probably impart the notions of the eighth century; and the life by Jocelin will communicate the exaggerations of mediaeval times in the twelfth century. The public will thus have fairly placed before them the thoughts of ages about Saint Patrick through seven centuries after his death. I supply the reader with the Confession and Epistle attributed to Saint Patrick, though I incline to the opinion that they are the issue of an age subsequent to that of Ireland's Saint. The Chronotaxis or Chronological Table at the end of the book I have made out from the work by the Bollandists, which seems to have been prepared with scholarly and judicious diligence. Of the illustrations, it is to be stated that the one prefixed to the life of St. Fiech has been an heirloom in the family of Counsellor Shechan, of this city, and is taken from an old Irish prayer-book, supposed to be between three and five hundred years old. The frontispiece and the illustration fronting the Tripartite Life are taken from the Spicelegium, were engraved by Messengham, with the approbation of the French King and the Paris Archbishop, at Paris, in 1629, and were reproduced at Dublin in 1809. They are now re-engraved for the first time in this country. The illustration prefixed to the life by Jocelin is of ancient date, and supposed to have been suggested by the representation of St. Patrick in the Kilkenny Cathedral. I hold myself responsible in no way whatsoever for the statements of St. Fiech, St. MacEvin, or Jocelin, but I present to the reader what they asserted they had received from antiquity. Their narratives may be pronounced fables, or legends, or inventions, or superstitions, or histories. On their intrinsic merits I am silent, except inasmuch as they breathe a firm belief in the omnipresence of God amongst men, strangely at variance with the lifeless, frosty indifference of our own day, and are, in addition, savored with a holy heat of charity and a high moral tone. Without comment, then, from me, I present to you in America, kind readers, Saint Patrick, the Apostle and Patron of Ireland and the Irish race, as I received him from my ancestors. I neither overstate, nor under-estimate, nor withheld anything. Judge for yourselves. REV. JAMES O'LEARY, D.D. THE CONFESSION OF ST. PATRICK. _THE BEGINNING OF THE BOOKS OF THE BISHOP ST. PATRICK._