364 



the other hand, p is a primitive letter in the Phoenician al- 

 phabet.* 



Hickest presents us with two alphabets of Runes, such as 

 he supposes were in use amongst the Anglo-Saxons after the 

 influence of the Danes had been established in England. In 

 these we find a character standing for q, and called cweorth ;% 

 another called stan, denoting st or z ; another named ing, 

 probably equivalent to ng, the thirteenth letter of the Ogham. 

 The diphthongs are placed at the end of both, as in the 

 Ogham. 



The division of vowels into the two classes of broad and 

 slender, though it be a really existing and important one,§ is 

 not noticed, so far as we are aware, by the ancient Greek, 

 Latin, or Arabian grammarians. In the Scandinavian lan- 

 guages it is observed ; and rules founded upon it are given in 

 the Danish and Swedish grammars of the present day. 



It is vain to assert that the Irish grammarians who used 

 and wrote about the Ogham were unacquainted with the 

 Scandinavian or Anglo Saxon Runes. We have their own 

 evidence to the contrary. Amongst the Ogham alphabets 

 figured in the Book of Ballymote we find two Runic alpha- 

 bets tolerably correctly written ; one is called Ogham na 

 6oochlannach (the Ogham of the men of Lochlan). The 

 other is named ^allojham (the Ogham of the foreigners) ; 

 and along with it are given the Icelandic names of the letters. 



But the most conclusive testimony on this head is furnished 

 by a fragment lately discovered by Mr. Eugene Curry in a 

 MS. in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. A folio of 



* Gesenii Mon. Scrip, et Lit. Phcen., p. 41. 



t Gram. Anglo-Sax. et Msesogoth., pp. 135-6. 



f Hence, no doubt, the Irish name of 5, queipc or cueTpc, which does not 

 seem to be a genuine Irish word. But what is the origin of cweorth 9 It seems as 

 if it had been formed according to the analogy ot peorth (a pawn), the name given 

 to the Anglo-Saxon Rune for p. 



§ Latham on the English Language, p. 122. 



