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But is one next to read through the sixty and odd folio volumes of the Bollandist Lives of the Saints, and the new edition of the Byzantine historians, and the State Trials, and the Encyclopædia Britannica, and Moreri, and the Statutes at large, and the Gentleman's Magazine from the beginning, each separately, and in succession?
It is the occurrence of such names that makes Moreri speak of the Bollandist selection as rather loose, since it contains "vies des saintes bonnes, médiocres, mauvaises, vrayes, douteuses, et fausses." The saint's festival-day is generally the anniversary of his death, or "deposition," as it is technically termed; but this is by no means an absolute rule.
Ussher and Ware, who had the Life in very ancient codices, also thought it of great antiquity. Papebrach, the Bollandist, on the other hand, considered the Life could not be older than the twelfth century, but this opinion of his seems to have been based on a misapprehension.
Thus the chancellor of Montfort obtained the honour of sanctity through the action of the victor of Evesham. The processus canonisationis of Cantilupe, printed in the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum, Oct. 1, 539-705, illustrates many aspects of this period. The second Welsh war interrupted both the conflict between Edward and the archbishop, and the course of domestic legislation.
The science of hagiology is a very wide and far-reaching one, which demands knowledge and reverence. The words of these learned men and the writings of the learned Bollandist mentioned above are worthy of consideration, as sometimes priests are puzzled about the truth and accuracy of the incidents recorded in those lessons of the second nocturn. They should be treated with reverence.
The Bollandist manuscripts afford many details of the pilgrim life at Jerusalem which had, however, to be enjoyed by permission of the infidel, always a bitter portion in the pilgrim's cup. On arrival they prepared themselves by fasting and prayer. Then, covered by a mourning robe, they visited the Church of the Sepulcher.
The winter is coming on too, a period crowded with the memorials of departed saints, as being unpropitious to men of highly ascetic habits, so that those who have undertaken the completion of the Bollandist enterprise have their work before them. There is a marvellous uniformity in all the arrangements of this array of volumes which have thus appeared at intervals throughout two centuries.
Ussher and Ware, who had the Life in very ancient codices, also thought it of great antiquity. Papebrach, the Bollandist, on the other hand, considered the Life could not be older than the twelfth century, but this opinion of his seems to have been based on a misapprehension.
If the enormous undertaking of the Bollandist editors had been completed, it would have contained the histories of 25,000 saints. So many the Catholic Church acknowledged and accepted as her ideals as men who had not only done her honour by the eminence of their sanctity, but who had received while on earth an openly divine recognition of it in gifts of supernatural power.
For the rest, Lord Crawford's purchases at the Howell Wills sale of 1894 were considerable in quantity, and he acquired three fine books at that of Ambroise Firmin Didot in 1878. Three others came from the Bollandist Fathers' Library at Brussels. One of these had for some years formed part of the very choice collection of the Fountaines at Narford, in Norfolk, scattered in 1894.
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