With these helps our author sat down to his work. We may suppose him
addressing to the saints, whose lives he was about to write, a prayer
similar to the beautiful prayer addressed to them by Bollandus at the
end of his general preface, and which may be thus abridged: "Hail, ye
citizens of heaven! courageous warriors! triumphant over the world! from
the blessed scenes of your everlasting glory, look on a low mortal, who
searches everywhere for the memorials of your virtues and triumphs. Show
your favor to him; give him to discover the valuable monuments of former
times; to distinguish the spurious from the legitimate; to digest his
work in proper order and method; to explain and illustrate whatever is
obscure. Take under your protection all who have patronized or assisted
him in his undertakings: obtain for all who read his work, that they
imitate the examples of virtue which it places before their eyes; and
that they experience how sweet, how useful, and how glorious it is to
walk in your steps."
In the preface to the French translation, the work is said to have cost
our author the labor of thirty years. It was his practice, when he began
to write the life of any saint, to read over and digest the whole of his
materials, before he committed any thing to paper. His work evidently
shows, that his mind was full of its subject, {030} and that what he
wrote was the result of much previous information and reflection. On
many occasions he must have written on subjects which were new to him;
but, such is the mutual connection and dependence of every branch of
literature, that a mind stored like his was already in possession of
that kind of knowledge, which would make him apprehend, with great ease,
whatever he had to learn; and would instruct him, though the subject
were new to him, where he might express himself decisively, and where he
should doubt. How extensive and profound his general knowledge was,
appears from this, that a person who happens to have made any subject,
treated of by him, his particular study, will seldom read what our
author has written upon it without finding in it something original, or,
at least, so happily expressed or illustrated as to have the merit of
originality. In some instances, as in his account of the Manichaens, in
the life of St. Augustine, and of the crusades, in the life of St.
Lewis, he shows such extent and minuteness of investigation, as could
only be required from works confined to those subjects. In other
instances, where his materials are scanty, so that he writes chiefly
from his own mind, as in the lives of St. Zita or St. Isidore of
Pelusium, he pours an unpremeditated stream of piety, which nothing but
an intimate acquaintance with the best spiritual writers could produce.
The sameness of a great number of the most edifying actions which our
author had to relate, made it difficult for him to avoid a tiresome
uniformity of narrative: but he has happily surmounted this difficulty.
Another difficulty he met with, was the flat and inanimate style of the
generality of the writers from whom his work was composed. Happy he must
have been, when the authors he had to consult were St. Jerome, Scipio,
Maffei, Bouhours, or Marsollier. But most commonly they were such as
might edify but could not delight. He had then to trust to his own
resources for that style, that arrangement, those reflections, which
were to engage his reader's attention. In this he has certainly
succeeded. Few authors on holy subject have possessed, in a higher
degree, that indescribable charm of style which rivets the reader's
attention to the book, which never places the writer between the book
and the reader, but insensibly leads him to the conclusion, sometimes
delighted, but always attentive and always pleased.
His style is peculiar to himself; it partakes more of the style of the
writers of the last century than of the style of the present age. It
possesses great merit, but sometimes is negligent and loose. Mr. Gibbon
mentioned it to the editor in warm terms of commendation; and was
astonished when he heard how much of our author's life had been spent
abroad. Speaking of our author's Lives of the Saints, (vol. iv. 457,) he
calls it "a work of merit,--the sense and learning belong to the
author--his prejudices are those of his profession." As it is known what
prejudice means in Mr. Gibbon's vocabulary, our author's relatives
accept the character.
Having lived so long in the schools, he must have had a strong
predilection for some of the opinions agitated in them; and frequent
opportunities of expressing it occurred in his work. He seems to have
cautiously avoided them: a single instance, perhaps, is not to be found,
where any thing of the kind is discoverable in any of his writings. He
has carefully brought before the reader every circumstance arising from
his subject, that could be offered in proof or illustration of the
particular tenets of the Roman Catholic church; but he does it without
affectation, and rather leaves the reader to draw his own conclusions,
than suggests them to him. Those expressions which good manners and good
taste reject, are never to be found in his works.
But the chief merit of his works is, that they make virtue and devotion
amiable: he preaches penance, but he shows its rewards; he exhorts to
compunction, but he shows the sweetness of pious sorrow; he enforces
humility, but he shows the blessedness of a humble heart; he recommends
solitude, but he shows that God _is_ where the world is not. No one
reads his work who does not perceive the happiness, even in this world,
of a holy life, or who does not wish to die the death of a saint. Most
readers of it will acknowledge that, sometimes at least, when they have
read it, every worldly emotion has died within them, and they have felt
themselves in a disposition of mind suited to receive the finest
impressions of religion.
At the finishing of his work he gave a very edifying instance of
humility. The manuscript of the first volume having been submitted to
Mr. Challoner, the vicar-apostolic of the London district, he
recommended the omission of all the notes, not {031} excepting that
beautiful note which gave an account of the writings of St. John
Chrysostom. His motive was, that, by being made less bulky, the work
might be made less expensive, and, consequently, more generally useful.
It is easy to suppose what it must have cost our author to consign to
oblivion the fruit of so much labor and so many vigils. He obeyed,
however, and to this circumstance it is owing that, in the first
edition, the notes in question were omitted.