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.