OGHAM. 
4. That the Irith ray eee bear ftrorfg marks of having 
been borrowed from the Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of En 
land. The alphabet called Bobele Dy is regarded as the oldelt, 
and Dr. Ledwich remarks, that ‘ the names and figures of 
the letters are exactly i in the ftyle of the Britifh, Runic, and 
arcomannic runes,” and this, the plate he has given of it 
{ufficiently proves: the form of the letters in the Bethluif- 
nuin alphabet is ftill more palpably derivative and a 
at the Irifh claim to literature, in very early pe- 
riods of their hiftory, and efpecially their claim to Druidic 
a is utterly unfounded. 
ref{pec&t to the mode of afcertaining th parati 
ies re) -» written in the virgular Ogum, Mr. Aftle 
informs us that ‘“ Diphthongs are not found in the ancient 
M the vowels are written feparately, as a e, not @ 
aioe an Ogham or cypher hae marks for diphthongs i is 
not ancient. 189. ftle adds, that king 
harles 1. correfponded with ie earl of Glamorgan, when 
in Ireland, in the Ogham cypher, a fpecimen of which he 
gives in his thirty-firft plate. Some of this corefpond- 
ence is preferved among the royal letters in the Harleian li- 
bra 
Trith etymology is {uch delicate ground to tread upon, 
and it offers, in general, fo little that is fatisfaGtory, or ufe- 
ful, that we fhould conclude this article without examining 
into the derivation of the wo sum, did it not throw 
light, as we conceive, on a cu ide ad little underftood 
or in one of Lucian’s dialogue 
ance? 
ors are at 
be found | in any "dictionary of the Irifh.”? That it is ae to 
be founa in them is very true; a as has been aleaiy re- 
marked) as the word Run, even in = ok a s ufed 
be 
: it “till 
exifts in the kindred diale& of the Welfh; and in both thefe 
languages its meaning is certain, and appropriate to its ap- 
plication at prefent in the Irifh language. Keyfler (Antiq. 
nO p- 38.) exprefsly ftates, «¢ probe noverim, vocabulum 
» Ogum, vel ,Ogma Celte fignificaffe fecreta literarum, 
literas ipfas.” And Rowland, in his Mona Antiqua, 
p- 238, fays, it is ftill preferved in the Welth. 
But Mr. 0’ Flanagan (Irifh TranfaGtions, p. 13.) traces 
its origin and meaning flill farther back in the Jrifh language. 
he fundamental rules of the Ogum are given in five circles, 
in the following pice in his Introduction to the Study 
of the Hiftory and Antiquities of Ireland “We 
have a recent evidence that the word came from Treland ; for 
&> 
oe) 
William Halloran, head of the nominals at Orford, the con. 
Scotus, is better 
known amongft fchoolmen by the name of as iam jee 
oe ; 
Befides, William Ha iI 
Ogham ; and the epithet of Ocham, or Okeh am, a orled to 
thi philofopher, might have led Mr. O’ Halloran to et oo 
at this was the name of his ae see even " ‘ he been 
at Okeham 
mology and antiquity, efpecially when - by an op- 
ae ae a namefake, and probably an an- 
ceftor o wn, feems to = be een too ftrong for Mr. 
0’ Halloran’ s ole of hiftoric a 
ugh colonel Vallance a confefe himfelf ignorant of 
tion eg the um, yet, in conformity 
o his know of Trith perm he finds no dif_i- 
culty in tracing it back to an oriental origin. It is ace 
ac to him, from the Chaldaic or Pheenician [3&; 
Ocham: and though there is much doubt among the rabbis 
‘refpe€ting the meaning of this term; fome explaining it to 
medn a che fecret writing in; others, brazen vef- 
ers think it is the name of the town ; colone 
eo 
Vallancey politely avers, but without vouchfafing to he 
reafon or authority for his affertion, that “the true a 
itera queen of the word is a court charaéer, spore ial 
: ecords of the church and ftate.”? Archzologia, 
2:5 
oa though colonel Vallancey can bring forward only ‘his 
own affertion for the oriental origin and meaning of t 
word Ogum, there can be little doubt that this, or a very 
fimilar word, exifts in the eaftern language, with exaly 
the fame meaning as it poffeffes in Irifh. Mr. Wefton, ‘in 
a paper in the 14th volume of the Archzologia, p. 246, 
quotes the ane ony of fir William Jones, to prove that, in 
the Sanferit, the word agam means myfterious ; and is 
rived from gama, to go, with the a prefixed, ining S 
go to, to come at, or to acquire the knowledge o 
To apply the remarks which have been offered, refpeGting 
the etymology and meaning of the word Ogum, to the paflage 
of Lucian, already referred to. Lucian, in his piece, eu- 
Hercules a in the fame light as the Greeks and Ro- 
mans did Mercury, viz. as the god of ee cen This, 
“ the Celts,”? adds L 
their own vernacular tongue, Ogmian 
in a differtation in the firlt volume as the 
deavours to prove that oygios had the fame aeune in Celtic 
as in Greck, and is properly a furrow or boundary. For 
this he is rudely attacked by Toup, who confiders oypsos 48 
a corruption for op ory nos, and o the Hercules of Lucian is 
opoyertos, Cr One of f the dil pen 
As, however, Lucian felily fays that oypios was a 
Celtic word, we muf look for its meaning in the a“ - 
