in 1589, the year when all Europe, and the world at large, was ringing
with the defeat of the Armada and the triumph of Protestantism. He
studied and taught first at Douai and then at Antwerp, where, also after
the manner of the Jesuits, he entered upon active pastoral work, in
which he caught a contagious fever, of which he died A.D. 1629. His
literary life was very active, and very fruitful in such literature as
delighted that age. Thus he produced editions of various martyrologies,
the modern Roman, the ancient Roman, and that of Ado; he discussed the
question of keeping faith with heretics; took an active share in the
everlasting controversy concerning the "Imitatio Christi," wherein he
espoused the side of A-Kempis and the Augustinians, as against Gerson
and the Benedictines; published the lives of the Eastern Ascetics, who
were the founders of modern monasticism; debated with Isaac Casaubon
concerning Baronius; and published, in 1607, the "Lives of the Belgic
Saints," where we find the first sketch or general plan of the "Acta
Sanctorum." The idea of this great work suggested itself to Rosweid
while living at Douai, where he used to employ his leisure time in the
libraries of the neighbouring Benedictine monasteries, in search of
manuscripts bearing on the lives of the Saints. It was an age of
criticism, and he doubtless felt dissatisfied with all existing
compilations, content as they were to repeat, parrot-like and without
any examination, the legends of earlier ages. It was an age of research,
too--more fruitful in some respects than those which have followed--and
he felt that an immense mass of original material had never yet been
utilized. It was at this period of his life he produced the work above
mentioned, which we have briefly named the "Lives of the Belgic Saints,"
but the full title of which is, "Fasti Sanctorum quorum Vitae in Belgicis
Bibliothecis Manuscriptae." He intended it as a specimen of a greater and
more comprehensive work, embracing the lives of all the Saints known to
the Church throughout the world. He proposed that it should embrace
sixteen volumes, divided in the following manner:--The first volume
dealing with the life of Christ and the great feasts; the second with
the life of the Blessed Virgin and her feasts; the third to the
sixteenth with the lives of the Saints according to the days of the
month, together with no less than thirteen distinct indexes,
biographical, historical, contr