Matheson Collection > Gleanings from Irish manuscripts

A LETTER FROM JOHN MAC SOLLY
Ask if Garret got the song, and if he does not
get it before you, bring it to him.
For Mr. Richd. Tupper in
Mitchelstown, near Dublin,
THIS.
From the letter we learn that it was the practice
of the scribes to pass MSS. from one to another,
and so copies were multiplied, and their own
reading became more extensive. Of course, it
will be understood that we have not now all the
work which they left at their deaths. The names
of many men who studied in this way are alto-
gether unknown, and old books have perished by
the score in the course of years. We cannot guess
what Book of Medicine Mac Solly was anxious
about when he wrote ; but such reading material
in Irish was abundant. He had himself borrowed
the volume from a practitioner of some kind.
The latter refused to attend to a patient until he
should recover possession of it, notwithstanding
the fact that Mac Solly had supplied him with
another. What he means by asking Tupper to
put the missing copy in order so that the owner
may not miss it we cannot say. He goes on to
request him to send him a copy of Keating,
perhaps that author's History of Ireland^ and also
a song by Francis Devlin. This Francis Devlin
was a priest, and addressed a short piece to Garret
Macnamee, who is next mentioned in the missive*
Macnamee was a native of some place in county
201 P"