nan, is printed by Colgan as the second part of his Vita Secunda.

The other Lives of St. Columba are the following:

I. That by Cummene, already mentioned.

II. The first part of Colgan's Vita Secunda, which he found in the Salamanca MS., and erroneously supposed to be by Cumineus. It is a succinct and chronological digest of the principal recorded events of the Saint's life, and supplies from the old Irish Life some particulars not recorded by Adamnan.

III. A Life by John of Tinmouth, pirated by Capgrave, and reprinted by Colgan with notes, in the Trias, where it appears as the Vita Tertia. It is principally compiled from Adamnan, and ends with the monition: "Est autem sciendum quod Hibernia proprie Scotorum est patria: antiquitus igitur Scotia pro Hibernia sæpius scribi solet sicut hic in vita sancti Columbe diligenter intuentibus apparet. Et etiam venerabilis Beda de gestis Anglorum multis in locis Hiberniam exprimere volens, Scotiam scripsit.”

IV. The office in the Breviary of Aberdeen, containing nine short lessons, borrowed, in an abridged form, from Adamnan.

V. An abridgment of Adamnan, printed by Benedict Gonon under the title Vita S. Columbæ, sive Columbani, Presbyteri et Confessoris (qui alius est à S. Columbano Luxoviensi abbate) ex illa prolixa quam scripsit Adamannus abbas Insula Huensis in Scotia. It occupies three folio pages, double columns, and is accompanied by three trifling notulæ.

VI. An ancient Irish memoir, frequently referred to in the following pages as the old Irish Life. It is a composition probably as old as the tenth century, and was originally compiled, to be read as a discourse on St. Columba's festival, on the text Eri de terra tua et de cognatione tua, et de domo patris tui, et vade in terram quam tibi monstravero. This curious relic of Irish preaching is preserved in four manuscripts:-1. The Leabhar Breac, or Speckled Book of Mac Egan, in the library of the Royal Irish Academy (fol. 15 a b). 2. The Book of Lismore

(fol. 49 b a), of which the original is in the possession of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire, and a beautiful copy in the Royal Irish Academy. 3. A quarto vellum Ms., formerly belonging to the Highland Society of Scotland, and now deposited in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. It is a thin fasciculus without covers, probably of the twelfth century, and written in double columns. The Life begins in fol. 7, and is continued to the end, namely, 14 b. It modernizes all the old words and constructions of the earlier copies, and subjoins the account of St. Columba's proceedings at the convention of Drumceatt, taken from one of the prefaces to the Amhra Choluim-cille. This MS. may be the one of those mentioned by Martin, circ. 1700: "The Life of Columbus, written in the Irish Character, is in the Custody of John Mack Neil, in the Isle of Barray; another Copy of it is kept by Mack-Donald of Benbecula." A facsimile of some lines has been engraved in one of the Highland Society's publications. 4. Ms. Royal Library, Paris, Ancien Fond., No. 8175. It forms fol. 53 aa to fol. 56 bb, of a small folio parchment volume found by the Revolutionary Commissioners, during the Republic, in a private house in Paris, and by them presented to the library.

This ancient Life, evidently held in great esteem, furnished O'Donnell with a considerable portion of his narrative, and he has transferred the whole into his collection. Ussher was acquainted with it, as is shown by his reference: "Ut habet anonymus, qui acta ipsius Hibernico idiomate descripsit;" but Colgan does not seem to have been aware of its existence, and the Irish Life which he cites is always that of O'Donnell.

VII. The latest and much the most copious collection of the Saint's acts is that by Manus O'Donnell, chief of Tir-Connell, which professes to be, and is, a chronological digest of all the existing records concerning the patron of his family. His framework consists of Adamnan and the old Irish Life; into this he has worked:-1. The historical allusions found in the volume of poems ascribed to St. Columba; 2. The substance of the

preface to the Amhra Choluim-cille; 3. Extracts from the prefaces to the Latin hymns ascribed to St. Columba, and from the hymns themselves, as preserved in the Liber Hymnorum; 4. Some notes from the comments on the Feilire of Aengus; 5. The matter in the poems on Cormac Ua Liathain; 6. Passages from the lives of contemporary saints, especially St. Mochonna, or Machar, of Aberdeen; 7. The alleged prophecies of Berchan of Clonsast; 8. Some legendary poems on the wanderings of certain Columbian monks, which far outdo St. Brendan's Navigation in wildness of incident. O'Donnell's statement is: "Be it known to the readers of the Life, that it was buried in oblivion for a long time, and that there was not to be found but a fragment of the book which holy Adamnan compiled of it in Latin, and another small portion in Irish, compiled by the Irish poets in a very difficult dialect; and the remainder in legends scattered throughout the old books of Erin." These materials, with one or two trifling exceptions, all exist at the present day, and have more or less been consulted for the present work. It would be quite possible for a good scholar and patient investigator, endowed with an inventive wit and a copious style, to compile from materials existing in the year of grace 1856,1 a narrative to the full as circumstantial, as diffuse, and as marvellous, as that contained in the great volume of O'Donnell, and much more correct. It would, however, labour under one great defect, the Irish would not be as good. When and where this work was compiled, and at what cost, the following declaration of the noble author will set forth: "Be it known to the readers of this Life, that it was Manus, the son of Hugh, son of Hugh Roe, son of Niall Garve, son of Torlogh of the Wine, O'Donnell, that ordered the part of this Life which was in Latin to be put into Gaelic; and who ordered the part that was in difficult Gaelic to be modified, so that it might be clear and comprehensible to every one; and who gathered and put together the

1 When this Preface was written.-W. F. S.

parts of it that were scattered through the old books of Erin; and who dictated it out of his own mouth, with great labour, and a great expenditure of time in studying how he should arrange all its parts in their proper places, as they are left here in writing by us; and in love and friendship for his illustrious Saint, Relative, and Patron, to whom he was devoutly attached. It was in the castle of Port-na-tri-namad that this Life was indited, when were fulfilled 12 years, and 20, and 500, and 1000 of the age of the Lord."

This work exists in all its original dimensions, beauty, and material excellence, in a large folio of vellum, written in double columns, in a fine bold Irish hand, and is preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, where it was deposited, together with the other Irish manuscripts of Mr. Rawlinson, having previously cost that gentleman, at the sale of the Chandos collection in 1769, the formidable sum of twenty-three shillings! Colgan published a copious abstract of this compilation in Latin, preserving the principal particulars of the narrative, but omitting the outrageously fabulous portions, as well as those which were not in accordance with his ecclesiastical feelings, and divided the whole into three books, agreeing with the three chief eras of the Saint's life:-1. From his birth to the battle of Cooldrevny. 2. From that event, as the cause of his departure from Ireland, to his temporary return to attend the convention of Drumceatt. 3. From the convention of Drumceatt to his death. This compilation is important as a depository of all the existing traditions concerning St. Columba, but it throws no real light on Adamnan, either in solving a difficulty or identifying a place; and its great prolixity only serves to show how much superior Adamnan's memoir is to any other record professing to be an account of the Saint's life; and, after all, how little historical matter has been added to that work by the utmost endeavours of those best qualified to succeed in the attempt! To Adamnan is, indeed, owing the historic precision, and the intelligible operation, which characterize the second

stage of the ancient Irish Church. In the absence of his memoir, the Life of St. Columba would degenerate into the foggy, unreal species of narrative which belongs to the Lives of his contemporaries, and we should be entirely in the dark on many points of discipline and belief, concerning which we have now a considerable amount of satisfactory information.

Adamnan's memoir is, therefore, to be prized as an inestimable literary relic of the Irish Church: perhaps, with all its defects, the most valuable monument of that institution which has escaped the ravages of time. The editor, at least, felt it to be so and has therefore taken great pains, in the midst of many difficulties and discouragements, to call into his service all the means of illustration which books, places, and men could afford.1

BALLYMENA,

November 25th, 1856.

1 The few concluding sentences of this Preface are omitted, as more appropriate to the original edition.-W. F. S.