Adantnani Vita S. Columbae. Edited, with Introduction, Notes, and a
Glossary, by J. T. Fowler, M.A. (Clarendon Press.)—Mr. Fowler's introduction deals with early Irish Church history. The first section is given to the pre-Patrician period, the second to St. Patrick, the chief points in his life, acknowledged and contro- verted, being briefly touched. There is an interesting description of Irish monasticism, and of the schools which existed in connec- tion with it. The life of Columba himself is given in considerable detail, and finally, we have an account of his successors in the Abbot's chair at Iona, till we reach Adamnan himself, who, barn in 624 (twenty-seven years after the death of St. Columba), suc- ceeded to the Abbacy in 679, and occupied it for twenty-five years. The Life, which has been printed, with a few slight changes, from Bishop Reeves's text, is divided into three parts. It is indeed an encomium rather than a life, for it is devoted to the three glories of the saint, each of them occupying a part,—his prophecies, his miracles, his angelic visions. As may be supposed, there is much curious matter in all, and in the second especially. On one occasion the Saint blessed a knife so that it never could hurt any creature afterwards. His blessing produced exactly the opposite effect on a stake. A very poor peasant brought it, at the Saint's bidding. St. Columba sharpened it with his own hand and then blessed it. "Keep it," he said," it will hurt neither man nor beast, only wild animals and fish. So long as you keep it you will never lack flesh-f ood." The peasant fastened it in the ground, and the very next day found a very fine stag impaled. Not a day passed without some wild creature being thus captured. The wife was frightened. "Some one will get hurt," she said, "then we shall be either killed or sold as slaves." The peasant removed it and laid it by in his house. The next day his dog was killed by it. He put it in the river and found a marvellously big salmon on it. The next place was on the rcof, where it proved fatal to a crow. Persuaded by his wile—" per sociam, ut Adam," says the biographer—he cut it up and burnt it, and was as poor as ever all the rest of his life. There is an affecting story of how the old white horse which used to carry the milk- cans between the pasture and the monastery bade farewell to the dying Saint. After blessing the barn and the corn, he sat down in the road,—a cross, fixed into an old mill-stone, afterwards marked the place. "The old horse, putting its head on his lap, began, as one that knew that its master was about to depart, to moan and to weep abundantly, as might a man, into the Saint's bosom." An attendant would have driven it away, but Columba rebuked him. "Let it be," he said; "you did not know of my decease except through my telling of it ; to this creature its Maker has manifestly revealed it." Thereupon he blessed it as it sadly turned away. Mr. Fowler has added some explanatory notes and a glossary.
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