IT would appear to be due to the reader to preface these legends, now for the first time made accessible to the general public, with a brief notice of the sources from which they are derived. In the form in which they are now presented, the legends are obviously the work of a modem redactor, but based upon pre-existing material. In attempting to trace the source of the legends, I have found satisfactory manuscript authorities, in part at least, to be unhappily no longer extant, but I have had the opportunity of consulting what appears to be the original manuscript forming the basis of the last two legends. This manuscript is at present preserved in a private library in the North of England. The script is certainly not earlier thn the late thirteenth century and I am inclined to assign it to a considerably later date. The manuscript is carelessly written, with frequent corrections and interpolations, and though the ink varies and the size of the page is not uniform, I have not been able to detect the trace of the handwriting of more than one scribe, undoubtedly an Englishman. The legends certainly contain material which has not been made use of by the Bollandist fathers, who would perhaps have hesitated to avail themselves of incidents whose historicity may rightly be questioned by many. Nor indeed is it likely that even Surius can have had access to the sources which this English scribe drew upon for his compilation. A careful perusal of the manuscript induces me with some hesitation to form the conclusion that, in spite of the simpUcity of much of the narrative, it comes from a tainted source. There is, it is true, nothing which directly points to Lollard influence, but certain phrases used are clearly heretical in tendency, and no doubt as to the character of the work would remain, if it could be proved that it is by the same writer as an imperfect manuscript, of which a couple of leaves are now extant in the same collection. The MS. in question contains the opening paragraphs of a life of SS. Ananias and Sapphira, and maintains that these saints, who are quite unknown to the Calendar, have had great influence for many ages in the Church and are the object of a widespread cult, of which, needless to say, no trace can now be found. It would be not unreasonable to suppose that the mutilated condition of this fragment is due to the natural indignation of some orthodox reader, who very properly con- signed the rest of the narrative to the flames. In any case the evidence seems hardly conclusive enough to prevent the publication of these legends for what they are worth, in the hope that at some future date fresh light may be thrown upon the subject by more competent critics.