The Professor's perversion of ecclesiastical history is a blot on his otherwise excellent "Life of St. Patrick." How can he reconcile these statements with St. Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians, which Eusebius admits to be genuine, or with Pope Stephen's exercise of pontifical authority in the case of St. Cyprian and the question of validity of baptism conferred by heretics; or with the celebrated declaration of St. Irenaeus on the authority of the Church of Rome, which is as follows: "It is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church on account of its pre-eminent authority, that is, the faithful of all nations"? ("Irenseus contra Hereses," vol. L, lib. iii., cap. iii., sect. 2, translated by Rev. A. Roberts, Edinburgh, 1868). Now St. Clement lived in Apostolic times, St. Cyprian from 200 to 258, and St. Irenaeus flourished between A.D. 150 to 202, while the Roman Emperors were persecuting the Church. Leaving the well-defined path of history, the Professor indulges in speculations which will seem to most people to be without warrant. St. Patrick's home, he tells us, was in "a village named Bannaventa, but we cannot with any certainty identify its locality. The only Bannaventa that we know lays near Daventry; but this position does not agree with an ancient indication that the village of Calphurnius was close to the Western sea. As the two elements of the name Bannaventa were probably not uncommon in British geographical nomenclature, it is not rash to suppose that there were other small places so called besides the only Bannaventa that happens to appear in Roman geographical sources, and we may be inclined to look for the Bannaventa of Calphurnius in South-Western Britain, perhaps in the regions of the lower Severn. The village must have been in the neighbourhood of a town in possession of a municipal council of decurions" (chap, ii., pp. 16, 17). The Professor quietly assumes without proof that Bonaven and Bannaventa are one and the same; that "vicus" is used in its secondary meaning of "a village," and not in its primary signification, "a district or quarter of a town," in the "Confession"; and while admitting that there was no other town in Britain named Bannaventa except Bannaventa in Northampton, as far as can be gathered from "Roman sources of information," and passing over the fact that Camden's "Britannia," which gives the history of every old town in the kingdom, and Horsley's "Britannia Romana," which performs the same task, make no mention of any other Bannaventa, whilst old maps and itineraries are equally silent, the Professor seemingly rests satisfied with his own mere conjecture, that there may have been another Bannaventa, which was probably situated in the regions of the lower Severn. Surely a speculation of this kind may well be called unwarranted. ST. PATRICK WAS A NATIVE OF ARMORIC GAUL.