359 
of the ninth century, in the Royal Library at Munich, in 
which the Scribe has written the following sentence in Anglo- 
Saxon runes: “ Omnis labor finem habet, premium ejus non 
habet finem. Madalfrid scripsit istam partem. Deo gratias 
quod ego perfeci opus meum.” Thus recording his name, 
which he may not have been allowed to do without resorting 
to this artifice, and at the same time giving a proof of his 
learning. 
Mr. Graves insists much upon the importance of deter- 
mining, with precision, the date of a manuscript so ancient, 
and of so much interest, as the Book of Armagh. By effect- 
ing this, a great advance is made towards the establishment 
of principles of paleography, by which we may estimate the 
age of Irish manuscripts in general; and we are furnished 
with the means of refuting the assertion, still repeated, that 
Ireland has no manuscripts of a date more ancient than the 
close of the ninth century.* 
The Secretary of Council read the abstract of a paper by 
the Rev. Dr. Hincks, on the third Persepolitan Writing, and 
on the Mode of expressing Numerals in Cuneatie Characters. 
‘¢ When I laid before the Academy, at its last sitting, my 
alphabet of the third Persepolitan writing, with the corre- 
sponding lapidary characters, I by no means expected that it 
would prove perfectly correct ; no first attempt at the alphabet 
of an unknown language has been so. I considered it, how- 
ever, an approximation, and probably as near a one as could 
_ be attained by means of the data in my possession; and I 
_ looked forward to its being amended by those who had the 
command of more numerous inscriptions. There were some 
circumstances which left no doubt on my mind that error ex- 
isted somewhere in it, though I could not discover where. 
~The number of dentals was too small ; there was no character 
SERENE Cn © ST WrR Ne RRR OP) a ne Eee Oe a 
| * See Moore’s History of Ireland, vol. i. p. 310. 
