ANTIQUITIES. 



I. — On the Ancient Irish Missal, and its Silver Box, described by Dr. O Conor in 

 his Catalogue of the Stowe MSS., and now the projjerty of the Earl of Ash- 

 burnham. By James Henthorn Todd, D. D., F. S. A., President. 



Read June 23, 1856. 



IN May, 1855, I had the privilege, through the kindness of their present noble 

 owner, to examine the Irish MSS., formerly in the possession of the Duke of 

 Buckingham, at Stowe. To one of these MSS., and to the inscriptions on the 

 silver box in which it is preserved, I purpose in the present communication to 

 call the attention of the Academy. 



But first, perhaps, it will be desirable to state, for the sake of some of my 

 hearers, that when these MSS. were offered for public sale in London, the Pro- 

 vost and Senior Fellows of Trinity College, with their usual enliglitened Hbera- 

 lity, commissioned me to purchase such of the Irish MSS. as I might think 

 most necessary for the University Library ; and placed at my disposal a sum of 

 £300 for that purpose. In the meanwhile, however, negotiations were opened 

 by the owners of the property with the British Museum, for the purchase of 

 the entire collection, which contains, besides the Irish MSS., a great number 

 of extremely valuable documents, illustrating the civil and ecclesiastical his- 

 tory of Great Britain and Ireland, and many most important specimens of 

 early English as well as Oriental Literature. But the trustees of the Museum 

 received the communication with indifference. They merely caused a propo- 

 sition to be made as to the disposal separately of the Irish portion of the collec- 

 tion ; and this having met with a prompt refusal, this magnificent collection of 

 MSS. became the property of the Earl of Ashbuenham. 



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