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concerned, common to the Scots with the Britons, Saxons, and Franks, and that the terms applied to it were always intended to distinguish it from the Roman fashion of building with dressed

stones.

In conclusion, I have to state that the Book of Deer was first brought to light in the year 1860, through the research of Mr. Henry Bradshaw, the librarian of the University Library, Cambridge; and it was at one time hoped that the Club might have had the benefit of the services of this accomplished scholar as editor of the work.

When it was found that Mr. Bradshaw's engagements rendered this impossible, the Council prevailed on Joseph Robertson, LL.D., to undertake the work; but after making a careful transcript of the text, he also was compelled to abandon the design from the pressure of his official duties.

The charge of editing the volume then devolved on me, and the work has been in progress during the last three years.

The plan adopted has already been incidentally referred to. It led me to give such a copy of the Book as represents all its peculiarities of text, orthography, and punctuation.

With the view of exhibiting the relation of the Deer Gospels to the Vulgate, a collation of them was made with the Codex Amiatinus, of which the results will be found at the bottom of each page; and a separate collation was also made of the fourth chapter

Pretium gallici operis (cf. adnot. 158) fuit ergo aequum sive ex parvis sive ex magnis asseribus ductum esset, habita ratione minoris impensae parvis asseri

bus (seu scindulis) comparandis auctaque opera in illis collocandis tum maioris impensae, minutaeque operae pro asseribus maioribus.

of St. John's Gospel, as in the Book of Deer, with the versions in the Codex Brixianus (Italic recension), the Vulgate, and the Celtic Gospels, known as the Book of Kells, the Book of Dimma, the Book of Moling, the Book of Armagh, the Lindisfarne Gospels, and an early fragment of the Gospels at Durham. The results are given in a tabular form at page xxxiv. of the Preface.

The plates of Facsimiles contain all the illuminations in the volume, and are exact representations of their present appearance.1 The worn and stained condition of some of them would suggest that the volume had at times been carried about by those who used it. The figures on Plates XXI. and XXII. occur on the margins and open spaces throughout the Book, and appear to have been dashed off by the scribe in the course of his writing.

The editor cannot conclude these remarks without acknowledging the obligations under which he has been laid in the progress of his work.

Mr. Bradshaw's discovery of the volume (one only of the many happy results which have crowned his researches in the course of the last ten years) has already been referred to, but I must add that when engaged in the collation of the printed sheets with the original MS. at Cambridge, I received from Mr. Bradshaw much kindness and ready aid.

1 Some pages of the Book of Deer have been reproduced by the process of photozincography in the first part of the volume of the National MSS. of Scotland, published under the directions of the Lord Clerk Register of Scotland. Drawings of many of the figures and borders have been

given in "The Sculptured Stones of Scotland," volume second, and in Mr. Westwood's great work, "The Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish MSS.," but without any attempt to represent the colours of the illuminations, or the worn condition of the pages.

By the kind permission of the University authorities, the volume was sent for a time to the General Register House, Edinburgh, when a transcript was made of it by Mr. Robertson, and the drawings in facsimile were prepared by Mr. Gibb.

I thankfully bear my testimony to the care with which Mr. Gibb has completed his work. The plates are such as might have been expected from the artist of the "Sculptured Stones of Scotland," and have been pronounced by competent judges to equal any facsimiles of faded illuminations yet produced.

For collating the text with the Gospels in Trinity College, Dublin, and in the Chapter Library, Durham, I am indebted to the ready aid of Mr. Hennessy and Mr. Greenwell; and in the collations with the Vulgate, I have been much assisted by Mr. Macleod.

The valuable services of my old and valued friend Dr. Reeves, in reading the proofs of the prefatory chapters at a time when he had many other claims on his attention, require my special acknowledgments.

From Mr. James Peter, the minister of the parish of Deer, I have received much useful aid in my attempts to identify on the spot the names of the lands conveyed in the Celtic grants with those still applied to places in the district.

The translations of the Gaelic legend and grants in the volume have been given from the version of Mr. Whitley Stokes, the most accomplished Celtic scholar of the day. These curious memoranda formed the subject of a paper by Mr. Stokes, in the "Saturday Review" of 8th December 1860, where translations for the first time were given; and they appeared afterwards, accompanied by critical notes and a glossary, in his "Goidilica, or Notes on the

Gaelic Manuscripts, preserved at Turin, Milan, Berne, Leyden, the monastery of St. Paul's, Carinthia, and Cambridge, with eight hymns from the Liber Hymnorum, and the old-Irish notes in the Book of Armagh," pp. 47-63; a volume privately printed for the editor, at Calcutta, in the year 1866.

JOHN STUART.

EDINBURGH, November 1869.

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