102 



them by the Phcenicians or the Persians."* The passage so alluded 

 to in Strabo is where, speaking of the Turdetani, he says, " They are 

 considered the wisest of the Spaniards, and they know the use of 

 grammar, and they have writings of ancient record, and poems and 

 laws delivered in verse, for six thousand 3^ears, as they say. The other 

 Spaniards also use grammar, not, however, of the same kind, nor in 

 the same tongue. "-f- To which Lucan, in his Pharsalia, adds another 

 testimony, 



" Phcenices primi, famae si creditur, ausi 

 Mansuram rudibus vocem signare figuiis."J 



These last authorities, while they strengthen the tradition of Irish 

 literature at a very early period, open another channel through which 

 that learning must, as from necessity, have flowed in. Wormius brings 

 the evidence still more home, by his direct testimony to an Irish al- 

 phabet, "Runer Iernste,"§ and yet more by expressly mentioning as 

 one of the ancient Runic varieties of letters, " Ira letur, id est Irlando- 

 rum liter8e."§ Add to this the evidence of Saint Patrick's biographers,ll 

 as to the pile of Druidical books which he burnt and destroyed ; — the 

 productions of Conlavin, who, as before mentioned, («w^e,p.89,) main- 

 tained a written controversy with the Druids; — the copies of his own 

 poems sent by Fiech to the princes of Connaught ;** — and yet more, 

 the letters which Gennadius, as cited (ante, p. 92,) records Caelestius to 

 have written to his parents in Ireland, "in the manner of little books," 

 and which, of course, could not have been understood by them if there 

 did not exist some alphabet of common use in Ireland. And after all 



* Spencer's View of Ireland, Dub. 1809, p. 65. 



f " 2oip«T«TO< S' i^iTct^tfrai t«» lSi)g«» cwt«(, xxi y^ccuftXTixn ^^utTcu, xxi tnt ■xxXxuti /*ti>/tiii 

 ly^tvtrt rvyy^UfiftxT* km vtiti/xara x.cci ttfitvf ifi/iiT^evf i%»j(,t<r^t0t iTUt, *>{ ^xiri ' kxi «> «AA«i Ifenjs? 

 ji^atroii y^xftoTMit tu ftix iita' owSs ytsj yAoTTi) tiix," — Strabo. V. 1. p. 182. Falc. edit. 



+ Pharsal. lib. 3. v. 220-1. \\ See Vail. Coll. v. 2. p. 206. 



§ Wormius Lit. Run. c. 5. p. 3& ** Post, Per. 2. sect. 4. 



