mperfect.[26]

Accidental causes have given frequent occasions to mistakes, which, when
we consider, we cannot be surprised if sometimes good men have been
deceived by false memoirs. As to authors of wilful forgeries, we have no
name harsh enough to express, nor punishment equal to their crime. But
the integrity even of Geoffry of Monmouth is no longer impeached, since
it hath been proved that in his British history he was not the author of
the fables which he published upon the credit of other vouchers.

Nevertheless, upon these, and the like accounts, history calls aloud for
the discernment of criticism. And many learned men, especially of the
monastic order, have, for our assistance, with no less industry than
success, separated in ancient writings the sterling from the
counterfeit, and by collating manuscripts, and by clearing difficult
points, have rendered the path in this kind of literature smooth and
secure. The merit of original authors hath been weighed; we have the
advantage of most correct editions of their works; rash and groundless
alterations of some modern critics, and the blunders of careless copiers
or editors are redressed; interpolations foisted into the original
writings are retrenched; and a mark hath been set on memoirs of inferior
authority. Moreover, the value of ancient manuscripts, being known,
ample repositories of such monuments have been made, curious lists of
which are communicated to the public, that any persons may know and have
recourse to them. It must also be added, that the laborious task of
making the researches necessary for this complicated work, hath been
rendered lighter by the care with which several judicious and learned
men have compiled the lives of many particular saints. Thus have
Mabillon and {055} Bulteau writ the lives of the saints of the order of
St. Benedict; the elegant Touron of that of St. Dominick; Le Nain, of
the Cistercian order; Tillemont, the Maurist Benedictin monks, and Orsi,
these of the principal fathers of the church, &c.[27] The genuine acts
of the primitive martyrs, the most valuable monument of ecclesiastical
history, have been carefully published by Ruinart. Some of them are
presidial acts, _i.e._ extracted from the court registers; others were
written from the relations of eye-witnesses of undoubted veracity. To
this treasure an accession, which the learned Orsi and others doubt not
to call of equal value, hath been lately made by the publication of