JcNE 12. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



561 



male figure wearing a muff; in the " Rake's Pro- 

 gress," pi. 4., and in the " Woman Swearing a 

 Child." How long, and within what limits, did 

 this fashion flourish ? 



W. Sparrow Simpson, B.A. 



ST. PATRICK. 



(Vol. v., p. 520.) 



Allowing himself to be led astray by such an 

 ■nntruthful 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 begin- 

 ning 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. Ixxxix.), 

 tells us that : " Patricius prajdicabat Scotis." (/&,, 

 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" (Nasraith'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 Scoto- 

 rum" (Muratori, Anecd., t. iv. p. 89.). 6th. Cum- 

 mian, writing about the Pascal question to the 

 Abbot of Hy, a.d. 634, says : " Primum (cyclum) 

 ilium quern sanctus Patricius Papa nosier tulit," 

 &c. {Vet. Epist. Hibervicarum Syl., ed. ITsserio, 

 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. Ger- 

 trude, Abbess of Nivelle, died on the 17th March, 

 A.D. 658 ; the writer of her life was her cotempo- 

 rary, 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, Bed<B 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 aliorura Scoto- 

 rum," says : 



"Patricius, Cheranus, Scotorum gloria gentis, 

 Atque Columbanus, Congallus,Adomnanusatque,"&c. 

 0pp. 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 "archi- 

 episcopus in Scotiis et Britanniis" (/&., 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 sepis- 

 copo" (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 JEneid 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 Bii-th-place 

 (Vol. v., p. 520.) — Permit me to correct your 

 correspondent E. M. R., who, by a strange mis- 

 take, 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 

 Thatimaturga, Append, quinta ad vitas S. Patricii, 



