A.D. 707.] A LEGEND. and sent him to Home ; he destroyed an immense number of Roman citizens, and desolated the Chersonese where he had passed his exile, exercising unheard of cruelties on his enemies. Constantine pope. In the year of grace 707, Constantine sat in the chair of Rome seven years and fifteen days, after which it remained vacant forty days. There was at this time a certain soldier, of the household of Kinred, king of the Mercians ; the sanie was openly given up to all kinds of wickedness, and when the king earnestly admonished him to repent, he despised his wholesome counsels, and deferred to amend his flagitious life. In the meanwhile, falling sick, he was confined to his bed, and began to feel very severe pain; on which the king visited him, and earnestly exhorted him to repent of his offences before he died ; but he replied that he would not confess his sins till he was recovered of his sickness, lest his companions should upbraid him with having done it through fear of death. The distemper still increasing, when the king came again to admonish him, he cried out with a lamentable voice, " What are you come for ? can you do me any good now ?" " Do not talk in that way," replied the king, " but behave yourself like a man in his right mind." " I am not mad," rejoined the other, " but I have a most guilty conscience before my eyes ; for just before you came, two young men entered this house, and sat down by me, the one at my head, the other at my feet ; and one of them produced a book, very beautiful but very small, and gave it to me to read ; in it I found written all the good deeds I had ever done ; they took back the book and said nothing. Then, on a sudden, appeared a host of foul and malignant spirits, encompassing the house without, and almost filling it within. Then one of them, who was the foulest, and seemed to be the chief, produced a volume, horrid to behold, of enormous size, and almost insupportable weight, and ordered one of his followers to bring it to me to read. Having read it, I found therein, most plainly written in black characters, all my sins, not only of word and deed, but even of the slightest thought. They then said to those noble men in white who sat by me, ' Why do you sit here ? for you know most assuredly that