not, in his
Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights, and Measures, a topic extremely barren
of amusement, takes every opportunity of enlivening the dulness of his
task; even in these mathematical calculations he betrays his wit; and
observes that "the polite Augustus, the emperor of the world, had
neither any glass in his windows, nor a shirt to his back!" Those uses
of glass and linen indeed were not known in his time. Our physician is
not less curious and facetious in the account of the _fees_ which the
Roman physicians received.

LEGENDS.

Those ecclesiastical histories entitled Legends are said to have
originated in the following circumstance.

Before colleges were established in the monasteries where the schools
were held, the professors in rhetoric frequently gave their pupils the
life of some saint for a trial of their talent at _amplification_. The
students, at a loss to furnish out their pages, invented most of these
wonderful adventures. Jortin observes, that the Christians used to
collect out of Ovid, Livy, and other pagan poets and historians, the
miracles and portents to be found there, and accommodated them to their
own monks and saints. The good fathers of that age, whose simplicity was
not inferior to their devotion, were so delighted with these flowers of
rhetoric, that they were induced to make a collection of these
miraculous compositions; not imagining that, at some distant period,
they would become matters of faith. Yet, when James de Voragine, Peter
Nadal, and Peter Ribadeneira, wrote the Lives of the Saints, they sought
for their materials in the libraries of the monasteries; and, awakening
from the dust these manuscripts of amplification, imagined they made an
invaluable present to the world, by laying before them these voluminous
absurdities. The people received these pious fictions with all
imaginable simplicity, and as these are adorned by a number of cuts, the
miracles were perfectly intelligible to their eyes. Tillemont, Fleury,
Baillet, Launoi, and Bollandus, cleared away much of the rubbish; the
enviable title of _Golden Legend_, by which James de Voragine called his
work, has been disputed; iron or lead might more aptly describe its
character.

When the world began to be more critical in their reading, the monks
gave a graver turn to their narratives; and became penurious of their
absurdities. The faithful Catholic contends, that the line of tradition
has been preserved unbroken; no