Fable supposes that one Epimenides in a single nap, slept twenty-seven years, and that on his awaking he was quite astonished at finding his grandchildren — who asked him his name — married, his friends dead, his town and the manners of its inhabitants changed. It was a fine field for criticism, and a pleasant subject for a comedy. The legend has borrowed all the features of the fable, and enlarged upon them.

The author of the “Golden Legend” was not the first who, in the thirteenth century, instead of one sleeper, gave us seven, and bravely made them seven martyrs. He took his edifying history from Gregory de Tours, a veridical writer, who took it from Sigebert, who took it from Metaphrastes, who had taken it from Nicephorus. It is thus that truth is handed down from man to man.

The reverend father Peter Ribadeneira, of the company of Jesus, goes still further in this celebrated “Flower of the Saints,” of which mention is made in Molière’s “Tartuffe.” It was translated, augmented, and enriched with engravings, by the reverend Antony Girard, of the same society: nothing was wanting to it.

Some of the curious will doubtless like to see the prose of the reverend father Girard: behold a specimen! “In the time of the emperor Decius, the Church experienced a violent and fearful persecution. Among other Christians, seven brothers were accused, young, well disposed, and graceful; they were the children of a knight of Ephesus, and called Maximilian, Marius, Martinian, Dionysius, John, Serapion, and Constantine. The emperor first took from them their golden girdles; then they hid themselves in a cavern, the entrance of which Decius cau............