As to annals partaking of the nature of registers the language of the extant compositions is unfavourable. They are mentioned, of course; but it is always some one's collection of something before his time--never the original cotemporary documents. Now the compiler is Cormac McArthur, now St. Patrick. The manner of their mention in the Four Masters is as follows:-- "A.D. 266 was the fortieth year of Cormac McArthur McConn over the kingdom of Ireland, until he died at Clete, after a salmon-bone had stuck in his throat, from old prophecies which Malgon the Druid had made against him, after Cormac turned against the Druids on account of his manner of adoring God without them. For that reason the Devil (_Diabul_) tempted him (Malgenn) through the instigation, until he caused his death. It was Cormac who composed the precepts to be observed by kings, the manners, tribute, and ordinations of kings. He was a wise man in laws, and in things chronological and historical, for it was he who invented the laws of the judgments, and the right principles in all bargains, also the tributes, so that there was a law which bound all men even unto the present time. This Cormac McArthur was he who collected the Chronicle of Ireland into one place, Tara, until he formed from them the Chronicles of Ireland in one book, which was called (afterwards) the Psalter of Tara. In that book were the events and synchronisms of the kings of Ireland with the kings and emperors of the world, and of the kings of the provinces with the kings of Ireland." A work of this kind, possible enough in Alexandria, is surely in need of very definite and unexceptionable testimony to make it credible as a piece of Irish history. The truly historical fact contained in the extract is the existence of a book, at the time of the Four Masters, with a Christian title, and Pagan contents. To assume anything beyond the existence of early biographies of the early propagators of Irish Christianity is unnecessary. These had an undoubted existence; sometimes in prose, sometimes in verse; and it is these that the annalists themselves chiefly refer to; the character of whose notices may be collected from the following extracts relating to the first arrival of St. Patrick.