Birth-days appear to have been celebrated in honour of living persons from times the most remote, either by nations, provinces, or private families, in proportion as their claims to attention were more or less wide. After the decease of those who have been supposed to confer benefits on mankind, “Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo,” and more especially of those to whom nations owed their spiritual light and hopes, the days of such persons leaving this scene of trial, of sorrow, of anxiety, and of disappointment, to obtain their reward in Heaven, became epochs for uniting religious observance with joy and gladness. Churches were, therefore, dedicated to their memories and festivals instituted; but in England at least this instinctive propensity received the aid of a policy similar to that which, in still earlier periods, had fixed the Christian festivals on the very days previously occupied by the celebration of ancient superstition. Bede has preserved the following letter from Pope Gregory to St. Mellitus, who led a second band of missionaries into England, after the successful preaching of St. Austin, and became the first Bishop of London, where he is said to have founded the two Cathedrals, and finally to have attained the Archbishopric of Canterbury. Historiæ Ecclesiasticæ Gentis Anglorum Libri Quinque, autore Sancto et venerabili Baeda. Lib. 2, ch. 30. Exemplar Epistolæ quam Mellito Abbati Britanniam pergenti misit Sanctus Gregorius. Abeuntaibus autem præfatis legatariis misit post eos beatus Pater Gregorius litteras memoratu dignas, in quibus apertè quàm studiosè erga salvationem nostræ gentis invigilaverit ostendit, ita scribens: Dilectissimo filio Mellito Abbati GREGORIUS Servus Servorum Dei.