OcHaM. 
primiti 
of ace ciaanee what does this pretended proof of ba 
crigality of the Irith chara&ters amount to? They w 
od, the terms pete them had aoe 
Au 
this poms it is needlefs to add any thing to the 
opinion and teftim r. Aftle, contained in the fol- 
lowing paflages. ott appear that the Irifh have neither 
written eee nor coins to prove their pretenfions to ai 
or. e 
cie S 
man ufeript which we have difcovered is the eva of Cafhel, 
bbb in the latter end of the roth centu ur _P. 120. 
Great Britain and Ireland,” produce incontefible evidence 
to invalidate the reports of the Trifh. efe authors con- 
t ed from Britain ; 3 that the 
ing for be 
Cee itfelt had emerged from ignorance, as ’ 
tended, that were generally deemed, ‘by the moft re- 
{pe Gable ie sof ‘antiquity, to have been \efs civilized than 
any of their neighbours: that the manners of the old 
Irifh were inconfiltent with the knowledge of letters: that 
the Ogum was a {pecies of ftereography, or writing in cy- 
pher ; and they thus conclude with decifive bes againft 
the ‘pretended literature of the ancient Iri invali- 
among the ‘Trith, that ‘their alphabet differs from - others 
in name, order, number, and power. Thefe arguments 
were adopted by thofe who contended for the anciguity of 
the Runic letters, which have been elas r. Innes, i in 
nothing but an.invention of the Irifh 
they received the ufeof letters, put the 
a new arbitrary order, and aflign 
0 e tree; and that this was not a genuine alpbabet of 
the Irith in ancient times, or peculiar to them; but a 
P. 122. 
is head, it is impoffible to fay whether 
all which hath been Seer will operate upon the minds 
12 
wherein we h 
Trifth characters are fe fame; and that they are fimilar to 
— ufed by the Saxons in Britain, appears from feveral 
on’ alphabets in the preceding arte fo that tho fe who 
t only their Baie alphabet, 
but alfo one fpecies at leaf of their O nfidera- 
tion of this fpecies, as more nearly allied a ile cere 
characters than the virgular Ogum, we have left to the pre- 
fent place; but it will not detain us long. This feecies was 
called the ig seen Runes ; an engraving of them is 
given by Dr. his *“* Antiquities of Ireland,’’ 
It might ce ‘been fuppofed that both the name 
and the epithet applied to thefe characters, would have fa- 
tisfactorily proved, that the her had borrowed them from 
the northern nation; "Halloran contends that 
the occult manner of writing encleye ed by the northern na- 
tions, to whic me Runic was given, was not only of 
Irifh origin, but that the name Runic is purely Irifh, and 
cannot be explained i1 the northern languages. It cannot, 
indeed, be denied that run, in Irifh, fignifies fecrefy, or 
my tery ; but it has the fame ‘ignification in the northern 
languages. edwich remarks ; *“ The 
o> 
pet] 
id 
fle, and to them is to be attributed the lofs of the old C 
tic name Ogum fer that of Ruz, introduced by them 
O’Brien, treating of this word, without any defign of doing 
fo, confirms the truth of what! is afferted, by thewing, that 
in five dialects of the Teutonic, it 1s preferved in its original 
fignification.”’? P. 332. 
The following er cumianee ftill farther zie and 
confirms the idea, that the Irifh term run is der rom the 
ical qualities ; and the underftandin 
thefe qualities were confined to the priefts and priefteffes : 
the latter, Keyfler gives ‘a very full and curious acca 
(Antiquitates Septentrionales, p. 371.), and informs us 
that they were called Alirunce ; but according to O’Brien 
ae Dictionary, in oe) haar irage Sk in the Irifh lan ee 
7 
ollowing are the general co 
wn from the authorities a arguments ‘brotght forward 
in aa sie 
I. t the virgular of cannot have an origin prior to 
e ara ee of Greek and Roman literature into Ire- 
land, fince it is adapted to an alphabet, the arrangement of 
which took place at that time. 
