The present Edition. In the present edition, I have aimed, in the first place, at producing a thoroughly trustworthy transcript of the MS. With this object I have carefully collated Michel's text with the MS. at Lambeth, and have found and corrected a considerable number of positive misreadings. I have also adhered to the original more closely than M. Michel aimed at doing. The text is, in fact, printed as nearly as possible as it has come down to us, except that the contractions have been expanded—the letters supplied being, however, printed in italics—and marks of punctuation have been added. In many cases a single word is divided in the MS., generally, but not always, according to its component parts; and, on the other hand, two or more words are often run into one. These peculiar word-divisions, where clearly marked, have been reproduced, and, where likely to deceive, noted. In some cases, as, for instance, in ll. 15, 2321, and 2860, they have been unintentionally reproduced by M. Michel and have misled commentators. Even the apparently arbitrary use of u and v has been followed. This may be thought to have been a superfluous labour, but graphic peculiarities of this kind are among the data which may enable palaeographers to fix the date and even the place of composition of a MS., and as this chronicle is preserved in a single MS. it is all the more important to have a transcript of it which, short of a facsimile, will as nearly as possible supply the place of the original should any accident happen to it. A literal line for line translation is printed side by side with the text, and this, together with the footnotes, will, it is hoped, obviate any difficulty to which the reproduction of the faults and peculiarities of the MS. might otherwise give rise. This method of translation gives no scope for reproducing the swing and spirit of the original, but in all translations something must be sacrificed, and I have thought that for students of history and of language it is impossible to adhere too closely to the text at whatever sacrifice of form. I should add that the MS. has no accents (except where noted), but the letter i (which also stands for j) is marked by a fine stroke like an acute accent. These marks seem to have been added after the text was written—at least they are in a somewhat lighter ink—and in several cases they have been omitted. It is noteworthy, too, that the letter z seems, in many cases at least, to have been an addition, for which however space was left. The Notes which follow the text in the present edition are mainly concerned with the identification of places, territories, tribes, and persons mentioned in the poem, and with references to the statements of Giraldus and of the Irish annalists and English chroniclers which corroborate, supplement, or are at variance with, the statements contained in the poem. At the end are added Indexes of the names of the persons and of the places mentioned in the poem, and a Glossary of the more unusual words and forms found in the text. I have also constructed a Map of Leinster and Meath, showing the positions of the principal territories and places, so far as they have been ascertained, at the time of the Anglo-Norman invasion. With a few exceptions drawn from other sources, these names are all to be found in the topographical poems of O'Dubhagain and O'Huidhrin, which are believed to have been written in the years 1372 and 1420 respectively, and which give an account of the tribes and territories of Ireland prior to the English occupation. With regard to those names which appear in the text I have, where it seemed necessary, placed them in brackets underneath the corresponding Irish names. In locating the places mentioned in the topographical poems I must express my great obligations to the writings of the late Dr. John O'Donovan, without whose masterly elucidations of Irish topography I should never have attempted to construct this map. Frequent references throughout the notes will also be found to the , now the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, a publication which only requires a good comprehensive Index to make it extremely useful to writers on Irish history and antiquities.

Author of the Poem. As to the author of the poem and the date of its composition nothing is known beyond what can be gleaned from the poem itself. It is not even known where Carew got the MS. It has been much too broadly ascribed to Morice Regan. Carew himself appears to have been the first to give currency to this misconception. The MS. is bound up with a couple of outer plies of vellum, added to protect it, and one of these contains, in Carew's handwriting, on the upper left-hand comer, the signature, G. Carew, and the date 1617. Underneath is the following title and description:— An Historie of Irland

This old frenche ffragment wants bothe beginninge and endinge. Neverthelesse in the first tenne Lynes it appears that this storie was written by one called Maurice Regan (sometymes mentioned in this discourse) who was servant and interpreter unto Dermond M'Moroghe kinge of Leinster and put into frenche meeter by one of his familiar acquaintance. It endeth abruptlie at the winninge of Limericke which was not full 3 yeares after Robert fitz Stephen his first arrivall in Irland.This is a mistake. The taking of Limerick was six years after Fitz-Stephen's landing. See Chronological Table.

A note to the same effect heads Carew's abstract of the poem, on the margin of which, opposite the name Maurice Regan, is written this Maurice Regan was the author of this Historie.

Carew evidently drew this conclusion from the opening lines of the poem, which must be examined with some care. Now these opening lines have been repeatedly wrongly transcribed and wrongly interpreted. As printed in Harris's they are pure gibberish, and the translation is of course wrong. These mistakes are, in the main, due to Harris and not to Carew, who does not translate the passage, nor in the Lambeth copy of Carew's Abstract is it transcribed. Lines 4–8 run thus in Harris's version:— Maurice Regan was the man, Who face to face indited to me These actions of the king, And of himself showed me this history.

Wright, in his introductory essay to Michel's edition, prints the correct text of the first eleven lines (except that he puts latinier for latimer) side by side with Harris's gibberish, which he wrongly attributes to Carew, and then gives his own literal translation; but, curiously enough, he seems to fall into precisely the same error as that which he attributes to Harris, namely, that Regan had written the history. Wright's version of these four lines is as follows:— Maurice Regan was he, I spoke mouth to mouth with him, Who endited this history, [Who] shewed me the history of him.

Now Wright has mistaken parla (the 3rd person) for parlai (the 1st), thus apparently making Regan the subject of endita and by rendering this latter word endited he has certainly done little to correct Harris's error.I may add that Wright translates l. 10: Here I will read of the bachelor (i. e. the king), apparently taking lirrai as the fut. of lire instead of as the fut. of laier=laisser. This formula of transition to a new subject occurs several times in the poem; see Glossary, sub lesser.

The translation now offered, which makes Regan the subject of parla, and takes the words lui ki cest(e) iest(e) endita as referring to the anonymous writer of the geste, with whom Regan spake face to face, still leaves room for a certain amount of doubt as to the making of the poem that has come down to us and as to Regan's exact contribution thereto. Apart for the moment from ll. 5 and 6, it seems clear from ll. 2 and 7 that the writer who speaks of himself in the 1st person derived his account directly from Morice Regan. Standing by itself l. 7 might mean no more than l. 2, but there are repeated references throughout the poem to la chanson, la geste, lestorie, and lescrit, as the authority for particular statementsThis authority is called la chanson in ll. 456, 1912; la geste, ll. 337, 1065, 1309, 1779, 2598, 3177; lestorie, ll. 2403, 3003, and lescrit, l. 3134. By la chancon in l. 143, however, is meant the present poem. Similar expressions referring to pre-existing materials are to be found elsewhere, as, for instance, in , Romania, vol. 11, p. 22 et seq. This poem, which, according to the editor M. Paul Meyer, was probably composed by a professional trouvère from materials supplied by Jean d'Erlee, contains the following references:—Si com en lestorie le truis, l. 3656; Mais nostre estorie me remembre, l. 3885; Li escriz dit ce que je di, l. 16027; Tant me fait li escris entendre, l. 15909; and see id. p. 31., and from these references taken in connection with the opening lines we must, I think, conclude that Morice Regan supplied the writer with a written chronicle of the events which had already been put into metre, so to deserve the name of a chanson. Morice Regan, Dermot's faithful latimer, may have himself kept such a chronicle, and our rhymer appears not to have been the first to translate and versify the materials. In dealing with a fragmentary passage such as that before us, there is an inevitable risk of misapprehension; but I am inclined to think that the words lui ki cest(e) iest(e) endita (ll. 5 and 6) refer, not to the person intended by the words moi and me in ll. 2 and 7, but to the writer of this pre-existing geste, chanson, or estorie. This supposition will, at any rate, account for the change from the 1st to the 3rd person. That our writer did not rely solely on the written materials supplied to him may be inferred from the fact that he repeatedly quotes as his authority common report, or the statement of old peopleSee the following passages:—ll. 109, 111, 236, 251, 315, 1500, 1547, 2437, 2584. 2594, 2678, 2686, 2822, 2955, 3053, 3171, 3400. At the same time we must be careful as to the inferences we draw from these phrases. They were the common-places of the rhyming chroniclers, often used merely to complete a line or for the sake of the rhyme. M. Michel infers from the use of such phrases as solum la gent de antiquite (l. 251) and solum le dit as anscienz (l. 1500) that our author did not live far from the epoch of which he relates the events (Pref. p. vii); but we find Gaimar, for instance, using the phrase si com distrent lantive gent of an event which took place in the reign of Aethelwulf: , R. S. l. 2405; cf. ll. 1682 and 1785. while such phrases as cum il me fud endite l. 177, solum le dist de mun cuntur l. 407, cum il me fud cunte l. 2241, seem to point to some particular informant, perhaps Morice Regan himself.

Date of the Poem. As to the date of the poem we have first of all the statement that our author met Morice Regan in the flesh, and as the latter was employed on an important embassy to Wales in 1168, and was sent to summon Dublin to surrender in 1170, we can hardly place his birth later than about 1147. Supposing he was eighty years of age when he told the story to the writer we get 1227 as an outside date. Looking at the contents of the Chronicle we find that the narrative is brought regularly down in this fragment only to 1175 or 1176, but there are two allusions pointing to a much later date. First with regard to archbishop Laurence O'Toole, it is stated in l. 1844 Que Seint Laurence pus ert clame. Now, though he died on the 14th November 1180, he was not canonized until the 11th December 1225, and prior to his canonization he could hardly have been called Saint Laurence.It may be remarked indeed that Giraldus, R. S. v. 358, in speaking of the death of archbishop Laurence, says, De quo inter varia miracula, quibus in hoc suo sancto se mirabilem usque in hodiernum Deus ostendit, &c.; but this expression means no more than the vir sanctus which follows. Lines 1843–4 have, however, the appearance of being a subsequent addition or interpolation, and there are not wanting indications that the original text has been altered in this passage (see foot-note to text, ll. 1837–42); but, however this may be, from another allusion we cannot place the composition of the poem, in its present form at least, earlier than the beginning of the 13th century. I refer to the passage (ll. 3040–3057) where Philip de Prendergast, the son of Maurice, is described and is stated to have married the daughter (Maud) of Robert de Quency, and to have long held the constableship of Leinster (cf. ll. 2823–6). The sketch of Philip's character, I may remark, is very graphic and reads like a description from personal observation.I attach little importance to the phrase solum la gent, which may have been added for the rhyme; cf. ll. 108–9. Now we know from this poem that Maud de Quency was born in 1172 or 1173 (cf. ll. 2744, 2807, 2819), and therefore she could hardly have been married to Philip de Prendergast before 1190. In another way we get an outside limit to the date of this marriage. On an inquisition in A. D. 1251 as to the lands and heirs of Gerald or Gerard de Prendergast, son of Philip by Maud de Quency, it was found that by his first wife, sister to Theobald Pincerna, Gerald left one surviving daughter who married John de Cogan and left an only son then aged eight years.See Cal. Docts. Ir., A. D. 1251, No. 3203. This grandson of Gerald was therefore born in 1243. His mother, Gerald's daughter, must have been born not later than about 1223, and Gerald himself not later than about 1200. So Philip de Prendergast must have married Maud de Quency between 1190 and 1199, probably near the earlier date. Now he apparently obtained the constableship in right of his wife, and the poem says he held it for a long time. We can fix Philip's death as having occurred between 1227 and 1231I gather this from the ancient deed enrolled at the instance of Sir Henry Wallop (Patent Rolls of Chancery, 37th Eliz. m. 9, and see 1864–6, p. 143 n.), from which it appears that Philip de Prendergast was alive in the 11th year of Henry III, the date of his agreement with the bishop of Ferns, and dead in the 15th year of the same king, the date of the confirmation of the said agreement by Gerald de Prendergast. and though the poem does not speak of him as having been dead, the statement that he held the constableship plus longement (or mult longement, which is, perhaps, the correct reading) could not have been made very much before 1225, or, at any rate, not until after the commencement of the 13th century. On the other hand, if we are to suppose that Morice Regan supplied the writer with materials shortly before the poem was written, we cannot place its date very long after 1225. Accordingly we must fix upon some time very soon after 1225, or assuming the allusion to St. Laurence to be an interpolation, some time earlier in the 13th century, as the probable date of the poem in its present form. So much for the immediate original of the transcript which has come down to us. Can we determine anything about the pre-existing geste or estorie with which Morice Regan supplied our author? Now it is a remarkable fact that, with the exception of these two allusions to the canonized Laurence O'Toole and to Philip de Prendergast, the former of which was probably an interpolation, there is nothing in the poem, so far as I have observed, pointing to a later date than 1177, unless, perhaps, the commonplace expressions referring to the statements of old people. Indeed even the reference to Miles de Cogan as afterwards lord of Mount Brandon (ll. 1652–5)—a place included in the grant to him made at the Council of Oxford in 1177—is introduced in a somewhat forced manner suggestive of subsequent interpolation. The grant to Miles de Cogan and Robert Fitz-Stephen of the kingdom of Cork would more naturally have been mentioned, had it already taken place, along with the elaborate account of the subinfeudation of Leinster and Meath. At any rate, we might have expected that changes in the grants there mentioned, as for instance the substitution in 1181 of lands in Leix for the lands in Kildare given to Meiler, would have been noticed had they already taken place. The account of the attack on Slane Castle (ll. 3184–3201), which is mentioned out of the chronological order, seems also to have been an afterthought. Certainly ll. 3202–7 read as if they were written to follow immediately after the account of the subinfeudation of Leinster and Meath. A similar inference may be drawn from l. 2341, where it is said that Richard de Cogan made his famous sortie from Dublin par la dute del Occident. The word dute is obscure, but it is sufficiently clear that the western gate is intended. Now the porta occidentalis is mentioned in a grant made by the citizens of Dublin in 1185 when John de Curci was Justiciar and preserved in the Register of the Abbey of St. Thomas, Dublin; and from a subsequent grant it appears that this gate, or more probably a new gate erected on its site, was afterwards known as the Porta NovaReg. St. Thomas, Dub., R. S. p. 404, and see Hist, and Mun. Docts. Ir., R. S. p. 56, where the two grants are set out in full.. Mr. J. T. Gilbert, in his (vol. 1, p. 237), says, the date of the erection of the New-gate has not been ascertained, but from the charter of the Hospital of St. John it appears to have been standing in 1188. If I am right then in supposing that it replaced the Porta Occidentalis, it must have been erected between 1185 and 1188. Now had this New Gate been in existence at the time when this account of the Norwegian attack was written it would in all probability have been mentioned. No certain conclusion can be drawn from negative evidence of this kind; still it bears out the impression gained from reading the whole poem, viz. that the writer whose date we have approximately fixed as soon afler the year 1225, or perhaps a little earlier in the 13th century, did not add much to the pre-existing geste or chanson supplied to him by Morice Regan; that this pre-existing poem was written long before 1225 and probably soon after Strongbow's death in 1176, with which event it may well have ended; and consequently that the account we have before us, whenever it was written, is substantially a reproduction of the account of a contemporary writer. There is yet another important consideration which seems to support the above view. It is difficult to suppose that anybody writing in the first half of the 13th century on the subject of the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland should have been unacquainted with the works of Giraldus on the same subject; and yet while in the main our author and Giraldus corroborate one another, they do not always narrate the same events, and even when they do there is just such difference of treatment and divergence in details as might have been expected in writers who derived their information from distinct sources. The fact that both writers connect the rape of Dervorgil with Dermot's expulsion and ignore or slur over the lapse of fourteen years between the two events might at first sight seem to show that the later writer borrowed from the earlier; but the , under the year 1166, also affirm this connection, Which was evidently the popular view of the matter, and, as pointed out in the note to line 27, the popular view was not far wrong. On the whole I think there is no ground for concluding that this poem was in any respect derived from the . It seems to me to be an entirely independent authority for the facts it records, while the absence of any distinct reliance on the confirms the view that our poem is in substance the work of a writer who wrote before the was published.

History of the MS. As I have said, it is not known where Carew got the MS. The following considerations seem, however, to point to a probable answer to this question. As already mentioned, the covering skin of the MS. has upon it under Carew's autograph the date 1617. At first sight it seems natural to conclude that this was the date of Carew's acquisition of the MS., but an examination of all the Carew MSS. at Lambeth will show that this date appears on fourteen of them, and as it also appears on the first volume of the original Catalogue made by Carew and now preserved at Lambeth, the hypothesis suggests itself that this date merely denotes the period when the MSS. bearing it were catalogued. But this hypothesis will not account for all the facts, as some, at any rate, of the volumes apparently catalogued in 1617 are expressly stated to have been compiled at an earlier date.Volumes 699 and 630 are stated to have been compiled in 1611. On the other hand, of the books dated 1617, No. 597, Pelham's Letter Book, is stated by Mr. Brewer to have been acquired in this year,Car. Cal. II, p. 296, note. and No. 599, the Book of Pedigrees, is stated in the heading to have been copied in the year 1617. On the whole I think it probable that Carew did receive a considerable accession of MSS. in this year, comprising, besides those already mentioned, the following vellum MSS., viz. Bray's Conquest of Ireland and perhaps the Old French Poem on the Deposition of Richard II now bound up with the former (No. 598), the works of Giraldus relating to Ireland (No. 622), and the Essay, to be presently described, by James Yonge (No. 633). This accession of MSS. may have induced Carew to commence his catalogue and to group his papers then existing in a loose state into the other volumes bearing the date in question. The mere fact that he has placed our MS. in the forefront of his catalogue, marking it A, suggests that its acquisition was the immediate cause of the making of the catalogue. Mr. Brewer, the able editor of the Calendar of the Carew MSS., has made no attempt to trace the history of the MSS., nor even to set forth the order in which the volumes were obtained or compiled. He gives however, as an Appendix to the Introduction to vol. 2 of the Calendar, a list of all the Carew MSS., equating the old letter marks, consisting of the single, double, and triple alphabets, affixed by Carew, with the present numbering; and a comparison of this list with the contents of the MSS. themselves will show that all the MSS. dated 1617 are included in the single letter notation and in the first two volumes of the double letter notation, whereas those volumes, which, from their containing documents of later date, can be shown to have been compiled after 1617, are all, except XX, now No. 635, included in the triple letter notation. I conclude that in 1617, when the catalogue was commenced, the library consisted of all those books marked with a single letter and all those marked with a double letter up to TT, which was compiled in 1611. The volume marked VV, now No. 632, contains documents relating to Waterford, which, as will be presently shown, were probably copied in this year, but the volume may not have been completed until subsequently. Vol. WW is missing. Vol. XX, now No. 635, contains documents of date subsequent to 1617, as do nearly all of those marked with a triple letter which are still to be found. It therefore seems probable that our first impression was correct, and that the date 1617 on our MS. indicates the date of its acquisition by Carew. Now on the 21st February in this year, 1617, instructions were sent to the Earl of Thomond, Lord President of Munster, and Sir William Jones, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, to seize into the king's hands the liberties of the city of Waterford and to demand all the charters and evidences belonging to the corporation, and among other things such plate, jewells, and other treasure as remayneth in the custoddie of any of them for the publique use and behoofe of that toune. On the 5th March following, these commissioners report that they had carried out their instructions and had received thirteen of the city charters and had locked them up together with other things in a chest of theires [i.e. the corporation's] in the Arundell Towre where all theire writinges are.Car. MSS. 607, p. 187; Car. Cal. ao 1617, Nos. 176, 179. Arundell's Castle was close to the Dominican Abbey. See map in Ryland's Hist. of Waterford. Now in vol. 632 of the Carew MSS.Car. Cal. Miscellaneous, pp. 466–477. The Latin charters are copied in a neat professional hand and headed by Carew. No. 27, p. 476 of the Car. Cal., is headed in the MS. From the Liger book of Waterforde. Folios 271–280 of the MS. contain abstracts in English of eleven charters. there are copies of a number of charters, grants and other documents touching Waterford, including some letters from Henry VII to the mayor and citizens about Perkin Warbeck, and it seems clear that these were among the documents seized in March 1617, and that Carew was enabled to take copies of them. If the four vellum MSS. bearing the date 1617 had been among the writings in that chest in the Arundell Tower it is certain that Carew, who was an ardent collector of historical documents relating to Ireland, would have made every effort to retain them, and the date 1617, affixed to each of them by Carew beneath his autograph, suggests that this was the occasion of their acquisition.

There is, however, some further evidence indicating the person through whom Carew may have got the MSS. Donough O'Brian, Earl of Thomond, who, as already mentioned, was chief of the Commission appointed to seize the liberties of Waterford, was a friend of Carew, who describes him in the year 1611 (Car. Cal. p. 147) as an extraordinary well-deserving lord, and in 1617 he occupied Carew's former position of Lord President of Munster. Now it appears from the heading to the Book of Pedigrees, Car. MS. 599, that this book, containing the descentes of ye meere Irishe families and formed by sondry collections of ye Earl of Thomond, was copied for Carew in the year 1617.See Car. Cal. 1617, p. 345. Here we have direct evidence of one MS. coming from the Earl of Thomond in the year 1617, and, taken in connection with what has been already stated, this fact strengthens the supposition that this Commissioner, having seized a number of charters and other writings at Waterford in this year, gave Carew the opportunity of copying the former and of acquiring the vellum MSS. dated by him 1617, including our Old French Poem. That the corporation of Waterford should have had the custody of this MS. at this time is not improbable or without parallel. The Harleian MS. 913, which was in part at any rate the work of Frere Michel Kyldare, and which contains the Anglo-Norman poem on the building of the walls of Ross, written in the year 1265, was at one time in the possession of George Wyse, bailiff of Waterford in 1566 and mayor in 1571, and appears to have been known in 1608 as the Book of Rosse or Waterford., pp. 283–4, edited by Crofton Croker, London, 1839. Facsimiles Nat. MSS. of Ireland. It has been suggested that this book had previously been preserved in the Benedictine Abbey of St. John near Waterford, as a grant of this Abbey was made to William Wyse, possibly the father of George Wyse, in the year 1536. With regard to our MS., however, I am more inclined to associate it with the Dominican Friary of St. Saviour, known as the Blackfriars, afterwards the Courthouse, at Waterford. This friary was founded by the citizens in 1226, and at its dissolution on the 2nd April, 1541, it is said to have contained among other things a library 704; , p. 207.. It was granted to James White in 1542, probably the James White who was mayor of Waterford in that year. This James White had a special commission as Justice of Wexford in 1538, and from letters of his to CrumwellState Papers, Hen. VIII, vol. 2, pp. 561–3; cf. vol. 3, pp. 116, 134. it is evident that he was an ardent reformer and upholder of Henry's claims.

Now in the 13th century there was a distinguished alumnus of this coenobium known as Gotofrid, or, as he calls himself, Jofroi de Watreford de I'ordene az freres precheors le mendre. From his writings, three of which at least have come down to us, it is inferred that he was acquainted with Greek, Latin, Arabic and French, and that he had travelled in the East and lived for a long period in France. He is mentioned among the By Jacques Quetif and Jacques Echard, Paris, 1719, Tom. 1, p. 467; cf. , 1769, p. 909, and Harris's , p. 75. but the best account of his works is to be found in an article by M. Victor le Clerc, in the Paris, 1847, tom. xxi. 216–229.. He translated into French, (i) the book of the Trojan war by the pseudonymous Dares the Phrygian, (2) the by Eutropius, and (3) the , an apocryphal treatise of Aristotle.In the preface to this last work Jofroi speaks as if he worked from a Greek and an Arabic text as well as from a Latin one, and it appears that he understood these languages, but the passage in Harris's (ubi sup.), in which he is made to say that he had already translated the work from Greek into Arabic and again from Arabic into Latin, is a mistranslation. It should be which has already been translated, &c. These three works are in prose. The statement of Lebeuf (Hist. et Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. xvii. p. 736) followed by Warton (, 1871, p. 109) that Godefroy translated Dares Phrygius into French rhymes appears to have been a mistake. This last work is addressed to a patron, a nobles bers prouz et sages, whose name unfortunately does not appear. It is far from being a literal translation, but contains many good words, not less profitable, borrowed from other works of authority. It ends quite in the Irish manner:—ceus qui cest liure liront prient por frere Iofroi de Watreford et por seruais copale qui cest trauail empristrent & par layde dedeu lont achief menei. & ausi le liure dares le frigien de la gerre detroi. & ausi le liure de [word erased, read etropius] du regne des romains. Cest liure est fini.This passage was transcribed for me by Mr. Frederick York Powell from the original MS. at Paris. Jofroi's works are written in a late 13th century professional hand and are probably transcripts. The MS. containing these three works along with other writings is ascribed to the 13th century. It formerly belonged to the Bibliothèque de Colbert, and passed from it to the Bibliothèque Royale, and is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris, where it is numbered 1822.

It would certainly be rash to conclude that Jofroi was the writer of our Poem. Indeed, judging from the excerpts from his writings printed in the above-mentioned works, his language is much purer French than that of our text, and is free from some of its dialectical peculiarities. As, however, both MSS. are probably transcripts, and our text has certainly been corrupted, no conclusive argument can be drawn from the exact forms of words used. At any rate, the fact that a monk of the Blackfriars of Waterford in the 13th century could write so freely in French as Jofroi did, and was ready to apply his pen to translating purely secular works, shows at least that there were Dominicans there who understood and valued books of the class to which our MS. belongs, and that there is nothing improbable in the supposition that the transcript which has come down to us was made for them and was preserved for three centuries in their library, and indeed never left Waterford until the year 1617. Furthermore, from a doggerel couplet scribbled in an early hand at the end of James Yonge's Essay, Car. MS. 633, which we have already seen reason to suppose was obtained at the same time and place as our MS., there are express grounds for associating that MS. with the Dominicans. This couplet, written three times in a small professional hand, runs as follows:— Gratia nulla perit nisi gratia blakmonachorum Est et semper erit litill thanke in fine laborum. A somewhat similar sentiment is expressed on the preceding page under the roughly drawn figure of a man in an early Tudor dress:— Farewell adue I must nedes goo hens My labour is lost I gett no pens.

This MS. is also remarkable from another point of view, for it proves that Jofroi's translation of the was known in Waterford in the beginning of the 15th century. Like Jofroi's work, it purports to be a translation of this apocryphal treatise of Aristotle, though this fact is not noted in the Calendar of Carew Papers. Another and perhaps earlier version of the same work is preserved in the Bodleian Library, and is stated by Mr. J. T. Gilbert to be the earliest known composition of any length written in English by an Anglo-Irish author. It is dedicated to Yow nobyll and gracious lorde Jamys de Botiller, Erle of Ormonde, lieutenant of our lege lorde kynge henry the fyfte in Irlande, (A. D. 1419–22); and a comparison of its preface with that of Jofroi will alone show that Yonge had Jofroi's translation before him.See Facsimile, Nat. MSS. of Ireland, vol. 3, Introd. p. xiv, PI. xxxvi. and App. Indeed Yonge's Preface appears to be little else than an adaptation of Jofroi's, amounting at times to a literal translation, though this connection has not been noticed by Mr. J. T. Gilbert. Compare the passage: In oone techying acordyth and in oone verite shewyth the moste wyse clerkes and maysteris of renoune that haue beyn afor us in all tymys, &c., with the following extract from Jofroi's prologes, cited in the , ubi supra: En une aprise accordent et une ueritei mostrent les plus sages clers et maistres les plus renomez de ceus ki auant nos furent de cest siecle, &c.; and the following: The whyche thynge nobil and gracious lorde afor sayde haith parcewid the sotilte of your witte and the clernys of your engyn, with Laquele chose aparcheust la sutelitei de vostre engin; ubi supra.