Dr. Ledwich asserts that the Ostmen

the names of well known places, and still more difficult to alter or destroy received traditions of great and interesting national events.

Dr. Ledwich, in page 67, had, as already stated, accused the Irish literati of having forged the fable of Saint Patrick. In a very short time, however, he forgets this charge and attributes the literary fraud to the Danes ! "The adoration," says the Doctor, (page 80,) of reliques gave rise to sacred structures for their reception, and, in Ireland, to our cryptical chapels. These were the works of the Ostmen, in the ninth century, after their conversion to Christianity. At this very time, the name of Saint Patrick first appeared, and, at this time, the Ostmen were in possession of Ireland and of Armagh, in particular, and now his reliques were placed there. These facts and dates most exactly agree, and I think, on good grounds, that the Christian Ostmen who seized the Culdean abbey, at Armagh, in imitation of others of that age, procured reliques and fixed on Saint Patrick as their owner; then had a flaming legend composed, setting forth the wonderful life, actions and miracles of the new saint." What an admirable flight of fancy! If the Danes had invented this flaming legend," by what necromantic power did they compel the banished literati of Ireland to credit and to propagate the fable? How did they persuade the whole Irish nation to receive, as their tutelary saint,

invented the story of Saint Patrick.

this Pseudo-Apostle, from the hands of their most abhorred enemies and tyrants, and to transmit his name, with veneration and love, to their posterity? How was the rest of Europe induced to believe so strange a falsehood? Where is the "flaming legend" to be found, of which Dr. Ledwich speaks? If it were composed by the Ostmen, they, probably, wrote it in their vernacular tongue. Amongst the relicks, why had these foreigners no bones to exhibit, as those of the pretended Patrick, since Dr. Ledwich says (page 66,) that the bones of the saints were placed in the principal church of the metropolis? Why was it asserted and believed that he was buried at Down and not at Armagh? And why did the Ostmen, so often, destroy the cathedral dedicated to this holy spectre of their own creation? Possibly the fertile brain of Shakespeare may have furnished Dr. Ledwich with the idea that our national apostle owes his imaginary existence to the Ostmen. Hamlet, the Dane, swears lustily by Saint Patrick, a proof that his countrymen held him in great respect.

It is impossible for any rational being to adopt any of these wild and crude conjectures of Dr. Ledwich, which even Credulity herself, greedy as she is of absurd novelty, cannot digest.

Dr. Ledwich, in his zeal to prove the nonentity of Saint Patrick, endeavours to destroy or weaken the

Observations

credit of every author who has expressed a belief in his existence. Sometimes he quotes passages from Ware, Harris, Ussher, &c. in support of his own arguments, as if they were writers of known credibility. On other occasions, he rejects their testimony, as unworthy of belief. Ussher was one of the most learned and correct authors of whom the British Isles can boast. But our antiquary vainly labours to turn even the candour of that illustrious man, against himself. "Archbishop Usher," says he, "confesses his Antiquities of the British Isles contains many things frivolous, doubtful, and false. Even from these, he remarks, an historian may reap considerable advantages. But, when, in his other writings, he alleges these as direct and positive proofs of transactions and doctrines in early times, he betrays a want of recollection, if not of prudence.” (page 350.)

This conclusion rests upon an unjustifiable assumption, viz. that Ussher relied upon those passages as authorities, which he had himself pronounced to be frivolous, doubtful, or false. It would have been more candid to have inferred that he had exercised his discriminating powers, rejected the spurious parts, and referred only to those of whose truth he entertained no doubt. The passage, to which Dr. Ledwich alludes, will best explain itself. The following is a literal trans. lation of that passage from the original Latin.

relative to Dr. Ussher.

"But if any other should here object, that some frivolous, many doubtful and not a few false things have been related, let him receive this reply, as to the frivolous matter, from Flavius Vopiscus in his Aurelian. 'Perhaps these things may likewise appear too light and frivolous to some other, but curiosity rejects nothing.' As to the doubtful things, he may receive this answer from the Manilians of the illustrious Junius; That I do not believe many things of this sort, nor do I obtrude them as credible on any man, but to be selected and approved of by deliberate judgment. Let him know that this sentence of Euripides pleases me very much :

Σωφανος δ' απισίας

Ουκ εσιν εδεν χρησιμωτερον Βρωτοις.

Nothing is more useful to mortals than the incredulity of a prudent man.

"As to what is manifestly false, I thought that this also would be interesting, in no small degree, to the reader, who might, from that specimen, perceive how a former age had contaminated the lives of the saints, and the whole history of the church, with vile follies." Ussher also remarks that it is one thing to write history and another to collect materials for the use of the historian.

• Præf. Usser, Brit. Eccl. Ant. p. 5.

Observations relative to Dr. Hugh Mac Mahon.

The authority of so very candid a man is not to be shaken by the light and random observations of Dr. Ledwich.

Our learned antiquary endeavours, also, (page 65) to invalidate the authority of Dr. Hugh Mac Mahon, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Armagh, a most strenuous and ablé advocate for the primacy of Saint Patrick. This prelate had, with much learning and talent, refuted a book written by Dr. Talbot, titular archbishop of Dublin, in which he had maintained the preeminence of his own see over that of Armagh. Dr. Ledwich, however, decides in favour of Talbot, whose work, he says, "exhibits strong good sense and liberality," and he speaks of his opponent as "relying on silly legends." In support of this opinion, he quotes and combines two passages which Mac Mahon had selected from his antagonist's book, for the purpose of refuting them.

Now it seems highly probable that our antiquary knew little of Talbot's book: First, because he does not refer to it, for the quoted sentences, but to the "Jus Prim. Armac." of Dr. Mac Mahon, where they are inserted and refuted. Secondly, because he most strangely terms the "Jus Prim. Armac." every word of which was written by Mac Mahon, "a controversial work, wherein the right of Dublin or Armagh to the Primacy, is discussed, by Talbot, on the one side, and Mac Mahon, on the other, A. D. 1724."