104 



characters, or marks are drawn, which stand in the place of vowels, con- 

 sonants, and diphthongs and triphthongs. Some authors have doubted 

 the existence of this species of writing in cipher, called Ogham, among 

 the Irish, but these doubts are ill founded, as will presently appear." So 

 says Astle,* and Ware more strongly confirms the originality of both 

 the Beth-luis-nion and Ogham characters, by an appeal attainable to 

 every philologist ; " upon the strictest inquiry, I never could find any 

 alphabet, no, not the Runic itself, in the structure or order like the 

 Ogham or Beth-luis-nion elements. It follows, therefore, that as there 

 was no prototype to copy them from, that they must be the origi- 

 nals."'f Even Innes admits;]: the antiquity of these characters, and 

 Eusebius§ gives further confirmation to the preliminary proposition of 

 this Essay, when he affirms, that such secret characters were in use 

 among the Phoenicians, and that Sanchoniatho, who he says flourished 

 before the destruction of Troy, did collect his history from books writ- 

 ten in secret characters, which were preserved by the priests of 

 Amon. 



Thus, then, the evidences of these alphabets and characters may be 

 summed up. There are the testimonies of the most ancient Danish, 

 and Greek, and Latin authors, not only that letters were known to the 

 Gauls, Celts, and northern nations of Europe before the Romans in- 

 A-aded these countries, but that the Latins, in the formation of their 

 vocabulary, actually drew upon their store. There are the best 

 philologists of later ages, not only confirming this antiquity of the 

 Celtic, but illustrating in many instances the very words that the 

 Latins borrowed, and that in some instances they confess they bor- 

 rowed. Again, so far from the Irish being miraculously exempted 



* Origin and Progress of Writing, c. 6. p. 179. 



f Ware's Antiquities, fo. 22. I Critical I'iSsay, t. 2. p. 450. 



§ Praep, Erang. lib. ix. cited by O'Conor, Rer. Hib. Script, v. 2. p. xxxvi. Epist. Nunc. 



