general history. On these and other accounts are the lives of eminent
personages the most agreeable and valuable part of history. But, in the
lives of the saints, other great advantages occur. Here are incidentally
related the triumphs of the church, the trophies of the most exalted
virtue, and the conversion of nations. What are profane histories better
than records of scandals? What are the boasted triumphs of an Alexander
or a Caesar but a series of successful plunders, murders, and other
crimes? It was the remark of the historian Socrates, that if princes
were all lovers of peace and fathers of their people, and if the lives
of men were a uniform and steady practice of piety, civil history would
be almost reduced to empty dates. This reflection extorted from the pen
of a famous wit of our age, in his history of the empire of the West
since Charlemagne, the following confession: "This history is scarcely
any more than a vast scene of weaknesses, faults, crimes, and
misfortunes; among which we find some virtues, and some successful
exploits, as fertile valleys are often seen among chains of rocks and
precipices. This is likewise the case with other histories."[3] But the
lives of the saints are the history of the most exemplary and perfect
virtue and prowess. While therefore all other branches of history employ
daily so many pens, shall this, which above all others deserves our
attention, be alone forgotten? While every other part of the soil is
daily raked up, shall the finest spot be left uncultivated? Our
antiquaries must think themselves obliged by this essay, as the greatest
part of these saints have been the objects of the veneration of the
whole Christian world during several ages. Their names stand recorded in
the titles of our churches, in our towns, estates, writings, and {050}
almost every other monument of our Christian ancestors. If the late
learned bishop Tanner, by his _Notitia Monastica_, deserved the thanks
of all lovers of antiquity, will they not receive favorably the history
of those eminent persons of whom we meet so frequent memorials?

Besides the principal saint for each day, in this collection is added a
short account of some others who were very remarkable in history, or
famous among our ancestors. The English and Scottish churches had, by
the mutual intercourse and neighborhood of the nations, a particular
devotion to several French saints, as appears from all their ancient
breviaries, from