448 
inscription. It is impossible to determine what selection the 
stone-cutter may have made in his drafts on the Roman and 
Irish alphabets. At all events, he must have so managed 
matters, as to confine his work within the prescribed limits. 
‘* I translate the above as follows : 
“©¢OQ! Cross! Time may destroy thee, too! Pray for his 
(the person named in the first part of the inscription) soul 
“«‘ Now, there is a singularity in this inscription: the first 
word (Chros) is Gelic, and the rest are Latin. How may this 
be accounted for ? The ancient Gelic term for a cross is cros. 
The vocative is formed by aspirating the nominative into 
chros. To write the Latin crux with the Irish character was 
impossible, ‘The alphabet has no 2, and the sound of this let- 
ter is foreign to the Gelic language. Hence, instead of Saze- 
nach, we have Sassenach. Thus there was an obvious neces- 
sity for using the vocative of the Gelic word, cros. 
** IT conjecture that, as was usual in such cases, the first part 
of the inscription contained the name of the person to whose 
memory the cross was erected. Thus, the part above deci- 
phered would be a very natural sequence. It is marked by 
all that touching simplicity which is characteristic of inscrip- 
tions on monuments of the same era, noticed by Mr. Petrie, 
whose accurate and tasteful researches have thrown so much 
light on some of the darkest and most interesting points of 
* Gelic antiquities. 
*¢ Of the devices, animals, &c., on the back of the cross, I 
shall not here speak, as my present business is with the in- 
scriptions. Suffice it to say, that I think I could prove that 
some of these devices are borrowed from monuments, still ex- 
tant in Scotland, the age of which exceeds that of the cross by 
many centuries. 
‘** The next inscription which I shall notice is that on an 
ancient monument in the Church of Fordun. Fordun is a 
parish of Kincardineshire, the county immediately north of 
Forfarshire. Kincardineshire is sometimes called the Mearns, 
