118 
Ware*. This occult writing is described in several Irish MS, trea- 
tises, one of which is preserved in the University of Dublin. It is 
also well described in an elementary tract, called Urichecht-na- 
Negais ; which, with other valuable remnants of Celtic learning, is 
to be found in tiie Book of Ballymote, now in the possession of 
the Royal Irish Academy. Duald M‘Firbis, the last of the heredi- 
tary annalists of Lecan, had communicated, in 1683, to Mr. 
O'Flaherty, the author of the Ogygia, that he had some of the 
primitive birch tables, and many sorts of the old occult writing.+ 
Forchern, a heathen writer, and author of the elementary work con- 
tained in the Book of Ballymote, ascribes the invention of the Ogam 
letters, Bethluis—Nion an Ogham, to the Pheenicians, or, more 
strictly, to Fenius, whom I take to be Phenix, the brother of 
Cadmus. Here, I would beg leave to express an ardent wish—it is, 
that the valuable repositories of Celtic learning, the Book of Lecan, 
the Book of Ballymote, and the Speckled Book, in the present pos- 
session of the Royal Irish Academy, should be fairly copied and 
printed, with an English or Latin version, in alternate pages. 
Parliament has lately voted a grant towards defrayiug the expences 
of collating, compiling, and publishing the ancient Chronicles of 
England; but, in that country, no such primitive and authentic 
records, as those just enumerated, can possibly be found. If, for 
this national purpose, a part of the grant were extended to the 
Academy, most certainly, it could not be better applied. “ Not- 
withstanding,” says Toland, “ the long state of barbarity, in which 
that nation (Ireland) hath lain, and after all the rebellions and 
* Preter characteres vulgares, utebantur etiam veteres Hiberni variis occultis scribendi for- 
mulis seu artificiis, Ocam dictis, quibus Scoreta sua scribebant. His refertum habeo libellum 
membranaceum antiquum. Antiquit. &c. c. 2. 
+ Ogygia, pars 3, c. 30. 
