creep into the margin of books at the hands of copyists, especially if those books were--as Colgan says the Tripartite life was--annotated and explained in schools. In cases of this kind there is always considerable latitude to be allowed to destructive and constructive criticism, and at the end matters must still remain doubtful.[39] So much for the more important lives of St. Patrick, the first known _littérateur_ of Ireland. [1] "Contemporary Review." [2] So Tirechan, in Book of Armagh, fol. 9. "Et secum fuit multitudo episcoporum sanctorum et presbiterorum, et diaconorum, ac exorcistarum, hostiarium, lectorumque, necnon filiorum quos ordinavit." [3] So many English were attracted to Armagh in the seventh century that the city was divided into three wards, or thirds, one of which was called the Saxon Third. [4] See Dr. Healy's "Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars," p. 64. [5] There is a curious poem on St. Patrick's family of artificers quoted in the "Four Masters" under A.D. 278. [6] There were no less than twenty-two saints of the name of Colum, yet that does not detract one iota from the genuineness of the life of the great Colum, called Columcille. There were fourteen St. Brendans, there were twenty-five St. Ciarans, and fifteen St. Brigits. How Ledwich--who, however, as O'Donovan remarks, looks at everything Irish with a jaundiced eye--could have written down St. Patrick as a myth is inconceivable, in the face of the fact that he was already recognised in the sixth century as a great saint. The earliest mention of him is probably St. Columba's subscription to the Book of Durrow, in the sixth century, which runs: "Rogo beatitudinem tuam Sancte Presbyter Patrici, ut quicumque hunc libellum manu tenuerit Columbæ Scriptoris, qui hoc scripsi ... met evangelium per xii. dierum spatium." Here we see a prayer already addressed to him as a national saint.