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In its neighbourhood, says Pliny, were a few Hirpian families, who, 
at those festivals, walked barefoot over the burning wood, without 
injury}: by this ceremony they were exempt, through a decree of 
the Senate, from military service’ and other duties.* Virgil, in 
the second book of his A%neid, introduces Aruns, one of this Hir- 
pian family, thus praying to Apollo: 
Summe Deum, Sancti eustos Soractis, Apollo, 
Quem primi colimus, cui pineus ardor ACERVO 
Pascitur ; &c. 
One, ignorant of the origin of the Umbrians and Sabines, must 
be surprised how those Hirpian priests come to such exact know- 
ledge of the rites of the priests of Gaul, Britain, and Ireland. So 
“uniform and universal was this famous religion! Varro describes 
the ointment, with which they saved their feet in this ordeal. 
There is another criticism connected with Celtic learning, of 
which I am here reminded. Ogmius was the distinguishing epithet 
of the Hercules of the Gauls, which as Lucian was informed bya 
learned Druid, did not mean strength of body, but force of elo- 
quence. It is the Irish word Ogam, with a Greek termination ; 
and it signifies the secret of letters, the letters themselves, and the 
learning that depends on them, whence the force of eloquence pro- 
ceeds, ‘This interpretation is familiar to every reader of the ancient 
Irish MSS. and in no other Celtic document, now extant, is the 
true meaning of the word to be found. The sacred writings of the 
Druids of Ireland was in the Ogam characters, an ancient parch- 
ment book, full of which had been in the possession of Sir James 
* Hist. Nat. I. 2. c, 2. Solin. Polyhist. c. 8. 
