cause, and nothing less, could effect the cordial union of the parties.  Neither does he suppress any instance of kindness by which the sufferings of the martyrs were mitigated; and as St. Luke tells us of the centurion entreating Paul courteously, so does Fox relate of Saunders, that when his wife came to the prison gate, with her young child in her arms, to visit her husband, the keeper, though he durst not suffer her to enter the prison, yet took the little babe out of her arms and brought him to his father, to his exceeding great joy:  and of Hooper’s guard, that they interceded with the sheriffs of Gloucester on behalf of their charge, that he might not be sent to the common gaol, they declaring at large how quietly, mildly, and patiently he had behaved himself in the way, and adding, that they would rather themselves be at the pains to watch with him than that he should be so handled:  and of Rowland Taylor, that his wife and son Thomas were permitted to sup with him in the Counter, “by the gentleness of his keepers;” and afterwards, that of his guard three out of the four used him friendly.  It was to be expected that a work which, had it been published a few years sooner (supposing this possible), would probably have added its author to the catalogue of his own martyrs, should excite no small stir amongst the Catholics, and so it came to pass.  But they weakened the force of their attack by betraying prematurely the spirit which animated them, sarcastically inquiring, even before its publication, when the “Golden Legend” was to appear, and denouncing the “Calendar of Saints,” which they had heard was to be prefixed to it, as blasphemy against their own.  But Fox went on, as he says, without fear and without favour; and no sooner was Elizabeth, to whom he dedicated, out of the way, than an examination of the book appeared, by Parsons the Jesuit, in his “Three Conversions of England,” which has furnished more modern objectors with most of the weapons of their warfare.  But Parsons writes in a temper which defeats itself.  He deals in vague vituperation, rather than in specific accusations of error; or where he ventures upon the latter, he often either wilfully or ignorantly misreads Fox, as in the vapid pleasantry wasted upon Joan Lashford, a married maid, as he is pleased to call her;[20] or he triumphs over him by exposing some flaw in the character of a martyr with an eureka, which the honest martyrologist himself did not affect to conceal, and for the knowledge indeed of which Parsons is altogether indebted to him, as where he makes himself merry with the discordant sentiments of nine martyrs executed together, though their want of uniformity is a fact which he learns from Fox himself, who at the same time asserts that their disagreement was in smaller things only;[21] or he prefers charges against him at random without troubling himself to ascertain whether there is foundation for them or not, as where he accuses him of defacing or destroying the records