THE

CAMBRIAN JOURNAL.

No. V.-JANUARY, 1855.

PHILOLOGY.

THE BODLEIAN ALPHABETS.

I AM enabled by the kindness of Dr. Bandinel, of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, to transmit you copies of tracings from the two alphabets in that Library, referred to in Zeuss' Celtic Grammar, and noticed in the Cambrian Journal, vol. I. p. 193. Referring now to a sculptured stone discovered near the end of Watling Street (the old British road), in St. Paul's Churchyard, found twenty-five feet below the surface, in the course of excavations made in the summer of 1852, (see Illustrated London News, August 28, 1852,) you will find that the outer line of the marginal inscription there given occurs in one of these of the Bodleian, cutting off the fan-shaped extensions of the characters. Omitting these same appendages, you will have the characters of the Scandinavian alphabet ("Runic "), with only two cases of variation viz., the eighth and tenth characters of the middle line, numbering from the left hand. The fan appendages to the latter appear to be referrible to one of the systems of Nineveh writing given in Layard's first publication (ii. pp. 166-177), and therefore take back our British inscriptions and alphabets, and the "Runic" also, to the East.' The Nineveh character is The Wat

The EDDA in its Baldur, his misletoe, death and resurrection, or

VOL. II.

B

ling Street inscription, as to its inner line, is of this "Runic" or Scandinavian character. The second of the Bodleian alphabets referred to by Zeuss, (Auct. F. 32,) has some characters referrible to the Hamyaritic, (the h,) but more akin to the first alphabet in Layard, p. 166. The "Edda" has more of the Persian Jinnistan than has received favour among their Druid neighbours; but in its "Baldur" it gives credit to and entertains with respectful love the Arthurian faith. We must assign to the nation of the Edda the office of scribe: whether foreign sculptors, or native artists instructed in the Baltic states, bordering on the Cimri there, were employed on the Watling Street inscription, would be difficult to determine. It may transpire eventually on deciphering (if the expression be legitimate) the Myvyrian involved literature, whether any scribes or inscriptions are noticed at archaic British eras.

In the meantime the Watling Street inscription, with the dark blue face of its stone (British colour), and its site, nearly half a mile west of the Roman city, and in the midst of British, Kentish or Kennish topography, gives the so much desiderated base of archæological argument in these days of objective science.

The Watling Street inscription forms the margin of emblazonry, in bold free outline, depicting a dragon; the two lines omitting in the outer line two figures, which seem panelling, or border, separating on either side there outer letters from the two central, are something like the following:

The Bodleian alphabets from reference Auct. F. iv. 32, and Bodl. 572, are given. I propose to cut off the

restoration, with a restored or new universe, is at once Arthurian and oriental.

lower half of the characters in the second alphabet. The top line appears to indicate the use of the appendages in changing the power or application of the Runic cha

racters.

G. B. BEAUMONT.

THE Bodleian MS., N. E. D. ii. 19, (Auct. F. 32,) is one which I have long been acquainted with, having not only published several fac-similes from it in my Paleographia Sacra Pictoria, but also made a fac-simile of the whole passage containing the so-called British alphabet, given above by Mr. G. B. Beaumont, but which had long ago been published by Hickes, and others.

The Latin equivalents are given in the original over the supposed British letters, and they agree in sequence with the Roman alphabet, the first letter A being represented by the large K-like letter at the bottom of the left hand column, followed by B C D E F G H I (being of the Roman 1 form) K L M N O P Q R S T U X Y Z (this last being of the Roman z form), the remaining ten characters represent æ, et, eu, au, ei, hinc, ego, ecce, vult, œ.

But this supposed alphabet is surely a spurious one. The mere fact of its characters ranging in Latin sequence shows it must have been formed upon a knowledge of that language, from which many of the letters are unquestionable plagiarisms,-A B D F H I R (reversed) u (v upside down) z. But the MS. directly states that Nemninus "subito ex machinatione mentis suæ formavit eas ut vituperationem et hebitudinem deiecerit gentis suæ.' Of course a British writer may say that this is all a libel upon Nemninus, who did not invent, but merely wrote down the letters of his countrymen, with which he was well acquainted, and thus ingeniously endeavoured to disprove the evidently well-founded charge made by his Anglo-Saxon opponent, that the British possessed no rudiments of letters. To say nothing however of the sequence and plagiarism of these letters above alluded to,

it happens (unfortunately for the genuineness and great antiquity of this very alphabet) that the manuscript which contains it is dated,-that its date is A.D. 812,-and that there are scores of monuments in Wales as old as, or older than, this manuscript, and that neither upon any one of them, nor in any other existing record than this manuscript, is this alphabet to be found. The same remark may also be made, without fear of contradiction, of the other pretended British and bardic alphabets, the genuineness of which is thus to a great extent impaired.

The alphabet from the Bodleian MS., 572, is Runic, that is, Scandinavian, and has no affinity with the preceding, even supposing the latter to be genuine. I believe it is considered that the extra strokes or " fan-shaped extensions" as Mr. Beaumont calls them, (of which examples occur elsewhere,) are intended for numerals. I doubt whether this alphabet is older than the eleventh century. What possible relation it can have with the Nineveh inscriptions, or Persian mythology, I cannot, in the shallowness of my notions, pretend to determine.

I am also well acquainted with the Watling Street carved stone and its genuine Runic inscription, having published an illustrated account, with the reading of the inscription, in the Journal of the Archeological Institute for 1853, p. 82. It is not Anglo-Saxon Runic, but Scandinavian. It consists of twenty-six letters, instead of fifteen, as given by Mr. Beaumont, whose sketch is so faulty that it ought not to be published. The letters in the two lines are opposed to each other, the bottom of the letters of the upper line being close to the bottom (not the top) of the letters of the lower line. The stone in question is at least six centuries later than the Roman occupation in England. It therefore proves nothing more than that somewhere about the time of King Cnut, (or Canute, as he is commonly called,) a Scandinavian of rank died, and was buried near St. Paul's, in London.

Hammersmith, Jan. 15, 1855.

J. O. WESTWOOD.

7

HISTORY.

THE TRADITIONARY ANNALS OF THE CYMRY.

CHAPTER VI.

FROM PRYDAIN TO DYVNWAL MOELMUD.—THE NATIVE

PRINCES.

It is observable that, though agreeably to the narrative of the "Brut," Lloegr is given in the "Genealogy of Iestyn" to Locrinus, Cymru is allotted to Annyn1 Dro, who, as well as his immediate descendants and successors, Selys Hen and Brwth, bear names so like those of Æneas of Troy, Sylvius, and Brutus, as to suggest the probability that they were intended to denote the same individuals. Cymryw, the fourth in succession, would seem to be meant for Camber. These links, therefore, may be looked upon with some suspicion. Dynwallon, the name of Prydain's younger son, to whom Scotland was assigned, is peculiar, since it bears no affinity to any general name of the country, though we find it borne in later times by some northern chiefs, and it is, perhaps, synonymous or identical with Donald, a cognomen of frequent occurrence in Scottish history.

As our business is to elucidate only the traditionary annals of the Cymry, we do not stop to investigate the chronicles of Scotland. We shall confine ourselves to the line of Camber, which represents the annals of the Cimbric or Welsh kings, making such use, moreover, of the Lloegrian succession as may suffice to illustrate and confirm our narrative. It must be borne in mind that,

1 In Ieuan Deulwyn's Book, A.D. 1450-1490, he is called Einion, which is of a more Cymric form.

2 A Dyvnwal Vrych is mentioned in the Gododin of Aneurin; and he is supposed to be the same with Donald Brec, king of the Scots, who was slain by Owain, king of the Strathclyde Britons, in the battle of Vraithe Cairvin. There was also a Dyvnwallawn, who reigned over the latter people in the tenth century.