The Rev. J. 11. Todd on an Ancient Irish Missal. 5 



text of the ancient Latin Missal which the box contains. Such a transcript 

 would have superseded his unsatisfactory description of the MS., and would 

 have been an invaluable addition to our existing materials for a history of 

 the primitive Missal of the western Churches. 



As my examination of the original box enables me to correct some mis- 

 takes committed by Dr. O'Conor in his attempts to translate the inscriptions 

 on its top and bottom, I shall first give these inscriptions in full, making such 

 remarks as may be necessary as to the particulars in which I differ from Dr. 



O'CONOK. 



The inscriptions on what is now the bottom of the box are evidently older 

 than those on the top, and cannot be later than the middle of the eleventh 

 century. They are inscribed on four plates of silver, running round the sides 

 of the square ; and on two others crossing in the centre at right angles. The 

 central part of these two latter plates has, however, been rudely cut away, in 

 a most barbarous manner, apparently by a chisel, in order to make way for an 

 oval, which originally contained a crystal, such as we commonly find on eccle- 

 siastical boxes of this description. This oval is exactly the same as that on 

 the other side, or top of the box, and proves that the mutilation of the inscrip- 

 tion must have been perpetrated at the time when the inscriptions and other 

 ornaments of the top were added. This is an additional proof that the inscrip- 

 tions of the bottom axe the more ancient; but, without that evidence, the 

 characters sufficiently prove this to be so to every one who is at all familiar 

 with monuments of this kind. 



I may remark here, that Dr.O'CoNOR's plate representing the bottom of the 

 bos ought to be inverted. This will place the inscriptions in their natural 

 order, beginning with the following, which will then appear on the upper 

 rim;* — 



* It is to be observed that Dr. O'Conor represents the letter p of these inscriptions by the 

 italic n — Appendix I., p. 2, sq. (Stowe Cat., vol. i.) But this was from a want of Irish type, not 

 from ignorance. It is strange, however, that he did not print the letter, as he knew it was, 

 r, instead of telling his readers, " It is also observable, that the letter r is scarcely different from 

 the letter n, being written with two shafts of equal length," &c. This is only saying, in other 

 words, that the inscription is in Irish characters of the eleventh century; but when every other 

 letter in the inscription was represented by its corresponding modern italic letter, one does not 

 see why r should be represented by n. 



