Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/283

 Anecdota. 273 partly in Irish, and as containing before the Te Deum, the verse Laudate pueri, and after it the short hymn, Te Patrem adoramus. It is remarkable that in another very ancient Irish MS., the Antiphonarium Benchorense, preserved in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, there is to be found a text of the Te Deum agreeing in several particulars with that which is here for the first time published. This Antiphonarium belonged to the Monastery of Beanchar, now Bangor, in the county of Down, founded by St Comhgall, a.d. 558, and has been printed by Muratori, (Opere, Tom. xi. part 3, pp. 217251. Arezzo, 1770). The MS., so far as I know, has never been examined by any Irish scholar, and therefore we are ignorant whether it may not contain some notes or glosses in the Irish language. If however we are to judge from what Muratori says of it, we must conclude that it is in Latin only. The copy of the Te Deum which it contains is en- titled Hymnus* in Die Dominico, and like that in the Dublin MS. is preceded by the verse Laudate pueri, but it is not followed by the other verses beginning Te Patrem adoramus which occur in our MS., but ends with the verse, " Fiat Domine misericordia tua super nos, quemadmodum speravimus in te." It has however several remarkable points of agreement with the Dublin text ; it coincides with it in what I cannot but think the true readings, Tu ad liberandum mundum suscepisti hominem, Non horruisti Virginis uterum, and, Eterna fac cum Sanctis tuis Gloria munerari. It omits also, what I have little doubt are spurious additions to the original hymn, the verses, Dignare Domine, die isto sine peccato nos custodire, Miserere nostri Domine, Miserere nostri, and the verse with which the common text concludes, In te Domine speravi : non confundar in seternum. hymns the title of Hymnum, as if he represent the termination us, very simi- thought that word to be a neuter form lar to that which MSS. of the 15th cen- equivalent to Hymnus. The mistake tury employ to denote a final um. arose from want of familiarity with Irish Vol. I. June, 1854. 18
 * Muratori gives this and other MSS., in which a contraction is used to