Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 9.djvu/364

 288 PROCEEDINGS AT MEETINGS OF supposing that the first two perpeudicular strokes of the inscription are united hy a cross har so as to form an H, the second of these strokes also forming the first stroke of the n, Mr. Ramsay considers that the first word is the Gaelic chros, the rest heing Latin, it heing as he says, impossible to write the Latin word crux, there heing no equivalent to the-|- iu Gaelic, hence the necessity for using the vocative chros of the Gaelic cros. All this is very ingenious, but very erroneous. " 1st. The inscription is entirely written in that debased form of the Roman uncial and minuscule characters which has been termed Anglo- Saxon, but which is too exclusive a name for it, as it was not the creation of the Anglo-Saxons, but is used in L-ish and British, as well as in subsequent Anglo-Saxon monuments ; it might more appropriately be termed Hiberno-Britannic. •' 2nd. As more than half the panel containing the inscription is left blank, there is no reason to suppose that part was inscribed upon an upper panel. " 3rd. The small cross prefixed to inscriptions was by no means general. I know many in which it was wanting ; besides, I believe the Christian invocation indicated by the cross is really supplied by the inscription itself. " 4th. The idea of adding letters at the end of the lines is a purely gratuitous one. There is no reason for asserting that the second letter is H, or that the last letter in the first line is m, or the second letter of the second line D, or the fourth letter of the third line E (especially as the other e's are of uncial form, or for the transformation of cus of the fourth line into ciijs (for cujus) instead of ejus. Gaelic cros, instead of employing the Latin word crux, because the Gaelic language does not admit a -|- is insufticient, as there are numerous crosses in Wales in which the word crux appears in Latin inscriptions ; besides the use of the + must have been well known to the persons who dictated the other parts of the supposed Latin inscription before us. " Hence in addition to the absurdity itself of the proposed interpretation, I have no hesitation in rejecting Mr. Ramsay's view. " The inscription is evidently not Latin, but whether it be Gaelic or Scandinavian, I am not able to assert, but think the latter not improbable. It will be observed that at the end of the first line there are three dots placed in a triangle, which in early inscriptions and manuscripts written in these islands indicated a full stop,^ and hence we arrive at the certain conclusion that this inscription consists of two separate divisions. Now in many of the early inscribed stones of Wales and England we have a similar division ; the first sentence being the Christian invocation, and the latter the name of the person commemorated by the monument. Can such an interpretation be given to the inscription before us ? Now the first word Drosten is very like the Teutonic or Anglo-Saxon Drihten or Dryhten, Dens, or Dominus, and there are various Welsh crosses the inscriptions of which commence, ' In nomine Dei,' whilst the six last letters of the inscrijuion may possibly be the name of the person commemorated, Forcus or Feargus. The space left at the end of the third line is no proof that the word in that line is complete, because there was not space for the letters cus, and the sculptor did not choose to break the syllable into cu and s alone in the N. Tr. lie Diploiii. iii,, 171.
 * ' 5th. The reason for transforming dros into chros as the vocative of the
 * PalaDo(n-. Sacra Pi.-t. Platos of the Gospels of Mac Durnuii aii.l lioolc of Kdls.—