Bollandus, John

, a learned Jesuit, was born at Tillemont, in the Netherlands, Aug. 13, 1596, and at sixteen, a very usual age, entered the society of the Jesuits, and soon became distinguished as a teacher, both in the Netherlands, and in other countries. What entitles him to notice here, is the share he had in that voluminous work, the “Lives of the Saints,” or “Acta Sanctorum.” The history of this work is not uninteresting, although the work itself, otherwise than for occasional consultation, defies time and patience. The design of this vast collection was first projected by father Hesibert Koseweide, a Jesuit of the age of sixty, and consequently too far advanced to execute much of his plan, winch was to extend no farther than eighteen volumes folio, a trifle in those days, had he begun earlier. In 1607, however, he began by printing the manuscript lives of some saints, which he happened to find in the Netherlands; but death put an end to his labours in 1629. It was then entrusted to Bollandus, who was about this time thirty-four years of age, and who removed to Antwerp for the purpose. After examining Roseweide’s collections, he established a general correspondence over all Europe, instructing his friends to | search every library, register, or repository of any kind, where information might be found; but becoming soon sensible of the weight of his undertaking, he called in the assistance of another Jesuit, Henschemus of Gueiderland, younger than himself, more healthy, and equally qualified in other respects. With this aid he was enabled in 1641 to publish the tirst two volumes, folio, which contain the lives of the saints of the month of January, the order of the Kalendar having been preferred. Jn 1658 he published those of February; and two years after, his labours still entreasmg, he had another associate, father Daniel Paperbroch, at that time about thirty-two years old, whom he sent with Henschenius to Italy and France to collect manuscripts, but he died before the publication of another volume, Sept. 12, 1665. After his death the work was continued by various hands, called Bollandists, until it amounted to forty-two folio volumes, the last published 1753, which, after all, bring down the lives only to the fourteenth of September. In such an undertaking, much legendary matter must be expected, and many absurdities and fictions. Dupiri allows that Bollandus was more partial to popular traditions than Henschemus and Paperbroch, yet it would appear that they found it difficult to please the taste of the different orders of monks, &c. who were to be edified by the work. Bollandus published separately: 1. “Vita S. Liborii Episcopi,” Antwerp, 1648, 8vo. 2. “Brevis Notitia Italiae,” ibid. 1648. 3. “Breves Notitice triplici status, Ecclesiastici, Monastici et Saecularis,” ibid. 1648. ¹