situated, as Camden narrates,
near the spot where the River Brydhin empties itself into the Usk. The
Scholiast, Colgan, and Archbishop Healy seem to have no doubt as to the
Saint's birth at Dumbarton. Ware believes that a town that once stood
almost under the shadow of the crag possessed a stronger claim; Usher
and the Aberdeen Breviary are equally positive that Kilpatrick was the
town. Cardinal Moran, on the other hand, has convinced himself that St.
Patrick first saw the light of day at a place that once stood near the
present town of Hamilton, just where the river Avon discharges itself
into the Clyde. Some English writers have strongly advocated the claims
of a Roman town named Bannaventa that once stood near the present site
of Davantry, Northamptonshire. Professor Bury, in his "Life of St.
Patrick," had the doubtful honour of inventing a new birthplace for the
Saint; he tells us that St. Patrick was born at a Bannaventa, "which
was probably situated in the regions of the Lower Severn."

ST. PATRICK WAS NOT BORN IN WALES.

The belief that St. Patrick was born in Ross Vale, Pembrokeshire, is
founded principally on the supposed acceptance of that view by Camden,
and on an old tradition to the effect that St. Patrick, having
completed his missionary labours in Ireland, founded a monastery at
Menevia and died there.

As the authority of the learned Camden carries with it great weight, it
will here be not out of place to quote his own declaration, which is as
follows: "Beyond Ross Vale is a spacious promontory called by Ptolemy
Octopitarum, by the Britons Pebidiog and Kantev-Dewi, and by the
English St. David's land. . . . It was the retiring place and nursery
of several Saints, for Calphurnius, a British priest--_as some have
written, I know not hew truly_--begot there St. Patrick, the Apostle of
Ireland" ("Britannia," vol. ii., p. 32). The same author, in another
place, gives expression to his own views on the subject, to which,
indeed, he does not seem to have devoted very serious study. "St.
Patrick," he writes, "was a Briton born in Clydesdale, and related to
St. Martin, Bishop of Tours, and he was a disciple of St. Germanus"
("Britannia," vol. ii., p. 326).

The Ross Vale theory has, in truth, as little in its favour as the old,
but groundless, tradition that St. Patrick founded a monastery and
ended his days at Menevia. This is plainly contradicted by the Saint's
assertion that after he had landed as a missi