To the critical reader this book will likewise be serviceable, by giving him an insight into the manner of the debates and arguments, and into the turn of the erudition, of foreign Catholick divines, at the same time that the information will be conveyed to him amidst other objects that will perhaps better amuse him: to secure this advantage, I have, as much as I could, preserved the appearance of our Author’s book, using, for that purpose, the titles of several of his chapters; only taking care to keep more to the subject than himself had done. To the same critical reader this performance will also recommend itself, by the numerous passages from certain books which it gives him an opportunity to peruse. And the generality of readers will not be displeased to meet with a number of short specimens of the style of several authors whose works they never would have read, though they were once conspicuous on the particular line which they followed, and to be thus brought to some slight acquaintance with St. Austin, St. Jerom, and Tertullian, of whom they knew only the names, and with St. Fulgentius, and Peter Chrysologus, of whom they knew nothing at all. In fine, to these capital advantages, possessed by this work, I have endeavoured to add the important one of affording entertainment; for, entertainment is a thing which is not by any means to be despised in this world. In order the better to attain this end, I have avoided offending against decency or religion; I had of myself too little inclination to be witty at the expence of either, especially the latter, to avail myself of the opportunities which the subject naturally offered; and I should think it a great praise of this book, if I were hereafter informed, that the graver class of readers have read with pleasure the less serious part of it, and that the other class have gone with pleasure likewise through that part which is less calculated for amusement. FOOTNOTES: [1] The title of the book is _Historia Flagellantium, de recto & perverso flagrorum usu apud Christianos_, 12mo. Parisiis, apud J. Anisson, Typographiæ Regiæ Præfectum, MDCC. [2] Our author, who was rather singular in the choice of his subjects, had written another treatise _De tactibus impudicis prohibendis_, and another on the dress of clergymen, wherein he attempted to prove that they might as well wear it short as long. [3] The same manner of writing is also to be met with in most of the treatises that were written in England, France, and especially Germany, about an hundred years ago, or more, when a mechanical knowledge of Latin and Greek books, and making compilations from them, was the kind of learning in vogue. [Illustration: _Page._ 351.] THE HISTORY OF THE FLAGELLANTS. CHAP. I. _The substance of the reasons given by the Abbé Boileau, for writing his Book. He seems to have been of opinion that voluntary flagellations were no very antient practice._