style or knife in his left hand, whilst in his right he holds an instrument similar to that figured in the Book of Kells, and which he is in the act of dipping into a long cup like an ale- glass, filled with red paint or ink, affixed at the end of a stick.[1] St. Luke, in the Gospels of Mac Regol, dips an instrument very like a quill with the beard stripped off, into a square ink-pot stuck on the top of a stick, which is fixed into a projection of the seat on which he sits, and which is ornamented at the top with eagles' heads, whilst St. John is engaged in writing with a similar instrument upon a long roll which he holds upon his knees. One of the Evangelists, in Archbishop Usher's Gospels, holds in his right hand a short kind of club or broad-sheathed sword. St. Luke, in the Gospels of St. Chad, holds a cross in his left hand, whilst in his right he holds a long wand,[2] the end of which is branched and convoluted, closely resembling the instruments held by the angels attendant upon the Virgin and Child, in the Book of Kells, also copied in my "Palæographia Sacra."
St. Luke.
The mode of dressing the beard varies in these drawings; the face is generally shaven smooth, but in some cases the beard is represented as short and straight. St. Luke, in the Gospels of St. Chad, stands in front of a chair, the sides of which are terminated at the top in dogs' heads; whilst St. Mark, in the same Gospels, stands in front of a chair formed of a monstrous giraffe-looking quadruped, with a long interlaced tail and tongue. St. Mark, also, in the Gospels of Mac Durnan, is represented with a long, upright, monstrously attenuated quadruped on each side, intended, as I presume, for the sides of his chair. The same Gospels of Mac Durnan contain drawings of the two other Evangelists, St. Matthew and St. Luke, of which copies are here presented, and which I consider to be more archaeologically interesting than any of the other figures of the Evangelists
