As to Gersen, his claim seems to rest on a manuscript of great antiquity, which ascribes it to him, and indirectly on all those manuscripts which are asserted to be older than the time of Gerson and Thomas à Kempis. But, as I have before observed, I do not profess to give a full view of the external evidence, of which I possess but a superficial knowledge. From the book itself, two remarks, which I do not pretend to be novel, have suggested themselves. 1. The Gallicisms or Italicisms are very numerous, and strike the reader at once; such as, Scientia sine timore Dei quid importat?--Resiste in principio inclinationi tuæ--Vigilia serotina--Homo passionatus--Vivere cum nobis contrariantibus--Timoratior in cunctis actibus--Sufferentia crusis. It seems strange that these barbarous adaptations of French or Italian should have occurred to any one, whose native language was Dutch; unless it can be shown, that through St. Bernard, or any other ascetic writer, they had become naturalised in religious style. 2. But, on the other hand, it seems impossible to resist the conviction, that the author was an inhabitant of a monastery, which was not the case with Gerson, originally a secular priest at Paris, and employed for many years in active life, as chancellor of the university, and one of the leaders of the Gallican church. The whole spirit breathed by the treatise De Imitatione Christi is that of a solitary ascetic:--Vellem me pluries tacuisse et inter homines non fuisse--Sed quare tam libenter loquimur, et invicem fabulamur, cum raro sine læsione conscientiæ ad silentium redimus.--Cella continuata dulcescit, et male custodita tædium generat. Si in principio conversionis tuæ bene eam incolueris et custodieris, erit tibi posthac dilecta, amica, et gratissimum solatium. As the former consideration seems to exclude Thomas à Kempis, so the latter is unfavourable to the claims of Gerson. It has been observed, however, that in one passage, l. i. c. 24, there is an apparent allusion to Dante; which, if intended, must put an end to Gersen, abbot of Vercelli, whom his supporters place in the first part of the thirteenth century. But the allusion is not indisputable. Various articles in the Biographie Universelle, from the pen of M. Gence, maintain his favourite hypothesis; and M. Daunou, in the Journal des Savans for 1826, and again in the volume for 1827, seems to incline the same way. This is in the review of a defence of the pretensions of Gersen, by M. Gregory, who adduces some strong reasons to prove that the work is older than the fourteenth century.