ful 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.

Colgan, when he published his "Trias Thaumaturga" in 1647, admitted
that there was "A constant tradition amongst the inhabitants of that
country that St. Patrick was a native of Armorican Britain,