Viscount returned, suffice it to say, that he got back with the greatest ease in the world, and meeting the English Knight at the door, they both knocked-his Reverence the Prior opened, and they were dismissed to go forth into the upper world again, under the consoling assurance that all their sins were forgiven. That creditable historian Philip O'Sullivan affixes his inprimatur to the above story, in the following words." If this history of the Viscount seem in any thing difficult to believe, let him who desireth to be satisfied, read Dionysius Carthasianus, his work of the four last days, where he more at large prosecutes the subject, and resolves all doubts and difficulties."

This authentic circumstance took place in the fourteenth century, and yet in after time Patrick's Purgatory begun to lose its character, so much so, that even the Pope ordered it to be destroyed as a filthy nest of superstition and of evil deeds; and in the annals of Ulster for the year 1497, we find the following record "The Dean of St. Patrick's

Purgatory in Lough Derg was in this year cashiered by the guardian of Donnegal, and sent by the Bishop, under the authority of the Pope to the Deanerie of Lough Ern on St. Patrick's day; the people understanding out of the book of the Knight, and other ancient books, that this was not the purgatory which Patrick had from God, although the people resorted to it."

But soon again Purgatory was restored*

* As a specimen of the estimation in which Patrick's Purtory was held before the reformation, we subjoin the following certificate from the Primate of Ireland, to two French Priests, of their having entered the Purgatory :

"To all children of our mother the church, to whom these testimonials shall come, Octavianus, by the grace of God, and of the See Apostolic, Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of all Ireland, wisheth everlasting salvation in the Lord-wishing you without question to credit what followeth; seeing it is a holy and meritorious thing to give testimony unto the truth; chiefly seeing our Saviour Jesus Christ came down from heaven "to bear witness of the truth."-Hence it is by these presents we make known unto you, that John Garhi and Francis Proly, of the city of Lyons, priests; and John Burgess their boy and servant, the bearers hereof-men of good repute, and piously affected, did visit the Purgatory of the holy Confessor St. Patrick, the Apostle for Ireland, within which the sins of men even in this world are purged. And the holy mountain in which the said holy confessor did fast without temporal

to its pristine honour and renown; it was too profitable a concern to Friars, not to be kept a going, and therefore in 1632, we find that the superstitions of the place had arisen to such a shameful height, that the State ordered Sir James Balfour, and Sir William Stuart, to seize unto his Majesty's use, this island of Purgatory, and accordingly we find that Sir William proceeds to the island, and reports that he found an Abbot and forty Friars, and that there was a daily resort of four hundred and fifty pilgrims,

meat, forty days and forty nights, together with other places of holy devotion, and things of greatest observation in Ireland; and that afflicting their bodies in fasting, and according to the ceremony of that place, they did for a certain time remain in that purgatory as it clearly appeareth unto us; and that by the power of Christ our Redeemer, they did contemplatively encounter all the frauds and fantastical temptations of the devil, devoutly so finishing the purgatory and deserving the merits and prayers of the said saints to the Most High. Whom by these presents we receive into the protection of our church of Armagh, and of the said holy Confessor-whose manner of life and conversation we recommend unto you all, of which we are confident, having for two years conversed with them. Ex Registro Octaviani-in Bibliotheca Rev. Patri Jacobi Ardmachani-1485.

who paid eight pence each for admission to the island.

Sir William further informs the Privy Council, that in order to hinder the seduced people from going any longer to this strong hold of Papistry, and wholly to take away the abuse hereafter, he had directed the whole to be defaced, and utterly demolished; therefore the walls, works, foundations, vaults, &c. he ordered to be rooted up, also the place called St. Patrick's Bed, and the stone on which he knelt; these and all other superstitious relics, he ordered to be thrown into the Lough, and he made James M'Grath the owner of the island to enter into recognizances that he should not in future permit the entrance of Jesuits, Friars, Nuns, or any other superstitious order of Popery to enter therein.

Having thus given the modern and ancient state of this purgatory, it is time to think of leaving it; and I confess I prepared to turn my back on this strong hold of superstition, without a desire ever again to visit it. I considered

that I was withdrawing myself from the exhibition of a stationary satire upon human reason, where the craft of the cunning had made a successful experiment on the extreme credulity of uneducated man.

A large flock of well-fledged comfortable geese, headed by a very solemn looking grey gander, were sailing under the shelter side of the island, and hove in sight just as we were about to depart. I think geese are very much belied when made the representatives of stupidity or folly; but in the common acceptation, they might be considered, in the absence of pilgrims, as fit substitutes to frequent this island. A black cormorant with outstretched neck, passed over our heads on his way to exercise his voracious propensities on some of his fishing haunts on the lake if the Pythagorean system could be entertained in fancy for a moment, it might be imagined that in the metempsychocis, this all devouring bird represented one of the old priors of this purgatory, who had lived on human credulity, and battened on