Preface to vol. II.
We have little to add to the preface to the first volume of the present work, save an expression of thankfulness for the sympathetic reception which it has met with from the few scholars capable of discerning its undoubted defects. The delay in publishing the second volume was caused by the desirability of recollating with the MSS. some of the glosses at St Gall, Carlsruhe and Leyden, and the obscure notes in the Franciscan Liber Hymnorum. This, we hope and believe, has been done effectually.
We have now to acknowledge the help afforded by the following scholars and public bodies during the passage of this volume through the press:
First, by Professors Windisch and Thurneysen, each of whom read a proof of pp. 1–359, and made (as in the case of our first volume) many valuable corrections and suggestions. To Professor Thurneysen, moreover, we are indebted for a laborious collation of a large number of the glosses on the St Gall Priscian, which MS. was, for that purpose, deposited during a whole year in the library of the University of Freiburg in Breisgau by the authorities of the Stiftsbibliothek, St Gall.
Secondly, by Hof- und Landesbibliothekar Dr Alfred Holder, who collated for us the glosses and notes in the Carlsruhe Augustine, Beda and Priscian.
Thirdly, by Mr Edward Gwynn, Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, who sent us his readings of many obscure passages in the Book of Armagh and the Stowe Missal, and by the Council of the Royal Irish Academy, who deposited that Missal in the British Museum, where it was examined for us by that eminent palaeographer Dr Kenyon.
Fourthly, by the late Monsieur L. Duvau, who ranscribed for us, shortly before his much-lamented death, the glosses in the copy of Philargyrius contained in the Bibliothèque Nationale, MS. latin, 11,308.
Fifthly, by Professor Kern, for a collation of the Priscian glosses at Leyden, and by Dr De Vries, the librarian of the Leyden University, who deposited the original MS. for our use in the Rylands library, Manchester.
Sixthly, by Professor Ascoli, who corrected two mistakes in our first volume, p. 110, l. 41, and p. 615, l. 17, and supplied information as to the Milan fragment of Priscian infra, p. 232.
[ viii ]Seventhly, by Count Nigra, for his correction of our reading of the third gloss in the Vienna Eutychius, infra, p. 42.
Eighthly, by Dr Friedel, for information as to the codex of Eutychius in the Paris MS. lat. 10,400, and by Dr P. Giles for notes regarding the Irish MSS. at Cambridge.
Ninthly, by the reverend librarian of the Franciscan monastery, Dublin, for giving us access to the copy of the Liber Hymnorum in his charge, and to the authorities of the British Museum, the Royal Irish Academy, and the libraries at St Gall, Milan, the Vatican and Vienna for permitting MSS. to be photographed on our behalf.
We have, lastly, to express our surprise and regret that the statement in the preface to our first volume, as to the lack of scientific accuracy in some editions of Old-Irish glosses, should have been taken to apply to the publications of Professor Ascoli and Count Nigra. For the work of those distinguished scholars we have now, as we have had always, high admiration and sincere gratitude.
W. S.
J. S.
October 1903.