e dictante ... ach herede Patricii scripsit_. From these stray syllables he surmised that Ferdomnach had written the book at the bidding of some Archbishop of Armagh whose name ended in _ach_. For this the Psalter of Cashel, Leabhar Breac, and "Four Masters," were consulted, and it was found that one Archbishop Senaach died in 609; it could not then have been by his commands the book was written by the first Ferdomnach; then came, after a long interval, Faoindealach, who died in 794, Connmach, who died in 806, and Torbach, who held the primacy for one year after him. On examining the hiatus it was found that the letter which preceded the fragment _ach_ could not have been either an _l_ or an _m_, but might have been a _b_, thus putting out of the question the names of Connmach and Faoindealach. Besides the vacant space before the _ach_ was just sufficient to admit of the letters _Tor_, but not _Conn_, much less _Faoindea_. The conclusion was obvious: the passage ran, _Ferdomnach hunc librum e dictante Torbach herede Patricii scripsit_, "Ferdomnach wrote this book at the dictation (or command) of Torbach, Patrick's heir (successor)." Torbach, as we have seen, became Archbishop in 806 and died in 807. The date was in this way recovered.[8] I have been thus particular in tracing the steps by which the age of this manuscript came to light, because it contains the earliest piece of certain Irish literature we have, the "Confession of St. Patrick." Now the usually accepted date of St. Patrick's death, as given in the Annals of Ulster, is 492, about three hundred years before that, and Ferdomnach, the scribe, after copying it, added these words: "_Huc usque volumen quod patricius manu conscripsit sua. Septimadecima martii die translatus est patricius ad cælos," i.e._, "thus far the volume which Patrick wrote with his own hand. On the seventeenth day of March was Patrick translated to the heavens." It would appear highly probable from this that Ferdomnach actually copied from St. Patrick's autograph,[9] which had become so defaced or faded during the three previous centuries, that the scribe has written in many places _incertus liber hic_, "the book is uncertain here," or else put a note[10] of interrogation to indicate that he was not sure whether he had copied the text correctly. It will be seen from this that there was not the slightest trace of any concealment on the part of the scribe as to who he himself was, or what he was copying; there was no attempt to antedate his own writing, or to suggest that his copy was an original. But long after the scribe's generation had passed away and the origin of his work been forgotten, the volume which at first had been regarded only as a fine transcript of early documents, became known as "Canon Phádraig," or Patrick's Testament, and popular opinion, relying on the colophon "thus far the book which Patrick wrote with his own hand," set down the work as the saint's autograph. The belief that the volume was