Cylchgronau Cymru

THE CAMBBIAN 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 Cam¬ brian 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, 18-52,) 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 ap¬ pendages, you will have the characters of the Scandina¬ vian alphabet (" Runic "), with only two cases of varia¬ tion viz., the eighth and tenth characters of the middle line, numbering from the left hand. The fan appen¬ dages to the latter appear to be referrible to one of the systems of Nineveh writing given in Layard's first publi¬ cation (ii. pp. 166-177), and therefore take back our British inscriptions and alphabets, and the " Runic" also, to the East.1 The Nineveh character is [fil The Wat- 1 The Edda in its Baldur, his misletoe, death and resurrection, or VOL. II. B