I cannot close this subject without adding a few instances, though perhaps somewhat out of place, of the facility of admission into the army of saints and martyrs.

In the stories of the saints we meet with the names of Quirinus, Romula and Redempta, Concordia, Nympha, Mercurius; which, though they may have been the genuine names of Christian martyrs, yet cannot but give occasion to suspect that some of them at least have been formed by corrupting old names; and that the adding of a modern termination, or Italianizing the old name of a deity, has given birth to some of the present saints. Thus the corruption of the word Soracte (the old name of a mountain, mentioned by Horace, within sight of Rome) has, according to Addison, added one saint to the calendar; being now softened, because it begins with an S, into S. Oreste; in honour of whom a monastery is built on the place. How natural this change was will plainly appear, if we reflect that the title of Saint is seldom written by the Italians at length, being usually expressed by the single letter S, as S. Oreste. Thus does this holy mountain now stand under the protection of a patron, whose being and power are just as imaginary, as the being of its old guardian Apollo:

Sancti custos Soractis Apollo.-VIRG. ÆN. xi. 785.

The Christians of the earlier ages often made free with the sepulchral stones of heathen monuments, which they converted to their own use. Turning down the side, on which the old epitaph was engraved, they either inscribed a new one on the other, or left it without any

inscription at all, as they are often found in the Catacombs of Rome. Now this custom has frequently been the cause of ascribing saintship to the persons and names of Pagans.

Of this Mabillon gives a remarkable instance in an old stone found on the grave of a Christian with this inscription:

D. M.

JVLIA EVODIA

FILIA FECIT

MATRI.

And because in the same grave there was also found a glass vial, or lachrymatory, tinged with a substance of a reddish colour, which they call blood, and look upon as a certain proof of martyrdom, this Julia Evodia, though undoubtedly a heathen, was presently adopted both for a Saint and Martyr, on the authority of an inscription, which appears evidently to have been taken from a heathen sepulchre. But whatever the person there buried might have been, whether Heathen or Christian, this, at least, is certain, that it could not be Evodia herself, but her mother; whose name is not there recorded.

The same author mentions some original papers which he found in the Barberini Library, giving a pleasant account of a negotiation between the Spaniards and Pope Urban VIII., relative to this very subject.-(Mabil. Iter. Ital. p. 145). The Spaniards, it seems, have a saint, held in great veneration in some parts of Spain, called Viar. The more to encourage the worship of this saint, they solicited the Pope to grant some special indulgences

to his altars; upon which the Pope desiring first to be better acquainted with his character, and the proofs of his sanctity, they produced a stone with these letters, S. VIAR, which the antiquaries of the day instantly perceived to be a fragment of some old Roman inscription, in memory of one who had been PræfectuS VIARum, or overseer of the highways.

But we have in England an instance still more ridiculous of a fictitious saintship, in the case of a certain saint called Amphibolus; who, according to our monkish historians, was bishop of the Isle of Man, and fellow-martyr and disciple of St. Alban. Yet Usher has given good reasons to convince us, that he owes the honour of his saintship to a mistaken passage in the old acts or legends of St. Alban: where the Amphibolus mentioned, and since reverenced as a Saint and Martyr, was nothing more than the cloak which Alban happened to have on at the time of his execution. (Usser de Britann. Eccles. Primord. c. xiv. p. 539). The word is of Greek derivation, and signifies a large cloak, or wrapper, which ecclesiastics of that age usually wore.

They pretend to shew, at Rome, two original impressions of our Saviour's face, on two different handkerchiefs; one of them sent as a present by himself to Agbarus, Prince of Edessa, who by letter had desired a picture of him; the other, given by him at the time of his crucifixion to a saint named Veronica, upon a handkerchief which she had lent him to wipe his face with on that occasion. Both these handkerchiefs, it is said, are still preserved with the utmost reverence; the first in St. Sylvester's

Church; the second in St. Peter's, where, in honour of this sacred relique, an altar was erected by Urban VIII. Yet this Veronica, as Mabillon has shewn, like Amphibolus before mentioned, was not any real person, but the name given to the picture itself by the old writers who mention it; being formed by a corruption of the words Vera Icon, or true image, the title inscribed perhaps, or given originally to the handkerchief, by the first contrivers of the imposture*.

* Hæc Christi Imago à recentioribus Veronicæ dicitur: imaginem ipsam veteres Veronicam appellabant, &c.-Mabill. Iter. Ital. p. 88.

OF THE VIRGIN.

Micat inter omnes,

Velut inter ignes

Luna minores.- HOR.

THE religious worship now paid to the Virgin seems clearly deducible from that which was paid to the female deities of old. How reluctantly the converts from heathenism bade adieu to that sex as objects of worship, is evident from the heretical opinions held by the sect of the Collyridians-a sect which arose towards the close of the fourth century, and offered up cakes (collyride) to the Virgin Mary, as a goddess, and the Queen of Heaven*. Much of that reverence in which the Virgin is still held may fairly be attributed to the same chivalrous feeling. "Le culte de la Vierge," says Madame de Staël, "est particulièrement cher aux Italiens et à toutes les nations du Midi; il semble s'allier, de quelque manière, à ce qu'il y a de plus pur et de plus sensible dans l'affection pour les femmes."

"When," says Middleton, "Jeremiah rebukes the people of Israel for burning incense to the Queen of Heaven, one can hardly help imagining, that he is prophetically pointing out the worship now paid to the Virgin, to whom they actually burn incense at this day, under that very title :”—

Salve Regina Cælorum, Domina Angelorum," &c.

Vid. Offic. Beat. Virg.