Page:A View of the State of Ireland - 1809.djvu/355

 full of Angels, some full of devils, some for male only, some for female, some where poore may live, some where none can dye: finally such effects of waters, stones, trees, and trinkets, that a man would eene them to be but heedlesse and uncertaine tales by their complexion.

Verily, being inquisitive of these matters, I could finde no one of them soothed by such persons upon whose relation I am disposed to venture. Onely the place behinde Ardmagh called S. Patricks Purgatory, because it is knone and confessed, and because I would be discharged of my Readers expectation, who perhaps with the name of S. Patriclce looketh to bee informed thereof, I can bee content to put so much in riting, as Bookes and reports affirme ith most likelyhood.

Two things I muse at, that neither the time nor the author of so strange erection was preserved. Concerning the time one Record putteth it in Anno Domini 302. which is 1 28. yeares before S. Patrikce converted Ireland, and sixty sixe yeares before his birth. Againe Cambrensis who maketh curious recitall of wonders in the land, never uttereth word of this Purgatory; & though a negative authority be not invincible, yet considering the propertie of that man, and what a sort of trifles he taketh paine to justifie, it may serve for a vehement suspition, that the place was then either not found, or not miraculous. Concerning the Author,