40 



« 



Professor Lloyd read a note on a new electrical phe- 

 nomenon. 



The Rev. J. H. Todd, F.T. CD., gave a short account 

 of a MS. of the four Gospels, of the seventh century and in 

 Irish characters, which is preserved in the Library of his 

 Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth. The 

 volume is a small quarto, in the minute hand called Caroline^ 

 common to all Europe in the reign of Charlemagne, but now 

 used only in Ireland, and known as the Irish character. The 

 present volume appears to have belonged to Maelbrigid 

 Mac Dor«an, or Mac Tornan, who was Archbishop of Ar- 

 magh in the ninth century, and died A. D. 925. By him it 

 was probably sent as a present to Athelstan, King of the 

 Anglo-Saxons, who presented it to the city of Canterbury. 

 These facts are inferred from the following inscription in 

 Anglo-Saxon characters, (and in a hand of the ninth or be- 

 ginning of the tenth century,) which occurs on a blank page 

 immediately following the genealogy in the first chapter of 

 St. Matthew. 



>J< MyEIELBRIDVS. MAC. 

 DVRNANI. ISTVM. TEXTVM. 

 PER. TRIQVADRVM. DO. 

 DIGNE. DOGMATIZAT. 

 ^ AST. AETHELSTANVS.. 

 ANGLOSiEXANA. REX. ET. 

 RECTOR. DORVERNENSI. 

 METROPOLI. DAT. PER. .EVVM. 



The former part of this inscription Mr. Todd professed 

 himself unable to translate to his own satisfaction. Textus, 

 in the Latinity of the middle ages, is a term frequently em- 

 ployed to denote the Four Gospels ; but dogmatizarcy in 

 the same dialect, is generally used in a bad sense, to assert 

 erroneous or heretical opinions, a signification which it can- 

 not well bear here : triquadrust when used as an adjective, 



