284 



the Great, and the restorer of learning in the University of Oxford. 

 It is of him Anastasius speaks in his letter to Charles the Bald,* and 

 William of Malmesbury, while he says he was well versed in Latin 

 and Greek, adds " Johannes Scotus vir perspicacis ingenii et multae 

 facundiae, qui * * * * in Franciam ad Carolum Calvum 

 transierat, ***** succedentibus annis munificenti^ Alfredi 

 allectus, venit in Angliam, &c."-t- Trithemius also extols his charac- 

 ter .J 



Cormac, king of Munster, was another celebrated personage of 

 this day, the author of the Psalter of Cashel before mentioned, as also 

 (it is supposed) of an ancient Irish Glossary, and a book on the gene- 

 alogies of the Irish saints. And last of all must be noticed, Probus, 

 who, in his Life of Saint Patrick, proves himself to have been an Irish- 

 man, when he speaks of the saint entering the Irish Sea, " mare nos- 

 trum adiit,"§ when he mentions the harbour at which the missionary 

 landed, " utique apud nos clarissimum,"ll and repeatedly calls Saint 

 Patrick, our most holy father.** 



* " Mirandum quomodo vir ille barbarus, qui in finibus mundi positus, quanto ab homi- 

 nibus conversatione tanto credi potuit, alterius linguse dictione longinquius talia intellectu 

 eapere, in aliamque linguam (e Graeca) tranferre voluerit. Johannem innuo Scotigenam virum, 

 quem auditu comperui per omnia sanctum." — Usher's Sylloge, p. 45. 



f De Gest. Reg. Angl. lib. 2. c. 4. 



I " Monachns in divinis scripturis doctus, et in discipline secularum literarum eruditissi- 

 mus, Graecis et Latinis ad plenum instructus, eloquio ingenio subtilis, sermone compositus." — 

 De Script. Eccl. 



§ Vita S. Patricii, lib. 1. c. 25. II Id. lib. I. c. 27. 



•* Id. lib. 2. c. 41. 



