168 
the history of the prohibition given to Adam and Eve against — 
touching the forbidden fruit. The poet says that he heard it 
as a tradition that Adam had been one thousand years and six 
hours in Paradise, before his transgression. 
The seventh poem describes the tempting of Eve and the 
fall of man. 
This must suffice as a specimen of the work, for tinie did 
not permit a complete perusal of it. All that could be done 
was to make a list of the first lines of each poem, for the pur- 
pose of identifying them if they should chance to turn up in 
any collection here or elsewhere, or if any fragment of the 
work should by chance be met with in this country. 
A fragment in the possession of Mr. Curry, was written 
in the county Leitrim in 1727; and as the Oxford copy was 
deposited in the Bodleian by Archbishop Laud, it follows 
that there must have been another copy in Ireland in the be- 
ginning of the eighteenth century. It would be very desira- 
ble to ascertain where this copy now is; and the fact is here 
noticed in the hope that some member of the Academy may 
have it in his power to make it known, if not to secure it for 
our library. 
Amongst the Egerton MSS. in the British Museum is a 
small manuscript volume, described in the printed catalogue as 
a copy of Psaltar na Rann, and stated to be in the handwriting 
of the learned Irish scholar, Peter O’Connell, of the county 
Clare, who died in 1824. 
Both these statements are mistakes. Mr. Curry found on 
examining the MS. that it is not a copy of the Psaltar na Rann, 
nor in the handwriting of Peter O'Connell. It turns out to be 
an Irish Martyrology, in verse, of much more recent date than 
the Psaltar na Rann, and in the handwriting of the celebrated 
Duald Mac Firbis, who was murdered in 1666. 
It is time, however, to return to the Bodleian MS. 
The Psaltar na Rann occupies thirty-nine folios. 
At fol. 40 we have a curious poem, very much of the 
