographers for the act.* So much for Dr. Milner's assertions! Never let his bust be made in any thing but bronze, for that "undaunted metal" is the only material which can represent him to the life.

You venture next, with some valour, Sir, but more discretion, to touch upon the miracles of St. Dunstan. You remind me that "the period in which the miracles attributed to Dunstan were performed, was the darkest period in the Roman Catholic history." You observe, with Dr. Lingard, that men in that age were in a state of mind to expect miraculous events, and to be the dupes of their own credulity; and that, like those who are supposed to be

66

gifted with the second-sight, they would see what they did not see, and hear what they did

own conduct, and to sooth the exasperated mind of the young prince." This is a fair sample of the treacherous manner in which Dr. Lingard's history is written wherever the interests of his Church are concerned.

→ The Severe Odo is one of the epithets by which he was usually characterized (see the Comm. Prævius to his life in the Acta SS. § 13.) After what has here already been adduced, it would be needless to multiply testimonies for showing that he was the author of the act, and that he was commended for : they may be seen in F. Alford, who applauds the fact as intrepidly as Dr. Milner denies it. See his Annales, vol. iii, pp. 311-313.

it :

not hear."* We shall find, upon examination, Sir, that the miracles performed by Dunstan were both actually seen, and heard, and felt moreover: and that the people who believed them, were the dupes of something more than credulity. You ask if our own country does not, in the present enlightened age, abound with superstitions: you bid me inquire of the village beadles and the village dames; ... as if there were any similitude between the superstitions which are now believed by persons of those descriptions, and the wonders which were then recorded, attested, and exhibited by the Heads of the Clergy, the Primate, St. Dunstan himself, being chief performer, as his predecessor Odo, a Saint of the same stamp, had been before him. And you assert that I myself have recorded the miraculous incidents in the Lifet of John Wesley.. Indeed, Sir?.. Can you so entirely misunderstand what has been clearly understood by all the Methodists who have perused that life? It is part of their complaint against me that, having related those incidents, I have divested them of the miraculous pretensions which the Society would fain support. There is a good classification of Saints in my

* Pages 68-70.

† Page 70.

old favourite Fuller's Introduction to his Worthies.* He distributes them into-1. Saints of Fiction, who never were in rerum naturâ, as St. Christopher, &c. 2. Saints of Faction, wherewith, says he, our age doth swarm, alleging two arguments for their Saintship:first, that they so call themselves; secondly, that those of their own party call them so. 3. Saints of Superstition, reputed so by the Court of Rome, &c. 4. Saints indeed! and so deserving to be honoured." But Fuller's third class is to be subdivided. Some of the Romish Saints were excellent and exemplary men, worthy of every respect and honour, short of the veneration which has been paid them. There are then the holy Simpletons, such as the blessed Juniper, whose adventures I shall notice in their proper place: and there are the Heautontimorumeni, men as sincere, as pious, and as mistaken in their piety as the Indian Yoguees. St. Dominic the Cuirassier, F. Joam d'Almeida, and the blessed Arnulph of the hedgehog-skin underwaistcoat, are good examples of this class. Among those who tor

* Vol. i. p. 7. Nichols's Edition.

+ "I cannot," says the delightful old writer* whom I have

* Ut supra, p. 8.

mented others, there are some in whose history it is difficult to perceive where delusion ended

just quoted," but sadly bemoan that the lives of these Saints are so darkened with Popish illustrations, and farced with Fauxeties, to their dishonour, and the detriment of Church history for as honest men, casually cast into the company of cozeners, are themselves suspected to be cheats by those who are strangers unto them; so the very true actions of these Saints, found in mixture with so many forgeries, have a suspicion of falsehood cast upon them.

Inquiring into the causes of this grand abuse, I find them reducible to five heads:

1. Want of honest hearts in the Biographists of these Saints, which betrayed their pens to such abominable untruths.

2. Want of able heads, to distinguish rumours from reports, reports from records; not choosing, but gathering; or rather not gathering, but scraping what could come to their hands.

3. Want of true matter to furnish out those lives in any proportion. As cooks are sometimes fain to lard lean meat, not for fashion, but necessity, as which otherwise would hardly be eatable for the dryness thereof; so these having little of these Saints more than their names and dates of their deaths (and those sometimes not certain), do plump up their emptiness with such fictious additions.

4. Hope of gain; so bringing in more custom of pilgrims to the shrines of the Saints.

5. Lastly, for the same reason for which Herod persecuted St. Peter, (for I count such lies a persecuting of the Saints memories)... merely because they saw it pleased the people.

By these and other causes it is come to pass that the observation of Vives is most true: Quæ de Sanctis scripta sunt, præter pauca quædem, multis fædata sunt commentis, dum qui