184 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



of the departed, -which are so commonly found on the sepulchral monuments of the early, 

 or rather Romanized Christians. 



"The inscription may be read (sepulchrum sive memorial) Sabinijilii Maccodecheti ; 

 ,of which the translation, I conceive, may be (the grave, the gravestone, or to the 

 memory) of Sabinus the son of Maccodechetius. ..... 



" From the cavity or mortise, above alluded to, nearly in the centre of it, and cal- 

 culated to receive a bar, I am inclined to think that this might be one of the stones of 

 an ancient barrier, erected, not improbably, at a spot set apart for the celebration of 

 public games. . . ....... 



" We first hear of this stone, where, perhaps, it was originally placed, at Buckland 

 Monachorum, or Monk's Buckland, and close to the churchyard. . . I think 

 it could not have been converted to the purpose of a gate-post (as is another stone in 

 that neighbourhood), subsequent to the inscription: as the letters, by being lessened in 

 size, have been made to accommodate themselves to the interruption occasioned by the 

 cavity. Nor is it likely that so large and lofty a stone would originally have been 

 selected for a common gate-post, whilst, on the other hand, its size and height would 

 naturally have recommended it in constructing a grand barrier to regulate the public 

 games." 



It now remains to account for the letter b only, in order to have a 

 complete identification by " biliteral "phonetic values of all the charac- 

 ters that make up the South British Oghamic alphabet. 



This has been accomplished through the discovery, in August of the 

 present year, of a new biliteral at Tavistock, in Devonshire, about 

 fifteen miles from Fardel, in the same county, where was found, many 

 years ago, the great Romano- Oghamic inscription now deposited at the 

 .British Museum, and hitherto regarded as the only English example 

 outside the principality. The Fardel stone is rich in Romanized names 

 — Sagrani, Fanoni, Maquirini — but its associated Oghams, save to the 

 extent of the Maqi, are uncomformable, and contribute nothing further 

 to the key. Not so the Tavistock example. Its original site was in 

 the neighbourhood of Buckland Monachorum (already well known for its 

 inscriptional riches), within about ten miles, across Dartmoor, from 

 Fardel, on the western outskirts of Roborough Down. 



The Latin inscription on the stone, which I shall call the Buckland 

 biliteral, was observed upwards of forty years ago, by the Rev. E. A. 

 Bray, Vicar of Tavistock, and described by him, in a letter " from the 

 library to the drawingroom," by way of contribution to his wife's 

 charming account of the borders of the Tamar and Tavy, which was 

 published in the form of a series of letters addressed to the poet 

 Sou they in 1836. Mr. Bray's account of this and of the other in- 

 scribed stones he describes is highly interesting, not only as a contri- 

 bution to learning, but as an example of investigation pursued with 

 delight alike to the inquirer and the reader. 



He says : — 



" There is a stone, ........ which may be 



found by following the lane leading from the rock on Roborough Down to Buckland 

 Monachorum till you come to a turning on the right hand that will bring you to a field, 

 of which it forms the gate-post. I am thus particular in my directions, as, in searching 

 for it myself, I rambled without success for miles, and that, too, for several days, having 

 received no further information than that it was a stone in a hedge near Roborough 

 Down. 



" The inscription contains three names ; but it may be doubted whether they all are 

 the names of individual persons, or whether one may not be _of a professional, and 

 another of a national description. 



