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the eighth century that the title of archbishop was known in Ireland. It was, indeed, in all countries a term of rather late adoption,-St. Athanasius being, I rather think, the first writer in whose works it is found.

The see of Armagh being now established, and the great bulk of the nation won over to the faith, St. Patrick, resting in the midst of the spiritual creation he had called up round him, passed the remainder of his days between Armagh and his favourite retreat, at Sabhul, in the barony of Lecale,-that spot which had witnessed the first dawn of his apostolical career, and now shared in the calm glories which surrounded its setting. Among the many obvious fables with which even the best of the ancient records of his life abound, is to be reckoned the account of his journey to Rome, after the foundation of Armagh, with the view of obtaining, as is alleged, from the pope, a confirmation of its metropolitical privileges, and also of procuring a supply of relics. This story, invented, it is plain, to dignify and lend a lustre to some relics shown in later times at Armagh, is wholly at variance with the Saint's written testimony, which proves him constantly to have remained in Ireland, from the time when he commenced his mission in the barony of Lecale, to the last day of his life. In the document here referred to, which was written after the foundation of Armagh, he declares expressly that the Lord "had commanded him to come among the Irish, and to stay with them for the remainder of his life."

Among the last proceedings recorded of him, he is said to have held some synods at Armagh, in which canons were decreed, and ecclesiastical matters regulated. Of the canons attributed to these early Synods, there are some pronounced to be of a much later date, while of others the authenticity has been, by high and critical authority, admitted.* The impression that his death was too far distant, appears to have been strong on the Saint's mind when he wrote his Confession, the chief object of which was, to inform his relatives, and others in foreign nations, of the redeeming change which God, through his ministry, had worked in the minds of the Irish. With this view it was that he wrote his parting communication in Latin, though fully aware, as he himself acknowledges, how rude and imperfect was his mode of expressing himself in that tongue, from the constant habit he had been in, for so many years, of speaking no language but Irish.

A. D.

In his retreat at Sabhul, the venerable Saint was seized with his last illness. Perceiving that death was near at hand, and wishing that Armagh, as the seat 465. of his own peculiar see, should be the resting-place of his remains, he set out to reach that spot; but feeling, on his way, some inward warnings, which the fancy of tradition has converted in the voice of an angel, commanding him to return to Sabhul, as the place appointed for his last hour, he went back to that retreat, and there, about a week after, died, on the 17th of March, A. D. 465, having then reached, according to the most consistent hypothesis on the subject, his seventy-eighth year. No sooner had the news spread throughout Ireland that the great apostle was no more, than the clergy flocked from all quarters to Sabhul, to assist in solemnizing his obsequies; and as every bishop, or priest, according as he arrived, felt naturally anxious to join in honouring the dead by the celebration of the holy mysteries, the rites were continued without interruption through day and night. To psalmody and the chanting of hymns the hours of the night were all devoted; and so great was the pomp, and the profusion of torches kept constantly burning, that, as those who describe the scene express it, darkness was dispelled, and the whole time appeared to be one constant day.

In the choice of a successor to the see there could be no delay nor difficulty, as the eyes of the Saint himself, and of all who were interested in the appointment, had long been fixed on his disciple Benignus, as the person destined to succeed him. It was remembered that he had, in speaking of this disciple when but a boy, said, in the language rather of prophecy than of appointment, He will be the heir of my power." Some writers even assert, that the see was resigned by him to Benignus soon after the foundation of Armagh. But there appear little grounds for this assertion, and, according to the most consistent accounts, Benignus did not become bishop of Armagh till after St. Patrick's death.

Besides the natives of Ireland contemporary with our Saint, of whom, in this sketch of his life, some notice has been taken, there were also other distinguished Irishmen, of the same period, whom it would not be right to pass over in silence. Among the names, next to that of the apostle himself, illustrious, are those of Ailbe, "another Patrick," as he was fondly styled, the pious Declan, and Ibar; all disciples of St. Patrick, and all

*Several of these canons appear to have been drawn up at a time when Paganism was not yet extinct in Ireland. Thus, among the canons of the synod of Patrick, Auxilius, and Esserninus, the eighth begins thus, Clericus si pro gentili in Ecclesiam recipi non licet ;" and in the fourteenth, "Christianus qui more Gentilium ad aruspicem mcaverit."

memorable, as primitive fathers of the Irish church. To Secundinus, the first bishop,* as it is said, who died in Ireland (A. D. 448,) is attributed a Latin poem or hymn in honour of St. Patrick, in which the Saint is mentioned as still alive, and of whose authenticity some able critics have seen no reason whatever to doubt. There is also another hymn, upon the same subject, in the Irish language, said to have been written by Fiech, the disciple of the poet Dubdacht, but which, though very ancient, is evidently the production of a somewhat later period.

While these pious persons were, in ways much more effective than by the composition of such dry, metrical legends, advancing the Christian cause in Ireland, a far loftier flight of sacred song was, at the same time, adventured by an Irish writer abroad, the poet Shiel, or (as his name is Latinized) Sedulius, who flourished in this century, and, among other writings of acknowledged merit, was the author of a spirited Iambic poem upon the life of Christ, from which the Catholic church has selected some of her most beautiful hymns.||

CHAPTER XI.

A. D.

STATE OF THE SCOTS IN BRITAIN-PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY.

Ir has been seen, from the letter of St. Patrick to Coroticus, that, so late as the middle of the fifth century, the incursions of the Picts and Scots into the territories of the Britons had not yet been discontinued. About the commencement of the same century, Britain had ceased to form a portion of the Roman empire; the separation accord409. ing to some opinions, having been voluntary on the part of Britain, while far more obviously it is to be accounted for by the enfeebled state of the Roman power, which rendered the occupation of so remote a province no longer practicable. How little prepared were the Britons themselves for independence, at this period, appears from the helplessness of their struggle against the agressions of their neighbours, and the piteous entreaties for aid so often addressed by them to Rome; while the prompt attention, as far as the resources of the sinking empire would admit, which these appeals generally

* This bishop was sent, in the year 439, together with two others, to aid St. Patrick in his mission; as we find thus recorded in the Annals of Inisfallen:-" Secundinus et Auxiliarius (Auxilius,) et Esserninus mittuntur in auxilium Patricii, nec tamen tenuerunt apostolatum, nisi Patricius solus."

"I find no reason," says Dr. Lanigan," for not considering it a genuine work of Secundinus." The strophes of this hymn, consisting each of four lines, begin with the letters of the alphabet; the first strophe commencing," Audite omnes amantes Deum; and the last, Zona Domini præcinctus."

There has been some controversy respecting our claims to this poet, who it is alleged, has been con. founded with another writer, of the same name, in the ninth century, universally admitted to have been an Irishman. The reader will find the question sifted, with his usual industry, by Bayle (art Sedulius.) Among the numerous authorities cited by Usher, in favour of our claim to this poet, the title prefixed to a work generally attributed to him (Annotations on Paul's Epistles,) would seem decisive of the question:-"Sedulii Scoti Hyberniensis in omnes Epistolas Pauli Collectaneum." The name, Sedulius, too, written in Irish Siedhuil, and said to be the same as Shiel, is one peculiar, we are told, to Ireland, no instance of its use being found in any other country. By English scholars, it will, I fear, be thought another strong Irish characteristic of this poet, that he sometimes erred in prosody. "Dictio Sedulii," says Borrichius, "facilis, ingeniosa, numerosa, perspicua, sic satis munda-si excipias prosodica quædam delicta."-Dissertat. de Poet. In praising the Paschale Opus of Sedulius, pope Gelasius had described it as written "heroicis versibus ;" but, by an unlucky clerical error, the word "hereticis" was in the course of time, substituted for "heroicis." which brought our Irish poet into much disgrace at Rome, and led some canonists, it is said, to the wise decision. Omnia poemaia esse heretica."

§ Not content with the honour of contributing, thus early, so great an ornament to foreign literature, some of our writers have represented Sedulius as producing his poems in Ireland; and referred to his classical knowledge as evidence of the state of literature in that country. Thus O'Halloran :-"That poetry was passionately cultivated in our schools, and classical poetry too, I have but to refer to the writings of the famous Sedulius "Vol. iii. chap. 7. Even Mr. D'Alton has allowed himself to be tempted by his zeal for Ireland into an encouragement of the same delusion. "The treasures of Roman lore," he says, "were profitably spread over the country: the writings of Sedulius testify that classic poetry was cultivated at a very early period in Ireland."

The Paschale Opus of Sedulius is in heroic metre, and extended through five books. His Iambic Hymn, which has been unaccountably omitted by Usher, in his Sylloge, commences thus,

"A solis ortus cardine.
Ad usque terræ limitem."

* Dr. Lingard has followed Gibbon in asserting, on no other authority than a few words of Zosimus, that the Britons at this time voluntarily threw off their allegiance. But the force of evidence, as well as of probability, is all opposed to such a supposition.

received, proves the reluctance with which the connexion was then severed to have been mutual.

In consequence of their urgent solicitations to Honorius, that emperor despatched to the aid of the Britons a single legion, which for a time, suspended the attacks of their invaders; but no sooner was this legion withdrawn for the protection of Gaul, than again the Scots and Picts, breaking through the now unregarded wall of Severus, or else sailing around the ends, carried their ravages into the very heart of Britain. Once more, the interference of the Romans succeeded in turning aside this scourge. Ambassadors, sent from the suffering province to Valentinian, and appearing before him, as is said, with their garments rent, and sand strewed over their heads,* so far excited the emperor's pity, that a last effort was made for them, and a force under the command of Gallio of Ravena, despatched seasonably to their relief. As in all the preceding cases, however, the interposition was but temporary. The Roman general, summoned away, with the whole of his force, to repress rebellion in Africa, announced to the Britons that they must thenceforward look to their own defence; and, from that period, the imperial protection was entirely withdrawn from the island. No sooner had the Romans taken their departure than the work of rapine recommenced; and, as the historian of these Devastations expresses it, "foul droves of Picts and Scots emerged from out their currachs, just as, when the sun is at his burning height, dark battalions of reptiles are seen to crawl from out their earthholes." Both in this writer and in Bede we find the most frightful representations of the state of misery to which the Britains were now reduced by the "anniversary" visitations of their spoilers.t

A.D.

From the period of Gallio's command, during which was erected, between the Solway and Tyne, the last and most important of all the Roman walls, we hear no 426.

more of the sufferings of the Britons till the time when St. Patrick addressed his letter to Coroticus, and when that last great irruption of the Picts and Scots, took place, which drove the Britons at length, in their despair, to invoke the perilous protection of the Saxons. It was in the extremity to which they had then found themselves reduced, that, looking again to the Romans, they addressed to Etius, the popular captain of the day, that memorable letter inscribed "The Groans of the Britons." But the standard of Attila was then advancing towards Gaul, and all the force of the empire was summoned to oppose his progress. Rome, prodigal so long of her strength to others, now trembled for her own safety; and the ravagers of Britain were, accordingly left to enjoy their prey undisturbed.

By the arrival of the Saxons, the balance of fortune was soon turned the other way; and the Scots and Picts became, in their turn, the vanquished. To the unhappy Britons, however, this success brought but a change of evils; as their treacherous allies, having first helped them to expel the Scots and Picts, then made use of the latter, as auxiliaries, to crush and subjugate the Britons. In all these transactions it is to be remembered that under the general name of Scots are comprehended not merely the descendants of the Irish colony, long settled in North Britain, but also the native Scots of Ireland themselves, who were equally concerned in most of these expeditions; and who, however contemptuously, as we have seen, Gildas has affected to speak of their currachs, had already fitted out two naval armaments sufficiently notorious to be commemorated by the great poet of Rome's latter days. The share taken by the Irish, in these irruptions into Britain, is noticed frequently both by Gildas and Bede:-"They emerge eagerly," says the former, "from their currachs, in which they have been wafted across the Scytic Valley," the name anciently given to the sea between Britain and Ireland. "The impudent Irish plunderers," says Bede, "return to their homes, only to come back again shortly."}

Of the three great "Devastations" of Britain, recorded by the former of these writers, two had occurred in the reign of the monarch Leogaire, who ruled over Ireland at the time of St. Patrick's mission. How far this prince was concerned in originating, or taking a personal share in any of these expeditions, does not appear from the records of his long reign; and, among the domestic transactions in which he was engaged, his war upon the Lagenians, or people of Leinster, to enforce the payment of the odious Boromean

*"Itemque mittuntur queruli Legati, scissis, ut dicitur, vestibus, opertisque sablone capitibus, impe. trantes a Romanis auxilia, &c.-Gildas.

"Itaque illis ad sua revertentibus, emergunt certatim de Curicis quibus sunt trans Scythicam vallemvecti, quasi in alto Titane, incalescentesque caumate, de arctissimis foraminum cavernulis, fusci vermiculo rum cunei, tetri Scotoram Pictorumque greges," &c.-Gildas.

For the purpose of representing his countrymen, in ancient times, as Troglodytes, the reverend antiquary, Ledwich, has not hesitated to separate the simile in this passage from the context, and to produce it as evidence that the Irish at that time lived in earth holes.

Quia anniversarias avide prædas, nullo obsistente, trans maria exaggerabant.-Gildas, c. 14.

§ Revertuntur ergo impudentes grassatores Hiberni domus, post nou longum tempus reversuri.

tribute, seems alone to be worthy of any notice. Defeated by the troops of this province in a sanguinary action, which was called, from the place where it occurred, the Battle of the Ford of the Oaks, Leogaire was himself made prisoner, and regained his freedom only on consenting to swear, by the Sun and the Wind, that he never would again lay claim to the payment of the tribute. This solemn oath, however, the rapacious monarch did not hesitate to infringe,-his courtly Druids having conveniently absolved him from the obligation; and, on his death occurring a short time after, it was said that, to punish his false appeal to their divinities, the Sun and the Wind had destroyed him. This Pagan oath, and his continued commerce with the Druids, to the very year before he died, shows that Leogaire had either at no time become a Christian, or else had relapsed into Paganism.t

The fervid eagerness and rapidity with which the new faith had been embraced wore so much the appearance of that sort of enthusiasm which mere novelty often excites, that it would have seemed but in the natural course of affairs had there succeeded a lull to all this excitement, and had such a burst of religious zeal, throughout the great mass of the people,-deprived entirely, as it was, of the fuel which persecution always ministers,subsided speedily into that state of langour, if not of dangerous indifference, in which the uncontested triumph of human desires almost invariably ends. But in this, as in all other respects, the course of the change now worked in the minds of the people of Ireland was peculiar and unprecedented; and, striking as were their zeal and promptitude in adopting the new faith, the steady fervour with which they now devoted themselves to its doctrines and discipline was even still more remarkable. From this period, indeed, the drama of Irish history begins to assume an entirely different character. Instead of the furious strife of kings and chieftains forming, as before, its main action and interest, this stormy spectacle gives way to the pure and peaceful triumphs of religion. Illustrious saints, of both sexes, pass in review before our eyes;-the cowl and the veil eclipse the glory even of the regal crown; and, instead of the grand and festive halls of Tara and Emania, the lonely cell of the fasting penitent becomes the scene of fame.

It is to be recollected, however, that, through all this picture, the hands of ecclesiastics have chiefly guided the pencil; and, though there can be no doubt that the change effected in the minds and hearts of the people, was, to a great extent, as real as it is wonderful, it was yet by no means either so deep or so general as on the face of these monkish annals it appears. While this peaceful pageant of saints and apostles so prominently occupies the foreground, frequent glimpses of scenes of blood are caught dimly in the distance, and the constant appeal to the sword, and the frequent falling of kings suddenly from their thrones, prove the ancient political habits of the people to have experienced but little change. In the page of the annalist, however, all this is kept subordinate or thrown into the shade; and while, for two or three centuries after the introduction of Christianity, the history of the Kings of Ireland presents but a meager list of names, the acts of her missionaries and her saints, and the pious labours of her scholars, afford materials for detail as abundant and minute as they are, in many instances, it must be owned, sterile and uninteresting.

The only event of high political importance, which occurs through the whole of this period, took place at the commencement of the sixth century, not long after the death of St. Patrick; and this was the establishment, under the sons of Erck, of that Scotic or Irish monarchy in North Britain, which not only extended its sway, in the course of a few centuries, over the whole of the modern Scotland, but transmitted, through the race of the Stuarts, a long succession of monarchs to Great Britain. The colony planted in those regions, by Carbre Rieda, in the middle of the third century, though constantly fed with supplies from the parent stock, the Dalriadians of Antrim, had run frequent risks of extirpation from the superior power of their neighbours and rivals, the Picts. In the year 503, however, the Dalriadian Princes of Ireland, aided by the then all-powerful influence of the Hy-Nial family, were enabled to transplant a new colony into North Britain, which, extending the limits of the former settlement, set up for the first time a regal authority, and became, in less than a century,

* Thus recorded in the annals of the Four Masters:-" A. D. 457, anno 29, regni Laogarii filii Nialli Prælium Vadi Quercuum gestum a Lageniensibus contra Laogarium filium Nialli. Captus est Laogarius in prælio isto, et juravit jusjurandum Solis et Venti, et Elementorum, Lageniensibus, non venturum se contra eos, durante vita, ob intentum istum.

"A. D. 458, postquam fuisset 30 annis in Regimine Hiberniæ Laogarius filius Nialli Novi-obsidum, occisus est prope Cassiam inter Erin et Albaniam (i. e. duos colles qui sunt in regione Faolan,) et Sol et Ventus occiderunt eum quia temeravit eos."

†The Tripartite Life of St. Patrick states that Leogaire was not a sincere believer, and that he was accus. tomed to say his father Nial had laid an injunction on him never to embrace the Christian faith, but to adhere to the gods of his ancestors.-Sce Lanigan, chap. 5. note 53.

sufficiently powerful to shake off all dependence upon Ireland. The territory possessed by these original Scots appears to have included, in addition to the Western Isles, the whole of the mountainous district now called Argyleshire; and from the time of the erection of this Irish sovereignty, North Britain continued, for some centuries, to be divided between two distinct monarchies, the Scotish and the Pictish; till, at length, in the reign of Keneth Mac-Alpine, after a long and fierce struggle, the people of the Picts were entirely vanquished, and the Scots left sole masters of the country.

The memorable migration of the sons of Erck is marked by the Irish annalists as having occurred twenty years after the great battle of Ocha, in which Olill Molt, the successor of Leogaire in the monarchy of Ireland, was slain. This battle itself, too, constituted an era in Irish history, as the race of the Nials, on whose side victory then declared, were, by the fortune of that day's combat, rendered masters of all Ireland. The law established in the reign of Tuathal confining the succession to his own family, and excluding the princes of the other lines from the monarchy, was now wholly set aside; and the HyNials, taking possession of the supreme government, held it uninterruptedly through a course of more than five hundred years.

Of the two kings who succeeded Olill Molt, namely, Lugad and Murcertach, the reign of one extended to twenty-five years, and that of the other to twenty-one; and yet of the former reign all that we find recorded is the names of some battles which signalized its course; while of the grandson of Erck, nothing farther is commemorated than that, in A. D. 534, he fought five battles, and, in the following year, was drowned in a hogshead of wine. It is, however, but just to add, that he is represented as a good and pious sovereign, and was the first of the Irish monarchs who can, with any degree of certainty, be pronounced Christian.

At the commencement of the sixth century, Christianity had become almost universal throughout Ireland; and before its close her church could boast of a considerable number of holy persons, whose fame for sanctity and learning has not been confined to their own country, but is still cherished and held in reverence by the great majority of the Christian world. Among these ornaments of a period whose general want of intellectual illumination rendered its few shining lights the more conspicuous, stands pre-eminently the Apostle of the Western Isles, Columbkill, who was born in the reign of Murcertach, about the year 521, and who, from the great activity and variety of his spiritual enterprises, was so mixed up with the public transactions of his times, that an account of his life and acts would be found to include within its range all that is most remarkable in the contemporary history of his country.

In citing for historical purposes the Lives of Saints, of whatever age or country, considerable caution ought, of course, to be observed. But there are writers, and those not among the highest, who, in the pride of fancied wisdom, affect a contempt for this species of evidence, which is, to say the least of it, shallow. Both Montesquieu and Gibbont knew far better how to appreciate the true value of such works, as sources of historical information; being well aware that, in times when personages renowned for sanctity held such influence over all ranks and classes, and were even controllers of the thoughts

*The facts of the history of this colony have been thus well summed up by Roy (Military Antiq.):— "There is incontrovertible authority to join the Irish with the Picts in their martial exploits against the Romans, as well from the Latin, as from the ancient British and Saxon, writers. It is clear, not only from all the Scotch history we have of the times, but from Bede, from the most authentic writers for an age or two before and after him, and from the Roman writers, that Scotland, during the Roman domination in Britain, subsisted under two different monarchies, Irish and Pictish." I have given this passage as I find it cited by Dr. O'Connor, having searched in vain for it in the folio edition of Roy's works, 1793.

†This royal event, as appears by the fragments on the subject remaining, was commemorated by many of the poets of that period. See the Annals of the Four Masters, ad ann. 534. It is supposed, from the men. tion in most of the Lives of St. Columbanus, of the circumstance of an Irish ship trading to Nantes, in the sixth century, that wine was imported into Ireland from that city.

"The ancient legendaries," says Gibbon, "deserve some regard, as they are obliged to connect their fables with the real history of their own times" Montesquieu acknowledges still more strongly the use to be derived from such works:

"Quoiqu'on puisse reprocher aux auteurs de ces Vies d'avoir été quelquefois un peu trop crédules sur des choses que Dieu a certainement faites, si elles ont été dans l'ordre de ses desseins, on ne laisse pas d'en tirer de grandes lumières sur les mœurs et les usages de ces temps-là."—Liv. xxx. chap. 2.

Sir James Mackintosh follows eloquently in the same track:

"The vast collections of the Lives of Saints often throws light on public events, and opens glimpses into the habits of men in those times; nor are they wanting in sources of interest, though poetical and moral rather than historical...... The whole force of this noble attempt to exalt human nature was at this period spent on the Lives of the Saints,-a sort of moral heroes or demigods, without some acquaintance with whom it is hard to comprehend an age when the commemoration of the virtues then most venerated, as they were embodied in these holy men, was the principal theme of the genius of Christendom."-Vol. 1. chap. 2.

See, on the same subject, the remarks of the Benedictines (Hist. Literaire de la France,) in speaking of the writers of the seventh century.

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