is usually tossed off neat, and abominable stuff
most of it is — the worst new grain whiskey,
with its fieriness heightened by poisonous chemicals.
I have heard say that the sale of large
quantities of corrosive sublimate to the retail
whiskey-dealers of Ireland can be proved
from direct evidence.  The introduction of
some milder beverage that might, at least in
many instances, supplant this liquid fire
which the Irishman constantly uses to drown
care, clench a bargain, cement friendship,
treat his sweetheart with, and, in fact, applies
indiscriminately on all occasions of refreshment,
hospitality, or merry-making, would be
a very great boon.  The Englishman of the
same rank sometimes drinks gin, but usually
beer, which is a hundred times better than
ardent spirits, and the Frenchman's wine is a
thousand times better.  People in Ireland
learn to drink whiskey continually, and
teach others to do so, partly because there is
nothing else to be got.

The song tells us it was St. Patrick himself
who
     Taught our Irish lads
     The joys of drinking whiskey;
but nothing can be more calumnious.  The
saint was a man of the most abstemious
habits, and his teaching of a very different
kind from that just mentioned.  The genuine
life of St. Patrick, as far as we can make it
clear to us at a distance of fourteen centuries,
is remarkably interesting ; and though many
points remain doubtful or in dispute, the
main facts seem to be well established.  We
need not pause to weigh the claims of Ireland,
Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany to
the honour of giving him birth — the evidence
appears to favour Scotland— and among half-
a-dozen dates we may be content to accept
Anno Domini three hundred and eighty-seven
as the year in which he came into the world,
and four hundred and sixty-five as that of
his death, at the age of seventy-eight, and on
the day answering to our seventeenth of
March.  In the language of martyrologists,
the day of a saint's nativity is that of his
quitting earth and entering into the higher
life.  His father was Calphurnius, a deacon,
who was the son of Potius, a priest.  It is
asserted by those who maintain the necessity
of clerical celibacy, that they took orders
after their children were born.  The future
saint was baptised with the British name,
Succoth, signifying (as some say) Valiant in
War.  He was educated with care and
tenderness, and his sweet and gentle character
made him a general favourite.  At the age
of sixteen, having accompanied his parents,
brother, and five sisters, to Armoric Gaul —
since called Lower Brittany — to visit the
relatives of his mother, Conchessa, he was in
that country made prisoner by a piratical
expedition commanded by the banished sons
of a British prince, and, with many fellow
prisoners, carried to the north of Ireland,
and there sold into slavery.  According to
other accounts, he was snatched direct from
his home, on a raid of the troublesome Irish
(then called Scots) into Britain, at that time
left undefended by the departure of the
Romans.  Thus the youth became slave to
Milcho, the petty prince of a district, now
included in the county Antrim, and his three
brothers — receiving the name of Ceathertigh,
because he served four masters ; but Milcho,
noting his diligence and probity, bought the
others' shares and made him wholly his own,
sending him to tend cattle on the mountain
of Slieve-Mis.  In the Confessio Sancti
Patricii, a short piece purporting to be written
by himself shortly before his death, and
believed to be genuine, many most interesting
passages occur, and amongst them the following
account of this period of his life,
which, with the subsequent extracts, we have
translated from the first printed edition of
the writings of St. Patrick, published in
sixteen hundred and fifty-six, from several
ancient manuscripts, by the excellent historian
Sir James Ware.

After I had come to Ireland, I tended cattle continually,
and prayed many times in the day, and more
and more increased within me the love of God and the
fear of him, and my faith waxed strong, and my spirit
waxed strong; so that, in one day, I would offer up
a hundred prayers, and go also in the night time.  And
I would even remain in the woods and on the mountain
and before the light rouse myself to prayer, — in
snow, in frost, in rain, and I took no hurt, nor had I
any slothfulness, because (as I now see) the Spirit
was then fervent within me.

In the seventh year of his slavery, he
heard one night, in a dream, a voice telling
him that he was soon to be restored to his
native country; and, again, that a ship was
prepared for him.  " Whereafter," says he, " I
turned me to flight, and left the man with
whom I had lived for six years, and in the
strength of God, who would guide my steps
aright, went, fearing nothing, until I had
found that ship."  He reached a haven, and
found there a ship, unmoored and just
ready to sail, but the master refused to take
him on board, because he had no money.  So
the young man departed and sought for a
cottage wherein he might obtain rest and
food.  As he went be began to pray, and
before his prayer was done, he heard one of
the sailors calling after him, " Come back
quickly! " and, when he returned, they said
to him, " We will receive thee out of good
faith; make friendship with us."  There is
nothing more perceptible in history than the
innate power of great men to affect and control
those whom they meet.

After many adventures he reached his
home in Britain, and embraced his parents;
who entreated him, after the tribulations he
had endured, never to leave them.  But, after
some time had passed, he saw one night, in a
vision, a man — as if coming from Ireland —