912, (of whose collection one
hundred and twenty-two lives are still extant,) sometimes altered
the style of his authors where it appeared flat or barbarous, and
sometimes inserted later additions and interpolations, often not
sufficiently warranted, though not by him forged; for Psellus, in
his panegyric, furnishes us with many proofs of his piety. See Cave,
(Hist. Liter. t. 2, p. 88,) who, with other judicious critics,
entertains a much more favorable opinion of Metaphrastes than
Baillet. See Metaphrastes vindicated by Leo Allatius. (Diatr. de
Nilis, p. 24.) James de Voragine, of the order of St. Dominick, and
archbishop of Genoa, author of the _Golden Legend_, in 1290, wrote
still with less judgment, and, in imitation of Livy, often made the
martyrs speak his own language. Lippoman, bishop of Verona in 1550,
and Laurence Surius, a Carthusian monk of Cologne in 1570, sometimes
wanted the necessary helps for discernment in the choice of
materials. The same is to be said of Ribadeneira, except in the
lives of saints who lived near his own time, though a person
otherwise well qualified for a writer of sacred biography. Several
who have augmented his works in France, Spain, or Italy, labored
under the same misfortune and often gathered together whatever the
drag-net of time had amassed. John Capgrave, an Austin friar, some
time confessor to the duke of Gloucester, who died at Lynn in
Norfolk, in 1484, compiled the legend of the saints of England, from
a more ancient collection, the Sanctilogium of John of Tinmouth, a
monk of St. Alban's, in 1366, of which a very fair manuscript copy
was, before the last fire, extant in the Cottonian library. By the
melting of the glue and warping of the leaves, this book is no
longer legible unless some such method be used as that which is
employed in unfolding the parched and mouldering manuscripts found
in the ruins of Herculaneum.

On the other hand, some French critics in sacred biography have
tinctured their works with a false and pernicious leaven, and, under
the name of criticism, established skepticism.

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{057}

CONTENTS.

JANUARY.

1.
THE Circumcision of our Lord..................... 59
St. Fulgentius, Bishop and Confessor............. 63
St. Odilo, or Olon, Sixth Abbot of Cluni......... 69
St. Almachus, or Telemachus, Mart