The bitter enmity excited against St. John Chrysostom in his lifetime, and the furious vituperations of his adversary, Theophilus of Alexandria, who denounced him as one stained by every vice, ‘_hostem humanitatis, sacrilegorum principem, immundum dæmonem_,’ as a wretch who had absolutely delivered up his soul to Satan, were apparently disseminated by the monks. Jerome translated the abusive attack of Theophilus into Latin; and long after the slanders against Chrysostom had been silenced in the East, they survived in the West. To this may be added the slaughter of the Egyptian monks by the friends of Chrysostom in the streets of Constantinople; which, I suppose, was also retained in the traditions, and mixed up with the monkish fictions. It seems to have been forgotten who John Chrysostom really was; his name only survived in the popular ballads and legends as an epitome of every horrible crime; and to account for his being, notwithstanding all this, a _saint_, was a difficulty which in the old legend is surmounted after a very original, and, I must needs add, a very audacious fashion. ‘I have,’ writes my friend, ‘three editions of this legend in Italian, with the title _La Historia di San Giovanni Boccadoro_. It is in _ottava rima_, thirty-six stanzas in all, occupying two leaves of letter-press. It was originally composed in the fifteenth century, and reprinted again and again, like the ballads and tales hawked by itinerant ballad-mongers, from that day to this, and as well known to the lower orders as “Jack the Giant-killer” here. I will give you the story as succinctly and as properly as I can. A gentleman of the high roads, named Schitano, confesses his robberies and murders to a certain Frate, who absolves him, upon a solemn promise not to do three things— Che tu non facci falso sacramento, Nè homicidio, nè adulterare. Schitano thereupon takes possession of a cave, and turns _Romito_ (Hermit) in the wilderness. A neighbouring king takes his daughter out hunting with him; a white deer starts across their path; the king dashes away in pursuit ten miles or more, forgetting his daughter; night comes on; the princess, left alone in the forest, wanders till she sees a light, and knocks for admittance at the cave of Schitano. He fancies at first that it must be the “Demonio,” but at length he admits her after long hesitation, and turns her horse out to graze. Her beauty tempts him to break one of his vows; the fear of discovery induces him to violate another by murdering her, and throwing her body into a cistern. The horse, however, is seen by one of the cavaliers of the court, who knocks and inquires if he has seen a certain “donzella” that way? The hermit swears that he has not beheld a Christian face for three years, thus breaking his third vow; but, reflecting on this three-fold sin with horror, he imposes on himself a most severe penance (“un’ aspra penitenza”), to wit—