If the Tara Brooch appeals to our imagination by reason of the mystery of its past, Saint Patrick's Bell has a contrary but even stronger hold upon us. It seems really to be an authentic relic of the Saint to whom it is ascribed, and at any rate it can be shown to have undergone a long and varied career. In the course of these narratives we have met with many kings and queens; it is now our intention to introduce the reader to a saint. As it seems to be decreed by inscrutable destiny that no statement concerning Ireland shall ever be made without its being at once contradicted, we shall endeavor to shelter ourselves behind the wisdom of competent authorities. As Saint Patrick was an Irish saint it would be in the usual course of things for his very existence to be vehemently denied. It is thus denied by some writers who have been at pains to indite learned books upon the subject. The following details concerning him are taken in the main from Dr. Todd's _Life of Saint Patrick_, and from the Saint's own works as edited and translated by the Reverend George Stokes, Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Dublin. Not being learned in Irish nor yet in Latin, we accept the translations of these able scholars. As in the case of many great men the honor of being the birthplace of Saint Patrick is claimed on behalf of several places in England, Ireland, Scotland and France. The reader may choose which country he likes and he will find clever and ingenious arguments to support his theory. The Saint himself says that his father's name was Calpornius and that he dwelt in the village of Bannaven Tabernia, and the learned, if agreed upon no other point, are at least at one upon this--that they don't know where that village was. Saint Patrick's father had a small farm and seems to have been of noble birth, but the Saint invariably speaks of himself as the rudest of men, and deplores his want of learning. "I, Patrick a sinner, the rudest and the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to very many," is the beginning of his Confession, a work written by himself and containing most of the few facts known about his life. At the age of sixteen he was taken captive, whether from Armorica in Brittany, or from Dumbarton on the Clyde, it is impossible to say, and carried "along with many thousands of others" into barbarous Ireland. This evidently occurred in one of those predatory expeditions of the Irish, or Scots as they were then called, which under the chieftainship of Niall of the Nine Hostages extended to all the neighboring coasts. Dumbarton suffered repeatedly in this manner, a fact evidenced by the numbers of Roman coins found all along the coast of Antrim in Ireland. Dumbarton, an important military position, was the western limit of the Roman Wall constructed by Agricola, A. D. 80, to cut off the ravaging Picts from the rest of Britain, but the Romans, although so near, never set foot in Ireland.