Dublin, 1847, pag. 257). Thady, Bishop of Ross, is also said to have died soon after his appointment in 1488, and to have had for his successor Bishop Odo in 1489. All this has been sufficiently refuted in a former number of the Record (pag. 106) and in the Dublin Review for April, pag. 384.

At pag. 380-1, our Blessed Thaddeus is identified with a distinguished member of the Augustinian order, named Thaddeus de Hipporegia, who is eulogized as "a man distinguished for learning, religious observance, preaching, holiness of life, and experience, a man of great zeal, and a sedulous promoter of the interests of his order". We should be glad, indeed, to be able to number amongst our countrymen this great ornament of the Augustinian body. Unfortunately, however, the historians of that order represent this Thaddeus, not as an Irishman, but as an Italian, whose surname points to the town or province of Ivrea (see above No. 1) as the place of his nativity. The article in the Record adds: "True, Elsius gives 1502 for the date of the friar's demise; but Elsius is never to be trusted in dates, and the printer may easily take MCCCCXCII. (the true date) for MCCCCCII". This is very plausible; but unfortunately here again there is no foundation for such reasoning, and hence the whole fabric falls to the ground. Elsius does not assign 1502, as the date of the friar's death; he merely writes "floruit usque ad annum 1502" (Encom. Augustin., Brussels, 1654, pag. 645). He, however, refers to Herrera for further information; turning to whose work we find thus explained the last formula of Elsius: "Durat ejus memoria usque ad an. 1502 in quo, habita Ferrariae synodo, Vicarius Congregationis acclamatus est. Nulla ultra illius in actis consistorialibus mentio", (Alphab. Augustin., vol. ii. pag. 450): and in a later Spanish compendium of this work, made by Herrera himself, it is said that this Thaddeus probably died in 1503, no mention being made of him in the acts of the order subsequent to the synod of Ferrara, held in the preceding year. There is also another circumstance equally fatal to the above theory. The illustrious Augustinian held many high offices in his order, and the historians Elsius and Herrera give the minutest details concerning them: "He was seven times definitor, (they write), thirteen times visitator, four times president of their congregations, nine times vicarius-generalis", etc, but both are careful to exclude him from the list of bishops of the order. There is, therefore, no one point of contact between the distinguished Augustinian friar Thaddeus, and our holy Bishop of Cloyne.

12. To prove that the Solum Cariense might justly be referred to in the eulogy or epitaph of a Bishop M'Carthy, it is interpreted as referring to Kerry, the burial place of that family. However, neither the Irish form of the name of that territory, i.e. Chiarr (as we learn from the Record, page 380) nor the only Latin name by which we have seen it designated in mediaeval records, i.e. Cherrium, can be said to have much affinity with the Cariense of the ancient document of Ivrea. We may also add that, were reference made to the burial place of the princely family of the M'Carthys, we should rather expect to find commemorated Muckross or Innisfallen, than the generic name of the vast territory of Kerry.

13. As regards the name Machara or Mechar, it is said that the Irish name MacCarthy, is pronounced Maccaura, with the last syllable short, as in Ardmagha, and numberless like words. Hence, Wadding, in speaking of the foundation of Muckross Abbey, Killarney, by Domnall M'Carthy, Prince of Desmond, quotes to this effect a bull of Paul II. in 1468, in which Domnall's name is spelled "Machar" (p. 379). This example from the bull of Pope Paul II. is evidently a mere typographical error. In the edition of Wadding's Annals to which the writer refers (Roman edit., tom. xiii., p. 558, seq.), that error stands side by side with Desimonia and Aertferten, and what is still worse, Wadding in his text, citing this passage, is made to say: "Refert in hoc diplomate pontifex, inchoatum fuisse a Donaldo Mac-Lare" (p. 432). The origin of these errors is, that the transcripts of the Pontifical letters were made by strangers to our language, and the Roman edition of Wadding did not appear until sixty years after his death. In the original edition of the work, however, which was printed under the revision of Bonaventure Baron and other Irish Franciscans, Wadding's text gives us the true Latin form of the name: "Refert in hoc diplomate pontifex inchoatum fuisse a Donaldo Mac-Care" (1st edit. Lugduni, 1648, tom. vi. p. 693), and elsewhere speaking of the same convent of Muckross, he says its founder was "Magnus Carthagus", Prince of Desmond. Indeed, the Latin form of the name M'Carthy is not one about which we should have much dispute; it occurs a thousand times in the works of O'Sullivan Beare, Dr. Roothe, and other Irish writers, and yet nowhere is it found expressed under that form which the name of the Blessed Thaddeus presents to us.

Whilst, however, we thus dissent from some of the conclusions of the learned writer in the Record for May, we wish to convey to him our sincere acknowledgments for having so prominently brought before the Irish public the name, too long forgotten, of one of our sainted Bishops, under whose protection we may hope that our holy faith will ever prosper, not only in our own island, but also in that now suffering province where his relics are enshrined.

THE HISTORY OF A CONVERSION.

The department of religious literature, which is made up of histories of individual conversions to the faith, has received of late years many remarkable additions. This class of literature is regulated in its growth by very peculiar conditions, and must be judged according to exceptional laws. Its subject—the mysterious workings of grace in the soul—is such as rather to impose a reverent silence than to invite fulness of description; and so well do elevated souls appreciate the sacredness of such silence, that, except for interests of religion or justice, they are unwilling to bring before men those inner secrets of their hearts. But when the interests of religion or justice have convinced them that silence is no longer a duty, the history they consent to unfold can rarely be other than attractive and profitable, seeing that it describes a human soul's toilsome journey from error to truth. The very minuteness of personal detail, which in any other composition would be a blot, in this becomes a merit and a charm. Among the religious motives that not unfrequently dictate such a history, a spirit of thankfulness for the blessing of faith has its fitting place. The favoured soul looks out from the shelter of its Father's house upon the perilous path it has just traversed, and gratefully traces the Providence by which its wayward feet were guided where so many strayed to their ruin; just as the rescued mariner hangs up ex voto a sketch of his frail bark in the moment of her peril, when, but for heaven's help, she would have foundered in the raging waves. Fruit of this pious gratitude is the narrative 5 we are now engaged upon; a narrative which will interest every Catholic, not only because it is the history of a remarkable conversion, but because of the light it incidentally throws on the present condition and future prospects of German Protestantism. But before we set