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OF THE DRUtDS. 85tifi'se, ^^bicli is the Siune just now said to belong;'to the duke of Chandois: and Dudley Forbes %a hereditary antiquary, Avrote to the rather bdjoriousthan judicious chronologist O'Flaherty -)% in(he year1683, that he had some of the primitivebirch-tables |, for those they had before the use ofparchment or paper, and many sorts of the oldoccult writing by him. These are principally theOg/irmi-beith, the Ogham-coll, and the Oghamcraofh\,which last is the old one and the true.But that the primary Irish letters, the letters firstin common use, which in the manner we haveshown, became accidentallyoccult, were originallymeant by the word ogum; besides the appealmade above to all antient authors, is plain in particularfrom Forchern, a noted bard and philosopher,who liv'd a little before Christ.This learnedman ascribing with others the invention of lettersto the Phenicians, or rather more strictly and properlyto Phenix, whom the Irish call Fenms farsaidJi,or Phenix the antient, says, that, amongother alphabets, as the Hebrew, Greec, and Latin,he also compos'd that of Bethhiis?iion an Oghuim\\,bus secreia suascribcbant : his referturn habeo libellum membranacGumantiquum. Cap, 2.* Dualtach mhac Firbis. + Ruahruigh O Flaltlubheartuigh.X Ogygia^ part. 3. cap. 30.§ Ogiim.branches,Fenius Farsaidti alphabeia prima Ilebrasorum, Graecorura^[|Latinorum, et Bethluisnion an Oghuim, composult. Ex For'cherni libro^ octingentis retro mnis Laiine reddiio.