seldom have the means of gratifying his taste for pleasure; he would frequently find that, in company, if he met with outward civility, he was the object of silent blame; and that if he gave pleasure as a companion, no one would resort to him as a priest." He had a manuscript written by a Mr. Cox, an English missioner, who lived in the beginning of the present century, in which these sentiments were expressed forcibly and with great feeling: he often mentioned it. But no person was less critical on the conduct of others, none exacted less from them, than our author. He was always at the command of a fellow-clergyman, and ready to do him every kind of good office. To the poor, his door was always open. When he resided in London, in quality of chaplain to the duke of Norfolk, he was under no obligation, strictly speaking, of attending to any person except the duke himself and his family; but he was at the call of every one who wanted any spiritual or temporal assistance which it was in his power to afford. The poor, at length, flocked to him in such numbers that, much in opposition to his wishes, his brother, with whom he then lived, was obliged to give general orders that none of them should be admitted to him. He was ever ready to oblige. Moss. Olivet relates of Huet, the bishop of Avranches, that he was so absorbed in his studies as sometimes to neglect his pastoral duties; that once a poor peasant waited on him respecting some matter of importance, and was refused admittance, "his lordship being at his studies:" upon which the peasant retired, muttering, with great indignation, "that he hoped they should ever have another bishop who had not finished his studies before he came among them;" but our author's "being at his studies," was never a reason with him for refusing to see any one. It was often unpleasant to observe how much his good-humor, in this respect, was abused.

VII.

Our author did not remain long in Staffordshire. Edward, duke of Norfolk, (to whom the present duke is second in succession,) applied to the late Mr. Challoner for a person to be his chaplain, and to superintend the education of Mr. Edward Howard, his nephew and presumptive heir. Mr. Challoner fixed upon our author to fill that situation. His first residence, after he was appointed to it, was at Norwich in a house generally called the duke's palace. Thither some large boxes of books belonging to him were directed, but by mistake were sent to the bishop's palace. The bishop opened them, and finding them fall of Roman Catholic books, refused to deliver them. It has been mentioned, that after the battle of Fontenoy, our author was very active in serving the English prisoners, and that the duke of Cumberland returned him thanks for his conduct, and made him an offer of his services, if he should have occasion for them after his return to England. On this seizure of his books, our author applied to the duke; his highness immediately wrote to the bishop, and soon after the books were sent to their owner.

Mr. Edward Howard, by our author's advice, was first sent to the School of the English clergy, at a small village near Douay, called Esquerchin, of which the most pious and respectable Mr. Tichborne Blunt was president. After some years he was sent to complete his education at Paris; and thither our author accompanied him. Mr. Edward Howard was the Marcellus of the English Catholics; {021} never did a noble youth raise greater expectations; but he was suddenly taken ill and died after an illness of a few days. On that melancholy occasion the family expressed great pleasure in the recollection of the religious education he had received from our author.

VIII.

During our author's stay at Paris he finally completed and sent to the press his great work on the Lives of the Saints. We have seen that, from his tenderest years, he had discovered his turn for sacred biography. At a very early period of his life he conceived the plan of his work; and from that time pursued it with undeviating attention. He qualified himself for an able execution of it, by unremitted application to every branch of profane or sacred literature connected with it. He was, a perfect master of the Italian, Spanish, and French languages. The last he spoke and wrote with fluency and purity. He was also perfect master of the Latin and Greek languages. At an advanced period of his life he mentioned to the editor that he could then understand the works of St. John Chrysostom as easily in the original as in the Latin interpretation; but that the Greek of Saint Gregory Nazianzen was too difficult for him. A few years before he died he amused himself with an inquiry into the true pronunciation of tee Greek language, and in preparing for the press some sheets of an intended Greek grammar. To attain that degree of knowledge of the Greek language is given to few: Menage mentions that he was acquainted with three persons only who could read a Greek writer without an interpreter. Our author had also some skill in the oriental languages. In biblical reading, in positive divinity, in canon law, in the writings of the fathers, in ecclesiastical antiquities, and in modern controversy, the depth and extent of his erudition are unquestionable. He was also skilled in heraldry: every part of ancient and modern geography was familiar to him. He had advanced tar beyond the common learning of the schools in the different branches of philosophy; and even in botany and medicine he was deeply read. In this manner he had qualified himself to execute the work he undertook.

IX.

The present section is intended to give An account of some of the principal works he consulted in the composition of it. It will contain, 1st, some remarks on the attention of the church, during the early ages of Christianity, to preserve the memory of the martyrs and saints: 2dly, some account of the acts of the martyrs; 3dly, some account of the sacred calendars: 4thly, some account of the Martyrologies: 5thly, some account of the Menæon and Menologies of the Greek church; 6thly, some account of the early Agiographists: 7thly, some account of the Bollandists: and, 8thly, some account of the process of the beatification and canonization of saints.

IX. 1. The Roman Catholic church has ever been solicitous that the lives and miracles of those who have been eminent for their sanctify should be recorded for the edification of the faithful. St. Clement the Second, successor of St. Peter in the see of Rome, is said to have divided the fourteen districts of that city among seven notaries, assigning two districts to each of them, with directions to form a minute and accurate account of the martyrs who suffered within them. About one hundred and fifty years from that time, pope Fabian put the notaries under the care of deacons and subdeacons. The same attention to the actions and sufferings of the martyrs was shown in the provinces. Of this, the letter of the church of Smyrna, giving an account of the martyrdom of St. Polycarp, the letter of the churches of Lyons and Vienne, giving an account of the martyrs who suffered in those cities; and the letter of St. Dionysius, the bishop of Alexandra, to Fabius, the bishop of Antioch, on the martyrs who suffered under the emperor Decius, are remarkable instances. "Our ancestors," says Pontius, in the beginning of the acts of St. Cyprian, "held those who suffered martyrdom, though only catechumens, or of the lowest rank, in such veneration, as to commit to writing almost every thing that related to them." Nor was this attention confined to those who obtained the crown of martyrdom. Care was taken that the lives of all should be written who were distinguished by their virtues, particularly if they had been favored with the gift of miracles.

IX. 2. The lives of the martyrs and saints, written in this manner, were called their acts. They were often collected into volumes. One of the earliest of these