A few years after
this information, Silvester imprudently went to the Holy City, where
he was suddenly seized with fever. Before his senses left him he
repented, and confessed his familiarity with Satan. He desired that,
after death, his hands and tongue might be cut off, because with them
he had served the devil; that his mutilated body should be put into a
cart, with horses having no driver, and that wherever they halted,
after being started, his body should be buried there. All being done
as requested by the dying pope, the horses stopped when they came to
the church of Lateran, and there he was interred. Whatever became of
his soul, it is plain the devil did not let his body alone. Shortly
before the death of many popes who succeeded him, his bones were heard
to rattle, and his tomb was seen to sweat. By these signs people knew
when the dissolution of a pope was nigh. This narration may seem
strange to the present generation, but to people living in olden
times it was not considered very extraordinary. Report says that
eighteen popes, who succeeded one another, were necromancers.
Benedictus IX. was, through his wickedness and sorcery, called
Maledictus. He was killed, we are told, by the Devil in a wood. After
his death, a hermit met his body, in the form of a bear, with a mitre
on his head. The hermit, so the story goes, asked him how it happened
that he was metamorphosed. "Because," said he, "in my popedom I lived
without law, and now I wander like a beast."

_St. Januarius_, the patron saint of Naples, suffered martyrdom about
the end of the third century. When he was beheaded, a pious lady
secured a small quantity of his blood, which, report says, has been
preserved in a bottle ever since, without losing a grain of its
weight. The blood is usually congealed, but when brought near the
saint's carefully preserved head, it is miraculously liquified. The
experiment is, or at least was, made twice a year by the Neapolitans.
When there is an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the saint's head is, or
was, carried in procession, in order to render the outbreak harmless.

_St. Anthony_ had serious conflicts with the Devil in bodily shape,
when victory was generally declared in favour of the good man. The
saint performed miracles, and was famed for curing the disease called
after his name. In youth he was a swine-herd, and afterwards became
the patron saint of swine-herds. To do him honour, the Romanists were
wont to keep a h