209 



savagery have dwelt together upon the earth, associated, although in 

 contrasted aspects ; and their continuance, without coalescing, awaits 

 the solution of the providential, not geologic future. 



MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1865. 



The Yeey Eev. Chaeles Geaves, D. D., President, in the Chair. 



The Eev. Charles P. Meehan ; William Mansell Hennessy, Esq. ; and 

 T. Henderson Babington, M. D. ; were elected members of the Academy. 



W. H. Haedestge, M.E. I. A., communicated the following paper: — 



On ceetain Manusceipt Teais slatio^s of a Poetiok op Yiegil's 

 ^Eneid, compiled befoee 1690. 



I offee on behalf of my friend, Francis Cumming, Esq., of "Woodstock, 

 in the county of Galway, J. P. — to be placed in the Library of the Aca- 

 demy as a deposit in trust for him and his heirs male — three manuscript 

 volumes, containing metrical translations into English of the 3rd, 4th, 

 6th, 8th, 9th, 11th, and 12th JEneids of Yirgil. 



Upon the first sight of these volumes on the drawing room table of 

 my friend, their venerable aspect and foreign material and manufacture 

 induced me to open and examine them ; and I soon became much inte- 

 rested in what appears to me to be an eminently literal rendering into 

 English verse of the well-remembered classical companions of bygone 

 days; but discovering in the ninth and eleventh ^Eneids marginal anno- 

 tations acknowledging Dryden to have been the contributor of the Epi- 

 sode of Nisus*" 1 and Euryalus, and John Stafford of that of Camillaf- — and, 

 further, finding that the third ^.Eneid is certified to have been finished 

 at St. Germains on September 18, 1692, and that the fourth JEneid 

 was rewritten three several ; imes successively by persons bearing the 

 surnames of Bryerly, Bysh, andDalton, and, after having undergone 486 

 corrections, was then submitted to the judgment of Dryden, combined 

 interest and curiosity influenced me to the attempt of discovering the 

 author of these volumes. 



After having taken much pains in this research, and unravelled the 

 mystery, I found that the same voyage of literary discovery had been 

 successfully accomplished by Mr. Lentaigne, who contributed a paper 

 on the subject, published in the Academy's "Proceedings," J under the 

 date of May 13, 1839. 



That communication supplies all that is known of the history of the 

 manuscript volumes, and notices the particulars above described ; also 

 the more important one, that an ineffectual attempt had been made to 



* 9th ^Eneid, lines 283 to 667. 

 X Vol. i., p. 309. 



f 11th iEneid, lines 721 to 925. 



