with the greatest ease and docility; and, when the journey was over, was returned to his mistress; but in vain did she attempt to enjoy the accustomed services of her favourite. The horse had become fierce, and gave the lady many an unseemly fall: "as if (says the authorised record) feeling indignant at having to carry a woman, since the Vicar of Christ had been on his back *." The horse was accordingly presented to the Pope, as unfit to be ridden by a less dignified personage. The standing miracles of the city of Rome; those

* "Cum ei nobilis vir ad Corinthum, equum, quo ejus uxor mansueto utebatur, itineris causâ commodasset; factum est ut Domino postea remissus equus ita ferox evaderet, ut fremitu, et totius corporis agitatione, semper deinceps dominam expulerit: tanquam indignaretur mulierem recipere ex quo sedisset in eo Christi vicarius." Brev. Rom. die 27 Maii.

The Breviary, true to its plan of giving the substance of every story that ever sprang from the fertile imagination of the idle monks, concludes the life by stating the vision of a certain hermit, who saw the soul of Theodoric the Goth, carried to hell by Pope John and Symmachus, through one of the volcanos of the Lipari Islands. "Paulo post moritur Theodoricus: : quem quidam eremita, ut scribit Sanctus Gregorius, vidit inter Joannem Pontificem, et Symmachum Patricium, quem idem occiderat, demergi in ignem Liparitanum."-" This legend (says Gibbon) is related by Gregory I. and approved by Baronius; and both the Pope and Cardinal are grave doctors, sufficient to establish a probable opinion." Chap. xxxix. Note 108.

miraculous relics which even at this moment are drawing crowds of pilgrims within its walls, and which, in former times, made the whole of Europe support the idleness of the Romans at the expense of their devout curiosity; are not overlooked in the prayer-book of her church. Let me mention the account it gives of St. Peter's chains, such as they are now venerated at Rome. Eudoxia, the wife of Theodosius the younger, being on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, received as a present the chains with which St. Peter was bound in prison, when he was liberated by an angel. This chain, set with jewels, was forwarded by the pious empress to her daughter, then at Rome. The young princess, rejoiced with the gift, showed the chain to the Pope, who repaid the compliment by exhibiting another chain, which the holy apostle had borne under Nero. As, to compare their structure, the two chains were brought into contact, the links at the extremities of each joined together, and the two pieces became one uniform chain *.

*

"Cum igitur Pontifex Romanam catenam cum ea, quæ Ierosolymis allata fuerat, contulisset, factum est, ut illæ inter se sic connecterentur ut non duæ sed una catena ab

After these samples, no one will be surprised to find in the same authorised record, all the other supposed miracles which, in different parts of Italy, move daily the enlightened traveller to laughter or disgust. The translation of the house of Loretto from Palestine to the Papal States, is asserted in the collect for that festival; which being a direct address to the Deity, cannot be supposed to have been carelessly compiled *. The

eodem artifice confecta, esse videretur." In Festo St. Petri ad Vincula.—The present Pope mentions this chain as one of the inducements for the faithful to visit Rome this year of Jubilee. See the translation of the Proclamation, Note L.

* "Deus, qui beatæ Mariæ Virginis domum per incarnati Verbi mysterium misericorditer consecrasti, eamque in sinu ecclesia tuæ mirabiliter collocasti," &c. &c. The account of the pretended miraculous conveyance of the house by the hands of the angels is given in the lessons: "Ipsius autem Virginis natalis domus divinis mysteriis consecrata, Angelorum ministerio ab Infidelium potestate, in Dalmatiam prius, deinde in Agrum Lauretanum Picenæ Provinciæ translata fuit, sedente sancto Cœlestino quinto: eandemque ipsam esse in qua Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis, tum Pontificis diplomatibus, et celeberrima totius Orbis veneratione, tum continuâ miraculorum virtute, et cœlestium beneficiorum gratiâ, comprobatur. Quibus permotus Innocentius Duodecimus, quò ferventius erga Matris amantissimæ cultum Fidelium memoria excitaretur, ejusdem Sanctæ Domus Translationem anniversariâ solemnitate in tota Piceni Provincia veneratam, Missa etiam et Officio proprio celebrari præcepit."

two removals of that house by the hands of angels, first to the coast of Dalmatia, and thence, over the Adriatic, to the opposite shore, are gravely related in the Lessons; where the members of the Roman Catholic church are reminded that the identity of the house is warranted by papal bulls, and a proper mass and service published by the same authority for the annual commemoration of that event.

It is rather curious to observe the difference in the assertion of Italian and of French miracles: the unhesitating confidence with which the former are stated, the hypercritical jealousy which appears in the narrative of the latter. The walk of St. Dionysius, with his own head in his hands, from Paris to the site of the present abbey of St. Denis, is given only as a credible report. "De quo illud memoriæ proditum est, abscissum suum caput sustulisse, et progressum ad duo millia passuum in manibus gestasse *." The French,

* The Breviary, however, does not betray such hesitation as to the works of the said Dionysius, the Areopagite-the most barefaced forgery which ever was foisted on the credulity of the world. Libros scripsit admirabiles, ac planè cælestes, de divinis nominibus, de cœlesti et Ecclesiastica Hierarchia, de mystica Theologia, et alios quosdam.

indeed, with their liberties of the Gallican church, have never been favourites at Rome; but all is certainty in the accounts of Italian worthies. Witness the renowned St. Januarius, whose extraordinary miracles, both during his life under Diocletian, and in our own days, are stated with equal confidence and precision. That saint, we are told, being thrown into a burning furnace, came out so perfectly unhurt, that not even his clothes or hair were singed. The next day all the wild beasts in the amphitheatre came crouching to his feet. I pass over the other ancient performances of Januarius, to show the style in which his wonderful works, after death, are given. His body, for instance, on one occasion, extinguished the flames of Vesuvius*. This is no miracle upon

* "In ardentem fornacem conjectus ita illæsus evasit ut ne vestimentum aut capillum quidem flamma violaverit.—(Feræ) naturalis feritatis oblitæ, ad Januarii pedes se prostravere.In primis memorandum quod erumpentes olim e monte Vesuvio flammarum globos, nec vicinis modo, sed longinquis etiam regionibus vastitatis metum afferentes, extinxit.Præclarum illud quoque, quod ejus sanguis, qui in ampulla vitrea concretus asservatur, cum in conspectu capitis ejusdem martyris ponitur, admirandum in modum colliquefieri, et ebullire, perinde atque recens effusus, ad hæc usque tempora cernitur."