e Pram in vita Sulp. Sev., Sec.12, pp. 69 and 74, t. 1, Op.
Veronae, 1741.
14. The sacred history of Sulpicius Severus is a most useful classic for
Christian schools; but not to be studied in the chosen fragments
mangled by Chompre, and prescribed for the schools in Portugal. True
improvement of the mind is impossible without the beauties of method
and the advantages of taste, which are nowhere met with but by
seeing good compositions entire, and by considering the art with
which the whole is wound up. A small edition of Sulpicius's history,
made from that correctly published by De Prato, would be of great
service. Nevertheless, Sulpicius, though he has so well imitated the
style of the purest ages, declares that he neglects elegance; and he
takes the liberty to use certain terms and phrases which are not of
the Augustan standard, sometimes because they were so familiar in
his time that he otherwise would not have seemed to write with ease,
and sometimes because they are necessary to express the mysteries of
our faith. How shocking is the delicacy of Bembo; who, for fear of
not being Ciceronian, conjures the Venetians, _per Deos immortales_,
and uses the words _Dea Lauretana!_ or that of Justus Lipsius, who
used _Fatum_ or destiny, for Providence, because this latter word is
not in Cicero, who with the Pagans, usually speaks according to the
notion of an overruling destiny in events which they by believed
ordained by heaven. For this term some of Lipsius's works were
censured, and by him recalled.
15. Vit. St. Martin, versu expressa, l. 5, v. 193, &c.
16. Tr. de Diplomatique, t. 3.
17. Hist. Litter. t. 11, Advertissement preliminaire, p. 5.
18. Published by Bollandus ad 29 Jan. p. 968.
19. See Annalus, Theolog. positivae, l. 4, c. 26, and Dominic Georgi in
Notis ad Martyrol. Adonis, ad {} Jan.
20. Benedict. XIV. in litteris apost. praefixis novae suae editioni Romani
Martyrologii, (Romae, 1749,), Sec.47, p. 34.

ST. GILDAS THE WISE, OR BADONICUS, ABBOT.

HE was son to a British lord, who, to procure him a virtuous education,
placed him in his infancy in the monastery of St. Iltutus in
Glamorganshire. The surname of Badonicus was given him, because, as we
learn from his writings, he was born in the year in which the Britons
under Aurelius Ambrosius, or, according to others, under king Arthur,
gained the famous victory over