Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/341

 faith. He travelled beyond Carinthia and through the intervening territories to Slavonia, and on to the confluence of the Drave and Danube. He was received everywhere by the people with respect and esteem, but feeling that his end was approaching he returned to Salzburg, and shortly after died on 27 Nov. 785, after an episcopate of thirty years.

In Zachary's second letter to Boniface he says of Virgilius, ‘I know not whether to call him presbyter.’ This is an allusion to the circumstance recorded in his life that ‘he concealed his orders,’ that is, did not permit it to be known that he was a bishop, but was accompanied by one who performed episcopal duties for him. The name of this bishop, Dobdagrecus, was understood by Ussher and others, even as late as Mr. Haddan, to mean Dobda the Greek, but it is merely the Latin form of the name Dubh da Crioch, or Dubh of the Two Countries, i.e. Ireland and Germany. This concealment of episcopal orders was also practised abroad by St. Disibod [q. v.] Dr. Todd expresses some doubt as to whether the pedigree which gives his descent from Niall is that of Virgilius of Salzburg, but thinks it may be, and that the term ‘dergaine’ added to the name is an error of transcription for ‘do germaine,’ ‘of Germany.’ The word ‘dergenaig,’ not ‘dergaine,’ as he has it, is, however, found attached to the name both in the ‘Book of Leinster’ and the ‘Lebar Brecc,’ and therefore Dr. Todd's conjecture will not stand, but it is evident that Vergil of Salzburg is the person meant, as in both the authorities mentioned he is termed ‘saint.’ ‘The Annals of the Four Masters’ at the year 784 have ‘the death of Virgil the Geometer abbot of Aghaboe.’ It has been maintained that this is not Virgil of Salzburg, but there seems no good reason to doubt it, and the attempt to prove otherwise involves many difficulties. That he had a career at home as well as abroad may be inferred from his pedigree appearing in the two works mentioned, which would not have been the case if his life was wholly spent abroad. He is said to have been canonised by Gregory IX in 1233, but however this may be he is, as we have seen, entitled ‘saint’ in the pedigree in the ‘Book of Leinster,’ a manuscript a hundred years earlier. The canonisation referred to would therefore seem to be rather an official recognition of a title already existing. Eminent as this indicates him to have been as a religious teacher, he was equally famous for his scientific attainments, as the epithet of ‘the Geometer’ proves, and it is not without interest to notice that, leaving Ireland in mature age, he must have received his education in his native land. This is confirmed by Alcuin, who in one of his minor poems, referring to Ireland having given him birth, adds that she also ‘educated and reared him’ (docuit, nutrivit). No literary remains of him survive, except a glossary which is quoted by Goldastus.

[Canisius, Ant. Lect. tom. iii. pt. ii. p. 273; Mabillon, Act. Bened. sæc. iii. pt. ii.; Harris's (Ware) Writers at ‘Virgil;’ Ussher's Sylloge, epist. xvi. xvii. (Works, iv. 461–5); Lanigan's Eccles. Hist. iii. 179–90, 205–7; Todd's St. Patrick, pp. 64, 65; Alcuin, Poem No. 231; Book of Leinster, p. 348 a; Lebar Brecc, p. 14 a; Annals of the Four Masters, A.D. 784.] 

FERGUS I (fl. 330 B.C.?), son of Ferchard, the first king of Scotland, according to the fictitious chronology of Boece and Buchanan, is said to have come to Scotland from Ireland about 330 B.C. to assist the Scots already settled in Scotland against the joint attack of the Picts and Britons. After succeeding in this he is further said to have gone back to Ireland to quell disturbances which had arisen in his absence, and to have been drowned in the passage off the rock or port which got the name of Carrick Fergus from him. According to Fordoun, Wyntoun, and most of the earlier genealogical lists of Scottish kings, the same account is given of the settlement of the Scots from Ireland by a King Fergus, son of Ferchard. According to others of the lists, Ferchard or Feardach, the father of Fergus, was the first and Fergus the second king. There follows a series of thirty-nine or forty-five kings between Fergus I and Fergus II, son of Earc. The critical insight of Father Innes demolished these fabulous lists of kings, and put the chronology of Scottish history on a sound foundation, by his proof that Fergus II, son of Earc, who came to Scotland about the end of the fifth century A.D., was in reality the first Dalriad king in Scotland. Innes's results have been adopted by subsequent historians.

The invention and persistent acceptance during so many centuries, from the twelfth to the eighteenth, of a fabulous series of kings is, though not unparalleled, a singular specimen of the genealogical myth which flatters the vanity of nations as of families. It is supposed to have been due to the desire to