[4] Mazarine Library, MS. 8531: _Speculum perfectionis S. Francisci_; the Canticle is found at fo. 51. Cf. MS., 1350 (date of 1459). That text was published by Boehmer in the _Romanische Studien_, Halle, 1871. pp. 118-122. _Der Sonnengesang v. Fr. d'A._ [5] _Conform._ (Milan, 1510), 202b, 2s. For that matter it is correct that Diola, in the _Croniche degli ordini instituti da S. Francisco_ (Venice, 1606, 3 vols. 4to), translated after the Castilian version of the work composed in Portuguese by Mark of Lisbon, was foolish enough to render into Italian this translation of a translation. [6] See pages 333 ff. * * * * * I ST. FRANCIS'S WORKS The writings of St. Francis[1] are assuredly the best source of acquaintance with him; we can only be surprised to find them so neglected by most of his biographers. It is true that they give little information as to his life, and furnish neither dates nor facts,[2] but they do better, they mark the stages of his thought and of his spiritual development. The legends give us Francis as he appeared, and by that very fact suffer in some degree the compulsion of circumstances; they are obliged to bend to the exigencies of his position as general of an Order approved by the Church, as miracle-worker, and as saint. His works, on the contrary, show us his very soul; each phrase has not only been thought, but lived; they bring us the Poverello's emotions, still alive and palpitating. So, when in the writings of the Franciscans we find any utterance of their master, it unconsciously betrays itself, sounding out suddenly in a sweet, pure tone which penetrates to your very heart, awakening with a thrill a sprite that was sleeping there. This bloom of love enduing St. Francis's words would be an admirable criterion of the authenticity of those opuscules which tradition attributes to him; but the work of testing is neither long nor difficult. If after his time injudicious attempts were here and there made to honor him with miracles which he did not perform, which he would not even have wished to perform, no attempt was ever made to burden his literary efforts with false or supposititious pieces.[3] The best proof of this is that it is not until Wadding--that is to say, until the seventeenth century--that we find the first and only serious attempt to collect these precious memorials. Several of them have been lost,[4] but those which remain are enough to give us in some sort the refutation of the legends. In these pages Francis gives himself to his readers, as long ago he gave himself to his companions; in each one of them a feeling, a cry of the heart, or an aspiration toward the Invisible is prolonged down to our own time.