Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/32

20 which I have yet seen. St. Luke holds in his right hand the short Episcopal cambutta, rounded at the top, and truncate at the bottom; whilst St. Matthew holds a pastoral staff as long as himself, with a similar top, but pointed at the bottom. The Gospels of Mac Durnan, at Lambeth, are certainly the most elaborate specimen of this class of minuscule written manuscripts in England, and are equalled only in some respects by the Book of Armagh in Dublin. Indeed, from several circumstances, I am almost tempted to believe that both these volumes were the work of the same scribe and artist. 1st. The exquisite character of the hand- writing is identical in both volumes. 2nd. The same curious instances of false or peculiar orthography occur in both—Abraam; Issaac; pfeta for propheta; anguelum for angelum, &c., and precisely the same contractions are found in common. Thus the commencing verses of St. Mark's Gospel are letter for letter, and con- traction for contraction identical. Moreover, 3rdly, the ornamentation is in several instances almost identical. The Liber Generationis is treated in the Lambeth Volume just as in the Book of Armagh, except that the tail of the second letter I is cut off short, whilst the "initium" of St. Mark is precisely similar. The same peculiar wheel-like pattern, formed of interlaced ribbons, is also found, I think exclusively, in both these MSS. On the other hand, the Lambeth Volume is entirely destitute of the peculiar spirally convoluted lines, forming so very distinct a feature in many Irish drawings, and which occurs in some of the illuminations of the Book of Armagh; the scribe of the former volume does not appear to have been so anxious to preserve his name as Ferdomnach, who so repeatedly signed his in the Book of Armagh; and lastly, the circumstances inscribed in the Gospels of Maeiel Brigid Mac Durnan militate somewhat in point of time against its having been written by Ferdomnach; that is, supposing the entry quoted by Mr. Graves from the Annals of the Four Masters ("A.D. 845, Ferdomnach, a sage and choice scribe of the Church of Armagh, died,") to apply to the writer of the Book of Armagh, whilst the same work, as quoted by Dr. Todd, states that "A.D. .026, Maolbrighde, the son of Tornan, comarb of Patrick and Columbkille, felice senectute quievit". If, indeed, we translate the word tirquadrum in the inscription in the Lambeth Book ("Maeiel Bridus Mac Durnani istū textū per triquadrū Dō digne dogmatizat"), which has so much perplexed the writers on this volume by the words three quarters of a century, it is just possible that Ferdomnach may have written the volume just before his death; at any rate, the inscription does not affirm that the volume was written by Maeiel Brigid's direction; it may, therefore, have been executed before his days, although the term "felice senectute quievit" will admit of his having been born twenty or twenty-five years before the death of Ferdomnach; the middle of the ninth century appearing to me to be the date most proper to be assigned to the Gospels of Maeiel Brigid Mae Durnan. I know no other illumination representing the cambutta, of which such beautiful specimens are still in existence (especially that of Clonmacnoise, in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, and one in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire), but in the engraving given by Dr. O'Conor, of the Duke of Buckingham's Cumdach, is a small figure representing a bishop, holding a short cambutta, and in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy is a small metal figure of an ecclesiastic, in relief, found at Aghaboe, also holding a short cambutta in the right hand, and a book in the left. With