262: 



gious blunder. A simple inverted C (q) is certainly a contraction 

 for " Con" but an inverted C, written in the manner given in the fac- 

 simile, is one of those marks which are common in ancient Irish manu- 

 scripts, with which every one that perfectly understands those writ- 

 ings must be acquainted, and which is called " Cionn fa eite," or 

 " Cor fa chasain." Its use is to shew that the word before it, in the 

 line where it occurs, was the termination of a paragraph; that a new 

 paragraph commences on the next line ; and that what follows this 

 mark, in its own line, is a continuation of that new paragraph carried 

 up from the line underneath. Examples of the use of these marks 

 are given in the Irish grammars of General Vallancey, Rev. Doctor 

 O'Brien, and William Haliday, Esq. 



The specimens given on Plate III. with the exception of No. 5, 

 are all from Irish manuscripts. No. 4 is from an old copy of the 

 tragic tale of the "Death of the Children of Uisneach," or, as.it is 

 sometimes written, " Usnoth," a literal translation of which, by the 

 late Theophilus O'Flanagan, was published in the " Transactions of the 

 Gaelic Society of Dublin," in 1809. This number furnishes another 

 proof that Doctor Smith was unable to understand ancient Gaelic 

 manuscripts. He has fallen into a great error in the second line of 

 his explanation, where he mistakes the contracted form of writing hi 

 in Irish for li, and he therefore converts the words '■^ Alba cona hi?i- 

 gantaibh," into ^^Alba cona lingantaibh," which he translates "Albion 

 with all its lakes." The true translation should be *'Alba with its 

 wonders." Hingantaibh is the dative or ablative plural of Ingnadh 

 or longnadh, a wonder ; but lingantaibh is not the dative or ablative 

 plural of linn, a lake or pool. No Irish word of one syllable can 

 ever make three syllables in any of its oblique cases. Linnlaibh is 

 the regular dative plural of linn. Another error, into which Doctor 

 Smith has fallen, occurs in translating the word Alba, the Irish name 



