Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/257

 finding his resolution fixed, they had earnestly prayed for a ship, and Flannan had been granted a miraculous voyage on a smooth stone. This legend, which has probably no foundation in fact at all, was known ‘all over the south of Ireland when the Emperor Frederick took Milan.’ Returning home through Tuscany, Burgundy, and France, Torrdelbach with his chieftains conducted him to Killaloe, and some Romans who attended him received permission to settle on an island near. Then all the saints and chiefs of the kingdom, far and near, came to hear what ‘new rules and instructions and sacraments of holy church he had brought from the church and court of Rome.’ Flannan's discourse in answer so affected Torrdelbach that the king sought the monastery of St. Colman at Lismore, where he became a monk, and with his companions laboured in clearing the ground. On Torrdelbach's return to Killaloe by direction of St. Colman he refused Flannan's entreaties to resume his kingdom, and died on his way back to Lismore.

Flannan, disappointed by the lukewarmness of his hearers, set sail for the Isle of Man. There nine men of horrid aspect demanded of him nine black rams. When he hesitated about complying, they threatened to ‘defame him as long as they lived.’ Flannan used to ‘sing his psalter in cold rivers,’ and fearing that he might be called on to desert his religious life and become king, he besought his Creator to send him some disfiguring blemish. In answer to his prayer he was visited by the ‘disease called morphea, which is the sixth species of elephantiasis, and forthwith rashes and erysipelas and boils began to appear on his face, so that it became dreadful and repulsive.’ Thus by native law he was ineligible for the throne. There is no record of the time or place either of his birth or death, but Dr. Lanigan conjectures that he was born in 640 or 650. In after times his bones were placed in a shrine wrought with wondrous art, and covered with gold and silver, which was placed on the altar of Cill-da-Lua. His memorials, that is his gospels, bells, and staff, were also ornamented with artistic skill and covered with the purest gold. There are still to be seen at Killaloe the church of Molua, on an island in the Shannon, and the oratory of St. Flannan, also called his ‘house.’ They are coeval with these saints according to Dr. Petrie, and the oratory served the twofold purpose of a church and a house like that at St. Doulough's. Ware, referring to St. Flannan's occupancy, says: ‘While he sat there his father Theodoric endowed the church of Killaloe with many estates, and dying full of years was magnificently interred in this church by his son Flannan.’

The life from which most of the foregoing particulars are taken was evidently written by one who desired to flatter the O'Briens, who were descended from Torrdelbach. This family was mainly instrumental in bringing in the customs of the Roman church to the south of Ireland, and hence the account of St. Flannan's visit to Rome, which would be highly improbable in the seventh or eighth century, though not in the twelfth or thirteenth, when in all probability this life was written. Flannan's day is 18 Dec.

[Vita Flannani Episcopi et Confessoris Codex Salmanticensis, pp. 643–80, London, 1888; Lanigan's Eccl. Hist. ii. 205, 211, iii. 147–9; Petrie's Round Towers, pp. 274–8; Martyrology of Donegal, pp. 179, 341; O'Curry's MS. Materials, p. 412; Reeves's Adamnan, pp. 34, 371; Ussher's Works, vi. 476.] 

FLATMAN, THOMAS (1637–1688), poet and miniature-painter, was admitted a scholar of Winchester College 22 Sept. 1649, being eleven years of age at the previous Michaelmas, and from Winchester he was admitted 11 Sept. 1654 to a scholarship at New College, Oxford. In the register of his admission to Winchester he is stated to have been born in Red Cross Street, London; in the New College register he is said to have come from Aldersgate Street. He was a fellow of New College in 1656, and in that year contributed to the collection of Oxford verses on the death of Charles Capel. In 1657 he left Oxford, without a degree, for the Inner Temple. He was created M.A. of Cambridge by the king's letters, dated 11 Dec. 1666, ‘being then A.B. of Oxford, as is there described’ (, ap., Athenæ, ed. Bliss).

Having settled in London he devoted his talents to painting and poetry. As a miniature-painter he was, and is, greatly esteemed; but his poetry, which was received with applause by his contemporaries, has been unduly depreciated by later critics. Granger declares that ‘one of his heads is worth a ream of his Pindarics.’ His Pindarics deserve the derision of Rochester:— Flatman, who Cowley imitates with pains, And rides a jaded muse whipt with loose reins. But his other poems are better. ‘A Thought of Death’ (which Pope imitated in ‘The Dying Christian to his Soul’) and ‘Death. A Song,’ are singularly impressive; the ‘Hymn for the Morning’ and ‘Another for the Evening’ are choice examples of devotional verse; and some of the lighter poems, notably the paraphrases of select odes of Horace, are elegant.