Of all his works, the one presented here to the reader, is perhaps the most popular; it went rapidly through many editions, and received from the author's hand continual corrections and additions. To say that it is characterized by uniform judgment, would be to give it a praise somewhat different as well as somewhat greater than that which it merits. It is a vast repertory of legends, more or less probable; some of which have very little foundation--and some which Calmet himself would have done well to omit, though _now_, as a picture of the belief entertained in that day, they greatly add to the value of the book. For the same reasons which have caused the retention of these passages, no alterations have been made in the citations from Scripture, which being translations from the Vulgate, necessarily differ in phraseology from the version in use among ourselves. The apocryphal books too are quoted, and the story of Bel and the Dragon referred to as a part of the prophecy of Daniel; but what is of consequence to observe, is, that _doctrines_ are founded on these translations, and on those very points in which they differ from our own. If the history of popery, and especially that form and development of it exhibited in the monastic orders, be ever written, this work will be of the greatest importance:--it will show the means by which dominion was obtained over the minds of the ignorant; how the most sacred mysteries were perverted; and frauds, which can hardly be termed pious, used to support institutions which can scarcely be called religious. That the spirits of the dead should be permitted to return to earth, under circumstances the most grotesque, to support the doctrines of masses for the dead, purgatory and propitiatory penance; that demons should be exorcised to give testimony to the merits of rival orders of monks and friars; that relics, many of them supposititious, and many of the most disgusting and blasphemous character, should have power to affect the eternal state of the departed; and that _all_ saints, angels, demons, and the ghosts of the departed, should support, with great variations indeed, the corrupt dealings of a corrupt priesthood--form a creed worthy of the darkest and most unworthy days of heathenism.