super columpnas. Et in summitate cujuslibet columnæ est draco
magnus circundans totam columpnam, et hic substinet eorum
cohoperturam cum ore et pedibus_; et est cohopertura tota de cannis
hoc modo,” etc. (See i. p. 299.)
[20] My valued friend Sir Arthur Phayre made known to me the passage
in _O’Curry’s Lectures_. I then procured the extracts and further
particulars from Mr. J. Long, Irish Transcriber and Translator
in Dublin, who took them from the Transcript of the _Book of
Lismore_, in the possession of the Royal Irish Academy. [Cf.
_Anecdota Oxoniensia. Lives of the Saints from the Book of
Lismore, edited with a translation ... by_ Whitley Stokes, Oxford,
1890.—_Marco Polo_ forms fo. 79 a, 1–fo. 89 b, 2, of the MS., and
is described pp. xxii.–xxiv. of Mr. Whitley Stokes’ Book, who has
since published the Text in the _Zeit. f. Celtische Philol._ (See
_Bibliography_, vol. ii. p. 573.)— H. C.]
XI. SOME ESTIMATE OF THE CHARACTER OF POLO AND HIS BOOK.
[Sidenote: Grounds of Polo’s pre-eminence among mediæval travellers.]