[ 457 J 



XXIY. 



REMARKS ON A COSMOGRAPHICAL TRACTATE m THE 

 IRISH LANGUAGE IN THE LIBRARY OF THE ROYAL 

 IRISH ACADEMY. By REV. MAXWELL H. CLOSE, M.A. 



[EeadJiTNE 17, 1901.] 



The maimscript now to be considered consists, as we sliaU see, of a 

 translation from the Latin ; it is Irish, only as to its language. It is- 

 beautifully wiitten on Telluni, in a small hand of about a.d. 1400. 

 This copy is complete, except for the illegibility of the last (outside) 

 page. 



There is also, in the Academy's library the first half of another 

 copy, a facsimile illustration from which is given in 0' Curry's Lec- 

 tures on the " Manuscript Materials of ancient Irish History." There 

 is also in Marsh's Library, Dublin, another copy which is complete, 

 except for the illegibility of the last (outside) page. The last two are 

 quite of the same style, and eyidently of the same date, as the first- 

 mentioned one ; they are likewise on vellum. If we might venture 

 to judge fi'om a perhaps insufficient collation, the copy in Marsh's 

 Library seems to be, as to its text, rather superior to the whole copy 

 in the Academy ; but as to its diagrams it is decidedly inferior thereto. 

 It agrees more closely, in both respects, with the half copy in the 

 Academy. 



Two-thirds of the contents of this tractate are found to be a more 

 or less close version of a work by Messahalah (Mascha Allah), a Jew of 

 Alexandria who wrote in Arabic ; he flourished shortly before a.d. 800, 

 and lived in the reigns of the Abasside Khalifs, Almansur, Haroun 

 Alraschid, and Almamun ; the last being a patron of Messahalah. The 

 remaining chapters of the tractate, twelve in number, are from some 

 other source (possibly sources) ; they are clearly not from any work of 

 Messahalah himself, though he did write various other works, astro- 

 nomical and astrological, which have come down to us. Some, at 

 least, of these chapters are much later than Messahalah's time. One 

 of them. Chapter 7, contains mention of glass spectacles as used by 

 old people to read with ; this was fii'st done about a.d. 1320. Another 



