Note 1038 — Chapter XVII · THE GRECIAN MYTHICAL VEIN COMPARED WITH THAT OF MODERN EUROPE.

The great Bollandist collection of the Lives of the Saints, intended to comprise the whole year, did not extend beyond the nine months from January to October, which occupy fifty-three large volumes. The month of April fills three of those volumes, and exhibits the lives of 1472 saints. Had the collection run over the entire year, the total number of such biographies could hardly have been less than 25,000, and might have been even greater (see Guizot, Cours d’Histoire Moderne, leçon xvii. p. 157).