A glance at the nature and quality of this work is desirable for several reasons. In the first place, it is necessary to ascertain how far we can implicitly rely on its statements of matters of fact respecting Catherine's history. In the second place, a knowledge of the mental calibre and intellectual standing of the Saint's confessor, confidant, and friend, cannot but assist us in estimating her own character. And lastly, it is no little interesting to observe what spiritual and intellectual provender is provided in these days for the population of Italy by those who have the education and guidance of her people in their hands. This widely circulated work is an Italian translation from the original Latin of Father Raymond, executed by Bernardino Pecci, Bishop of Grosseto. In the notice of St. Catherine, in the "Biographie Universelle," it is stated, among a singularly large number of other[4] errors, that Raymond translated into Latin the Life of the Saint from the Italian of Fra Tommaso della Fonte, who preceded him in his office of confessor, making some additions to the original text. But a very cursory examination of the book would have sufficed to show the French writer that, although Father Raymond frequently cites Fra Tommaso as the authority for some of his statements, the entire composition is wholly the work of the former. An equally short glance at this "Life" will also suffice to convince any one in search of the facts of the Saint's career, that little assistance is to be got from Father Raymond. It is indeed very evident, that the author did not write with any intention of furnishing such. He rarely gives any dates, and scarcely makes any pretence of observing chronological order. He says, that he writes in his own old age, long after the events occurred; owns that he forgets much; and, though carefully and ostentatiously winding up every chapter with a reference to his authorities for the statements contained in it, is yet avowedly throwing together a mass of anecdotical recollections, as they occur to him. He rarely, if ever, records any unmiraculous and unsaintly doings;—mentions, for instance, that she performed such and such miracles at Pisa, or discoursed in such and such terms at Genoa; but does not give the slightest hint why she went thither, or when. In short, the whole scope and object of the book is devotional, and in no degree historic. It is written for the promotion of piety, and especially for the glory of the Order of St. Dominic, and of the Dominican St. Catherine. The wonders related are evidently intended to cap other wonders. They constantly consist of performances essentially similar to those recorded of older saints, but enhanced by some added circumstance of extra impossibility. And the writer, in his competitive eagerness, often pauses in his narration to point out, that no former recorded miracles have come up to that he is relating in outrageousness of contradiction to the laws of nature.