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, prcemium ejus non 

 habet finem. Madalfrid scnpsit 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 palaeography, 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 Cuneatic 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 



k 



See Moore's History of Ireland, vol. i. p. 310. 



