into the Clyde. Some English writers have strongly advocated the claims
of a Roman town named Bannaventa that once stood near the present site
of Davantry, Northamptonshire. Professor Bury, in his "Life of St.
Patrick," had the doubtful honour of inventing a new birthplace for the
Saint; he tells us that St. Patrick was born at a Bannaventa, "which
was probably situated in the regions of the Lower Severn."

ST. PATRICK WAS NOT BORN IN WALES.

The belief that St. Patrick was born in Ross Vale, Pembrokeshire, is
founded principally on the supposed acceptance of that view by Camden,
and on an old tradition to the effect that St. Patrick, having
completed his missionary labours in Ireland, founded a monastery at
Menevia and died there.

As the authority of the learned Camden carries with it great weight, it
will here be not out of place to quote his own declaration, which is as
follows: "Beyond Ross Vale is a spacious promontory called by Ptolemy
Octopitarum, by the Britons Pebidiog and Kantev-Dewi, and by the
English St. David's land. . . . It was the retiring place and nursery
of several Saints, for Calphurnius, a British priest--_as some have
written, I know not hew truly_--begot there St. Patrick, the Apostle of
Ireland" ("Britannia," vol. ii., p. 32). The same author, in another
place, gives expression to his own views on the subject, to which,
indeed, he does not seem to have devoted very serious study. "St.
Patrick," he writes, "was a Briton born in Clydesdale, and related to
St. Martin, Bishop of Tours, and he was a disciple of St. Germanus"
("Britannia," vol. ii., p. 326).

The Ross Vale theory has, in truth, as little in its favour as the old,