Though several of the proper names occurring in the Irish Ogham monuments are to be met with in our annals and pedigrees, we doubt whether any of them have been yet so positively identified as to fix the time of the individuals whose memory it was intended thus to preserve."-p. 137-8.

gan, is preserved a long narrow slab of porphyritic greenstone, such as is found on the ridge of the Preseleu Hills, semi-columnar in form, and rhomboidal in section. It is about 7 feet in length, tapering upwards from rather more than 12 to 9 inches in breadth, with an average thickness of about 7 inches. The surfaces are all smooth, without any lichen adhering to them; and, did not other stones of this kind from the same hills offer the same appearance, it might be supposed to have been once artificially polished. Such, however, is not the case; this peculiar kind of igneous rock does not decompose readily; its greenish base, and the dull white, squarish crystals with which it is filled, resist the effects of weather and of vegetation with remarkable pertinacity. The stone in question is probably in as sound condition, with certain exceptions, as when it was first brought down from its native hills.

"Stones of this kind are prized all over Pembrokeshire, from the circumstance of their peculiar form and hardness making them useful as gate posts; every farmer is glad to get them from Preseleu ; and the very stone of which we are now treating shows, by two holes drilled into its surface, that it has been made to do this piece of agricultural duty in worse times, archeologically speaking, than the present.

"Not only as a gate-post, however, but also as a bridge, has it been made serviceable to the daily wants of generations now dead and gone; for it was so used over a brook not far from its present locality, and had acquired a sort of preternatural reputation, from the belief of the neighbourhood that a white lady glided over it constantly at the witching hour of midnight. It was fortunate, perhaps, that this should have been the case; for the superstitious feeling of the neighbours not only tended to preserve it from injury, -no man nor woman touched it willingly after dark,-but this very tradition, added to its peculiar form, probably led to its ultimate

rescue.

"A gentleman who is the present owner of the property on which St. Dogmael's Abbey stands, the Rev. H. J. Vincent, vicar of that parish, found the stone covered with a thick coat of whitewash, in a wall adjoining his house, where it was perhaps placed after its removal from the brook. When the wall was taken down, with the view of effecting some improvements, the stone fell, and was unfortunately broken in two. It was then carefully conveyed to the spot where it now rests. Before it fell, its inscribed face and edge were

VOL. L-No. XCIX

9

An animated controversy prevailed among the last generation of Irish scholars as to the date of the introduction of the Ogham writing. Charles O'Connor, of Belanagar, although by no means unsceptical, at least in maturer

uninjured. Luckily they had been turned downwards by whoever placed it, in ignorance of its value, across the brook.

"The inscription had been previously known; for that exact observer, Edward Lhwyd, had drawn the lettered surface most carefully, and his original sketch still exists. He had also remarked some of the notches on its edge, and had recorded a few in his drawing, but had not said anything about them in any of his notes. His sketch was not known to exist until 1859, when it was found, by the writer of this paper, at Oxford. But several years previously the writer had ascertained that one edge of the stone was covered with Oghamic characters, such as he had discovered at the same period on stones in other parts of the same district, and he pointed them out to Mr. Vincent, who at once perceived their archæological value. For several subsequent years he took careful drawings and rubbings of this stone, communicating them at the same time to Professor Graves, of Trinity College, Dublin, and to Mr. Westwood. The former, who has made the study of Oghams almost his own peculiar science, by his skill in working out the occult alphabet (well known to the readers of the Archeologia Cambrensis, from a review of his learned memoir on that subject), at once read off these Oghamic strokes, according to the system previously arranged from Irish monuments of the same description, and found that it corresponded very nearly with the inscription on the face of the stone.

"We say very nearly, for one important mark, equivalent to a, was apparently wanting; if that were found, the professor's alphabet and theory would be completely correct. He therefore advised

the writer to re-examine the stone more minutely; this was done, and the professor's conjecture was found to be correct: but more of this hereafter. Professor Graves then declared this stone to be the equivalent of the famous Rosetta stone of the Egyptian hieroglyphic discoveries, because it contained the same inscription in two distinct characters, one of the Romano-British type, the other of that occult Oghamic class which has been so much controverted, so much theorized upon, and so little understood. All that remained was to ascertain who might have been the personage commemorated, and what the date of his existence, as well as the palæographic character of the inscription.

"The Rev. Robert Williams, M. A., of Rhydycroesau, on being appealed to, immediately observed (as Lhwyd had also done) that CVNOTAMVS was the proper Latinized equivalent of CVNEDDAF, the

years, as to the pretensions of Irish antiquarians, regards the Ogham writing as of the Pagan time, and is of opinion that it continued in use till about the time of the arrival of St. Patrick and the Roman missionaries.* Soon after this period the Roman alphabet became known; but

British king, who is said to have flourished in the fourth century; but nothing could be then, nor has been since, elicited concerning SAGRANVS, here mentioned. If we are to assume that the Cunotamus here mentioned is really the Cunedda of early Welsh History, and if we are to consider the dates assigned above as tolerably correct, we can then evidently fix a period before which this stone could not have been sculptured, viz., the end of the fourth century. But the evidence we possess is not sufficiently weighty, the authenticity of its basis is not sufficiently proved, to allow of our assenting to it implicitly. We must call in the aid of the palæographer to obtain other means of approximation. Mr. Westwood, on being consulted as to the apparent date of this inscription, judging from its palæographic characteristics, has given the following opinion :

"The Latin portion of the Sagranus inscription offers but few peculiarities. It is entirely composed of Roman letters of a rather narrow form, varying in height, some in the upper line being nearly six inches high; those forming the word FILI in their much narrower form, in the bars of the F appearing on the left side of the upright stroke, in the upper bar being rather oblique, with the end elevated, and in the upright stroke of the L elevated a little above the adjoining letters, approach the rustic form. The first letter, s is ill formed, with the lower half larger than the upper, agreeing in this respect with the initial s in the Paulinus inscription, published in this Journal, ii., Third Series, p. 249. The third letter, a, formed of a semicircle, with a short oblique tail, scarcely extending below the line; and the м in the second line, with the first and last strokes splaying outwards, are the only ones which offer any peculiarity, and in these respects they agree with many of the oldest

Roman monuments.

"Hence, were we not guided by the formula, the comparative rudeness of the letters, and the fact of the inscription being carved lengthwise along the stone, we might refer this inscription to the Roman period, so complete is the absence of those minuscule forms of letters which occur in most of the Welsh inscriptions, and of which an instance may be seen in the Euolenus stone, ante, p. 56, and which indicate a later period, when, as in most of the Glamorganshire stones, scarcely any of the letters retained the capital Roman form. Under these circumstances I think we are warranted in assigning a date to the present inscription not long after the

*Dissertation prefixed to O'Flaherty's Ogygia, pp. xxxviii., xxxix.

the Ogham continued to be used for monuments and public inscriptions down to a much later date. On the contrary, Ledwich holds that the Ogham was a secret alphabet invented in the middle ages, and was "nothing but a stereographic or steganographic contrivance common to the

departure of the Romans, whilst the writing still remained unmodifred by a communion either with the Irish or Anglo-Saxon scribes. “J. O. WESTWOOD.

“Oxford, February, 1860.'

"Mr. Westwood, on examining the inscription itself, has thus given it as his opinion that the paleographical character of the letters is such as corresponds to the period when the British prince mentioned above is supposed to have flourished. We think, therefore, that the full value of these facts will not fail of being appreciated. We have here a stone which we may, upon palæographical grounds, consider of the fourth or fifth century; and it bears names which may be assigned to British princes, who are said to have flourished at that very period. The Romano-British inscription on its face is translated on its edge into the occult Oghamic alphabet, with a few literal variations, such as would be natural for an Irish translator to make. The Oghams, therefore, are either contempo raneous with the inscription, or not long posterior to it; and thus may both be pretty fairly considered as fixed in date between the extreme limits of a century, viz., a.d. 400—a.d. 500.

"We now proceed to explain the inscriptions themselves. That in Romano-British capitals, all easily decipherable, runs thus:

SAGRANI FILI CVNOTAMI

That in Oghamic characters, read from the bottom upwards, and from left to right (for such is Professor Graves's theory), runs thus:

SAGRAMNI MAQI CVNATAMI

"It was to be expected that an Irish translator would, according to the analogy of inscriptions in his own country, use the word MAQ or MAC (the equivalent of the Cymric MAB) for the Latin FILIVS,and so we find it.

"A various reading is occasioned by the introduction of м in the first word, and by the substitution of A for o in the last. These are not philological difficulties; the analogies of the Erse and the Cymric tongues easily account for them. The only real difficulty lay in the absence of the Oghamic mark for a between those standing for и and Q. This occurred just at the point where a crack had unfortunately taken place. To most observers it would have seemed as if this mark did not exist; but, by following up the hint given

semi-barbarians of Europe in the middle ages, and very probably derived from the Romans."*

On this much disputed question it is not possible, with the present incomplete knowledge of the Ogham_monuments still actually in existence, to arrive at a certain conclusion. Dr. Wilde, still quoting Dr. Graves, thus sums

up:

"Whether the ancient Irish, before the Christian era, possessed a primitive alphabet, differing essentially from that in use in other parts of Europe, is a question which has been debated by scholars with great earnestness. Those who maintain the affirmative, appeal to the concurrent authority of the most ancient Irish manuscript histories, according to which an alphabet, called Ogham, was invented by the Scythian progenitors of the Gaelic race, and was introduced into Ireland by the Tuatha De Dannaan, about thirteen centuries before the birth of Christ. They also refer to the oldest Irish Romances, which contain frequent allusions to the use of Ogham, either for the purpose of conveying intelligence, or in sepulchral inscriptions on pillar-stones erected in honour of distinguished persons. Finally, they point to existing monuments of this very kind, presenting inscriptions in the Ogham character; and

by Professor Graves, and by use of a magnifying glass, the existence of a small circular depression on the edge-cut in twain by the crack was satisfactorily established. All the other characters were so distinct as to admit of no doubt. The true reading of Professor Graves's alphabet was verified; and not only so, but the date of a specific example was closely approximated to.

"We need not stop to point out the archæological interest which this stone possesses; it seems to be one of the earliest in Wales of the Romano-British type; and its probable date will henceforth help us in conjecturing the age of other inscriptions, in which the same palæographic characteristics are met with.

"It remains only to add that, with the concurrence of our Association, the Rev. J. H. Vincent, who is one of our Local Secretaries for Pembrokeshire, is about to take steps for removing the stone, either to the interior of the parish church, or to some other place where it will be more certainly preserved than it now can be,-reclining, as it does, amid mantling ivy-half embraced and half retiring-against a mossy, fern-grown bank in his own beautiful garden." pp. 230.4.

Another similar belingual stone found at Llanfechan, Cardiganshire, is described (from the Archæologia Cambrensis) in the Kilkenny Archaeological Society's Proceedings just issued, pp. 303-4.

* Antiquities of Ireland, p. 331.