Page:Goldenlegendlive00jaco.djvu/22

8 1470 and 1500 no less than a hundred separate editions of the original (or augmented) Latin went through the presses of various countries. Nor was any of Caxton's books more frequently reprinted during the half century after its first appearance than his English Golden Legend. The book, in truth, supplied the mediæval mind with nearly all it craved for in its literature: how this was so we shall presently consider a little more fully.

But under the two-fold influence of the Renaissance and of Protestantism the vogue and influence of the Legenda in all its forms, rapidly passed away. The Reformers of the sixteenth century, who destroyed the shrines of the Saints, burnt also by thousands the books and manuscripts which glorified them. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Legenda died quite out of general remembrance in England. Elsewhere, if it was mentioned at all by writers of the prevalent modes of thought, it was sneered at by rationalists of the 'Encyclopédie' school as a relic of folly and barbarism, while the Jansenist party in the Church were scandalized by its frequent exemplifications of the Divine mercy towards sinners.

From this neglect and obloquy it was not rescued in England until the year 1900, when Mr F. S. Ellis and Messrs Dent brought out a complete edition of Caxton's work in seven small volumes. In France, about the same time, M. Theodor de Wyzewa translated De Voragine's work into admirable French, and in a long and interesting Introduction highly praised the mediæval author. M. de Wyzewa's work has