ST. PATRICK.

(Vol. v., p. 520.)

Allowing himself to be led astray by such an untruthful guide as Ledwich, your correspondent E. M. R. thinks that "there seems to be very great doubt if St. Patrick ever existed in reality." Had E. M. R. sought for, he might have found evidences of Ireland's apostle's existence beginning with the very lifetime itself of that saint. 1st. We have a short work from St. Patrick's own pen, the Confessio, which the best critics have allowed to be genuine: it commences thus: "Ego Patricius peccator," &c. 2nd. A very old hymn, shown by Dr. O'Conor to have been written c. A.D. 540 (Prol. in Rer. Hib. Vet. Script., p. lxxxix.), tells us that: "Patricius prædicabat Scotis." (Ib., p. xciii.). 3rd. The Irish monk Adamnan, who died A.D. 704, that is, almost a half century before our Beda, in his Life of St. Columba, says: "Quidam proselytus Brito homo sanctus, sancti Patricii episcopi discipulus," &c. (AA. SS. Junii, t. ii. p. 197.). 4th. In the library of C. C. College, Cambridge, there is a MS. of the seventh century, containing the early Irish canons: "Synodus episcoporum id est Patricii, Auxillii, Issernini" (Nasmith's Cat. C. C. C. C., p. 318.). 5th. The Antiphonal, once belonging to the Irish Bangor, but now in the Ambrosian Library, Milan, a MS. of the end of the seventh or beginning of the eighth century, and published by Muratori, has a "hymnum Sancti Patricii magistri Scotorum" (Muratori, Anecd., t. iv. p. 89.). 6th. Cummian, writing about the Pascal question to the Abbot of Hy, A.D. 634, says: "Primum (cyclum) illum quem sanctus Patricius Papa noster tulit," &c. (Vet. Epist. Hibernicarum Syl., ed. Usserio, p. 21.). 7th. In the very old Litanies, once used, as it seems, by some church among the Britons living in this island beyond the reach of Anglo-Saxon control, we find invoked St. Patrick, along with SS. Brindane, Gildas, Paterne, Guinwaloc, Munna, Tutwal, German, and other lights of the Irish, as well as our ancient British church (ed. Mabillon, Vet. Analect., p. 168.). 8th. St. Gertrude, Abbess of Nivelle, died on the 17th March, A.D. 658; the writer of her life was her cotemporary, and he expressly mentions St. Patrick (Vita S. Gertrudis, ed. Mabillon. AA. SS. O. B., t. ii. p. 447.). 9th. Our own Beda did insert St. Patrick's name in the Martyrology which he drew up (ed. Smith, Bedæ Hist. Eccl., p. 351.); and another far-famed countryman of ours, Alcuin, who, in some verses which he composed for being placed "Ad aram SS. Patricii et aliorum Scotorum," says:

"Patricius, Cheranus, Scotorum gloria gentis,

Atque Columbanus, Congallus, Adomnanus atque," &c.

Opp. ed. Frobenio, t. ii. p. 219.

10th. A liturgical MS. in the British Museum, Nero, A, II. fo. 35. b., which was first printed by Spelman, who calls it "codex vetustissimus" (Concil., i. 176.), speaks of St. Patrick as "archiepiscopus in Scotiis et Britanniis" (Ib., 177.). 11th. The celebrated monastery of St. Gall (an Irish saint) still possesses the fragment of what was once a missal, and written in the Irish character. This codex must have been older than the ninth century, for it is set down "inter libros Scottice scriptos" in a catalogue of the books belonging to that library, made in the ninth century. Among the saints enumerated in the canon of the mass is Patrick the bishop, "intercedentibus pro nobis beatis apostolis Petro et Paulo et Patricio æpiscopo" (see the fragment in Appendix A to Cooper's Report, p. 95.).

Pyrrho has had, and is likely always to have, followers in every age and country: Hardouin would not allow that Virgil ever lived, but stoutly held that the Æneid was "a fardel of monkish fictions" put together during the middle ages: not "the bigoted Anglo-Saxons" of the eighth, but Dr. Ledwich of the eighteenth century, denied the existence of the great St. Patrick; a few weeks ago a correspondent of "N. & Q." asked "Is not the battle itself (of Waterloo) a myth?" (Vol. v., p. 396.); and last week, another tells us that "the saint (Patrick) certainly vanishes into 'an airy nothing,' if we are to credit the above authors" (Dr. Ledwich and Dr. Aikin).

Who the Aikin may be, or what the work of his which E. M. R. has brought forwards, I do not know; Ledwich's book now lies before me, and a more prejudiced writer I have never met with. I think, however, that from the above authorities it is clearly shown that, together with all the most learned of early and modern times, we are still warranted in treating St. Patrick "as a real actor in Irish ecclesiastical affairs."

D. Rock.

Buckland.

Sir James Ware—St. Patrick's Birth-place (Vol. v., p. 520.)—Permit me to correct your correspondent E. M. R., who, by a strange mistake, calls Sir James Ware "a Roman Catholic writer." He was a zealous member of the church of Ireland: E. M. R. will see a memoir of him in Harris's edition of Ware's Writers of Ireland.

With respect to the birth-place of St. Patrick, your correspondent may consult Colgan's Trias Thaumaturga, Append. quinta ad vitas S. Patricii,

cap. ii. p. 221. et seq.; also the Life of St. Patrick by Harris in his edition of Ware's Bishops of Ireland; and Dr. Lanigan's Ecclesiastical History of Ireland.

Ledwich was entirely unacquainted with the sources of Irish history, and is no authority.

Trin. Coll. Dublin.