231 



About the year 521, Saint Columba was born, commonly called 

 Columbkill, on account of the number of monasteries founded by 

 him.* The influence, that his learning procured for this individual, is 

 so estimated by Buchanan, that he says neither the kings nor the 

 people would undertake any thing without his advice ;-f- and the same 

 author seems even to concede him an exercise of prophetic powers. J 

 Giraldus mentions his foretelling the English invasion,§ and speaks 

 of him as one of those prophets, whose works, written in Irish, were 

 extant even in his day. II Saint Brigid was his contemporary, and it 

 appears from the mention of her pursuits, ("a sua pueritia bonarum 

 literarum studiis inolevit,")** that female education was not less 

 attended to. 



In the seventh century appeared Columbanus, " the glory, not 

 only of the country which gave him birth, but of the age in which he 

 lived."-!" -f He it is, whose precocious acquirements in the sciences, in 

 grammar, rhetoric, geometry, and divinity, are so extolled by Jonas. :}:|: 



et in secularibus Uteris eruditissimus, carmine excellens et prosa, a more discendi Seotiam re- 

 linquens venit in Franciam, deinde Italiam. * * * * In urbe Roma mirabili doctrina 

 clarus effulsit. Scripsit, aiunt, et metra et soluta oratione plura opuscula, &c." — De Script. 

 Eccl. p. 69. 



• « Cui erat composito vocabulo a cella et Columba vocatus est Columbkillus." — Bede, 

 Eccl. Hist, cited Spelman's Gloss, title " Kil." 



f " Erat enim in illis temporibus tanta ejus viri auctoritas, ut nihil Reges Populusve 

 absque ejus consilio susciperent." — Rer. Scot. Hist. lib. 5. 



X " Hanc victoriam, fama est, eadem hora qua res gesta fliit, Columbam in Fond insula 

 suis sodalibus renunciasse." — Rer. Scot. Hist. lib. 6. 



§ " Tunc impletum est, ut dicitur, illud Hibernici Columbae vaticinium, &c." — Hib. 

 Expugn. lib. 2. c. 16. 



11 Ante, p. 220. ** Cogitosus vita Brigidse, c. 1. 



■ft Campbell's Strictures, p. 120. 



$J"InHibemia ♦ « * * inter primordia fidei natus, • • » • peractis in- 

 fantise annis in pueritiae setate liberalium literarum doctrinis, et grammaticorum studiis, inge- 

 nio capaci dare coepit laborem, * * * ingenio sudaverat in grammatica, rhetorica, et 

 geometria, et divinarum scripturarum serie." — See Jonas, Vita Columb. cs. 1 and 2. 



