OGHAM. 
eee i to which we fhall afterwards have occafion 
o advert more at length, he confeffes that he had erroneoufly 
tai 
ut 
was cae al riage and th 
r to it, over the right and left; yet 
another manner of writing the 
of a perpendicular line. 
circular Ogum 
credited, orm an ift, the circular mode of drawing the 
Ogy um on a horizontal master line with 
on a perpendicular 
and 4th, the Ogumi 
muft be v ofe a eobigmous, and that de. 
pendance can be placed on ae meaning of the inferiplions 
which are fo 
But this fpecies of Ogum i is ae by the Trifh rok 
quaries, not only as cryptographic, b 
little it deferves the latter charaéter, aay be eafily oe oe 
us; it requires fifteen lines or ftrokes to exprefs the firft 
five letters of the iy aes 
ir James Ware is the firft 0) 
Ogum croabh, or virgular Ogum (Antiquities of Ireland, 
xi ; h , hat he was in n of 
20.); he fays, t 
written entirely in this Ogum er mentions, that in 
s time (1720) the earl of Carnarvon had in his library a 
on ve kind of writing, and Aftle refers to a MS 
prefented to the Britith Mufeuin by the late Rev. Dr. Milles, 
dean of Exeter, prefident of the Society of Antiquaries at 
London, which had formerly been in the library of Henry, 
the Irifh to high antiquity, the latter gentleman, for a lon 
time, according to his own confeffion, concluded, too haftily, 
that “both fir James and hitnfelf had been impofed upon by 
modern bards, and-that n no a charaters ever exifted in 
Pagan tithes.’ 
into Ireland is geerl afcribed. rather sere 
therefore, that before it was mentioned and defcribed by fir 
James Ware, it {hould neither have attracted wr notice, 
Mc a here- 
ven olonel Vallancey is difpofed t to 
doubt oietice thets could be ail alphabetical Oghams; and 
; fo that, if the Irith antiquaries are to be © 
he characterifes as ‘the only pillar and Japan of Iri 
cai Caer while he lived; and whofe baie was an irre 
e lofs to any further im hem,” 
that there were actually different forme of Ogum ch 
of this {pecies, to the number e hundred and fifty 
feveral of which Duald Fitbils a in poffeffion ; and of 
which he wrote an account te O’Flaherty, and “ of Croabh 
Ogham, ie. virgean charaQers.” O” Khasi s Ogygia, 
tranflated by the Rev. James Hely, vo 9- 
hefe vatious and contradiGtory eee relpecting the 
nature of the virgean Ogum, in conjunGtion w with the cir 
cumftance, that, : the acebunt of its nature, origin, and 
ufe, as give e Irifh antiquaries, had been corre& 
and well fourided, it taut have been often employed both in 
d lechs, yet 
credulit Binve bed Ls Hientioned, that cole nel 
iy was 38 difpofed, at ohé time, to doub bt of the exiftenee 
of fuch an Ogum; but the vacillation of his mind, or rather 
his wifh to believe, beeame appatent in his Irifh grammar, 
where he afks, with a ftrong emphafis, « fhall we doubt the 
authority of fir James Ware? fhall we difbelieve our eyes; 
q P+ 7)s i 
might naturally be inferred, that thefe infcriptions had been 
een by colonel Vallancey nimfelf ; no fuc 
pages afterwards, he fays, ‘‘ we are forry it is not in our 
ote any pafflages in our Drui gum, fuch 
books having not fallen into our hands. , it can fcarcely be 
maintained that ther entrad here, if in the paflage 
fir (t ed, he meant to affert, that he ae had feen 
Ogu he fays, no 
m inferiptions, becaufe in the other re 
eee containing the Druidic Ogum had fallen ie his hands: 
for the purpofe of giving an example (which he laments he 
cannot give) the Ogum infcriptions onthe remains of anti- 
uity, would have ferved as well as paflages or fpecimens 
from Ogum 
As, however, the ie high antiquity of the virgean 
Ogum could not well be proved, unlefs it were found on 
fome of the Irifh eoqueen or als, the refearches of the 
h the be- 
e 
world, that they had found the Ogham charaétets 5 s but no 
refemblanee to letters or charaGers can be traced by im- 
partial 
