247 



vis,")* yet it does appear that when Saint Patrick entered his ship, 

 the captain spread his sails to the winds, ("dedit vela ventis.")'!' "The 

 corragh, in which Columba came from Ireland into lona, must have 

 been little less than forty feet long, if the tradition hitherto preserved 

 in that island deserves credit ;"j: yet this too was cased with skins. § 

 And the vessel in which Saint Brendan made these remarkable 

 voyages, on which the Irish annalists so fondly dwell, is very credi- 

 tably described in the Cotton MS. mentioned by Dr. O'Conor.H It 

 was covered with skins, but had a mast, a sail, and all other requisites 

 for the government of a ship j-f -f- while Probus, in pllain terms dis- 

 tinguishes ships for the service of war;J|: thus confinning Tigernach's 

 mention of a sea-fight. It may be permitted to add, that the latter 

 historian mentions a great shipwreck oft' the coast of Ireland in 729, 

 also a fleet as in 733, and epithets indicative of maritime knowledge, 

 are in three or four instances applied by him to persons flourishing 

 within this period. 



• Vita S. Columbae, lib. 2. c. 42. f Tripartita Vita, lib. 1. c. 44, 



X Mac-Pherson's Dissertation, p. 298, 



§ Charon's ferry-boat, with all its classic crews, is sketched as of the same materials : 



" Simul accipit alveo 

 Ingentem ^neam, gemuit sub pondere cymba 

 Sulitis." 



li Rer. Hib. Script, vol. 4. p. 143. 



ft " Arborem in medio navis fixum, et velum, et caetera, quae ad gubernationem navis 

 pertinent." 



J{ "Intumescebant ultra modum fluctus maris, ***** prohibentes nawj ie//j- 

 cas ne ad invicem convenire ullatenus potuissent." — Vita S. Patricii, lib. 2. c. 38. As to citing 

 so frequently the biographers of Saint Patrick and of other saints, Mac-Pherson in his 

 " Annals of Commerce," (vol. I. p, 223,) has observed, that they were almost the only writers 

 of the western world in the dark ages, and may be referred to " in every thing except the 

 miracles." .iad;iiu.o'J ; ;i f - . ; -, Jt. 



