ST. PATRICK 
sion of the Irish Kings, Druids and people, the 
Saint’s greatest achievement was the introduction 
of the Latin tongue and his making it the ecclesiasti- 
cal language of Ireland.” 
Aubrey de Vere in the Preface to his book of 
poems with the title, “The Legend of St. Patrick,” 
has perhaps summed up better for the men of our 
time than was ever done before or since the character 
of St. Patrick. As Aubrey de Vere was the close 
friend of a great many of the well known Englishmen 
of his day, thoroughly respected by such men on the 
one hand as Wordsworth to whom this volume is 
dedicated, and many of the distinguished scholars 
of his time with whom he was on terms of intimacy, 
it is easy to understand that he represents the mod- 
ern mind in its judgment of a great man of the past 
better than almost any other. A poet himself of 
high rank, a convert to Catholicity, a man of pro- 
found learning and education, his judgment could 
scarcely be surpassed. He said: 
“Perhaps nothing human had so large an influence 
in the conversion of the Irish as the personal char- 
acter of her Apostle. Where others, as Palladius, 
had failed, he succeeded. By nature, by grace, and 
by providential training, he had been specially fitted 
for his task. We can still see plainly even the finer 
traits of that character, while the land of his birth 
is a matter of dispute, and of his early history we 
know little, except that he was of noble birth, that 
he was carried to Ireland by pirates at the age of 
sixteen, and that after five years of bondage he 
193