BY J. M. CAPES, ESQ. N.B. The proprietorship of this Series is secured in all countries where the Copyright is protected. The authorities on which the History of St. Frances of Rome rests are as follows: Her life by Mattiotti, her Confessor for ten years. Mattiotti enjoined her, as a matter of obedience, to relate to him from time to time her visions in the minutest detail. He was a timid and suspicious man, and for two or three years kept a daily record of all she told him; afterwards, as his confidence in her sanctity and sanity grew complete, he contented himself with a more general account of her ecstasies, and also put together a private history of her life. After her death, he wrote a regular biography, which is now to be found in the Bollandist collection (Venice, 1735, vol. ii.). Early in the seventeenth century, Ursinus, a Jesuit, wrote a life, which was highly esteemed, but which was never printed, and, except in certain fragments, is now lost. In 1641, Fuligato, a Jesuit, wrote the second life, in the Bollandist collection, which contains particulars of events that happened after Mattiotti's time. Other well-written lives have since appeared: especially a recent one by the Vicomte de Bussiere, in which will be found various details too long to be included in the sketch here presented to the English reader. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY."