Blase

, a saint and martyr, and according to the Breviary, bishop of Sebasta in Cappadocia, deserves this slight notice, as a person of great note among the vulgar, who in their processions of the wool-trade, always carry an effigies or representation of him, as the inventor or patron of their art of combing it. There was an order of knighthood also instituted in honour of him; and his day, which stands now marked in our Calendar, was Feb. 3. He suffered death in the reign of Dioclesian, about the year 283, according to the Legenda Aurea, but the English version of that book has the year 387, neither of which dates are strictly | true, since Dioclesian did not succeed to the empire till the year 2Si, and died before the latter date. Before his death, which was by beheading, he was whipped, and had his flesh tornferreis pectinibiis, with iron combs and this seems to be the only foundation for the respect paid to his memory by wool-combers. Thus far the learned antiquary Dr. Pegge, in a letter on the history of St. Blase but Butler, in his “Lives of the Saints,” fixes his death in the year 316, when he was martyred in the persecution of Licinius, by the command of Agricolaus, governor of Cappadocia and the lesser Armenia.¹