Definition. PHILOLOGY is compounded of the two Greek words φιλος and λόγος, and imports "the desire of investigating the properties and affections of words." The sages of Greece were, in the most ancient times, denominated Σοφοι, that is, wise men. Pythagoras pronounced this pompous appellation, and assumed the more humble title of φιλοσοφος, that is, a lover of wise men. The learned Greeks were afterwards called philosophers; and in process of time, in imitation of this epithet, the word philologer was adopted, to import "a man deeply versed in languages, etymology, antiquities, &c." Hence the term philology, which denotes the science that we propose briefly to discuss in the following article.

Though philology, in its original import, denoted only the study of words and language, it gradually acquired a much more extensive, and at the same time a much more useful, as well as more exalted, signification. It comprehended the study of grammar, criticism, etymology, the interpretation of ancient authors, antiquities; and, in a word, every thing relating to ancient manners, laws, religion, government, language, &c. In this enlarged sense of the word, philology becomes a science of the greatest utility; opens a wide field of intellectual investigation; and indeed calls for a more intense exertion of industry, and multifarious erudition, than most of those departments of literature which custom hath dignified with more high-founding names. It is indeed apparent, that, without the aid of philological studies, it is impossible, upon many occasions, to develop the origin of nations; to trace their primary frame and constitution; to discover their manners, customs, laws, religion, government, language, progress in arts and arms; or to learn by what men and what measures the most celebrated states of antiquity rose into grandeur and consideration. The study of history, so eminently useful to the legislator, the divine, the military man, the lawyer, the philosopher, and the private gentleman who wishes to employ his learned leisure in a manner honourable and improving to himself, and useful to his country, will contribute very little towards enlightening the mind without the aid of philological researches. For these reasons we shall endeavour to explain the various branches of that useful science as fully and as intelligibly as the nature of the present undertaking will permit.

Most of the branches of philology have been already canvassed under the various heads of Criticism, Etymology, Grammar, Language, &c. There still remains one part, which has been either slightly touched upon, or totally omitted, under the foregoing topics; we mean, the nature and complexion of most of the oriental tongues; as also some of the radical dialects of the languages of the west. As we would willingly gratify our readers of every description to the utmost of our power, we shall endeavour in this place to communicate to them as much information upon that subject as the extent of our reading, and the limits prescribed one single article, will permit.

Before we enter upon this subject, we must observe, that it is not our intention to fill our pages with a tedious, uninteresting, catalogue of barbarous languages, spoken by savage and inconsiderable tribes, of which little, or perhaps nothing, more is known than barely their names. Such an enumeration would swell the article without communicating one single new idea to the reader's antecedent stock. We shall therefore confine our inquiries to such languages as have been used by considerable states and societies, and which of consequence have acquired a high degree of celebrity in the regions of the east.

What was the antediluvian language, or whether it variety of was divided into a variety of dialects as at this day, can dialects be only be determined by the rules of analogy; and these will lead us to believe, that whatever might have been the primitive language of mankind, if human nature was then constituted as it is at present, a great variety of dialects must of necessity have sprung up in the space of near 2000 years. If we adopt the Mosaic account of the antediluvian events, we must admit that the descendants of Cain for some ages lived separated from those of Seth. Their manner of life, their religious ceremonies, their laws, their form of government, were probably different, and these circumstances would of course produce a variety in their language. The posterity of Cain were an inventive race. They found out the art of metallurgy, music, and some think of weaving; and in all probability many other articles condu- cive to the ease and accommodation of life were the produce of their ingenuity. A people of this character must have paid no small regard to their words and modes of expression. Wherever music is cultivated, language will naturally be improved and refined. When new inventions are introduced, a new race of words and phrases of necessity spring up, corresponding to the recent stock of ideas to be intimated. Besides, among an inventive race of people, new vocabularies would be continually fabricated, in order to supply the deficiencies of the primitive language, which was probably scanty in words, and its phraseology unpolished. The Cainites, then, among their other improvements, cannot well be supposed to have neglected the cultivation of language.

Many conjectures have been hazarded both by ancient and modern authors with respect to the origin of writing; an art nearly connected with that of speaking. According to Pliny*, "the Affryian letters had always existed; some imagined that letters had been invented by the Egyptian Mercury; others ascribed the honour of the invention to the Syrians." The truth seems to be, that letters were an antediluvian invention, preserved among the Chaldeans or Affryians, who were the immediate descendants of Noah, and inhabited those very regions in the neighbourhood of which the ark rested, and where that patriarch afterwards fixed his residence. This circumstance, we think, affords a strong presumption that the use of letters was known before the deluge, and transmitted to the Affryians and Chaldeans by Noah their progenitor, or at least by their immediate ancestors of his family. If, then, the art of writing was an antediluvian invention, we think that in all probability it originated among the posterity of Cain.

The descendants of Seth, according to the oriental tradition, were chiefly addicted to agriculture and tending of cattle. They devoted a great part of their time to the exercises of piety and devotion. From this circumstance they came to be distinguished by the title of the (A) sons of God. According to this description, the Sethites were a simple (B), unimproved race of people till they mingled with the race of Cain; after which period they at once adopted the improvements and the vices of that wicked family.

It is not, however, probable, that all the descendants of Seth, without exception, mingled with the Cainites. That family of which Noah was descended had not incorporated with the race of Cain; it was, according to the sacred historian, lineally descended from Seth, and had preserved the worship of the true God, when, it is probable, the greatest part of mankind had apostatized and become idolaters (C). Along with the true religion, the progenitors of Noah had preserved that simplicity of manners and equability of character which had distinguished their remote ancestors. Agriculture and rearing cattle had been their favourite occupations. Accordingly we find, that the patriarch Noah, immediately "after the deluge," became a husbandman, and "planted a vineyard." The chosen patriarchs, who doubtless imitated their pious ancestors, were shepherds, and employed in rearing and tending cattle. Indeed there are strong presumptions that the Chaldeans, Affryians, Syrians, Canaanites, and Arabians, in the earliest ages followed the same profession.

From this deduction, we imagine it is at least probable, that the ancestors of Noah persisted in the observance of the same simplicity of manners which had been handed down from Adam to Seth, and from him to Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and from this last to Noah. According both to scripture and tradition, innovations were the province of the Cainites, while the descendants of Seth adhered to the primitive and truly patriarchal institutions.

If these premises are allowed the merit of probability, the origin may justly infer that the language of Noah, whatever it was, differed very little from that of Adam (D); and that if it is possible to ascertain the language of the former, that of the latter will of course be discovered, upon which We shall then proceed to throw together a few observations relating to the language of Noah, and leave our sprung renders to judge for themselves. We believe it will be superfluous to suggest, that our intention in the course of this deduction, is, if possible, to trace the origin and antiquity of the Hebrew tongue; and to try to discover whether that language, or any of its sister dialects, may claim the honour of being the original language of mankind.

Whatever may have been the dialect of Noah and his family, that same dialect, according to the Mosaic account, must have obtained, without any alteration, till the era of the building of the tower of Babel.—Upon this occasion a dreadful convulsion took place: the language of mankind was confounded, and men were scattered abroad upon the face of all the earth.

How far this catastrophe (E) extended, is not the subject of the present inquiry to determine. One thing is certain beyond all controversy, namely, that the languages of all the nations which settled near the centre of population were but slightly affected by its influence. A very judicious writer has observed*, that 3000 years after, the inhabitants of those countries exhibited a very strong resemblance of cognation, "in their language; manner

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(A) From this passage (Gen. chap. vi. verse 2.) misunderstood, originated the absurd idea of the connection between angels and mortal women. See Joseph. Antiq. Jud. lib. i. cap. 4. See Edesb. Chron. lib. i. All the fathers of the church, almost without exception, adopted this foolish notion. See also Philo-Jud. p. 198. edit. Turn. Paris 1552.

(B) The orientals, however, affirm, that Seth, whom they call Edris, was the inventor of astronomy.

(C) We think it highly probable that idolatry was established before the flood; because it prevailed almost immediately after that catastrophe. See Polytheism.

(D) For the first language communicated to Adam, see the article on Language; also Schenckford's Connect. vol. i. lib. ii. p. 111. et seq.

(E) Josephus and the fathers of the church tell us, that the number of languages produced by the confusion of tongues was 72; but this is a mere rabbinical legend. At the same time he observes, that the resemblance in all those particulars was most remarkable among the inhabitants of Mefopotamia." This observation, with respect to language, will, we doubt not, be vouched by every one of our readers who has acquired even a superficial knowledge of the languages current in those quarters at a very early period.

It appears, then, that the languages of the Armenians, Syrians, Assyrians, Arabians, and probably of the Chanaanites, did not suffer materially by the confusion of tongues. This observation may, we imagine, be extended to many of the dialects (r) spoken by the people who settled in those countries not far distant from the region where the sacred historian has fixed the original seat of mankind after the deluge. The inference then is, that if Noah and his family spoke the original language of Adam, as they most probably did, the judgment which effected the confusion of tongues did not produce any considerable alteration in the language of such of the descendants of Noah as settled near the region where that patriarch had fixed his residence after he quitted the ark.

But supposing the changes of language produced by the catastrophe at the building of the tower as considerable as has ever been imagined, it does not, after all, appear certain, that all mankind, without exception, were engaged in this impious project. If this assertion should be well founded, the consequence will be, that there was a chosen race who did not engage in that enterprise. If there was such a family, society, or body of men, it will follow, that this family, society, &c., retained the language of its great ancestor without change or variation. That such a family did actually exist, is highly probable, for the following reasons.

1. We think there is reason to believe that Ham, upon the heavy curse denounced upon him by his father *, retired from his brethren, and fixed his residence elsewhere. Accordingly we find his descendants scattered far and wide, at a very great distance from the Gordyæan mountains, where the ark is generally supposed to have rested immediately after the flood. Some of them we find in Chaldea, others in Arabia Felix, others in Ethiopia (g), others in Canaan, and others in Egypt; and, finally, multitudes scattered over all the coast of Africa. Between these countries were planted many colonies of Shemites, in Elam, Assyria, Syria, Arabia, &c. We find, at the same time, the descendants of Shem and Japhet settled, in a great degree, contiguous to each other. This dispersion of the Hamites, irregular as it is, can scarce, we think, have been accidental; it must have been owing to some uncommon language cause, and none seems more probable than that assigned above. If, then, the descendants of Ham separated early, and took different routes, as from their posterior situations it appears they did, they could not all be present at the building of the tower.

2. It is not probable that the descendants of Shem and those were engaged in this undertaking, since we find that not the descendants they were not scattered abroad upon the face of all the earth. The children of Shem were + Elam, Ashur, + Chap. x. Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram. Elam settled near the river Euphrates, mouth of the river Tigris, in the country which, by the Gentile writers, was called Elymais. Above him, on the same river, lay the demeane of Ashur, on the western side. In like manner, upon the same river, above him, was situated Aram, who possessed the country of Aramea; and opposite to him was Arphaxad, or Arbaces, or Arbaches, and his country was denominated Arphachites. Lud, as some think, settled in Lydia, among the sons of Japhet; but this opinion seems to be without foundation (h). Here, then, there is a dispersion, but such as must have originated from the nature of the thing. The four, or rather the five brothers, all settled contiguous, without being scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. Besides, there was no confusion of language among these tribes: they continued to use one and the same lip through many succeeding generations.

From these circumstances it appears that the posterity of Shem were not involved in the guilt of the builders of the tower, and of consequence did not undergo their punishment. If then the language of the Shemites was not confounded upon the erection of the tower, the presumption is, that they retained the language of Noah, which, in all probability, was that of Adam. Some dialectical differences would in process of time creep in, but the radical fabric of the language would remain unaltered.

3. The posterity of Shem appear in general to have cultivated the pastoral life. They imitated the style of living adopted by the antediluvian posterity of Seth. No sooner had Noah descended from the ark, than he became I/b ha Adamah, a man of the earth; that is, a husbandman, and planted a vineyard. We find that some ages after, Laban the Syrian had flocks and herds; and that the chief wealth of the patriarch Abraham and his children consisted in their flocks and herds. Even his Gentile descendants, the Ishmaelites and Midianites, seem to have followed the same occupation. But people of this profession are seldom given to changes: their wants are few, and of consequence they are under few or

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(r) The languages of the Medes, Persians, Phœnicians, and Egyptians, very much resembled each other in their original complexion; and all had a strong affinity to the Hebrew, Chaldean, Syriac, &c. See Walton's Proleg.; Gale's Court of the Gent. vol. i. lib. i. ch. ii. p. 70. et seg.; Boch. Phalec and Chanaan, pass. To these we may add the Greek language, as will appear more fully below.

(g) Josephus informs us, that all the nations of Asia called the Ethiopians Cushim, lib. i. cap. 7.

(h) The ancient name of Lydia was Meonia. See Strabo Caffaub. lib. xiii. p. 586. chap. 7. Rhod. 577. The Lydians were celebrated for inventing games; on which account they were nicknamed by the Æolian Greeks Ludii, Lydi or Ludi, from the Hebrew word ludz, ludere, illudere, deridere. We find (Ezek. chap. xxvii. ver. 10.) the men of Elam and the men of Lud joined in the defence of Tyre; which seems to intimate, that the Elamites and Ludim were neighbours. If this was actually the case, then Lud settled in the same quarter with his brothers. or no temptations to deviate from the beaten track.

This circumstance renders it probable, that the language of Noah, the same with that of Adam, was preserved with little variation among the descendants of Arphaxad down to Abraham.

We have observed above, that Ham, upon the curse denounced against him by his father, very probably left the society of his other brothers, and emigrated elsewhere, as Cain had done in the antediluvian world. There is a tradition still current in the East, and which was adopted by many of the Christian fathers (1), that Noah, in the 336th year of his life, by divine appointment, did, in the most formal manner, divide the whole terraqueous globe among his three sons, obliging them to take an oath that they would stand by the decision. Upon this happened a migration at the birth of Peleg, that is, about three centuries after the flood. It is affirmed that Nimrod the arch-rebel disregarded this partition, and encroached upon the territory of Ashur, which occasioned the first war after the flood.

The Greeks had acquired some idea of this partition, which they supposed to have been between Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto. Plato seems to have heard of it (K): "For (says he) the gods of old obtained the dominion of the whole earth, according to their different allotments. This was effected without any contention, for they took possession of their several provinces in a fair and amicable way, by lot." Jolephus §, in his account of the dispersion of mankind, plainly intimates a divine definition; and Philo-Judaeus (L) was of the same opinion before him.

In consequence of this arrangement, the sons of Shem possessed themselves of the countries mentioned in the preceding pages: the posterity of Japhet had spread themselves towards the north and west; but the Hamites, who had separated from their brethren in consequence of the curse, not choosing to retire to their quarters, which were indeed very distant from the place where the ark rested, seized upon the land of Canaan (M). Perhaps, too, it might be suggested by some malicious spirits, that the aged patriarch was dealing partially when he assigned Ham and his posterity a quarter of the world to inhabit not only remote from the centre of population, but likewise sequestered from the rest of mankind (N).

Be that as it may, the children of Ham removed eastward, and at length descending from the Cordycean or Gordyean mountains, directed their course westward, Language arrived at the plains of Shinar, which had been possessed by the Ashurim ever since the era of the first migration at the birth of Peleg. The sacred historian informs us, that the whole earth "was of one language and of one speech;" that in journeying from the east, they lighted upon the plain of Shinar, and dwelt there. In this passage we find no particular people specified; but as we find Nimrod, one of the descendants of Ham, settled in that country, we are sure that they were the offspring of that patriarch. It would not, we think, be easy to assign a reason how one branch of the family of Ham came to plant itself in the midst of the sons of Shem by any other means but by violence.

It is indeed generally supposed, that Nimrod, at the head of a body of the children of Ham, made war upon Babel, and drove him out of the country of Shinar; built there the foundation of that kingdom, the beginning of which was Babel; that this chief, supported by all the Cushites, and a great number of apostates from the families of Shem and Japhet who had joined him, refused to submit to the divine ordinance by the mouth of Noah, with respect to the partition of the earth; and that he and his adherents were the people who erected the celebrated tower, in consequence of a resolution which they had formed to keep together, without repairing to the quarters assigned them by the determination of heaven. This was the crime which brought down the judgement of the Almighty upon them, by which they were scattered abroad upon the face of all the earth. The main body of the children of Shem and Japhet were not engaged in this impious undertaking; their language, therefore, was not confounded, nor were they themselves scattered abroad. Their habitations were contiguous; those of the Semites towards the centre of Asia; the dwellings of Japhet were extended towards the north and north-west; and the languages of both these families continued for many ages without the least variation, except what time, climate, laws, religion, new inventions, arts, sciences, and commerce, &c. will produce in every tongue in a succession of years.

The general opinion then was, that none but the progeny of Ham and their associates were present at the building of the tower, and that they only suffered by the judgement consequent upon that attempt. There are

(1) Epiph. vol. i. p. 5. ibid. p. 709. where our learned readers will observe some palpable errors about Rhinocerota, &c. Euseb. Chron. p. 10. Syncellus, p. 89. Cedrenus Chron. Pafch. &c.

(K) Critias, vol. iii. page 109. Serr. Apollodorus mentions a time when the gods respectively selected particular cities and regions, which they were to take under their peculiar protection.

(L) Lib. x. p. 236. Turn. Paris 1552. We have a plain allusion to this distribution (Deut. ch. xxxii. ver. 7). "When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people, according to the number of the children of Israel; for the Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance." From this passage it appears, that the whole was arranged by the appointment of God, and that the land of Canaan was expressly referred for the children of Israel. St Paul, Acts ch. xvii. ver. 16. speaks of this divine arrangement, "God made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth; and determined the bounds of their habitation."

(M) The ark, according to the most probable accounts, rested upon Mount Ararat in Armenia.

(N) We think it is by no means improbable that Noah, well knowing the wickedness of the family of Ham, and especially their inclination to the idolatry of the antediluvians, might actually intend to separate them from the rest of mankind.

(O) Some learned men have imagined that this confusion of language, which the Hebrew calls Lèp, was only History of are even among the Pagans some allusions to the division of the world among the three sons of Noah. Many of the learned have imagined that this patriarch was Saturn; and that his three sons were Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, as has been observed above.

Berolius*, in his history of the Babylonians, informs us, that Noah, at the foot of Mount Baris or Luban, where the ark rested, gave his children their last instructions, and then vanished out of sight. It is now generally believed that the Xifuthrus of Berolius was Noah.

Europemus†, another heathen writer, tells us, "that the city Babel was first founded, and afterwards the celebrated tower; both which were built by some of those people who escaped the deluge. They were the same with those who in after times were exhibited under the name of giants. The tower was at length ruined by the hand of the Almighty, and those giants were scattered over the whole earth." This quotation plainly intimates, that according to the opinion of the author, only the racially mob of the Hamites, and their apostate associates, were engaged in this daring enterprise.

Indeed it can never be supposed that Shem, if he was alive at that period, as he certainly was, would co-operate in such an absurd and impious undertaking. That devout patriarch, we think, would rather employ his influence and authority to divert his descendants from an attempt which he knew was undertaken in contradiction to an express ordinance of Heaven: and it is surely very little probable that Elam, Ashur, Arphaxad, and Aram, would join that impious confederacy, in opposition to the remonstrances of their father.

The building of the tower, according to the most probable chronology, was undertaken at a period so late, that all mankind could not possibly have concurred in the enterprise.

Many of the fathers were of opinion, that Noah settled in Armenia, the country where the ark reposed; and that his descendants did not leave that region for five generations‡, during the space of 659 years. By this period the human race must have been so amazingly multiplied, that the plains of Shinar could not have contained them. According to the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Septuagint version, Peleg was born in the 134th year of his father Eber. Even admitting the vulgar opinion, that the tower was begun to be built, and the dispersion consequent upon that event to have taken place at this era, the human race would have been by much too numerous to have universally concurred in one design.

From these circumstances, we hope it appears that the whole mass of mankind was not engaged in building the tower; that the language of all the human race was not confounded upon that occasion; and that the difference reached only to a combination of Hamites, and of the most profligate part of the two other families, who had joined their wicked confederacy.

We have pursued this argument to considerable length. Therefore because some have inferred, from the difference in languages existing at this day, that mankind cannot have sprung from two individuals; because from the connection still existing among languages, some have been bold enough to question the fact, though plainly recorded in sacred history; and lastly, because we imagine that some of our readers, who do not pretend to peruse the writings of the learned, may be gratified by seeing the various opinions respecting the confusion of tongues, and the dispersion of mankind, collected into one mass, equally brief, we hope, and intelligible: and this view of these opinions, with the foundations on which they respectively rest, we think may suffice to prove, that the language of Noah was for some ages preserved unmixed among the descendants of both Shem and Japhet.

To gratify still farther such of our curious readers as may not have access to more ample information, we shall in this place exhibit a brief detail of the circumstances which attended this fatal attempt. The people engaged in it have been held up as a profligate race. The Almighty himself denominates them "the children of men," which is the very appellation by which the antediluvian sinners were characterized; the sons of God saw the daughters of men, &c. Their design in raising this edifice was "to make them a name, and to prevent their being scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."*

Whatever revolution the rest of mankind might take, they had determined to maintain themselves on that spot. The tower was intended as a centre of union, and perhaps as a fortress of defence. Such a stupendous fabric, they imagined, would immortalize their memory, and transmit the name of their confederacy with eclat (p) to future ages. This design plainly intimates, that there was only a party concerned in the undertaking, since had all mankind been engaged in it, the purpose would have been foolish and futile. Again, they intended, by making themselves a name, to prevent their being scattered abroad upon the face of the earth. This was an act of rebellion in direct contradiction to the divine appointment, which constituted their crime, and brought down the judgement of Heaven upon their guilty heads. The consequence of the confusion of languages was, that the projectors left off to build (q), and were actually scattered abroad, contrary to their intention.

Abydenus, in his Assyrian annals, records, that the Pagan tradition concerning the gods of tower of Babel.

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* Gen. chap. xi. † Epiph. Hierap. lib. i. ‡ For a description of the tower, see the article BABEL. § See the Greek original of this quotation, Euseb. Chron. lib. i. page 13. History of gods ruined it by storms and whirlwinds, and overthrew it upon the heads of those who were employed in the work, and that the ruins of it were called Babylon. Before this there was but one language subsisting among men: but now there arose πολυγλωσσία, a manifold speech; and he adds, that a war soon after broke out between (s) Titan and Cronus." (t) The Sybilline oracles give much the same account of this early and important transaction.

* Philip. lib. 15. cap. 3.

"Justin informs us, that the Phoenicians who built Tyre were driven from Assyria by an earthquake. These Phoenicians were the descendants of Mizraim the youngest son of Ham; and were, we think, confederates in building the tower, and were driven away by the catastrophe that ensued. Many other allusions to the dispersion of this branch of the family occur in Pagan authors, which the limits to be observed in an inquiry of this nature oblige us to omit. Upon the whole, we think it probable that the country of Shinar lay desolate for some time after this revolution; for the dread of the judgement inflicted upon the original inhabitants would deter men from settling in that auspicious region. At last, however, a new colony arrived, and Babel, or Babylon, became the capital of a flourishing kingdom.

Our readers, we believe, will expect that we should say something of Nimrod the mighty hunter, who is generally thought to have been deeply concerned in the transactions of this period. According to most authors, both ancient and modern, this patriarch was the leader of the confederates who erected the tower, and the chief instigator to that enterprise. But if the tower was built at the birth of Phlego, according to the Hebrew computation, that chief was either a child, or rather not born at that period (u). The Seventy have pronounced him a giant, as well as a huntsman. They have translated the Hebrew word gebur, which generally signifies strong, mighty, by the word γεράσιμος, giant; an idea which we imagine those translators borrowed from the Greeks. The antediluvian giants are called Nephelim and Rephaim, but never Geburim. The Rabbinical writers, who justly hated the Babylonians, readily adopted this idea (x); and the fathers of the church, and the Byzantine historians, have universally followed them. He has been called Nimrod, Nebrod, Nymbroth, Nebroth, and Nebris. Not a few have made him the first Bacchus, and compounded his name of Bar, a son, and Cubb, that is, the son of Cubb. Some have imagined that he was the Orion of the Pagans, whose shade is so nobly described by Ho-

† Bochart. Phaleg. lib. i. cap. 10.

‡ Odyse. l. 1. mer. † verse 571.

(s) This war was probably carried on between the leaders of the Hamites and Ashur upon their invasion.

(t) Theoph. ad Antol. lib. ii. page 197. ed. Paris 1636.

(u) Gen. chap. x. verse 8, 9. "This man began to be a giant upon the earth; he was the giant hunter before the Lord God.—As Nymbrod the giant hunter before the Lord.

(x) See Mr Bryant's Analysis, vol. iii. page 38. et seq.

(y) Orion is compounded of the Hebrew Or "light," and ion "one of the names of the sun;" and Orion was probably one of the names of that luminary.

(z) See Shuckford's Connect. vol. i. lib. 3. page 179, 180. Also the authors of the Univer. Hist. vol. i.

(A) Huz gave name to the country of Job; Elihu, one of Job's friends, was a Buzite of the kindred of Ram or Aram, another of the sons of Nahor. Aram, whose posterity planted Syria cava, was the grandson of Nahor by Kemuel. Hence it appears probable that Job himself was a descendant of Nahor by Huz his first born.

(B) See Eustat. in Dion. Perieg. ver. 768. Strabo, lib. xii. page 543. Cafaub. As the Chalybes were famous for manufacturing iron, so were they celebrated for making the choicest pieces of armour. They excelled in making something (y) honourable, and very unsuitable to the Language, idea of the tyrant Nimrod. It must be observed, however, that we find nothing in Scripture to warrant the supposition of his having been a tyrant; so far from it, that some have deemed him a benefactor to mankind. See Nimrod.

The beginning of this prince's kingdom was Babel. Eusebius gives us first* a catalogue of five kings of the * Chron. Chaldeans, and then another of five kings of Arabian lib. i. extraction, who reigned in Chaldea after them. This might naturally enough happen, since it appears that the inhabitants of those parts of Arabia which are adjacent to Chaldea were actually Cushites, of the † same family ‡ Gen. x. Ezek. xxvii.

The Cushites, however, were at last subdued, perhaps partly expelled Chaldea by the Chafidim, who probably claimed that territory as the patrimony of their progenitors. That the Chafidim were neither Cushites, nor indeed Hamites, is obvious from the name. The Hebrews, and indeed all the Orientals †, denominated both the † Yosheb people who inhabited the eastern coast of Arabia Cubhim, Adr. lib. i. and also the Ethiopians who sprung from the last mentioned people. Had the later inhabitants of Chaldea been the descendants of Cubh, the Jewish writers would have called them Cubhim. We find they called the Phoenicians Chananaanim, the Syrians Aramim, the Egyptians Misraian, the Greeks Jonim, &c. The Chafidim, therefore, or modern inhabitants of Chaldea, were positively descended of one Chefed or Chafed; but who this family-chief was, it is not easy to determine. The only person of that name whom we meet with in early times is the fourth son of Nahor §, the brother of Abraham; and § Gen. chap. xxii. verse 22, have been of opinion that the Chaldeans were the progeny of this same Chefed. This appears to us highly probable, because both Abram and Nahor were || na-§ Gen. natives of Ur of the Chafidim. The former, we know, in chap. xi. consequence of the divine command, removed to Haran, afterwards Charrei; but the latter remained in Ur, where his family multiplied, and, in process of time, became masters of the country which they called the land of the Chafidim, from Chefed or Chafed, the name of their ancestor. This account is the more probable, as we find the other branches of Nahor's family settled in the same neighbourhood (a).

How the Greeks came to denominate these people Origin of Χαλδαιοι, Chaldee, is a question rather difficult to be resolved; but we know that they always affected to distin-

guish people and places by names derived from their own language. They knew a rugged, erratic nation (B)

History of on the banks of the river Thermoodon, in the territory of Pontus, bordering on Armenia the Lefs. These, in ancient times, were called Alybes or Chalybes, because they were much employed in forging and polishing iron. Their neighbours, at length, gave them the name of Chald or Caled, which imports, in the Armenian dialect, fierce, hardy, robust. This title the Greeks adopted, and out of it formed the word Xαλδεῖον "Chaldeans."

The Mosaic history informs us (c), that Ashur went out of that land (Shinar), and built Nineveh and several other considerable cities. One of the successors of Ashur was the celebrated Ninus, who first broke the peace of the world*, made war upon his neighbours, and obliged them by force of arms to become his subjects, and pay tribute. Some authors make him the immediate successor of Ashur, and the builder of Nineveh. This we think is not probable; Eusebius, as we have observed above, gives a list of six Arabian princes who reigned in Babylon. These we take to have been the immediate successors of Nimrod, called Arabians; because these people were Cushites. Ninus might be reputed the first king of the Assyrians, because he figured beyond his predecessors; and he might pass for the builder of Nineveh, because he greatly enlarged and beautified that city. We therefore imagine, that Ninus was the fifth or sixth in succession after Ashur.

Ninus, according to Diodorus Siculus†, made an alliance with Arius king of the Arabians, and conquered the Babylonians. This event, in our opinion, put an end to the empire of the Hamites or Cushim in Shinar or Babylonia. The author observes, that the Babylon which figured afterwards did not then exist. This fact is confirmed by the prophet Isaiah‡: "Behold the land of the Chasdim; this people was not till Ashur founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness. They set up the towers thereof, &c." After Babylonia was subdued by the Assyrians under Ninus, the capital was either destroyed by that conqueror or deserted by the inhabitants. At length it was re-edified by some one or other of the Assyrian monarchs, who collected the roving Chasdim, and obliged them to settle in the new city. These were subject to the Assyrian empire till the reign of Sardanapalus, when both the Medes and Babylonians rebelled against that effeminate prince.

The Chasdim were celebrated by all antiquity for their proficiency in astronomy, astrology, magic, and curious sciences. Ur or Orchoe (D) was a kind of university for those branches of learning. Such was their reputation in those studies, that over a great part of Asia and Europe a Chaldean and an astrologer were synonymous terms. These sciences, according to the tradition of the Orientals, had been invented by Seth, whom they call Edris; and had been cultivated by his descendants downward to Noah, by whom they were transmitted to Shem, who conveyed them to Arphaxad and his posterity.

To us it appears probable, that the religious sentiments transmitted from Noah through the line of Shem, were kept alive in the family of Arphaxad, and so handed down to the families of Serug, Nahor, Terah, Abram, Nahor II, and Haran, &c. The Jewish rabbis, and all the Persian and Mahomedan writers, make Abraham contemporary with Nimrod; who, say they, persecuted him most cruelly for adhering to the true religion. That these two patriarchs were contemporary, is very improbable, since Nimrod was the third generation after Noah, and Abram the tenth. Abram has been invested by the rabbinical writers with every department of learning. According to them, he transported from Charre into Chanaan and Egypt, astronomy, astrology, mathematics, geography, magic, alphabetical writing, &c. &c.

After the Babylonian captivity, when the Jews were dispersed over all the east, and began to make proselytes among the Pagans, wonderful things were reported of Abram with respect to his acquirements in human erudition, as well as his supereminence in virtue and piety. These legendary tales were believed by the proselytes, and by them retailed to their connections and acquaintances. But certainly the holy man either was not deeply versed in human sciences, or did not deem them of importance enough to be communicated to his posterity; since the Jews are, on all hands, acknowledged to have made little progress in these improvements. To think of raising the fame of Abraham, by clasping him with the philosophers, betrays an extreme defect in judgement. He is entitled to praise of a higher kind; for he excelled in piety, was the father of the faithful, the root of the Messiah, and the friend of God. Before these, all other titles vanish away. Such of our readers, however, as have leisure enough, and at the same time learning enough to enable them to consult the rabbinical legends, will be furnished with a full and ample detail.

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* Yuflin. † Lib. ii. ‡ Ch. xxii. verse 13.

κλάσσαι, or coats of mail, or brigandines used by the bravest of the Persian horsemen. Bochart Phaleg. lib. iii. cap. 12, and 13, has proved that the word Χελίβα signifies "scales of brass or steel." From the word Χελίβα, the Greeks formed their Χαλίβες, Chalybes. Xenoph. Cyrop. lib. iii. page 43. Steph. represents the Chaldeans, who inhabited a mountainous country bordering upon Armenia, as a very fierce warlike people. Ib. page 107, we have an example of their rapacious character. Id. ib. lib. iv. page 192. Hen. Steph. we have an account of their bravery and of their arms. Another instance of their rapacity occurs in their plundering the cattle of Job.

(c) A dispute has arisen about the sense of verse 10, chap. x. Out of that land went forth Ashur, and builded Nineveh. Some approve our translation, which we think is just; others, considering that the inspired writer had been speaking of Nimrod and the beginning of his kingdom, are of opinion that it should be translated, And out of this land He (that is Nimrod) went into Ashur and builded Nineveh. This they make a military expedition, and a violent irruption into the territory of Ashur.

(D) Ur or Orchoe was situated between Nisibis and Corduena. See Ammianus Marcel. Expeditio Juliana, lib. xv. It lay not far from the river Tigris. Strabo, lib. xvi. page 739, tells us that the Chaldean philosophers were divided into different sects, the Orcheni, the Borsippeni, and several others. Diod. Sicul. likewise, lib. ii. page 82. Steph. gives an exact detail of the functions, profession, and establishment of the Chaldeans, to which we must refer our curious readers. In the progress of this disquisition, we have seen that the language of Noah was, in all probability, the same or nearly the same with that of Adam. Additions and improvements might be introduced, but still the radical stamina of the language remained unchanged. It has likewise appeared, that the confusion of language at the building of the tower of Babel was only partial, and affected none but the rebellious crew of the race of Ham; and the apostate part of the families of Shem and Japhet. We have concluded, that the main body of the race of Shem, at least, were neither dispersed nor their language confounded; and that consequently the descendants of that patriarch continued to speak their paternal dialect or the uncorrupted language of Noah. To these arguments we may take the liberty to add another, which is, that in all probability the worship of the true God was preserved in the line of Arphaxad, after the generality of the other sects had lapsed into idolatry. Out of this family Abraham was taken, in whose line the true religion was to be preserved. Whether Abraham was an idolater when he dwelt in Chaldea, the scripture does not inform us, though it seems to be evident that his father was. One thing, however, is certain, namely, that Jehovah (YHWH) appeared to him, and pronounced a blessing upon him before he left Ur of the Chaldees. This circumstance no doubt indicates, that this patriarch had made uncommon advances in piety and virtue, even prior to his emigration. The progenitors of his family had been distinguished by adhering to the true religion. About this time, however, they began to degenerate, and to adopt the Zabifim of their apostate neighbours. It was then that Abraham was commanded by Heaven to "leave his kindred and his father's house, and to travel into a land which was to be shown him." The Almighty intended that the true religion should be preserved in his line, and therefore removed him from a country and kindred, by the influence of whose bad example his religious principles might be endangered. His family had only of late apostatized; till that period they had preserved both the language and religion of their venerable ancestors.

But however much Abraham might differ from the other branches of his family in his religious sentiments, his language was certainly in unison with theirs. The consequence of this unquestionable position is, that the language which he carried with him into Chanaan was exactly the same with that of his family which he relinquished when he began his peregrinations. But if this be true, it will follow, that the language afterwards denominated Hebrew, and that of the Chaldeans or Chaldeans were originally one and the same. This position, we think, will not be controverted. There is then an end of the dispute concerning the original language of mankind. We have advanced some presumptive proofs in the preceding pages, that the language of Adam was transmitted to Noah, and that the dialect of the latter was preserved in the line of Arphaxad downwards to the family of Abraham: and it now appears that the Hebrew and Chaldean were originally spoken by the same family, and of course were the same between themselves, and were actually the first language upon earth, according to the Mosaic history. Numberless additions, alterations, improvements, we acknowledge, were introduced in the course of 2000 years; but still the original stamina of the language were unchanged. Our readers will please to observe that the Orientals are not a people given to change; and that this character, in the earliest ages, was still more prevalent than at present. This affirmation we presume, needs no proof.

In confirmation of these presumptive arguments, we may add the popular one which is commonly urged upon this occasion, viz. that the names of antediluvian persons and places mentioned by the sacred historian, are generally of Hebrew origin, and significant in that language. Some of them, we acknowledge, are not so; but in this case it ought to be remembered, that a very small part of that language now exists, and that probably the radicals from which these words are descended are among the number of those which have long been lost.

Sect. I. The Hebrew Language.

Having thus proved the priority of the Hebrew language to every other language that has been spoken by men, we shall now proceed to consider its nature and genius; from which it will appear still more evidently to be an original language, neither improved or debased by foreign idioms. The words of which it is composed are short, and admit of very little flexion. The names of places are descriptive of their nature, situation, accidental circumstances, &c. Its compounds are few, and artificially joined together. In it we find few of those artificial affixes which distinguish the other cognate dialects; such as the Chaldean, Syrian, Arabian, Phoenician, &c. We find in it no traces of improvement from the age of Moses to the era of the Babylonish captivity. The age of David and Solomon was the golden period of the Hebrew tongue; and yet, in our opinion, it would puzzle a critic of the nicest acumen to discover much improvement even during that happy era. In fact, the Jews were by no means an inventive people. We hear nothing of their progress in literary pursuits; nor do they seem to have been industrious in borrowing from their neighbours. The laws and statutes communicated by Moles were the principal objects of their studies. These they were commanded to contemplate day and night; and in them they were to place their chief delight. The consequence of this command was, that little or no regard could be paid to taste, or any other subject.

Hebrew subject of philosophical investigation. Every unimproved language abounds in figurative expressions borrowed from sensible objects. This is in a peculiar manner the characteristic of the language in question; of which it would be superfluous to produce instances, as the fact must be obvious even to the attentive reader of the English Bible.

In the course of this argument, we think it ought to be observed, and we deem it an observation of the greatest importance, that if we compare the other languages which have claimed the prize of originality from the Hebrew with that dialect, we shall quickly be convinced that the latter has a just title to the preference. The writers who have treated this subject, generally bring into competition the Hebrew, Chaldean, Syrian, and Arabian. Some one or other of these has commonly been thought the original language of mankind. The arguments for the Syrian and Arabian are altogether futile. The numerous improvements superinduced upon these languages, evidently prove that they could not have been the original language. In all cognate dialects, etymologists hold it as a maxim, that the least improved is likely to be the most ancient.

We have observed above, that the language of Abraham and that of the Cheddim or Chaldeans were originally the same; and we are persuaded, that if an able critic should take the pains to examine strictly these two languages, and to take from each what may reasonably be supposed to have been improvements or additions since the age of Abraham, he will find intrinsic evidence sufficient to convince him of the truth of this position. There appear still in the Chaldean tongue great numbers of (ii) words the same with the Hebrew, perhaps as many as mankind had occasion for in the most early ages; and much greater numbers would probably be found if both languages had come down to us entire.

The construction of the two languages is indeed somewhat different; but this difference arises chiefly from the superior improvement of the Chaldean. While the Hebrew language was in a manner stationary, the Chaldean underwent progressive improvements; was mellowed by antitheses, rendered sonorous by the disposition of vocal sounds, acquired a copiousness by compounds, and a majesty by affixes and prefixes, &c. In process of time, however, the difference became so great, that the Israelites did not understand the Chaldean language at the era of the Babylonish captivity. This much the prophet intimates, when he promises the pious Jews protection "from a fierce people; a people of a deeper speech than they could perceive; of a hammering tongue, that they could not understand."

The priority of the Chaldean tongue is indeed contended for by very learned writers. Camden calls it the mother of all languages; and most of the fathers were of the same opinion. Amira has made a collection of arguments, not inconsiderable, in favour of Hebrew; and Myricus after him, did the same. Erasmus, in his Oration for the Hebrew tongue, thought the argument for it and the Chaldean so equal, that he did not choose to take upon him to determine the question.

Many circumstances, however, concur to make us assign the priority to the Hebrew, or rather to make us believe that it has suffered fewer of those changes to which every living tongue is more or less liable. If we strip this language of every thing obviously adventitious, we shall find it extremely simple and primitive.

1. Every thing metaphorical, supposing the vowels and points (G) essential, was certainly unknown in its original character. 2. All the prefixed and affixed letters for main-words added time after time, to give more compass and taming precision to the language. 3. The various voices, tenses, numbers, and persons of verbs, were posterior improvements; for in that tongue, nothing at first appeared but the indeclinable radix. 4. In the same manner, the few adjectives that occur in the language, and the numbers and regimen of nouns, were not from the beginning. 5. Most of the Hebrew nouns are derived from verbs; indeed many of them are written with the very same letters. This rule, however, is not general; for often verbs are derived from nouns, and even some from prepositions. 6. All the verbs of that language, at least all that originally belonged to it, uniformly consist of three letters, and seem to have been at first pronounced as monosyllables. If we anatomize the Hebrew language in this manner, we shall reduce it to very great simplicity; we shall confine it to a few names of things, persons, and actions; we shall make all its words monosyllables, and give it the true characters of an original language. If at the same time we reflect on the small number of (ii) radical words in that dialect, we shall be more and more convinced of its originality.

It will not be expected that we should enter into a minute discussion of the grammatical peculiarities of this ancient language. For these we must refer our readers to the numerous and elaborate grammars of that tongue, which are everywhere easily to be found. We shall only make a few strictures, which naturally present themselves, before we dismiss the subject.

The generality of writers who have maintained the superior antiquity of the Hebrew language, have at the same time contended that all other languages of Asia, and most of those of Europe, have been derived from that tongue as their source and matrix. We, for our part, are of opinion, that perhaps all the languages in the eastern part of the globe were coeval with it, and the differences which afterwards distinguished them sprung from climate, caprice, inventions, religions, commerce, conquests.

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(r) Most of the Chaldean names mentioned in Scripture are pure Hebrew words compounded; such as Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan, Robshabe, Ralmag, Belbassar, Ralsaris, Nahar, Malakuba, Phrat or Pharad, Barufur, Carchemish, Ur, Cutha, Heb. Cuth, &c. All these words, and a multitude of others which we could mention, approach so near the Hebrew dialect, that their original is discernible at first sight. Most of these are compounds, which the limits prescribed us will not allow us to decompound and explain.

(g) The fatuity of these points will be proved in the following part of this section.

(ii) The radical words in the Hebrew language, as it now stands, are about 500. quests, and other accidental causes, which will occur to our intelligent readers. We have endeavoured to prove, in the preceding pages, that all mankind were not concerned in the building of the fatal tower, nor affected by the punishment consequent upon that attempt; and we now add, that even that punishment was only temporary; since we find, that those very Hamites or Cushim, who are allowed to have been affected by it, did certainly afterwards recover the former organization of their lip, and differed not more from the original standard than the descendants of Japhet and Shem.

The Jewish rabbis have pretended to ascertain the number of languages generated by the vengeance of Heaven at the building of Babel. They tell us that mankind was divided into 70 nations and 70 languages, and that each of these nations had its tutelar or guardian angel. This fabulous legend is founded on the number of the progeny of Jacob at the time when that patriarch and his family went down into Egypt. Others attribute its origin to the number of the sons and grandsons of Noah, who are enumerated Gen. chap. x.

The fathers* of the church make the languages at the confusion to amount to 72; which number they complete by adding Cainan and Eliphah, according to the Septuagint, who are not mentioned in the Hebrew text. This opinion, they think, is supported by the words of Moses, when he faith, that "when the Moft High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the tribes of Israel." That is, say they, they divided them into 72 nations, which was the number of the children of Israel when they came into Egypt. The Targum of Ben Uzziel plainly favours this interpretation; but the Jerusalem Targum intimates that the number of nations was only 12, according to the number of the tribes of Israel. This passage, however, seems to refer to the tribes of the Chanaanites; and imports, that the Almighty assigned to the different fiefs of that family such a tract of land as he knew would make a sufficient inheritance for the children of Israel†. Others have increased the different languages of the dispersion to 129; but the general opinion has fixed them to 70 or 72. Our readers need scarce be put in mind that these opinions are futile and absurd; neither founded in Scripture, profane history, or common sense. At the same time, it must not be omitted, that according to Horapollo§, the Egyptians held, that the world was divided into 72 habitable regions; and that, in consequence of this tradition, they made the cynocephalus the emblem of the world, because that in the space of 72 days that animal pines away and dies.

It has been made a question, whether the Hebrew language was denominated from Heber the progenitor of Abraham, or from a word which in that tongue imports over, beyond. Most of the Christian fathers, prior to St Origen, believed that both the Gentile name Hebrew, and the name of the language, were derived from the name of the patriarch; but that learned man imagined, that Abraham was called the Hebrew, not because he was a descendant of Heber, but because he was a transfluvianus, or from beyond the river Euphrates. The learned Bochart* has strained hard to prove the former position; but to us his arguments do not appear decisive. We are rather inclined to believe, that Abraham was called Chilhri, (Hebrew), from the situation of the country from which he emigrated when he came to the country of Chanaan; and that in process of time that word became a Gentile appellation, and was afterwards applied to his posterity (1) often by way of reproach, much in the same manner as we say a Northlander, a Norman, a Tramontane, &c.

Here we may be indulged an observation, namely, that Abraham, a Hebrew, lived among the Chaldeans, travelled among the Chanaanites, sojourned among the Philistines, lived some time in Egypt, and in all appearance conversed with all those nations without any apparent difficulty. This circumstance plainly proves, that all these nations at that time spoke nearly the same language. The nations had not yet begun to improve their respective dialects, nor to deviate in any great measure from the monosyllabic tongue of the Hebrews. With respect to the language of Chanaan, afterwards the Phoenician, its similarity to the Hebrew is obvious from the names of gods, men, cities, mountains, rivers, &c., which are the very same in both tongues, as might be shown in numberless cases, were this a proper place for etymological researches.

Before we dismiss this part of our subject, we would wish to gratify our unlearned readers with a brief account of the Hebrew letters, and of the Maforetical points which have been in a manner ingrafted on these letters. In the course of this deduction, we shall endeavour to follow such authors as are allowed to have handled that matter with the greatest acuteness, learning, and perspicuity. If, upon any occasion, we should be tempted to hazard a conjecture of our own, it is cheerfully submitted to the candour of the public.

Much has been written, and numberless hypotheses proposed, with a view to investigate the origin of alphabetic writing. To give even an abridged account of all these, would fill many volumes. The most plausible, in our opinion, is that which supposes that the primary characters employed by men were the figures of material objects, analogous to those of the Mexicans, so often mentioned by the authors who have written the history of that people at the era of the Spanish invasion of their country. As this plan was too much circumscripted to be generally useful, hieroglyphical figures were in process of time invented as subdivisions to this writing, contracted orthography. In this scheme, we imagine, the process was somewhat more extensive. A lion might be sketched, to import fierceness or valour; an ox, to denote strength; a flag, to signify swiftness; a hare, to intimate timorousness, &c.

The next step in this process would naturally extend

(1) The Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews, for that is an abomination to the Egyptians. The Philistines (Samuel I. paff.) always call the Israelites Hebrews by way of reproach. to the inventing and appropriating of a few arbitrary characters, for representing abstract ideas, and other relations, which could not be well ascertained by the methods above-mentioned. These arbitrary signs might readily acquire a currency by compact, as money and medals do over a great part of the world.—Upon this plan we imagine the ancient Chinese formed their language.

But neither the picture nor the hieroglyphic, nor the method of denoting ideas by arbitrary characters appropriated by compact, could ever have arrived at such perfection as to answer all the purposes of ideal communication. The grand desideratum then would be to fabricate characters to represent simple sounds, and to reduce these characters to so small a number as to be easily learned and preserved in the memory. In this attempt the Chinese have notoriously failed; their letters, or rather their characters, are so numerous, that few, if any, of their most learned and industrious authors, have been able to learn and retain the whole catalogue. Indeed those people are not able to conceive how any combinations of 20 or 30 characters should be competent to answer all the purposes of written language.

Many different nations have claimed the honour of this invention. The Greeks ascribed it to the Phoenicians; and consequently used the word Φοινικεῖον*, to call the Phoenician, in the same sense with αρχαίων, to read; and consequently the poet† ascribes the invention to the same ingenious people. The Greeks borrowed their letters from the Phoenicians, and of course looked up to them as the inventors.

Others have attributed the invention to the Egyptians. That people ascribed every useful and ingenious invention to their Thoth, or Mercury Trismegistus. Plato seems to have believed this tradition (κ), and pretends to record a dispute between the king of Egypt that then reigned and this personage, with respect to the influence that the art of alphabetic writing might possibly have upon the improvements of mankind in science and liberal arts. Diodorus the Sicilian‡ gives a similar history of the same invention, but carries it back to the reign of Ofiris.

Pliny informs us§, that Gellius attributed letters to the same Egyptian Mercury, and others to the Syrians; but that for “his part, he thought that the Assyrian letters were eternal.” That learned Roman then imagined, that the Assyrian letters had existed at a period prior to all the records of history; which was in fact the case. By the Assyrian letters, he must mean the Chaldaic, and by the Syrian probably the Hebrew. The earliest Greek historians generally confound the Jews with the Syrians. Herodotus, enumerating the people who had *learned circumcision from the Egyptians, mentions the Syrians of Palestine; and elsewhere he tells us, that Necho † beat the Syrians, and took Cadytis, a large and populous city belonging to that people. Hence it is evident that the Syrian alphabet, or the Sy-

* Lib. ii. c. 104. † Ibid. c. 159.

(k) See Phaedrus, page 1240. See also page 374. Phil. (l) It is true, the Egyptians attribute the invention to their Thoth, and the Phoenicians to their Hercules, or Melicertes or Baal; but these were only imaginary personages. chuse (m). Had that been the case, some notice must have been taken of so palpable a circumstance. Moses wrote out his history, his laws, and his memoirs; and it appears plainly from the text, that all the learned among his countrymen could read them. Writing was then no novel invention in the age of the Hebrew legislator, but current and generally known at that era.

The patriarch Job lived, at an earlier period. In that book we find many allusions to the art of writing, and

(m) The most ingenious and plausible of those arguments which have fallen under our observation, is given by Mr Johnson vicar of Cranbrook, a writer of great learning and piety, who flourished in the beginning of the 18th century, and whose works deserve to be more generally known than we have reason to think they are at present. After endeavouring to prove that alphabetical writing was not practised before the era of Moses, and expatiating upon the difficulty of the invention, this excellent scholar attempts to show, that the original Hebrew alphabet was actually communicated to the Jewish legislator at the same time with the two tables of the law. "I know not (says he) any just cause why the law should be written by God, or by an angel at his command, except it were for want of a man that could well perform this part. This could give no addition of authority to the law, especially after it had been published in that astonishing and miraculous manner at Mount Sinai. The true writing of the original was indeed perfectly adjusted, and precisely ascertained to all future ages, by God's giving a copy of it under his own hand; but this, I conceive, had been done altogether as effectually by God's dictating every word to Moses, had he been capable of performing the office of an amanuensis." The learned writer goes on to suppose, that it was for the purpose of teaching Moses the alphabet, that God detained him forty days in the mount; and thence he concludes, that the Decalogue was the first writing in alphabetical characters, and that those characters were a divine, and not a human invention.

It is always rash, if not something worse, to conceive reasons not assigned by God himself, for any particular transaction of his with those men whom he from time to time inspired with heavenly wisdom. That it was not for the purpose of teaching Moses the alphabet that God detained him forty days in the mount, when he gave him the two tables of the law, seems evident from his detaining him just as many days when he gave him the second tables after the first were broken. If the legislator of the Jews had not been sufficiently instructed in the art of reading during his first stay in the mount, he would have been detained longer; and it is not conceivable, that though in a fit of pious passion he was so far thrown off his guard as to break the two tables, his mind was so totally unhinged by the idolatry of his countrymen, as to forget completely an art which, by the supposition, the Supreme Being had spent forty days in teaching him! But if Moses could, at his first ascent into the mount, perform the office of an amanuensis, why are the original tables said to have been written by the finger of God, and not by him who wrote the second?" We pretend not to say why they were written by God rather than man; but we think there is sufficient evidence, that by whomsoever they were written, the characters employed were of human invention. The Hebrew alphabet, without the Mosaic points, is confessedly defective; and every man who is in any degree acquainted with the language, and is not under the influence of inveterate prejudice, will readily admit that those points are no improvement. But we cannot, without impiety, suppose an art invented by infinite wisdom, to fall short of the utmost perfection of which it is capable; an alphabet communicated to man by God, would undoubtedly have been free both from defects and from redundancies; it would have had a distinct character for every simple sound, and been at least as perfect as the Greek or the Roman.

But we need not fill our pages with reasonings of this kind against the hypothesis maintained by Mr Johnson. We know that "Moses wrote all the words of the Lord," i.e. the substance of all that had been delivered in Exodus, xx, xxi, xxii, xxiii, before he was called up into the mount to receive the tables of stone; nay, that he had long before been commanded by God himself to "write in a book" an account of the victory obtained over Amalek (Exodus, xvii, 14). All this, indeed, the learned writer was aware of; and to reconcile it with his hypothesis, he frames another, more improbable than even that which it is meant to support. "It is not unreasonable (says he) to believe that God had written these tables of stone, and put them in Mount Horob, from the time that by his angel he had there first appeared to Moses; and that, therefore, all the time after, while he kept Jethro's sheep therabouts, he had free access to those tables, and perused them at discretion." But if belief should rest upon evidence, we beg leave to reply, that to believe all this would be in the highest degree unreasonable; for there is not a single hint in Scripture of the tables having been written so early a period, or upon such an occasion, as God's first appearance to Moses in the burning bush. We know how reluctant Moses was to go upon the embassy to which he was then appointed; and it is strange, we think passing strange, that when he records so faithfully his own backslidings, and the means made use of by God to reconcile him to the arduous undertaking, he should make no mention of these important tables, if at that period he had known anything of their existence. Besides all this, is it not wonderful, if Moses had been practising the art of writing, as our author supposes, from the time of the burning bush to the giving of the law, he should then have stood in need of forty days' teaching from God, to enable him to read with ease the first tables; and of other forty, to enable him to write the second? This gives such a mean view of the natural capacity of the Hebrew legislator, as renders the hypothesis which implies it wholly incredible. See a Collection of Discourses, &c., in two volumes, by the reverend John Johnson, A.M., vicar of Cranbrook in Kent. This shows that alphabetical characters were not confined to the chosen seed, since Job was in all probability a descendant of Huz, the eldest son of Nahor, the brother of Abraham. From this circumstance, we think we may fairly conclude, that this art was known and practised in the family of Terah the father of Abraham.

3. There was certainly a tradition among the Jews in the age of Josephus, that writing was an antediluvian invention. That historian pretends, that the descendants of Seth erected two pillars, the one of stone and the other of brick, and inscribed upon them their astronomical observations and other improvements. This legend shows that there did exist such an opinion of the antiquity of the art of writing.

4. There must have been a tradition to the same purpose among the Chaldeans, since the writers who have copied from Berossus, the celebrated Chaldean historian, speak of alphabetical writing as an art well known among the antediluvians. According to them, Oannes the Chaldean legislator gave his disciples "an insight into letters and science." This person also wrote concerning the generation of mankind, of their different pursuits, of civil polity, &c. Immediately before the deluge (as they) the god Cronus appeared to Si-futhrus or Xifuthrus, and commanded to commit to writing the beginning, improvement, and conclusion of all things down to the present time, and to bury these accounts securely in the temple of the Sun at Seppara. All these traditions may be deemed fabulous in the main; but still they evince that such an opinion was current, and that though the use of letters was not indeed eternal, it was, however, prior to all the records of history; and of course, we think, an antediluvian discovery.

This original alphabet, whatever it was, and however constructed, was, we think, preserved in the family of Noah, and from it conveyed down to succeeding generations. If we can then discover the original Hebrew alphabet, we shall be able to investigate the primary species of letters expressive of those articulate sounds by which man is in a great measure distinguished from the brute creation. Whatever might be the nature of that alphabet, we may be convinced that the ancient Jews deemed it sacred, and therefore preserved it pure and unmixed till the Babylonish captivity. If, then, any monuments are still extant inscribed with letters prior to that event, we may rest assured that these are the remains of the original alphabet.

There have, from time to time, been dug up at Jerusalem, and other parts of Judea, coins and medals, and medallions, inscribed with letters of a form very different from those square letters in which the Hebrew Scriptures are now written.

When the Samaritan Pentateuch was discovered, it evidently appeared that the inscriptions on those medals and coins were drawn in genuine Samaritan characters. The learned abbé Barthélemy, in his Memoir de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, mentions "on the two medals of Antigonus king of Judæa, one of the later Maccabean princes, proves that all the inscriptions on the coins and medals of Jonathan and Simon Maccabæus, and also on his, were invariably in the Samaritan character, down to the 45th year before the Christian era."

It was easy to prove, from the Mishna and Jerusalem Talmud, that the Scriptures publicly read in the synagogues to the end of the second century were written in the Samaritan character, we mean in the same character with the Pentateuch in question. As the ancient Hebrew, however, ceased to be the vulgar language of the Jews after their return from the Babylonish captivity, the copies of the Bible, especially in private hands, were accompanied with a Chaldaic paraphrase; and at length the original Hebrew character fell into disuse, and the Chaldaic was universally adopted.

It now appears that the letters inscribed on the ancient coins and medals of the Jews were written in the Samaritan form, and that the Scriptures were written in the very same characters: we shall therefore leave it to our readers to judge whether (considering the implausible hatred which subsisted between these two nations) it be likely that the one copied from the other; or at least that the Jews preferred to the beautiful letters used by their ancestors, the rude and inelegant characters of their most detested rivals. If, then, the inscriptions on the coins and medals were actually in the characters of the Samaritan Pentateuch (and it is absurd to suppose that the Jews borrowed them from the Samaritans), the consequence plainly is, that the letters of the inscriptions were those of the original Hebrew alphabet, coeval with that language, which we dare to maintain was the first upon earth.

It may, perhaps, be thought rather superfluous to mention, that the Samaritan colonists, whom the kings of Assyria planted in the cities of Samaria, were natives of countries where Chaldaic letters were current, and who were probably ignorant of the Hebrew language and characters. When those colonists embraced the Jewish religion, they procured a copy of the Hebrew Pentateuch written in its native character, which, from superstition, they preserved inviolate as they received.

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(o) Apollodorus, Alexander Polyhistor, Abdenus. See Syncellus, cap. 39. et seq. Euseb. Chron. lib. i. page 3. (p) Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. vii. page 413.—Ex quo appareat aeternus liberarum usus. (q) The celebrated Archbishop Usher was the first who brought the Samaritan Pentateuch into Europe. In a letter to Ludovicus Capelius he acknowledges, that the frequent mention he had seen made of it by some authors, would not suffer him to be at rest till he had procured five or six copies of it from Palestine and Syria.” (r) 2 Kings, chap. xvii. ver. 24. “And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Avah, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria.” Babylon and Cuthah, and Avah, were neighbouring cities, and undoubtedly both spoke and wrote in the Chaldaic style. The natives of Hamath spoke the Syriac, which at that time differed very little from the Chaldaic. ceived it; and from it were copied successively the others which were current in Syria and Palestine when Archbishop Usher procured his.

From the reasons above exhibited, we hope it will appear, that if the Hebrew alphabet, as it appears in the Samaritan Pentateuch, was not the primitive one, it was at least that in which the Holy Scriptures were first committed to writing.

Scaliger has inferred, from a passage in Eusebius*, and another in St Jerome†, that Ezra, when he reformed the Jewish church, transferred the Scriptures from the ancient characters of the Hebrews into the square letters of the Chaldeans. This, he thinks, was done for the use of those Jews who, being born during the captivity, knew no other alphabet than that of the people among whom they were educated.—This account of the matter, though probable in itself, and supported by passages from both Talmuds, has been attacked by Buxtorf with great learning and no less acrimony. Scaliger, however, has been followed by a crowd of learned men(s), whose opinion is now pretty generally espoused by the sacred critics.

Having said so much concerning the Hebrew alphabet in the preceding pages, we find ourselves laid under a kind of necessity of hazarding a few strictures on the vowels and Masoretic points; the first essential, and the last an appendage, of that ancient language. The number of the one, and the nature, antiquity, and necessity of the other, in order to read the language with propriety and with discrimination, have been the subject of much and often illiberal controversy among philological writers. To enter into a minute detail of the arguments on either side, would require a complete volume: we shall, therefore, briefly exhibit the state of the controversy, and then adduce a few observations, which, in our opinion, ought to determine the question.

The controversy then is, Whether the Hebrews used any vowels; or whether the points, which are now called by that name, were substituted instead of them? or if they were, whether they be as old as Moses, or were invented by Ezra, or by the Mafforites(x)? This controversy has exercised the wits of the most learned critics of the two last centuries, and is still far enough from being determined in the present. The Jews maintain, that these vowel points(u) were delivered to Moses along with the tables of the law; and consequently hold them as sacred as they do the letters themselves. Many Christian authors who have handled this subject, though they do not affirm their divine original, nor their extravagant antiquity, pretend, however, that they are the only proper vowels in the language, and regulate and ascertain its true pronunciation. Though they differ from the Jews with respect to the origin of

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(s) Caiusbon, Grotius, Vossius, Bochart, Morin, Brerewood, Walton, Prideaux, Huet, and Lewis Capel, always a sworn enemy to Buxtorf. All these have maintained the same ground with Scaliger: how truly, appears above.

(t) The term masorah or mafforeth signifies "tradition;" and imports the unwritten canon by which the reading and writing of the sacred books was fixed.

(u) These points are 14 in number, whose figures, names, and effects, may be seen in most Hebrew grammars.

(x) These books are the Bahir, Zahar, and the Kizzri. As for the Kizzri, the Jews make it about 1900 years old; and the other about a century later. But the fidelity of the Jews in such matters cannot be relied upon.

(y) See Buxtorf the father, in Tiber, cap. 5, 6, 7. Buxtorf the son, de Antiq. Punct. P. II. ii.

Hebrew that there can certainly be no language without vocal founds, which are indeed the soul and essence of speech; but they affirm that the Hebrew alphabet actually contains vowel characters, as well as the Greek and Latin and the alphabets of modern Europe. They are aleph,

The matres lectionis, or, if you please, the parents of reading. To these some, we think very properly, add ain or oin, ajin. These, they conclude, perform exactly the same office in Hebrew that their descendants do in Greek. It is indeed agreed upon all hands, that the Greek alphabet is derived from the Phoenician, which is known to be the same with the Samaritan or Hebrew. This position we shall prove more fully when we come to trace the origin of the Greek tongue. Hitherto the analogy is not only plausible, but the resemblance precise. The Hebrews and Samaritans employed these vowels exactly in the same manner with the Greeks; and so all was easy and natural.

But the adherents of the Masoretic system maintain, that the letters mentioned above are not vowels but consonants or aspirations, or anything you please but vocal letters. This they endeavour to prove from their use among the Arabians, Persians, and other oriental nations: But to us it appears abundantly strange to suppose that the Greeks pronounced beta, gamma, delta, &c. exactly as the Hebrews and the Phoenicians did, and yet at the same time did not adopt their mode of pronunciation with respect to the five letters under consideration. To this argument we think every objection must undoubtedly yield. The Greeks borrowed their letters from the Phoenicians; these letters were the Hebrew or Samaritan. The Greeks wrote and (z) pronounced all the other letters of their alphabet, except the five in question, in the same manner with their originals of the east; if they did so, it obviously follows that the Greek and oriental office of these letters was the same.

Another objection to reading the Hebrew without the aid of the Masoretic vowel points, arises from the consideration, that without these there will be a great number of radical Hebrew words, both nouns and verbs, without any vowel intervening amongst the consonants, which is certainly absurd. Notwithstanding this supposed absurdity, it is a well-known fact, that all the copies of the Hebrew Scripture, used in the Jewish synagogues throughout the world, are written or printed without points. These copies are deemed sacred, and kept in a coffer with the greatest care, in allusion to the ark of the testimony in the tabernacle and temple. The prefect, however, reads the portions of the law and haggadapha without any difficulty. The same is done by the remains of the Samaritans at this day. Every oriental scholar knows that the people of these countries look upon consonants as the stamina of words. Accordingly, in writing letters, in dispatches upon bufnells, and all affairs of small moment, the vowels are generally omitted. It is obvious, that in every original language the sound of the vowels is variable and of little importance. Such was the case with the Hebrew tongue: Nor do we think that the natives of the country would find it a matter of much difficulty to learn to read without the help of the vowels. They knew the words beforehand, and so might readily enough learn by practice what vowels were to be inferred.

When the Hebrew became a dead language, as it certainly was in a great measure to the vulgar after the return from the Babylonish captivity; such subordinates might we think, have been useless, and of course might possibly have been adopted for the use of the vulgar: but the scribe, the lawyer, and the learned rabbi, probably disdained such beggarly elements. We shall in this place hazard a conjecture, which, to us at least, is altogether new. We imagine that the Phoenicians, who were an inventive, ingenious people, had, prior to the age of Cadmus, who first brought their letters into Greece, adopted the more commodious method of inserting the vowels in their proper places; whereas the Jews, zealously attached to the customs of their ancestors, continued to write and read without them. In this manner the Gephyraei*, who were the followers of Cadmus, communicated them to the Jews and their neighbours. We are convinced that the materials of the Greek tongue are to be gleaned up in the east; and upon that ground have often endeavoured to trace the origin of Greek words in the Hebrew, Phoenician, Chaldean, and Arabian languages. Reading without the vowel points we have seldom failed in our search; but when we followed the method of reading by the Masoretic points, we seldom succeeded; and this, we the Masoretes believe, every man of tolerable erudition who will reticent points make a trial will find by experience to be true. This argument appears to us superior to every objection.

Upon this basis, the most learned Bochart has erected his etymological fabric, which will be admired by the learned and ingenious as long as philology shall be cultivated by men.

It has been urged by the zealots for the Masoretic system, that the Arabians and Persians employ the vowel points. That they do so at present is readily granted; but whether they did so from the beginning seems to be the question. That Arabia was overpread with Jewish exiles at a very early period, is abundantly certain. It was natural for them to retire to a land where they would not hear of war nor the sound of the trumpet. Accordingly we find that, prior to the age of the Arabian impostor, Arabia swarmed with Jewish settlements. From these Jews, it is highly probable that their neighbours learned the use of the points in question; which in the course of their conquests the Saracens communicated to the Persians.

It has been alleged with great show of reason, that without the vowel points, it is often impossible to develop the genuine signification of many words which occur frequently in the language; many words of different and sometimes opposite significations are written with exactly the same consonants. Without the points then, how are we to know the distinction? In answer to this objection, we beg leave to observe, that, during the first period of a language, it is impossible that there should

(z) This is so true, that, according to Hesychius and Suidas, φωνηγραφος, to act the Phoenician, signified "to read." should not occur a number of similar sounds of different significations. This is surely to be attributed to the poverty of the language. When a few terms have been once fabricated, men will rather annex new significations to old terms, than be at the expense of time or thought to invent new ones. This must have been the case with the Hebrew in particular; and indeed no language on earth is without instances of this inconvenience, which, however, in a living tongue, is easily overcome by a difference of accent, tone, gesture, pronunciation; all which, we think, might obviate the difficulty.

From the preceding arguments, we think ourselves authorized to infer that the Masora is a novel system, utterly unknown to the most ancient Jews, and never admitted into those copies of the Scriptures which were deemed most sacred and most authentic by that people.

With respect to the original introduction of the points, we agree with the learned and judicious Dr Prideaux, who imagines that they were gradually introduced after the Hebrew became a dead language, with a view to facilitate the learning to read that language, more especially among the vulgar. By whom they were introduced, we think, cannot easily be determined; nor is it probable that they were all introduced at once, or by one and the same person. They have been ascribed to Ezra by many, for no other reason that we can discover but to enhance their authenticity, and because the sentiment is analogous to the other articles of reformation established by that holy priest. If our curious reader should not be satisfied with the preceding detail, we must remit him to Capellus and Morinus on the one side, and the two Buxtorfs, Schultens, and Dr James Robertson late professor of oriental languages in the university of Edinburgh, on the other. This learned orientalist, in his dissertation prefixed to his Clavis Pentateuchii, has collected and arranged, with the true spirit of criticism, everything that has been advanced in favour of the Masoretical system.—Si Pergama dextra defendi possent, etiam hac defensa sufficiat.

St Origen, who flourished about the beginning of the 3rd century, was a profound Hebrew scholar. He published a most laborious and learned work, which is generally called the Hexapla, because it consisted of six columns; the first of which contained the Hebrew text; the second, the same text, but written in Greek characters; the third column exhibited the version of Aquila; the fourth, that of Symmachus; the fifth, the Septuagint; and the sixth, the version of Theodotan. In some fragments of that vast work which are still extant, we have a specimen of the manner in which the Hebrew was pronounced in the third century, by which it appears that it was very different from that which results from observing the Masoretical points. The following is an instance copied from the beginning of Genesis.

According to ORIGEN.

Bréshith bara Elóeim eth afamaim oueth aares. Ouaareth aietha Thôau ouobou ouôsfkh al phne The- am ouroué elóeim maraepheth al phne amaim. Oaiomer elóeim rci or ouei or.

According to the MASORITES.

Berefhith bara Elohiim eth ashama'im veeth aaretz. Veavaretz ajetha thou vabouo, vekhohfhek gnal pené theom verouakho clohim merakhepheth gnal pené ham- máim. Vaiomer elohim jchi or, vaichhi or. Vajure elohim eth nor ki tob vajabedel elohim bein aor oubein hakhofshek.

Upon the whole, we presume to give it as our opinion, that in the most early periods, the vowels, aleph, he, yod or yod, waw or waw, and perhaps ain or ain, were regularly written wherever they were founded. This to us appears plain from the practice of the ancient Greeks. It is agreed on all hands that the Samaritan and Phoenician alphabets were the same; and that the former was that of the Jews originally. The Phoenicians certainly wrote the vowels exactly, for so did the Greeks who copied their alphabet: if the Phoenicians wrote their vowels, so then did the Jews of the age of Cadmus; but Cadmus was contemporary with some of the earliest judges of Israel; the consequence is evident, namely, that the Jews wrote their vowels as late as the arrival of that colony-chief in Greece. We ought naturally to judge of the Hebrew by the Chaldæan, Syriac, and Arabian, its sister dialects. All these languages in ancient times had their vowels regularly inserted; and why not the Hebrew in the same manner with the rest?

As these first vowels, which were coeval with the other letters, often varied in their sound and application, the points, in all appearance, were first invented and employed to ascertain their different sounds in different connections. Other marks might be invented to point out the various tones of voice, like the ῥοῦς, or accents, with which the vowels were to be enounced, as was done among the later Greeks. In process of time, in order to promote celerity of writing, the vowels were omitted, and the points substituted in their place.

Before we conclude our observations on the Hebrew language, we ought, perhaps, to make an apology for omitting to interlard our details with quotations from the two Talmuds, the Mishna, the Gemara, the Cabalas, and a multitude of rabbinical writers who are commonly cited upon such an occasion. We believe we could have quoted almost numberless passages from the two Buxtorfs, Father Morin, Capellus, and other Hebrew critics, with no great trouble to ourselves, and little emolument to the far greater part of our readers. But our opinion is, that such a pedantic display of philological erudition would probably have excited the mirth of our learned, and roused the indignation of our unlearned, readers. Our wish is to gratify readers of both descriptions, by contributing to the edification of one class without disfiguring the other.

We cannot, we imagine, fairly take leave of the sacred language without giving a brief detail of those excellencies which, in our opinion, give it a just claim to the superiority over those other tongues which have sometimes contended with it for the prize of antiquity. quity: and of these the following in our apprehension Language, deserve particular notice.

If this language may claim any advantage over its antagonists, with respect to its being rather a mother than a daughter to any of them, it is undoubtedly in consequence of its simplicity, its purity, its energy, its fecundity of expressions and significations. In all these, notwithstanding its paucity of words, it excels the vast variety of other languages which are its cognate dialects. To these we may add the significance of the names, both of men and brutes; the nature and properties of the latter of which are more clearly and more fully ex- hibited by their names in this than in any other tongue hitherto known. Besides, its well authenticated anti- quity and the venerable tone of its writings surpass any thing left upon record in any other dialect now extant in the world. These extraordinary qualities excite our admiration at present under every disadvantage; and from this circumstance we may infer its incomparable beauty in the age of the Jewish legislator, and what ef- fects it would naturally produce, could we know it now as it was spoken and written in the days of David and Solomon.

As far, however, as we understand it in its present mutilated condition, and are able to judge of its cha- racter from those few books that have come down to our time, we plainly perceive that its genius is simple, primitive, natural, and exactly conformable to the cha- racter of those uncultivated patriarchs who used it them- selves, and transmitted it to their descendants in its native purity and simplicity. Its words are compara- tively few, yet concise and expressive; derived from a very small number of radicals, without the artificial composition of modern languages. No tongue, ancient or modern, can rival it in the happy and rich fecundity of its verbs, resulting from the variety and significance of its conjugations; which are so admirably arranged and diversified, that by changing a letter or two of the primitive, they express the various modes of acting, feeling, motion, rest, &c. in such a precise and signi- ficant manner, that frequently in one word they convey an idea which, in any other language, would require a tedious paraphrase. These positions might easily be illu- minated by numerous examples; but to the Hebrew scholar these would be superfluous, and to the illiterate clas neither interesting nor entertaining.

To these we may add the monosyllabic tone of the language, which, by a few prefixes and affixes without affecting the radix, varies the signification almost at pleasure, while the method of affixing the person to the verb exhibits the gender of the object introduced. In the nouns of this language there is no flexion except what is necessary to point out the difference of gender and number. Its cases are distinguished by articles, which are only single letters at the beginning of the word: the pronouns are only single letters affixed; and the prepositions are of the same character prefixed to words. Its words follow one another in an easy and natural arrangement, without intricacy or transposition, without suspending the attention or involving the sense by intricate and artificial periods. All these striking and peculiar excellencies combined, plainly demonstrate the beauty, the stability, and antiquity of the language under consideration.

We would not, however, be thought to insinuate that this tongue continued altogether without changes and imperfections. We admit that many radical words of it were lost in a course of ages, and that foreign ones were substituted in their place. The long sojournings of the Israelites in Egypt, and their close connection with that people, even quoad sacra, must have introduced a multitude of Egyptian words and phrases into the vulgar dialect at least, which must have gradually in- corporated with the written language, and in process of time have become parts of its essence. In Egypt, the Israelites imbibed those principles of idolatry which no- thing less than the final extirpation of their polity could eradicate. If that people were so obstinately attached to the Egyptian idolatry, it is not very probable that they would be averse from the Egyptian language. Besides, the Scripture informs us, that there came up out of Egypt a mixed multitude; a circumstance which must have infected the Hebrew tongue with the dialect of Egypt. As none of the genuine Hebrew radicals exceed three letters, whatever words exceed that num- ber in their radical state may be justly deemed of for- eign extraction.

Some Hebrew critics have thought that verbs consti- tute the radicals of the whole language; but this opin- ion appears to us ill founded: for though many Hebrew nouns are undoubtedly derived from verbs, we find at the same time numbers of the latter deduced from the former.

Before we conclude our detail of the Hebrew tongue, Hutchin- son's few of our readers may possibly imagine that we ought to give some account of the Hutchinsonian sys- tem; a system highly in vogue not many years ago. But as this allegorical scheme of interpretation is now in a manner exploded, we shall beg leave to remit our curious Hebraist to Mr Holloway's Originals, a small book in 2 vols 8vo, but replete with multifarious erudi- tion, especially in the Hutchinsonian style and charac- ter.—Fides fit penes autorem.

Sect. II. The Arabic Language.

We now proceed to give some account of the Arabian lan- guage, which is evidently one of the finer dialects of the Hebrew. Both, we imagine, were originally the same; the former highly improved and enlarged; the latter, in appearance, retaining its original simplic- ity and rude aspect, spoken by a people of a genius by no means inventive. In this inquiry, too, as in the for- mer, we shall spare ourselves the trouble of defending the grammatical minutiae of the tongue; a method which, we are persuaded, would neither gratify our learned nor edify our unlearned readers. To those who are inclined to acquire the first elements of that various, copious, and highly improved tongue, we beg to recommend Erpenii Rudimenta Ling. Arab.; Galii Gram. Arab.; the Dissertations of Hartii, translated by the elder Schultens; Mr Richardson's Persian and Arabic Gram. &c.

We have pronounced the Hebrew and Arabian sister dialects; a relation which, as far as we know, has been seldom controverted: but we think there is au- thentic historical evidence that they were positively one and the same, at a period when the one as well as the other other appeared in its infant unadorned simplicity. The following detail will, we hope, fully authenticate the truth of our position.

"Unto Eber (says the Scripture *) were born two sons. The name of one was Peleg, because in his days the earth was divided; and his brother's name was Joktan," or rather Yotkan. This last, says the sacred historian, "had thirteen sons; and their dwelling reached from Mecha (Mocha) to Sephar (A)," a mount of the east. According to this account, the descendants of Yotkan possessed all the maritime coast of Arabia from Mecha (Mocha) to Mount Sephar towards the east of that peninsula. Moles, describing the rivers of paradise, tells us, that one of the branches of that river "encompassed the whole land of Havilah, where there was great store of gold." Havilah was the twelfth son of Yotkan, whom the Arabians call Kobtan; and consequently his territory was situated towards the eastern limit of the possessions of the posterity of the youngest son of Eber. Yotkan or Kobtan was too young to be concerned in the building of the tower; and consequently retained the language of his family, which was undoubtedly the Hebrew. His descendants must have carried the same language into their respective settlements, where it must have been transmitted to succeeding generations. The original language of all the tribes of the Arabians who inhabit a vast tract of country along the southern shore, according to this deduction, was that of their father Kobtan, that is, the Hebrew. Indeed, the most learned Arabians of modern times unanimously acknowledge this patriarch as the founder of their language as well as of their nation.

The other districts of Arabia were peopled by the offspring of Abraham. The Ishmaelites, the posterity of that patriarch by Hagar, penetrated into the very centre of the peninsula; incorporated, and in process of time became one people with the Kobtanites. Another region was possessed by the children of the same holy man by Cheturah his second wife. The Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Amalekites, &c., who settled in the various regions of Arabia Petraea, were all branches of Abraham's family, and used the same language with their great progenitor. The Scripture indeed speaks of people who inhabited the country last mentioned prior to the branches of Abraham's family; but these, according to the same history, were extinguished by the former. The conclusion then is, if we credit the Mosaic account, that all the inhabitants of the three divisions of Arabia did, in the earliest periods, universally use the Hebrew tongue.

There was, we are sensible, a region of Arabia inhabited by the Cushim, or descendants of Cush. This district was situated on the confines of Babylonia. Our translators have confounded this country with the modern Ethiopia; and have consequently ascribed the exploits of the Arabian Cushim to the Ethiopians. The Arabian kings of Babylon were of those Cushim. These were conquered and expelled Babylonia by the Chasdim. These spoke the Chaldean dialect, as will appear when we come to speak of that of the Abyssinians.

Here the candid reader is desired to reflect that the Hebrew and Chaldaic are cognate dialects.

The foregoing proofs, deduced from the Mosaic history, will be corroborated by a mass of internal evidence in the succeeding parts of our inquiry.

The Arabic tongue, originally pure Hebrew, was gradually procured of time greatly transformed and altered from its stated simplicity. The Arabians were divided into many different tribes; a circumstance which naturally produced many different dialects. These, however, were not of foreign growth. No foreign enemy ever conquered those independent hordes. The Persians, Greeks, and Romans, sometimes attempted to invade their territories; but the roughness of the ground, the scarcity of forage, the plenty of water, and their natural bravery, always protected them. They were indeed once invaded by the Abyssinians or Ethiopians with some show of success; but these invaders were in a short time expelled the country. Their language, of consequence, was never adulterated with foreign words or exotic phrases and idioms. Whatever augmentations or improvements it received were derived from the genius and industry of the natives, and not from adventitious or imported acquisitions. From this circumstance we may justly infer, that the Arabic tongue was a long time stationary, and of course differed in no considerable degree from its Hebrew archetype. The learned Shelton, in his Commentary on Job, hath shown, to the conviction of every candid inquirer, that it is impossible to understand that sublime composition without having recourse to the Arabic idioms. That patriarch was a Chazite. His country might be reckoned a part of Arabia. His three friends were actually Arabians, being the descendants of Ishmael and Elan. His country bordered upon that of the predatory Chaldeans, who were an Arabian banditti. When we consider all these circumstances in connection, we are strongly inclined to believe that the book of Job was actually written in Arabic, as the language stood at that period; which, according to the most probable opinion, could not have been later than the age of Moses. The learned are generally agreed that this whole book, the three first chapters excepted, is a poetical composition, replete with the most brilliant and most magnificent imagery, the boldest, the jolliest, and most gorgeous tropes and allusions, and a grandeur of sentiment wholly divine. Whoever has read the poetical compositions of the modern Arabians, on divine subjects, with any degree of taste, will, we flatter ourselves, discover a striking similarity both of diction and sentiment. Be this as it may, we think there is no reason to conclude that the Arabic dialect deviated much from the Hebrew standard prior to the Christian era.

Of those different dialects which prevailed among the various tribes among which the peninsula of Arabia was divided, the principal were the Hemyarit and the Ko-dialects of reish. Though some of these were tributary to the Arabia Tobbas, or Hemyarit sovereign of Arabia Felix, yet they took no great pains to cultivate the language of that province, and of course these people did not thoroughly

(* Gen. x. 25.) † Gen. ii. 11.

(A) Sephar, in the Septuagint Σεφαρ, and in some editions Σαφαρ: hence probably Σαφην. Orig. in Job. cap. xxii. ver. 14. ἐκεῖνος τὸν Ἐβραϊκὸν Σαφήν τῷ Ἀραβικῷ γλῶσσῃ. As for the independent tribes, they had no temptation to cultivate any other language than their own.

The Koreish tribe was the noblest and the most learned of all the western Arabs; and the kaaba, or square temple of Mecca, was before the era of Mohammed solely under their protection. This temple drew annually a great concourse of pilgrims from every Arabian tribe, and indeed from every other country where the Sabian religion prevailed. The language of the Koreish was studied with emulation by the neighbouring tribes. Numbers of the pilgrims were people of the first rank, and possessed all the science peculiar to their country or their age. Great fairs were held during their residence at Mecca, and a variety of gay amusements filled up the intervals of their religious duties. In these entertainments literary compositions bore the highest and most distinguished rank; every man of genius conferring not his own reputation alone, but even that of his nation or his tribe, as interested in his success. Poetry and rhetoric were chiefly esteemed and admired; the first being looked upon as highly ornamental, and the other as a necessary accomplishment in the education of every leading man. An assembly at a place called Ocada, had been in consequence established about the end of the fifth century, where all were admitted to a rivalryship of genius. The merits of their respective productions were impartially determined by the assembly at large; and the most approved of their poems, written on silk, in characters of gold, were with much solemnity suspended in the temple as the highest mark of honour which could be conferred on literary merit. These poems were called the Maalabat, "suspended," or Madhabat, "golden." Seven of these are still preserved in many European libraries.

From this uncommon attention to promote emulation, and refine their language, the dialect of the Koreish became the purest, the richest, and the most polite, of all the Arabian idioms. It was studied with a kind of predilection; and about the beginning of the seventh century it was the general language of Arabia, the other dialects being either incorporated with it, or fading gradually into disuse. By this singular idiomatic union the Arabic has acquired a prodigious fecundity; whilst the luxuriance of synonyms, and the equivocal or opposite senses of the same or similar words, hath furnished their writers with a wonderful power of indulging, in the fullest range, their favourite passion for antithesis and quaint allusion. One instance of this we have in the word *wali*, which signifies a prince, a friend, and also a slave. This same word, with the change of one letter only, becomes *wali*; which, without equivocation, imports a sovereign. Examples of this kind occur in almost every page of every Arabic dictionary.

But all those advantages of this incomparable language are merely modern, and do not reach higher than the beginning of the sixth century. Prior to that era, as we have observed above, a variety of dialects obtained; and as the Arabs were by their situation in a manner sequestered from all the rest of mankind, it may not perhaps be superfluous to inquire briefly into the cause and origin of this instantaneous and universal change.

For a course of more than 20 centuries, the Arabians had been shut up within the narrow limits of their own peninsula, and in a great measure secluded from the rest of the world. Their commerce with India was purely mercantile, and little calculated to excite or promote intellectual improvements. They traded with the Egyptians from time immemorial; but since the invention and usurpation of the pator kings, every shepherd, that is, every Arabian, was an abomination to the Egyptians. From that quarter, therefore, they could not derive much intellectual improvement. Besides, when an extensive territory is parcelled out among a number of petty septs or clans, the feuds and contests which originate from interfering interests and territorial disputes, leave but little time, and less inclination, for the culture of the mind. In these circumstances, the military art alone will be cultivated, and the profession of arms alone will be deemed honourable. Of consequence, we find that, in the general opinion, poetry, rhetoric, and the profession of arms, were the only sciences cultivated by the people in question. As for the science of arms, we are convinced that it was both studied and practised at a very early period; but as to the two former, we imagine they were very late acquisitions, and sprung from some circumstance external and adventitious.

The tribe of the Koreish were much engaged in commerce. They exported frankincense, myrrh, cally, galbanum, and other drugs and spices, to Damascus, Tripoli, Palmyra, and other commercial cities of Syria and its neighbourhood. Upon these occasions the Arabian traders must have become acquainted with the Greek language, and perhaps with the more amusing and affecting parts of the Grecian literature. They might hear of the high renown of Homer and Demosthenes; and it is not impossible that some of them might be able to read their compositions. Every body knows with what unremitting ardour the learned Arabs, under the first khalifas, perused and translated the philosophical works of the Grecian sages. The very same spirit might animate their predecessors, though they wanted learning, and perhaps public encouragement, to arouse their exertions. From this quarter, we think, the Arabs may have learned to admire, and then to imitate, the Grecian worthies.

The Ptolemies of Egypt were the professed patrons of commerce as well as of learning. Under these princes all nations were invited to trade with that happy country. The Arabs, now no longer fettered by Egyptian jealousy, carried their precious commodities to Alexandria; where the Grecian literature, though no longer in its meridian splendor, shone however with a clear unaided lustre. The court of the first Ptolemies was the retreat of all the most celebrated geniuses of Greece and of the age; in a word, Alexandria was the native land of learning and ingenuity. Here the ingenious Arab must have heard the praises of learning incessantly proclaimed; must have been often present at the public exhibitions of the poets and orators; and even though he did not understand them exactly, might be charmed with the melody of the diction, and struck with surprize at their effects on the audience. The reader will please to reflect, that the Arabian traders were the first men of the nation, both with respect to birth, learning, and fortune. These wise men, to use the language of Scripture, inspired with the natural curiosity at Mecca of their race, might hear of the celebrated Olympic games, the public recitations before that assembly, and the Olympic the glorious prize bestowed upon the conquerors. Such information might animate them to institute something parallel at Mecca, with a view to improve their language, and at the same time to derive honour and emolument to themselves. The Koreiflum might promise themselves the like advantages from the establishment of the fair and assembly at Ocadi, as the natives of Elis drew from the institution of the Olympic games. For these reasons, we conjecture, the literary competitions at the place just mentioned were instituted at so late a period, though the nation had existed more than 2000 years before the establishment of this anniversary.

Upon the whole, we are inclined to believe, that the Arabs, notwithstanding all the fine things recorded of them by their own poetical historians, and believed perhaps too easily by those of other countries, were in the days of ignorance like the earliest Romans, *latrones et semibarbari*. For our part, we think it by no means probable, that a people of that character should, after so long a course of years, have stumbled upon so laudable and so beneficial an institution, without taking the hint from some foreign one of a similar complexion. This we acknowledge is only a conjecture, and as such it is submitted to the judgment of the reader.

There were, as has been observed above, two principal dialects of the original Arabic: The Hamyarite spoken by the genuine Arabs, and the Koreiflite or pure Arabic, which at last became the general language of that people. The former of these inclined towards the Syrian or Chaldean; the latter being, according to them, the language of Ishmael, was deeply tinged with the Hebrew idiom. The oriental writers tell us that Terah, the grandfather of Hamyar, was the first who spoke the language deviating from the Syrian to the Arabic. Hence, say they, the Hamyaritic dialect must have approached nearer to the purity of the Syrian, and of consequence must have been more remote from the true genius of the Arabic than that of any of the other tribes. The fact seems to stand thus: The Hamyarites were neighbours to the Chaldeans and Syrians, and consequently were connected with those people by commerce, wars, alliances, &c. This circumstance introduced into their language many phrases and idioms from both these nations. That Terah was concerned in adulterating the dialect of the Hamyarites, is a mere oriental legend, fabricated by the Arabs after they began to peruse the Hebrew Scriptures. The Koreifl being situated in the centre of Arabia, were less exposed to intercourse with foreigners, and therefore preserved their language more pure and untainted.

The Koran written in the Koreifl dialect.

The learned well know, that the Koran was written in the dialect of the Koreifl; a circumstance which communicated additional splendour to that branch of the Arabian tongue. It has been proved, that the language of the original inhabitants of Arabia was genuine Hebrew; but upon this supposition a question will arise, namely, whether the Arabians actually preserved their original tongue pure and unsophisticated during a space of 3000 years, which elapsed between the deluge and birth of Mohammed? or, whether, during that period, according to the ordinary course of human affairs, it underwent many changes and deviations from the original standard?

The admirers of that language strenuously maintain the former position; others, who are more moderate in their attachment, are disposed to admit the latter. Arabic Chardin observes of the oriental languages in general, Language, that they do not vary and fluctuate with time like the European tongues*. "Ce qu'il y a de plus admirable," dit il, et de plus remarquable, dans ces langues, c'est, vol iii. qu'elles ne changent point, et n'ont point changé du p. 43 tout, soit à l'égard de termes, soit à l'égard du tour: rien n'y est, ni nouveau ni vieux, nulle bonne façon de parler, n'a cessé d'être en crédit. L'Alcoran, par exemple, est aujourd'hui, comme il y a mille années, le modèle de plus pur, plus courte, et plus éloquente dictio." It is not to our purpose to transcribe the remaining part of the author's reflection upon this subject: From the above it plainly appears that he concludes, that the Arabian tongue has suffered no change since the publication of the Koran; and at the same time intimates, that it had continued invariable in its original purity through all ages, from the days of Kobtan to the appearance of that book. Whether both or either of these sentiments is properly authenticated will appear in the sequel.

The learned Dr Robertson, late professor of oriental languages in the university of Edinburgh, informs us, that adopted by the Arabians, in order to preserve the purity of their language, strictly prohibited their merchants, who were obliged to go abroad for the sake of commerce, all commerce with strange women. We know not where this injunction is recorded, but certainly it was a most terrible interdict to an amorous son of the desert. If such a prohibition actually existed, we suspect it originated from some other source than the fear of corrupting their language. Be that as it may, the Doctor, as well as the great Schultens, is clearly of opinion, that the language in question, though divided into a great number of streams and canals, still flowed pure and limpid in its course.

Our readers who are acquainted with the history of the orientals are already apprized of the steady attachment of those people to ancient customs and institutions. We readily allow, that in the article of Language this same predilection is abundantly obvious; but every oriental scholar must confess, that the style of the Koran is at this day in a manner obsolete, and become almost a dead language. This fact, we believe, will not be questioned. If the Arabian has deviated to very considerably from the standard of the Koran in little more than 1000 years, and that too after an archetype is ascertained; by a parity of reason we may infer, that much greater deviations must have affected the language in the space of 3000 years.

It is universally allowed by such as maintain the unfulfilled purity of the Arabian tongue, that it was originally the same with the Hebrew, or with the ancient Syrian and Chaldaic. Let any one now compare the words, idioms, and phraseology of the Koran with the remains of those three languages, and we think we may venture to affirm that the difference will be palpable. This circumstance, one would think, indicates in the strongest terms a remarkable alteration.

The Arabs themselves are agreed, that, notwithstanding the amazing fecundity of their language, vast numbers of its radical terms have been irrecoverably lost. But this loss could not be supplied without either fabricating new words or borrowing them from foreign languages. To the latter method we have seen their aver- The Chaldeans, Syrians, and Phoenicians, had made innovations on their language at a very early period, even before conquests were undertaken: We see no reason to suppose that the Arabs did not innovate as well as their nearest neighbours: the Hamyarites did actually innovate.

There are, we think, very strong reasons to believe, that Job was an Arabian, and flourished prior to Moses, perhaps as early as Jacob. The style, the genius, the figurative tone of the composition; the amazing sublimity of the sentiments, the allusions, the pathos, the boldness, the variety, and irregularity, the poetical enthusiasm which pervades the whole poem, strongly breathe the Arabian spirit: indeed the very diction is peculiar to that single book, and differs widely from that of the Psalms and every poetical part of the sacred canon. If we compare this book with Mohammed's Koran, we shall scarce find any resemblance of words or phraseology; but a wonderful similarity of figures, enthusiasm, and elevation of sentiments.

We are then led to conclude, that the Arabic did actually lose and gain a multitude of vocables between the era of its first establishment among the descendants of Joktan and Ishmael, and the birth of the impostor.

The art of writing was introduced among the Arabs at a very late period: Without the assistance of this art, one would think it altogether impossible to preserve any language in its primeval purity and simplicity. Our curious readers may here expect some account of the Arabic characters: the following detail is the most probable one we have been able to collect on that subject.

It is generally agreed*, that the art of writing was known among the Hamyarites or Homeries at a very early period. These people were sovereigns of Arabia during a course of many ages. Their character was somewhat perplexed and confused. It was called al Moqadd, from the mutual connection of the letters.

The alphabet of these people resembled that of the Hebrews both in the number and order of the letters, and is called abjad hevus†, from the first ten letters of the Hebrew alphabet, artificially thrown together. "And this word (says the learned Chardin ‡) a, b, g, d, is formed of the four letters which were heretofore the first in the Arabian language, as they are still in that of the Hebrews." The same traveller is positive that these were the ancient characters of the Arabs; that they differed from Cuphite letters, which were afterwards introduced; and that they were furnished with vowel points. These, we imagine, were the first sketches of the Chaldean character, which probably the Hamyarites retained in their pristine unpolished form, after they had been polished and reduced to a more elegant size by the original inventors.

Monuments bearing inscriptions in these characters are, they tell us, still to be seen in some places of Arabia. Some were engraved on rocks; and to these we think it probable that the patriarch Job alludes in those passages where he seems to intimate an inclination to have his sufferings recorded in a book, and graven in the rock for ever. All the Arabians agree, that the dialect of the Hamyarites inclined towards the Syriac or Chaldaean. This we have imputed to the connection of that people with the Chaldeans, who lived in their neighbourhood. If the Hamyaritic dialect was infected with the Syriac or Chaldaic, there can be no doubt that they derived their letters from the same quarter.

We conclude then, that the Hamyarites knew the art in Chaldaic of writing from the earliest antiquity, and that the letters they employed were the rude Chaldaic in their unimproved state*. Some of the Arabians do indeed hold, that Ishmael was the first author of letters; but that his characters were rude and indistinct, without any interval between letters or words, and that these were adopted by Kedar and his other children: but this tradition hath met with little credit.

With respect to the highly polished Koreifhites, it is agreed on all hands, that they were unacquainted with the use of letters till a few years before the birth of Mohammed. Two difficulties here present themselves. The first is, how the Koreifhite dialect, without the art of writing, happened to excel all the other dialects of the Arabic tongue, afflicting by that art, apparently going among necessary for preserving a language in its original purity, the Koreifhites. The second is still, we think, rather greater, namely, how the Koreifh learned that most useful art at so late a period as the fifth century. It is a well known fact, that ever after the Babylonish captivity Arabia swarmed with Jewish villages, in which the art of writing was generally known; and almost at the beginning of the Christian era, multitudes of Christians retired to the same country, in order to avoid the persecutions which they suffered in the Roman empire. In these circumstances, we think it rather strange, that the Koreifhites, highly polished and acute as they were, never thought of laying hold on the opportunity of learning an art so very useful. These two problems we leave to be solved by our more learned readers.

But however they be solved, it is universally acknowledged, that the Koreifh were ignorant of letters till a few years before the birth of their prophet. Ebn Chalilas (B), one of their most celebrated historians, informs us, that Moramer the son of Morra, an Anbarian, a native of Anbaris, a city of Irak (C), first invented alphabetical characters, and taught his countrymen to use them, from whom this noble invention was derived to the Koreifhites. These letters, though neither beautiful nor convenient, were long used by the Arabs. They were denominated Cuphite, from Cupha, a city of Irak. In this character the original copy of the Koran was written. These we think were the original clumsy characters which were retained by the vulgar, after the beautiful square Chaldaic letters were invented, and probably used by priests, philosophers, and the learned.

---

* Pococke's Specim. Hist. Arab. † Vol. iii. p. 153. ‡ See this whole detail in Dr Pococke's Specim. Hist. Arab. p. 250. et seq. (a) See this whole detail in Dr Pococke's Specim. Hist. Arab. p. 250. et seq. (b) See this whole detail in Dr Pococke's Specim. Hist. Arab. p. 250. et seq. (c) Irak, "Babylonia," from Erech, one of the cities built by Nimrod. The Arabians have generally restored the ancient names of places. Thus with them Tyre is Tzur, Sidon Seyd, Egypt Mezri, &c. learned in general. These letters are often at this day used by the Arabs for the titles of books and public inscriptions.

Abauli the son of Mocha*, about 300 years after the death of Mohammed, found out a more elegant and more expeditious character. This invention of Abauli was afterwards carried to perfection by Ebn Bowla, who died in the year of the Hegira 413, when Kader was caliph of Bagdad. This character, with little variation, obtains at this day. As we think this article of some importance, we shall, for the sake of our unlearned readers, transcribe an excellent account of this whole matter from the very learned Schultens.

"The Cypheic character," says he, "which had been brought from the region of the Chaldeans to the province of Hejaz, and to Mecca its capital, in the age of Mohammed, was employed by the Koreilites, and in it the Koran was first written. But as this character was rude and clumsy, in consequence of its size, and ill calculated for expedition, Abauli Ebn Mocha devised a more elegant and expeditious one. This person was vizir to Arradius the 41st caliph, who began to reign in the year of the Hegira 322. Accordingly, in the 10th century, under this emperor of the Saracens, the form of the Arabian alphabet underwent a change; and the former clumsy embarrassed character was made to give way to the polished, easy and expeditious type. Regarding this expedition alone, the author of the invention left very few vowel characters, and as the Hebrew manner of writing admits five long ones and five short in different shapes, he taught how to express all the vowels, both long and short, suitably to the genius of the language, by three, or rather by two, small points, without any danger of a mistake: an abbreviation truly deserving applause and admiration; for by placing a very small line above, he expressed a and e; and by placing the same below, he meant to intimate i only. To the other short ones, o and u, he assigned a small waw above. In order to represent the long ones, he called in the matres lectionis, the "quiescent letters n, r, s;" so that phota with elif intimated a and o long, i.e. kametz and cholem; jod placed after kefiram became tserei and chirek-long, Waw annexed to damma made schurek."

In this passage, the great orientalist acknowledges that the vizir above mentioned, who carried the Arabian alphabet to the pinnacle of perfection, invented and annexed the vowel points for the sake of ease and expedition in writing; from which we may infer, that prior to the tenth century the Arabians had no vowel points; and consequently either read without vowels, or contented themselves with the matres lectionis above mentioned.

The design of the author of the invention, in fabricating these points, was confessedly easy and expedition in writing; a circumstance which furnishes a violent presumption that the Hebrew vowel-points were devised and annexed at some late period for the very same purpose.

Some, indeed, have gone so far as to affirm that the Arabians were the original fabricators of the vowel-points. "The Arabians" (says the learned Dr Gregory Sharp) were the original authors of the vowel-points. They invented three, called fatha, and damma, and kefra: but these were not in use till several years after Mohammed; for it is certain that the first copies of the Koran were without them. The rabbis stole them from the Arabs." This, however, is carrying the matter too far, since it is certain that the Jews were acquainted with the points in question long before the period above-mentioned.

Though it is not our intention to enter into a minute detail of the peculiarities of this noble language, we cannot omit observing one thing, which indeed belongs to grammar, but is not generally taken notice of by the Arabic grammarians. The roots of verbs in this dialect are universally trilateral; so that the composition of the 28 Arabian letters would give near 22,000 elements of the language. This circumstance demonstrates the surprising extent of it: for although great numbers of its roots are irrecoverably lost, and some perhaps were extinct or never in use; yet if we suppose 10,000 of them, without reckoning quadrilateral to exist, and each of them to admit only five variations, one with another, in forming derivative nouns, the whole language would then consist of 50,000 words, each of which may receive a multitude of changes by the rules of grammar.

Again, the Arabic seems to abhor the composition of words, and invariably expresses very complex ideas by circumlocution; so that if a compound word be found in any dialect of that language, we may at once pronounce it of foreign extraction. This is indeed a distinguishing feature in the structure of this tongue, as well as of some of its other dialects. This circumstance has, in our opinion, contributed not a little to the amazing fecundity of that language: for as every ingredient in the composition of a complex idea requires a word to express it, as many words became necessary to complete the language as there were simple ideas to be intimated by discourse. Were all the compounds of the Greek language to be dissolved, as probably once they were, the vocabularies of that tongue would infinitely exceed their present number.

The Arabic authors boast most unconscionably of the richness and variety of their language. No human understanding, say they, is capacious enough to comprehend all its treasures. Inspiration alone can qualify one for exhausting its sources*. Ebn Chalawalb, * Pococke's a most renowned grammarian of theirs, has spent a whole volume upon the various names of the lion, which amount to 500; another on the names of the serpent, which make up 200. Mohammed al Firamabodius affirms that he wrote a book on the ulfulnus and different denominations of honey, in which he enumerates 80 of them; and after all, he affirms us that he was still far from having exhausted his subject. To excel in a language so amazingly copious, was certainly a proof of uncommon capacity, and considered as no mean talent even among the Koreilites. Hence Mohammed, when some people were expressing their admiration of the eloquence of the Koran, told them that he had been taught by the angel Gabriel the language of Ishmael, which had fallen into disuse.

In a language so richly replenished with the choicest Oratory and most energetic terms, both oratory and poetry were cultivated with ease. All the difficulty consisted in making a choice among words and phrases equally Arabs, elegant. We may compare one of those poets or orators to a young gentleman, of a taste highly refined, walking into a repository where a profusion of the richest and and most elegant dresses are piled up in wild confusion. Our beau is here diversified with variety; but to be able to choose the most handsome and most becoming, he must have received from nature a superior good taste; which he must likewise have cultivated by affluence of industry, and by associating with the most genteel company.

The orations of the Arabs were of two kinds, metrical and profuse. The former they compared to pearls set in gold, and the latter to loose ones. They were ambitious of excelling in both; and whoever did so, was highly distinguished. His success in either of those departments was thought to confer honour, not only on his family, but even on his tribe. In their poems were preserved the genealogies of their families, the privileges of their tribes, the memory of their heroes, the exploits of their ancestors, the propriety of their language, the magnificence of banquets, the generosity of their wealthy chiefs and great men, &c. After all, we cannot avoid being of the unpopular opinion, that this mighty parade of eloquence and poetry did not reach backward above two centuries before the birth of Mohammed, as it certainly vanished at the era of the propagation of his religious institutions. The two succeeding centuries were the reigns of superstition and bloodshed. The voice of the mules is seldom heard amidst the din of arms.

The ancient Arabs, at whatever time poetry began to be in request among them, did not at first write poems of considerable length. They only expressed themselves in metre occasionally, in acute rather than harmonious strains. The Proverbs of Solomon, and the book of Ecclesiastes seem to be composed in this species of versification. The profody of the Arabs was never digested into rules till some time after the death of Mohammed; and this is said to have been done by Al Khalti al Farabidi, who lived in the reign of the caliph Karam of Raschid.

After so many encomiums of the copiousness of the Arabic tongue, one class of our readers may possibly expect that we should subjoin a brief detail of its genius and character; and this we shall do with all possible brevity.

All the primary or radical words of the language are composed of different combinations of consonants by triads; so that the various combinations and conjunctions of radicals make more than 10,000, even without including those which may arise from the meeting of guttural letters. From this quality of the language has flowed that stability of the dialect which has preserved it pure and entire for so many thousand years, and secured it from those changes and that fluctuation to which most other tongues are subject.

Perhaps, notwithstanding its copiousness and variety, no other language can vie with the one in question in point of perspicuity and precision. It is possessed of a brevity and roundness which, amidst the greatest variety, enables it to express with clearness and energy what could not be expressed in any other tongue without tedious circumlocutions. To this purpose we shall beg leave to transcribe a passage from Bishop Pococke's oration on the Arabic language. As we imagine few of our readers who will have the curiosity to peruse this article can be unacquainted with the Latin tongue, we shall give it as it stands in the original, without a translation:

"Neque in nulla certe laudis parte, mira illa qua, non folum verborum in significando, perspicuitate, sed in prolatio, elegantiæ et dulcedinis caverunt, fedelitas; quoque, non folum accurata, inter literas ex significatione proportione, senus vel intentioni, vel reminiscioni, prout res postulaverit, literarum appositione, subductione, vel juxta organorum, rationem profecerunt; sed et ne quid delicatulus auribus ingratum, ne quid horridum, aut aruspice, reperiatur, effecerunt. Hoc in genere est, quod nupiam in verbo aliquo, genuina apud Arabes originis, concurrent, non intercedente vocalis aliquis motione consonantes, cum vel tres, vel plures, aliis in linguis frequenter colliduntur. Immo neque, si adint, quæ aperitatis remedio sint, vocales, quæ libet temere tamen committunt consonantes; fed ita rei natura postulat, ut concurrent debant illa, quæ se invicem, fine aperitatis inductione confequit, et inter se connecti non possint; illi vel fitus, vel literarum mutatione, eas abiciendo, inferendo, emolliendo, aliique quibus posset modis, remedia querunt; adeo ab omni, quod vel abilionum, vel diffusum est, abhorrent. Quod si nobis fecus videntur, et aperitus fonare ab Arabibus prolatæ, illud auribus nostris, et usu, non lingua impudentum, nec mollius illis fonare nostra, quam eorum nobis cenfendum. Quin et gutturalium, quæ nobis maxima aperitatis cauæ videntur, absentiam, ut magnum in lingua Graeca defecum, arguent Arabes."

The learned Dr Hunt, late professor of the Hebrew and Arabic languages at Oxford, is of the same opinion with the very learned prelate, part of whose oration we have transcribed above, with respect to the delicacy and elegance of the Arabian language:—"Nufquam, mihi credite, (inquit ille) auribus magis parcitur quam in Arabia; nulla lingua à ἀποστολαι, alienior quam Arabica. Quamquam enim nonnullae eius literæ minus fortasse fuaviter, immo durius etiam fonuerint, ita tamen Arabes eas temperarunt cum lenibus, duras cum mollibus, graves cum acutis mitiendo, voces inde non minus auribus jucundæ, quam pronunciatiæ faciles confequent, totaque fermoni miram sonorum tam dulcedinem quam varietatem addiderint. Qnod quidem orationis modulandæ studium in Corano adeo manifestum est, ut primi Islamifimi oppugnatores eum librum magica ideo arte scriptum dixerint. Non auribus tantum gratia est Arabifimus, sed et animi conceptibus exprimendis aptus, nos suos sententias semper accommodans, et felici verborum juncturae corum naturam depingens."

To these we might add quotations from Erpenius's oration on the same subject, from Golius, Schultens, Hottinger, Bochart, and Sir William Jones; besides a whole cloud of oriental witnesse, whose extravagant encomiums would rather astonish than edify the far greater part of our readers. These panegyrics may perhaps be in some measure hyperbolical; but in general we believe them pretty well founded. At the same time we are convinced that the Arabic, however melodious in the ears of a native, sounds harsh and unharmonious in that of an European.

When we consider the richness and variety of the Difficulty Arabic tongue, we are led to conclude, that to acquire a tolerable degree of skill in its idioms, is a more thorough difficult task than is generally imagined; at least some of it. people who have acquired the knowledge of the Greek and Latin, and likewise of the more fashionable modern languages, with facility enough, have found it so. Be that as it may, there are two classes of men who, in our opinion, cannot harmlessly dispense with the knowledge of that almost universal tongue: the gentleman, who is to be employed in the political transactions of the most respectable mercantile company upon earth, in the eastern parts of the world; and the divine, who applies himself to investigate the true purport of the sacred oracles: without this, the former will often find himself embarrassed in both his civil and mercantile negotiations; and the latter will often grope in the dark, when a moderate acquaintance with that tongue would make all sunshine around him.

Bochart, Hottinger, Schultens, Pocock, Hunt, and Robertson, &c., have taken wonderful pains, and lavished a profusion of learning, in proving the affinity and dialectical cognation between the Hebrew and Arabic. Much of this labour, we think, might have been spared. We presume to affirm, that no person tolerably versed in both languages can read a single paragraph of the Arabic version of the New Testament, or indeed of the Koran itself, without being convinced of the truth of this position: it is but stripping the latter of its adventitious frippery, and the kindred features will immediately appear.

The learned professors of the university of Leyden were the first who entered upon the career of Arabian learning. To them the European students are principally indebted for what knowledge of that language they have hitherto been able to attain. Though several Italians have contributed their endeavours, yet the fruit of their labours has been rendered almost useless by more commodious and more accurate works printed in Holland.

The palm of glory, in this branch of literature, is due to Gollis, whose works are equally profound and elegant; so perspicuous in method, that they may always be consulted without fatigue, and read without languor. Erpenius's excellent grammar, and his memorable dictionary, will enable the student to explain the history of Taimur by Ioni Arabi/bah. If he has once mastered that sublime work, he will understand the learned Arabic better than most of the Khatabs of Constantinople or of Mecca.

The Arabian language, however, notwithstanding all its boasted perfections, has undoubtedly shared the fate of other living languages; it has gradually undergone such considerable alterations, that the Arabic spoke and written in the age of Mohammed may be now regarded as a dead language: it is indeed so widely different from the modern language of Arabia, that it is taught and studied in the college of Mecca just as the Latin is at Rome.

The dialect of the Highlands of Yemen is said to have the nearest analogy to the language of the Koran, because these Highlanders have little intercourse with strangers. The old Arabic is through all the East, like the Latin in Europe, a learned tongue, taught in colleges, and only to be acquired by the perusal of the best authors.

"Sic folia in sylvis prono mutantur in annos, &c."

Sect. III. Of the Chaldean, Phoenician, Ethiopian or Abyssinian, and Egyptian Languages.

As there is a very strict connection and dialectical analogy among these languages, we have arranged them all under one section; especially since what is observed relating to one of them may, without the least straining, be extended to them all. We shall begin with the Chaldaic.

The Chaldeans, or Chasdim, as they are always called in Scripture, were the descendants of Chebed the son of Nahor, the brother of Abraham. The descendants of this patriarch drove the Cushim or Aramites out of Babylonia, and possessed themselves of that country at a very early period. As these Chasdim or Chaldeans were the posterity of Nahor, the descendant of Heber, they undoubtedly spoke the original Hebrew tongue as well as the other branches of that family. But being an ingenious inventive people, they seem to have polished their language with much care and delicacy of taste.

The only genuine remains of the ancient Chaldaic language are to be found in the Hebrew Scriptures; and those are contained in 268 verses, of which we have 200 in Daniel, reaching from verse 4th chapter 2d to chapter 8th exclusive; in Ezra 67, in chapter 4th, 17 verses; chapter 5th, the same number; chapter 6th, 18 verses; and in chapter 7th, 15: in Jeremiah, chapter 10th, there is extant only one verse. From these fragments, compared with the Hebrew, it plainly appears, that the difference between that language and the Chaldaic is scarcely equal to that between the Doric and Ionic dialects of the Greek.

Whatever might have been the form of the most ancient Chaldaic letters, it is generally known that the beautiful square characters, in which the Hebrew Scriptures began to be written after the age of Ezra, were current among them at an era prior to the Babylonish captivity. Those elegant characters were probably the invention of the Chaldean academies, which were established in various parts of that extensive and fertile country.

The Chaldean declensions and conjugations differ little from the Hebrew modifications, that it would be almost superfluous to dwell upon them in this section. The most effectual way to acquire an idea of the ancient Chaldaic, is to decompound the names confessedly of that dialect, which occur in many places of Scripture. By this method of proceeding, its beautiful structure and expressive energy will be readily comprehended even by the most illiterate classes of our readers. At the same time, we must observe, that the Chaldaic and ancient Syriac bore so near a resemblance to each other, that they have generally been clasped under one head.

The first Chaldaic word that occurs in the Old Testament is bara "created." This word has all along been assigned to the language under consideration; for what reason, we confess we are not able to discover. The greatest part of the Hebrew tongue is now lost. The words bar, "a son," and bara "created," rather filiavit, may probably be of that number. Another Scripture word which is often quoted, and always attributed either to the Syriac or Chaldaic, is igar or jagar sahadutha, Chaldean sahadutha, which signifies "a monument of witness," every Chaldean or old Syrian word now extant, without any difficulty, betray their Hebrew original. As for their dialectical differences, these we refer to the Chaldaic grammars and lexicons.

We now proceed to the consideration of the Phoenician language, which is known to have been that of the ancient Canaanites. That this was one of the original dialects, and consequently a cognate of the Hebrew, is universally acknowledged. Instead therefore of endeavouring to prove this position, we may refer our readers to the works of the learned Mr Bochart, where that author has in a manner demonstrated this point, by deriving almost all the names of the Phoenician colonies from the Hebrew, upon the supposition that the dialect of those people was closely connected with that tongue.

St Augustine, de Civitate Dei, has observed, that even in his time many of the vulgar in the neighbourhood of Carthage and Hippo spoke a dialect of the old Punic which nearly resembled the Hebrew. Procopius, de bello Goth., informs us, that there existed even in his days in Africa a pillar with this inscription in Hebrew, "We flee from the face of Joshua the robber, the son of Nun."

The names of all the ancient cities built by the Carthaginians on the coast of Africa are easily reducible to a Hebrew original. The Carthaginian names of persons mentioned in the Greek and Latin history, such as Himilco, Hamilcar, Adrubal, Hannibal, Han-no, Dido, Anna or Hannah, Sophonisba, Gisgo, Mahabal, Adherbal, &c. all breathe a Hebrew extraction.

The Greeks borrowed a great part of their religious worship from the people of whose language we are treating; of consequence, the names of most of their gods are Phoenician. Almost every one of these is actually Hebrew, as might easily be shown. The names of persons and places mentioned in the fragments of Sanchoniathon, preserved by Eusebius, are all of Hebrew complexion. The names mentioned in the Hebrew scriptures of places which belonged to the Canaanites prior to the invasion of the Idracites under Joshua, are as much Hebrew as those which were afterwards substituted in their stead. The Punic scene in Plautus has been analyzed by Bochart and several other learned men, by whom the language has been clearly proved to be deduced from the Hebrew, with some dialectical variations.

The island of Malta (Melita now) was inhabited by a colony of Phoenicians many ages before the Moors took possession of it. Among the vulgar of that island many Punic vocables are current to this day, all which may be readily traced up to the Hebrew fountain. To these we may add many inscriptions on stones, coins, medals, &c. which are certainly Phoenician, and as certainly of Hebrew extraction. We have thrown together these few hints without purifying them to any great length, as we deemed it unnecessary to dwell long on a point so hackneyed and so generally acknowledged.

Before we proceed to treat of the ancient language Origin of the Ethiopians, we find ourselves obliged to hazard the Ethiopia a few strictures on the origin of that ancient nation. If we can once settle that single point, the discovery will open an avenue to their primitive dialect, the article about which we are chiefly concerned in the present discussion.

In our Section concerning the Hebrew language, we were led often to mention the patriarch Cush the eldest son of Ham. The posterity of this family-chief, under his son Nimrod, possessed themselves of Shinar, afterwards denominated Chaldea. These were probably the Arabians whose kings (according to Eusebius, Africanus, and other ancient chronologers) reigned in Babylon during several successive generations. These were the Cushites or Cushites, whom the learned Mr Bryant has conducted over a great part of the world, and to whole industry and ingenuity he has ascribed almost all the inventions, arts, sciences, laws, policy, religions, &c., which distinguished mankind in the earliest ages.

In process of time, the posterity of Chedor or Chedor, called Chedor or Chedorim, in the east, and Chaldeans in the west, drove out the Cushites, and seized upon their country. The Cushites retired westward, and spread themselves over that part of Arabia situated towards the south-east. They probably extended themselves over all the eastern part of that peninsula from the sea to the wilderness between Arabia and Syria. These were the Ethiopians mentioned in Scripture by a very unpardonable inadvertency of our translators. These, then, we think, were the primitive Cushites.

*Antig. Jud. lib. i. c.7.

Ethiopians of Africa by the name of Cyprius. This denomination was not given them without good reason: it imports at least, that they deemed them the descendants of Cush; it being the constant practice of the orientals in the early ages to denominate nations and tribes from the name of their great patriarch or founder. The name Cyprius must then have been given to the Ethiopians, from a persuasion that they were the progeny of the son of Ham who bore that name. By what routesoever the Cushites penetrated into that region of Africa which was called by their name, it may be taken for granted that they were the descendants of Cush above mentioned.

It has been observed above, that the posterity of Cush possessed the country of Shinar or Chaldea at a very early period, but were expelled by the Chedorim or Chaldeans. Upon this catastrophe, or perhaps somewhat later, a colony from the fugitive Cushites transported themselves from the south and south-east coast of Arabia over the sea, which lies between that country and Ethiopia. However imperfect the art of navigation might be in that age, the distance was so small that they might easily enough make a voyage across that narrow sea in open boats, or perhaps in canoes. However that may have been, it cannot be doubted that the tribes on both sides of that branch of the sea were kindred nations.

If, then, both the northern and southern Cushites sprang from the same stock, there can be no doubt that both spoke the same language. The language of the Babylonian Cushites was Chaldaic, and of consequence that of the Ethiopian Cushites was the same. We may therefore rest assured, that whatever changes the Ethiopian dialect may have undergone in the course of 3000 years, it was originally either Chaldaic, or at least a branch of that language. Scaliger informs us, that the Ethiopians call themselves Chaldeans; and that, says he, not without reason, because of those many sacred and profane books which are extant among them, the most elegant and most beautiful are written in a style near Chaldean that of the Chaldean or Assyrian. Marius Victorinus, who was the first that reduced the Ethiopic tongue to the rules of grammar, tells us, in his Proemium, "that the Ethiopians call their tongue Chaldaic; that it springs from the Babylonian; and is very like the Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic: At the same time (he concludes), that this language may be easily learned by those who are masters of the Hebrew." The learned Bochart, and Bishop Walton in his Prolegomena, are clearly of the same opinion.

The vulgar letters of the Ethiopians, according to Diiodorus Siculus, were the same with the sacred characters of the Egyptians (D). From this account, p. 101, if the Sicilian may be trusted, the sacred letters of these people, concerning which so many wise conjectures have been formed, were actually Chaldaic. To carry on this investigation a little farther, we may observe, that Sir William Jones seems to have proved, by very plausible arguments, that the Sanscrit characters were deduced from the Chaldaic. This circumstance affords a presumption that the Ethiopian Cushites were likewise concerned with the Egyptians; who, as is remarked in the Section concerning the Saurfrits, probably introduced the religion of the Brahmans into Hindoostan. This is advanced as a conjecture only; and yet when we consider the affinity between the Egyptian and Gentoo religions, we are strongly inclined to hope that this surmise may one day be verified by undeniable facts.

The original Ethiopians were a people highly civilized; their laws, their institutions, and especially their religion, were celebrated far and wide. Homer talks in raptures of the piety of the Ethiopians, and feuds his gods every now and then to revel 12 days with that devout people. The Sicilian adduces a number of very specious arguments to prove that these two nations had sprung from the same stock. He mentions a similarity of features, of manners, of customs, of laws, of letters, of the fabrication of statues, of religion, as evidences of the relation between those two neighbouring nations, the Ethiopians and the Egyptians. There was, everybody knows, a communion, as to sacred rites, between the two countries. The Egyptians sent annually a deputation of their priests, furnished with the portable statues of their gods, to visit the fane of the devout Ethiopians. Upon this occasion, a solemn religious banquet was prepared, which lasted 12 days, and of which the priests of both nations were partakers. It was, we imagine, a kind of sacramental institution, by which both parties publicly avouched their agreement in the ceremonies of their religion respectively. These observations plainly show, that the most ancient Ethiopians were a people highly civilized; indeed so much, that the Egyptians were at one time contented to be their scholars. The tone of their language was certainly the same with that of the Chaldeans or Arabian Cushites, from whom they are descended. We know not whether there are any books in the ancient Ethiopic now extant; so that it is not easy to produce instances of its coincidence with the Chaldaic. Diogenes Laertius informs us, that Thrasyllus, in his catalogue, p. 461, Calabria.

(d) We find the same observation confirmed by Heliodorus (Ethiop. lib. x. p. 476.), "The royal letters of the Ethiopians (says he) were the sacred characters of the Egyptians." Caffiodorus likewise affirms us, "That the letters inscribed upon the Egyptian obelisks were Chaldaean." See Sect. Sanscrit. Chaldean catalogue of the books composed by Democritus, mentioning one, ἐπὶ τὸν Ἀργείον ἀγρόν, concerning the sacred letters in the island of Merove (E); and another concerning the sacred letters in Babylon. Had these books survived the ravages of time, they would in this age of research and curiosity have determined not only the point under our consideration, but the affinity of similar rites among the Chaldeans, Ethiopians, and Egyptians.

We have now shown that the Ethiopians were a colony of Cushites; that the Cushites were originally sovereigns of Shinar or Chaldea, and consequently spoke either Chaldaic or a dialect of that tongue; that their colonists must have used the same language; that the ancient Ethiopians were a people highly polished, and celebrated in the most early ages on account of their virtue and piety. It has likewise appeared, that the common letters of that people were the sacred characters of Egyptians. These letters, we imagine, were the Coptic; for which see the Section on the Arabic. When they were discarded, and the modern substituted in their room, cannot be determined; nor is it, we apprehend, a matter of much importance. We shall therefore drop that part of the subject, and refer our curious and inquisitive readers to the very learned Job Ludolf's (F) excellent grammar and dictionary of the Abyssinian or Geez tongue, where they will find every thing worth knowing on that subject. We shall endeavour to gratify our readers with a very brief account of the modern Ethiopic or Abyssinian tongue; for which both they and we will be obliged to James Bruce, Esq., that learned, indefatigable, and adventurous traveller; who, by his observations on that country, which he made in person, often at the hazard of his life, has discovered, as it were, a new world both to Europe and Asia.

The most ancient language of Ethiopia, which we shall now call Abyssinia (its modern name), according to that gentleman, was the Geez, which was spoken by the ancient Cushite shepherds. This, we should think, approaches nearest to the old Chaldaic. Upon a revolution in that country, the court resided many years in the province of Amhara, where the people spoke a different language, or at least a very different dialect of the same language. During this interval, the Geez, or language of the shepherds, was dropt, and retained only in writing, and as a dead language: the sacred Scriptures being in that tongue only saved it from going into disuse. This tongue is exceedingly harsh and unharmonious. It is full of these two letters D and T, in which an accent is put that nearly resembles hammering. Considering the small extent of sea that divides this country from Arabia, we need not wonder that it has great affinity with the Arabic. It is not difficult to be acquired by those who understand any other of the oriental languages; and as the roots of many Hebrew words are only to be found here, it seems to be absolutely necessary to all those who wish to obtain a critical skill in that language.

The Ethiopic alphabet consists of 26 letters, each of which, by a virgula or point annexed, varies its sound in such a manner as that those 26 form as it were 62 Chaldean distinct letters. At first they had but 25 of these original letters, the Latin P being wanting: so that they were obliged to substitute another letter in its place. Paulus, for example, they call Taules, Aules, or Caules: Petrus, they pronounced Ketros. At last they substituted T, and added this to the end of their alphabet; giving it the force of R, though it was really a repetition of a character rather than the invention of a new one. Besides these, there are 20 others of the nature of diphthongs; but some of them are probably not of the same antiquity with the letters of the alphabet, but have been invented in later times by the scribes for convenience.

The Amharic, during the long banishment of the royal family in Shoa, became the language of the court, and seven new characters were of necessity added to answer the pronunciation of this new language; but no book was ever yet written in any other language than Geez. There is an old law in the country, handed down by tradition, that whoever shall attempt to translate the Holy Scripture into Amharic or any other language, his throat shall be cut after the manner in which they kill sheep, his family sold to slavery, and their houses razed to the ground.

Before we leave this subject, we may observe, that all the ancients, both poets and historians, talk of a double race of Ethiopians; one in India, and another in Africa. What may have given rise to this opinion it is not easy to discover. Perhaps the swarthy complexion of both people may have led them to this sentiment. Eusebius indeed informs us*, that "a numerous colony of people emigrated from the banks of the Indus, and crossing the ocean, fixed their residence in the country now called Ethiopia." For our part, we are rather inclined to believe that the original Ethiopians transported themselves into India, and there perhaps cooperated with the Egyptians in digging the excavations and framing the statues, some of which are still to be seen in that country, and which we have mentioned in another Section. The Greeks called those people Αἰθιοπεῖς, Αἰθιοπεῖς we believe, from their sun-burnt countenance; but indeed they were very little acquainted either with the country or its inhabitants.

The most ancient name of Egypt was Mizraim, of ancient consequence the Arabians still call it Meṣri. It was a language distinguished by other names, such as Oceano, after the Aeria, &c. It appears from the sacred historian, that it is of Mizraim that the descendants of Mizraim the second Hebrew son of Ham. Mizraim had several sons, who, according to the Scripture account, settled respectively in that country. If we trust to the sacred records, there will be little difficulty in ascertaining the language of the Mizraim. It will appear to be one of the latter dialects of the Hebrew, Phoenician, Arabic, Chaldaic, &c.; and this, to us, appears to be the fact. But the origin of that people, their language, religion, laws, and institutions, have been so warped and confounded, both by their own historians and those of other countries, that one is scarce able to determine what to believe or what

(E) Where the capital of Ethiopia was situated. (F) A very learned German, who published a grammar and dictionary of the Geez in folio. Chaldæan to reject. Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Ptolemy, and most other ancient geographers and historians, &c., are universally agreed, that Egypt, at least that part of it called Delta, was overflowed by the sea, and consequently uninhabitable for many centuries after the dispersion of mankind. When we consider the low situation of the Delta, and the violent current of the tide from the coast of Phoenicia and Palestine towards that shore, we would be almost tempted to adopt this hypothesis; but the sacred records avouch the contrary. According to them, we find Egypt a populous, rich, and flourishing kingdom, as early as the age of Abraham. Had the Lower Egypt been a pool of stagnating water at any time after the general deluge, we think it could not have been drained, cleared, cultivated, and stocked with inhabitants, so early as the days of Abraham.

Diodorus Siculus, however, is positive that the Egyptians were a colony of Ethiopians; and this he endeavours to prove by the similarity of features, customs, laws, religious ceremonies, &c., between the two nations. That there was a constant intercourse of good offices between these two branches of the Hamites, cannot be questioned; and that they nearly resembled each other in many respects, is too evident to admit of contradiction. The excavations, originally dug out of the solid rocks of porphyry and marble, in which the natives resided before the plains were drained, have been observed by a most judicious traveller (G) a very few years ago. At the same time, the most accurate and judicious travellers (H) who have visited that region in modern times, are generally of opinion that the land has gained nothing on the sea since the period when Herodotus wrote his description of that country; from which circumstances we may be led to conclude, that the idea of the inundation of the Delta is not founded in fact.

But even admitting that the Egyptian Delta has acquired nothing from the sea since the age of Herodotus to the present, it certainly does not follow that the region in question was never overflowed by that element; since there are, in many parts of the globe, large tracts of land, certainly once covered with sea, which have continued to this day in the very same situation in which they were 2000 years ago. We leave the decision of this point to the judgement of our readers.

We have already hinted our opinion of the nature of the Egyptian language; but because Egypt is generally thought to have been the native land of hieroglyphics, and because many are of opinion that hieroglyphical characters were prior to alphabetical, we shall hazard a few conjectures with respect to that species of writing.

The end of speech, in general, is to enable men to communicate their thoughts and conceptions one to another when present; the use of writing is to perform the same office when people are at so great a distance that vocal sounds cannot mutually reach them. Hieroglyphics are said to have been invented to supply this defect. The most ancient languages were everywhere full of tropes and figures borrowed from sensible objects. As in that stage of society men have not learned to abstract and generalize, all their ideas are borrowed from such objects as most forcibly strike their senses. This circumstance would naturally suggest to savages the idea of conveying their sentiments to each other, when absent, by delineations of corporeal objects. Thus, if a savage asked a loan of his friend's horse, he might find means to have conveyed to him the figure of that animal; and so of others. This was the very lowest species of ideal communication, and has been styled picture-writing.

Necessity would soon impel our savage correspondents to fabricate a method more extensively useful, which would likewise be suggested by the constant use of the metaphorical mode of speech. Some savage leader, more sagacious than the vulgar herd, would observe that certain sensible objects were fitted, according to the rules of analogy, to represent certain human passions, and even some abstract ideas; and this would be readily enough adopted by the herd as a new improvement. In this case a horn might be the emblem of power, a sword of bravery, a lion of fury, a fox of cunning, a serpent of malice, &c. By and by artificial signs might be contrived to express such ideas as could not readily be denoted by bodily objects. This might be called symbolical writing. Such was the foundation of the Chinese characters; and hence that prodigious number of letters of which the written language of that people is composed. Farther they could not proceed, notwithstanding their boasted inventive powers; and farther, we believe, no nation ever did proceed, who had once upon a time no other characters but hieroglyphical. The Mexicans had arrived at the very lowest stage of hieroglyphical writing, but had not taken one step towards alphabetical. The Hurons employ hieroglyphical symbols, but never entertained a single idea of alphabetical. Hieroglyphical characters are the images of objects conveyed to the mind by the organs of vision; alphabetic are arbitrary artificial marks of sound, accommodated by compact to convey to the mind the ideas of objects by the organs of hearing. In a word, we think that there is not the least analogy between these two species to conduct from the one to the other: we are therefore of opinion that hieroglyphical characters were never the vulgar garlands of ideal conveyance among civilized people.

We know that in this point we differ from many learned, judicious, and ingenious writers; some of whom have taken much pains to investigate the intermediate stages through which the fabricators of characters must have passed in their progress from hieroglyphical to alphabetical writing. These writers have adopted a plan analogous to Bishop Wilkins's project of an artificial language. In this theory, we own, we are led to suspect that they supposed all mankind were once upon a time savages, and were left to hammer out words, as well as characters, by necessity, ingenuity, experience, practice, &c. For our part, we have endeavoured to prove, in our section on the Hebrew language, that alphabetical writing was an antediluvian invention; and we now lay it down as our opinion, that among all those nations which settled near the centre of civilization,

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(G) See Mr Bruce's Travels, vol. i. (H) Mr Bruce, Dr Shaw, Bishop Pococke, Savary, Volney, &c. The Orientals are, at this day, extravagantly devoted to allegory and fiction. Plain unadorned truth with them has no charms. Hence that extravagant medley of fables and romance with which all antiquity is replete, and by which all ancient history is disguised and corrupted. Every doctrine of religion, every precept of morality, was tendered to mankind in parables and proverbs. Hence, says the Scripture, to understand a proverb, the words of the wise, and their dark sayings. The eastern sages involved their maxims in this enigmatical dress for several reasons: to fix the attention of their disciples; to assist their memory; to gratify their allegorical taste; to sharpen their wit and exercise their judgment; and sometimes perhaps to display their own acuteness, ingenuity, and invention.

It was among the ancients an universal opinion, that the most sacred arcana of religion, morality, and the sublime sciences, were not to be communicated to the uninitiated rabble. For this reason every thing sacred was involved in allegorical darkness.

Here, then, we ought to look for the origin of hieroglyphical or picture-writing among the civilized nations of the east. They did not employ that species of writing because they were ignorant of alphabetical characters, but because they thought fit to conceal the most important heads of their doctrines under hieroglyphical figures. The Egyptian priests were most celebrated for their skill in devising those emblematical representations; but other nations likewise employed them. We learn from the fragments of Berossus the Chaldean historian, preserved by Syncellus and Alexander Polyhistor, that the walls of the temple of Belus at Babylon were covered all over with those emblematical paintings. These characters were called ἱεροὶ, because they were chiefly employed to represent sacred objects; and γραφή, because they were originally carved or engraved. Their name points to their original use. Instead of pursuing these observations, which the nature of our design will not permit, we must refer our readers to Herodotus, lib. ii. Diodorus Sic. lib. i. Strabo, lib. xvii. Plut. Isis et Osiris; and among the Christian fathers, to Clem. Alex. Euseb. Prep. Evang.; but chiefly to Horapollo's Hieroglyphics.

From this deduction we would conclude, that this species of writing was an adventitious mode in Egypt, peculiar to the priests, and employed chiefly to exhibit things sacred; and that among all civilized people it did not supersede the use of alphabetical characters, nor did the use of the latter originate from the former. When alphabetical letters were invented, if indeed they were a human invention, they were antecedent to the other in use and extent. The Egyptian priests alone knew the true import of those sacred symbols; and communicated that knowledge first to their own children from generation to generation, then to the initiated, and last of all to the grandees of the nation, all of whom were indeed initiated. The hieroglyphics of Egypt were not then the symbols of any sacred occult language; but signs invented by the priests and prophets or wise men, in order to represent their deities, the attributes and perfections of their deities, and the mysterious arcana of their religion, and many other circumstances relating to objects of importance, which were deemed either too sacred or too important to be imparted to the vulgar.

The Egyptians ascribed the invention of letters to a person whom they called Thoth*, Thoth, or Thoth; * Euseb. the Greeks Ἑγερός; and the Romans Mercurius. Plato† Prep. Ev. calls him a god, or a godlike man; Diodorus † makes Lib. i. him privy councillor to Osiris; Sanchoniathon ap. Euseb. § connects him with the Phoenician Cronus or § Prep. Ev. Saturn. To this Mercury the Egyptians ascribe the invention of all the arts and sciences. He was probably some very eminent inventive genius, who flourished during the first ages of the Egyptian monarchy, and who perhaps taught the rude savages the art of writing.

According to Diodorus Siculus, the Egyptians had two kinds of letters‡; the one sacred, the other common of alphabetical characters; the former the priests taught their own children, the latter all learned promiscuously. In the sacred character the rites and ceremonies of their religion were couched; the other was accommodated to the ordinary business of life. Clem. Alexand. mentions three different styles of writing employed by the Egyptians‡. Stron. “The pupils, who were instructed by the Egyptians, first learned the order and arrangement of the Egyptian letters, which is called epigraphia, that is, the manner of writing letters; next, the sacred character, which the sacred scribes employed; lastly, the hieroglyphic character, one part of which is expressed by the first elements, and is called Cyriologic, that is, capital, and the other Symbolic. Of the symbolic kind, one part explains properly by imitation; and the other is written tropically, that is, in tropes and figures; and a third by certain enigmatical expeditions. Accordingly, when we intend to write the word sun, we describe a circle; and when the moon, the figure of that planet appearing horned, conformable to the appearance of that luminary after the change.” In this passage we have an excellent description of the three different modes of writing used by the Egyptians; the common, the sacred, and the hieroglyphic. The last he describes according to its three divisions, in exact conformity to our preceding observations.

By the description above translated, it plainly appears, that the sacred character of the Egyptians was entirely different from the hieroglyphic; and by this consideration we are in a good measure justified, in Chaldaic supposing, as we have done all along, that the sacred letters of the Egyptians were actually the Chaldaic. The inscriptions on the obelisks mentioned by Caius Diodorus, so often quoted, were certainly engraved in the sacred character; and the character in which they were drawn was that above mentioned. If the sacred letters were Chaldaic, the sacred language was probably the same.

The Egyptians pretended, that the Babylonians derived the knowledge of the arts and sciences from them; while, on the other hand, the Babylonians maintained, that the former had been tutored by them. The fact is, they both spoke the same language; used the same religious rites; had applied with equal success to astrology, astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, and the other sciences; The most faithful specimen of the vulgar language of the Egyptians, is, we believe, still preserved in the Coptic, which, however, is replete with Grecisms, that it must be difficult to trace it out.

Under the Ptolemies, the Greek was the language of the court, and consequently must have diffused itself over all the country. Hence, we believe, two-thirds of the Coptic are Greek words, diversified by their terminations, declensions, and conjugations only. To be convinced of the truth of this, our learned and curious readers need only consult Christian Scholtz's Egyptian and Coptic grammar and dictionary, corrected and published by Godfred Woide, Oxford, 1788.

The Egyptians and Phoenicians were in a manner cousin-germans, and consequently must have spoken the same language; that is, one of the sifter dialects of the Hebrew, Chaldean, Arabian, Cuthite, &c.—This is not a mere conjecture; it may be realized by almost numberless examples. It is true, that when Joseph's brethren went down to Egypt, and that ruler deigned to converse with them, they could not understand the Egyptian idiom which he spoke; nor would he, had he been actually an Egyptian, have understood them without an interpreter. The only conclusion from this circumstance is, that by this time the Egyptian had deviated considerably from the original language of mankind. The Irish and Welch, every body knows, are only different dialects of the Celtic tongue; and yet experience proves, that a native of Ireland and another of Wales cannot well comprehend each other's language, nor converse intelligibly without an interpreter. The Erse, spoken in the Highlands of Scotland, and the Irish, are known to be both branches of the old Celtic; yet a Scotch Highlander and an Irishman can hardly understand each other's speech. By a parity of reason, a Hebrew and an Egyptian might, in the age of Joseph, speak only different dialects of the same original tongue, and yet find it difficult to understand one another. The fact seems to be, the Hebrew dialect had been in a manner stationary, from the migration of Abraham to that period; whereas the Egyptian, being spoken by a powerful, civilized, and highly cultivated people, must have received many improvements, perhaps additions, in the course of near two centuries.

The descendants of Canaan and of Mizraim were firmly connected in their religious ceremonies: they worshipped the same objects, namely, the Hap of Ica-ven; they mourned Osiris and Adonis in concert; they carried on a joint commerce, and, we think, spoke the same language; we may, therefore, conclude, that their vulgar letters were nearly the same, both in form, disposition, and number. Their original number was probably 16, viz. five vowels, six mutes, simple and middle, four liquids, and the solitary e.—With these, it is likely, was joined a mark of aspiration, or an h, such as we have in the Roman alphabet, and find on some Greek monuments. Cadmus was originally an Egyptian; that leader brought a new set of letters into Greece. These are generally deemed to be Phoenician. They were nearly the same with the ancient Pelasgic, as will be shown in the section of the Greek language. The latter, we think, were from Egypt, and consequently the former must have been from the same quarter. Danaus, Perseus, Lelex, &c., were of Egyptian extraction: they too adopted the Cadmean characters, without substituting any of their own.

The Jonim, or Ionians, emigrated from Gaza, a colony of Egyptians; and their letters are known to have differed very little from those of Cadmus and the Pelasgi. The conclusion, therefore, is, that the vulgar Egyptian letters were the same with the Phoenician.

We are abundantly sensible that there are found upon Egyptian monuments characters altogether different from those we have been describing. At what time, by what people, and to what language, these letters belonged, we will not pretend to determine. The Ethiopians, the Chaldeans, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Saracens, have, at different times, been sovereigns of that unhappy country. Perhaps other nations, whose memory is now buried in oblivion, may have erected monuments, and covered them with inscriptions composed of words taken from different languages, perhaps, upon some occasions, whimsically devised, with a view to perplex the curious antiquaries of future ages. Some of these are composed of hieroglyphics intermingled with alphabetical characters, artificially deranged, in order to render them unintelligible. These we do not pretend to develop; because the most inquisitive and sagacious antiquaries are not yet agreed as to their purport and signification.

We shall now go on to show, that most part of the Egyptian names of persons and places, &c., which have been names of conveyance down to us, may, in general, be reduced to H-brew a Hebrew, Phoenician, Syrian, or Chaldean original. As the first of these languages is most generally known, we shall employ it as our arch-type or standard, beginning with those terms which occur in Scripture.

The word Pharaoth, the title of the melech or king of Egypt, is, we think, compounded of two terms, which plainly discover a Hebrew original. According to an oriental tradition, the first who assumed this title was the sovereign of the royal shepherds; a race of people from Arabia and Phoenicia. They conquered Egypt at an early period, and kept possession of it for several centuries. They gloried in the title azur, or azur, which, according to Josephus contra Apion, signifies "royal shepherds." The word Pharaoth seems to be compounded of pe Phar, "a bullock," and ruw, Rachah, "to feed;" hence ruw Pharachah, as we think it ought to be written. The name given to Joseph is evidently of kin with the Hebrew; for azaphnath differs very little from the Hebrew verb azaphan, which signifies "to hide, to keep secret?" Paneah or Phaneah, signifies much the same with the Hebrew Phanaah, alpexit: so that the name actually intimates one who fees hidden things; which was certainly the very idea the prince intended to convey by giving him that name.

Potiphar, or Potipherah, the name of Joseph's father-in-law, has likewise a dialectical affinity with the Hebrew idiom. In that language Patah signifies "to open, to explain," which was one part of the sacrificial office; and Phar imports "a bullock." Potiphar was then Chaldean then priest of the bullock, that is, the ox, apis, sacred Language, to the sun (1). This person was priest or prince of On, &c., which, according to Cyrilus on Holea, was an Egyptian name of that luminary. The Hebrew word hon or chon signifies "power, wealth, sufficiency;" a very proper epithet for the sun, who was thought to bestow those blessings. The names of Joseph's wife was Apenath or Apnath, compounded of Ijbah "a woman," and Naith or Neit, an Egyptian name of "Minerva, a votary of Minerva."

Almost all the names of cities belonging to Egypt which are mentioned in Scripture are evidently Hebrew. To be satisfied as to this position, our curious readers may consult Jamieson's Spicilegia, an excellent book very little known. The names of most of the Egyptian deities are significant in the Hebrew tongue; and in that dialect the names appear to have been imposed with great judgment and propriety, plainly indicating some office assigned them, or pointing to some peculiar attribute. We shall produce a few instances.

Osiris was the great divinity of Egypt; he was certainly the sun. The Egyptians gave their deities a variety of names in allusion to their various offices and attributes. Jablonowski has in a manner wearied himself with tracing the signification of this name. In Hebrew we have Obir "to grow rich, to be enriched." The sun may be called the great enricher of nature, and therefore might properly be called by a name alluding to that quality. Isis was both the moon and the earth. Ijbah is the Hebrew word for woman, and Horapollo assigns this very derivation. Anubis was one of the names of Mercury among the Egyptians: He was always figured with the head of a dog. He accompanied Isis in her peregrinations in quest of Osiris, and frighted away the wild beasts from attacking the princesses. In Hebrew, Nubah signifies "to bark." Here the analogy, we think, is evident. Many Egyptian names begin with Can, such as Canobus, Canopus, &c. The Hebrew word Cohen or Cohen, Syr. Con or Chon, intimates both a prince and a priest. Ob or Aub, in Hebrew, imports "a bottle, a flaggon," any thing round and prominent like the human belly. In the language of Egypt it was often applied to the sun, in allusion to his roundness. In the temple of Jupiter Ammon or Amon, in the desert of Libya, there was a statue of the god representing the navel of the human body, which was probably framed in allusion to this fancy. Hence the Pythons, or people who, according to the Scripture, had familiar spirits, were said to prophesy by the inspiration of Ob, as the Delphic priests did by that of Apollo. Again, many Egyptian names end with iris, as Calafiris, Termofiris. This termination is no doubt a cognate of the Hebrew and Chaldean sar or zar, signifying "a prince, or grandee, &c." The river Nile in the Ethiopic dialect is called Siris; that is, we believe, the king of rivers. The same flood seems to derive the name by which it is generally known, from the Hebrew nebel, "a valley, or torrent running down a valley." The same river was often called Oceanus, a word composed of og, or oc, or och, which signifies "a king, a leader," and the Hebrew oin, "a fountain," so that the word Chaldean imports the king of fountains. The Hebrews always denominated the land of Egypt the land of Mizraim; the Egyptians themselves, in later times, seemed to have called it Aegyptus, Aegyptus, "Egypt," which some think is compounded of Ai, Hebrew, "an island, a country, a province," and Copt or Copt, "a famous city in that country."

From this specimen, we hope it will appear that the Egyptian language in the more early ages was one of those dialects into which that of the descendants of the postdiluvian patriarchs was divided, and perhaps subdivided, a few centuries after the deluge. Among all these, we believe, such an affinity will be found, as plainly demonstrates that they originally sprung from one common stock. Here we might easily follow the Egyptian language into Greece; and there we are persuaded we might trace a vast number of Egyptian terms into that tongue, which, however, the nature of this inquiry will not permit. If our learned readers should incline to know more of the affinity of the Egyptian tongue with the others so often mentioned, they may consult Bochart's Chanaan, Walton's Proleg. Gebelin's Monde Prim. Jamieson's Spicilegia, &c.

Sect. IV. Of the Persian Language.

The Persian language is divided into the ancient and modern; the former of which is at this day very imperfectly known, the latter is at present one of the most expressive, and at the same time one of the most highly polished, in the world. We shall, in treating of this language, in compliance with the plan we have all along followed, begin with the ancient.

When Mohammed was born, and Anushiravan, At the whom he calls the just king, sat on the throne of Perlia, both two languages were generally prevalent in that empire (K). The one was called Dari, and was the dialect of the court, being only a refined and elegant branch prevalent of the Parfi, so called from the province of which Shih in Persia, now is the capital; and that of the learned, in which most books were composed, and which had the name of Pahlavi, either from the heroes who spoke it in former times, or from pahlu, a tract of land which included some considerable cities of Iran: The ruder dialects of both were spoken by the rustics of several provinces; and many of these distinct idioms were vernacular, as happens in every kingdom of considerable extent. Besides the Parfi and Pahlavi, a very ancient and obscure tongue was known to the priests and philosophers, called the language of the Zend, because a book containing religious and moral duties which they held sacred, either and which bore that name, had been written in it; known only while the Zend or comment on that work was composed in Pahlavi, as a more popular dialect. The letters of this book were called zend, and the language avesta.

The Zend and the old Pahlavi are now almost extinct in Iran, and very few even of the Guebres can read it; while the Parfi remaining almost pure in Shabnameh, has has, by the intermixture of Arabic words, and many imperceptible changes, now become a new language, exquisitely polished by a series of fine writers both in prose and verse, analogous to the different idioms gradually formed in Europe after the subversion of the Roman empire.

The very learned and laborious Sir William Jones is confident that the Parsi abounds with words from the Sanscrit, with no other change than such as may be observed in the numerous dialects of India; that very many Persian imperatives are the roots of Sanscrit verbs; and that even the moods and tenses of the Persian verb substantive, which is the model of all the rest, are deducible from the Sanscrit by an easy and clear analogy. From this he infers that the Parsi, like the various idiom dialects, is derived from the language of the Brahmins. This conclusion, we imagine, is not altogether just, since by the same train of reasoning we may infer that the Sanscrit is derived from the Parsi.

The same learned gentleman adds, that the multitude of compounds in the Persian language proves that it is not of Arabic but Indian original. This is undoubtedly true; but though the Parsi is not of Arabic origin, it does not necessarily follow that it is of Sanscrit. We might with the same propriety, and with an equal show of reason, conclude, that the Greek language is descended of the Sanscrit, because it too abounds with compounds. We may then rest assured, that neither the one nor the other argument adduced by the ingenious presiding proves that the Parsi tongue is a descendant of the Sanscrit.

The gentleman so often mentioned, affirms us, that the Zend bears a strong resemblance to the Sanscrit; which, however, it might do without being actually derived from it, since we believe every oriental scholar will find that all the languages from the Mediterranean to the utmost coast of Hindoostan exhibit very strong signatures of a common original. The Parsi, however, not being the original dialect of Iran or Persia, we shall pursue it no farther at present, but return to give some account of the Pahlavi, which was probably the primitive language of the country. We have observed above, that the Zend or comment on the Zend was composed in the Pahlavi for the use of the vulgar. This, according to Sir William, was a dialect of the Chaldaic; and of this assertion he exhibits the following proof.

By the nature of the Chaldean tongue, most words ended in the first long vowel, like *shemad*, "heaven;" and that very word, unaltered in a single letter, we find in the Zend, together with *laila*, "night," *meyd*, "water," *nir*, "fire," *matra*, "rain," and a multitude of others, all Arabic or Hebrew, with a Chaldean termination; so *zamar*, by a beautiful metaphor from pruning trees, means in Hebrew to compose verses, and thence, by an easy transition, to sing them; now in Pahlavi we see the verb *zamarunid*, "to sing," with its forms *zamaraunemi*, "I sing," and *zamaraunid*, "he sang;" the verbal terminations of the Persian being added to the Chaldaic root. All these words are integral parts of the language; not adventitious like the Arabic nouns and verbs grafted on the modern Persian.

From this reasoning it plainly appears, 1st, That Pahlavi was the ancient language of Persia; and, 2d, That the ancient Persian was a cognate dialect of the Chaldean, Hebrew, Arabic, Phoenician, &c. M. Anquetil has annexed to his translation of the Zendavesta two vocabularies in Zend and Pahlavi, which he found in an approved collection of Ravayat or Traditional Pieces in modern Persian. His vocabulary of the Pahlavi strongly confirms this opinion concerning the Chaldaic origin of that language. But with respect to the Zend, it abounded with vast numbers of pure Sanscrit words, to such a degree, that six or seven words in ten belonged to that language.

From this deduction it would appear, that the oldest derived languages of Persia were Chaldaic and Sanscrit: from Chaldaic when they had ceased to be vernacular, the Pahlavi idiom and Zend were deduced from them respectively, and the Parsi either from the Zend, or immediately from the dialect of the Brahmins: but all had perhaps a mixture of Tartarian; for the best lexicographers assert, that numberless words in ancient Persian are taken from the Cimmerians. With respect to the last of these, we cannot help being of opinion, that colonies of people from the neighbourhood of Persia did transport themselves into Crim Tartary, and perhaps into Europe. These colonists brought along with them those vocables which still occur in their dialect. Emigrants from those quarters must have found their way into Scandinavia, since numberless Persian words are still current in those regions. Perhaps Odin and his followers emigrated from the neighbourhood of Media and Persia, and brought with them the dialect of the nations from whose country they had taken their departure.

With respect to the Zend, it might well be a dialect of the Sanscrit, and was probably a sacred language; from the offices of religion. If Zoroastres, or Zaratusht as the orients call him, travelled into Egypt, and was initiated in the mysteries of the Egyptian religion, as some pretend he was, he might be instructed in the sacred dialect of that people by the priests under whom he studied. When that philosopher returned into Persia, and became the apostle of a new religion, he might compose the volume of his laws and religious institutions in the sacred language of his Egyptian tutors. This language then became that of the Magi, who concealed it carefully from the knowledge of the uninstructed, as the priests did in Egypt and the Brahmins in Hindoostan.

In our Section on the Sanscrit language, we shall give a detail of a number of particulars, which to us seem to furnish a presumption that the language in question was imported from Egypt into Hindoostan. We confess there are not sufficient data to improve these presumptions into absolute certainty; but we hope the time is at hand when the worthy members of the Asiatic Society will discover abundant materials to ascertain the truth of this position. We are rather inclined to adopt this hypothesis, when we consider the character of Zoroastres and of the Indian Brahmins.

If this opinion should one day appear to be well-founded, we believe the coincidence between the language of the Zend and the Sanscrit will be easily accounted for, without making the Hindoos matters of Iran or Persia, and then driving them back to the shores of the Ganges. That the nations of Turan or Scythia did did actually overrun that country, and make themselves masters of a considerable part of it at different times, is vouched by the records and traditions of the Persians themselves. Upon those occasions a number of Tartarian words might be introduced into the country, and acquire a currency among the inhabitants. As the annals of ancient Persia have been long since destroyed and consigned to eternal oblivion, it is impossible to ascertain either the extent or duration of these irruptions. Indeed the nature of our design does not call for that investigation.

In order to corroborate the cognation between the Chaldean and Pahlavi languages, we shall subjoin a few arguments derived from the Mosaic history, and the other writings of the Old Testament. These we believe will be admitted as infrangible proofs of the position above advanced by such as admit the authenticity of those records.

Elam is always allowed to have been the progenitor of the Persians. This patriarch was the eldest son of Shem the son of Noah; and according to the Mosaic account, his posterity settled in the neighbourhood of the descendants of Ashur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram, the other sons of Shem. The country where they settled was denominated Elymatis, as late as the beginning of the Christian era. This name was retained till the Saracens conquered and took possession of that country. If this was the case, as it certainly was, the Elamites or Persians spoke a dialect of the primary language, which, in the first Section, we have proved to have been the Hebrew.

When the four eastern monarchs invaded the five cities of the plain in Canaan, Chedorlaomer king of Elam was at the head of the confederacy. Amraphel king of Shinar, that is Babylon or Chaldea, was one of the allies; Arioch king of Elafar was another; and Tidal, king of some scattered nations in the same neighbourhood, was the fourth. That Chedorlaomer was principal in this expedition, is obvious from the historian's detail of the second, where that prince is placed first, and the rest are named the kings that were with him. This passage likewise demonstrates, that Elam, Shinar, and Elafar, lay contiguous, and were engaged in the same cause. Wherever the country in question is mentioned in Scripture prior to the era of Daniel and Ezra, it is always under the name of Elam. To go about to prove this would be superfluous.

According to Xenophon I., the Persians knew nothing of horsemanship before the age of Cyrus: but that historian informs us, that after that monarch had introduced the practice of fighting on horseback, they became so fond of it, that no man of rank would deign to fight on foot. Here it ought to be considered, that the historian above mentioned was now writing a moral, military, and political romance; and therefore introduces this anecdote, in order to exalt the character of his hero: so that we are not to suppose that the people under consideration were unacquainted with the art of horsemanship till that period.

The very name Pharos or Pharas is certainly of Hebrew origin, and alludes to the skill that people professed in horsemanship. The original seems to be Pharash, ungula, "a hoof;" and in the Arabic Pharos intimates a horse, and Pharis a horseman. Consequently the people were denominated Perfaï, and the country Pars, because they were trained from their infancy to ride the great horse, which indeed they deemed their greatest honour. This name was perhaps first imposed upon them by the neighbouring nations, and in process of time became their gentile appellation. Mithras is generally known to have been the chief divinity of the Persians; a name which is plainly derived from Mithra, "great." We find in Strabo the Persian god Amanus, which is plainly a cognate of Hanah, the "sun or fire." Hence we believe comes Hamarim, the "hearts or chapels," where the fire sacred to the sun was kept burning; which, we believe, the Greeks called Pygmaea, or "fire-temples." Herodotus mentions a custom among the Persians, according to which, when they came to engage an enemy, they cast a rope with a kind of gin at the end of it on their enemy, and by those means endeavoured to entangle and draw him into their power. The people of Persia who employed this net or gin were called Sagartes, from sagart, sagart, or sarg, a word which in Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldaic, signifies to "hamper or entangle;" hence perhaps the Greek word Σαγαρτον, a "basket or net." Sar or zar in Hebrew, Phoenician, Syriac, &c., signifies "a lord, a prince;" and hence we have the initial syllable of the far-famed zar-tu-lit, Zoroaster. In a word, most of the Persian names that occur in the Grecian histories, notwithstanding the scandalous manner in which they have been disguised and metamorphosed by the Greeks, may still with a little skill and industry be traced back to a Hebrew, Chaldaic, Syriac, or Phoenician origin. In the books of Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, we find a number of Persian names which are all of a Hebrew or Chaldaic complexion: to investigate these at much greater length would be foreign to the design of the present article. If our curious reader should incline to be more fully satisfied as to this point, he may consult Bochart's Chanaan, D'Herbelot's Bib. Orient., Walton's Proleg., &c.

It now appears, we hope, to the entire satisfaction of our readers, that the Pahlavi is a remnant of the old Persian, and that the latter is a cognate branch of the Hebrew, Chaldaic, Syriac, &c. We have likewise adduced some presumptive proofs that the Zend was copied from the sacred language of the Egyptians: we shall now endeavour to explain by what changes and revolutions the language first mentioned arrived at its present summit of beauty and perfection.

We have observed above, that the Scythians, whom the old Persians called Saka, Saca, and whom the modern call Turan, often invaded and overran Persia at a very early period. The consequence was, an infusion of Scythian or Tartarian terms, with which that language was early impregnated. This in all probability occasioned the first deviation from the original standard. The conquests of Alexander, and the dominion of his successors, must, one would imagine, introduce an inundation of Greek words. That event, however, seems to have affected the language in no considerable degree, at least very few Grecian terms occur in the modern Persian.

The empire of the Arsacidæ or Parthians, we apprehend, produced a very important alteration upon the ancient Persian. They were a demi-Scythian tribe; and as they conquered the Persians, retained the dominion of those parts for several centuries, and actually incorpo- rated with the natives, their language must necessarily have given a deep tincture to the original dialect of the Perians.

Sir William Jones has observed, that the letters of the inscriptions at Jafakhr or Persepolis bear some resemblance to the old Runic letters of the Scandinavians. Those inscriptions we take to have been Parthian; and we hope, as the Parthians were a Tartarian clan, this conjecture may be admitted till another more plausible is discovered. The Perians, it is true, did once more recover the empire; and under them began the reign of the Deri and Parfi tongues: the former confining of the old Persian and Parthian highly polished; the latter of the same languages in their uncultivated vernacular drels. In this situation the Persian language remained till the invasion of the Saracens in 636; when these barbarians overran and settled in that fine country; demolished every monument of antiquity, records, temples, palaces, every remain of ancient superstition; massacred or expelled the ministers of the Magian idolatry; and introduced a language, though not entirely new, yet widely differing from the old exemplar.

But before we proceed to give some brief account of the modern Persian, we must take the liberty to hazard one conjecture, which perhaps our adepts in modern Persian may not find themselves disposed to admit. In modern Persian we find the ancient Persian names wonderfully distorted and deformed from that form under which they appear in the Scripture, in Ctesias, Megasthenes, and the other Greek authors. From this it has been inferred, that not only the Greeks, but even the sacred historians of the Jews, have changed and metamorphosed them most unmercifully, in order to accommodate them to the standard of their own language. As to the Greeks, we know it was their constant practice, but we cannot believe so much of the Hebrews. We make no doubt of their writing and pronouncing the names of the Persian monarchs and governors of that nation nearly in the same manner with the native Persians. It is manifest, beyond all possibility of contradiction, that they neither altered the Tyrian and Phoenician names of persons and places when they had occasion to mention them, nor those of the Egyptians when they occurred in their writings. The Babylonian and Chaldaic names which are mentioned in the Old Testament vary nothing from the Chaldean original. No reason can be assigned why they should have transformed the Persian names more than the others. On the contrary, in Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, we find the Persian names faithfully preserved throughout.

The fact, we imagine, is this: Our modern admirers of the Perfic have borrowed their names of the ancient kings and heroes of that country from romances and fabulous legends of more modern date and composition. The archives of Persia were destroyed by the Saracens: nothing of importance was written in that country till two centuries after the era of Mohammed. What succeeded was all fiction and romance. The authors of those entertaining compositions either forged names of heroes to answer their purpose, or laid hold on such as were celebrated in the ballads of their country, or preserved by vulgar tradition. The names were no doubt very different from those of the ancient kings and heroes of Persia; and probably many of them had undergone considerable changes during the continuance of the Parthian empire. Upon this foundation has the learned Mr Richardson erected a very irregular fabric, new, and to use his own expression, we think built upon pillars of ice. He has taken much pains to invalidate the credit of the Grecian histories of the Persian empire, by drawing up in battle array against their records legions of romantic writers, who were not born till near 1000 years after the events had taken place; and to complete the probability, who lived 200 years after all the chronicles of the Medes and Persians had been finally destroyed by the fury of the Saracens.

After the decisive victory obtained over the Persians at Kadesha, their ancient government was overturned, their religion prostrated, their laws trampled under foot, and their civil transactions disturbed by the forcible introduction of the lunar for the solar calendar; while, at the same time, their language became almost overwhelmed by an inundation of Arabic words; which from that period, religion, authority, and fashion, incorporated with their idiom.

From the seventh till the tenth century the Persian tongue, now impregnated with Arabic words, appears to have laboured under much discouragement and neglect. Bagdad, built by Almansor, became soon after the year 762 the chief residence of the caliphs, and the general resort of the learned and the ambitious from every quarter of the empire. At length the accession of the Buyah princes to the Persian throne marked in the tenth century the great epoch of the revival of Persian learning. About the year 977 the throne of Persia was filled by the great Azaduddawla; who first assumed the title of Sultan, afterwards generally adopted by eastern princes. He was born in Ilpahan, and had a strong attachment to his native kingdom. His court, whether at Bagdad or in the capital of Persia, was the standard of taste and the favourite residence of genius. The native dialect of the prince was particularly distinguished, and became the general language of composition in almost every branch of polite learning. From the end of the tenth till the thirteenth century may be considered as flourishing the most flourishing period of Persian literature. The Persian epic poet Firdausi, in his romantic history of the Persian kings and heroes, displays an imagination and smoothness of numbers hardly inferior to Homer. The whole fanciful range of Persian enchantment he has interwoven in his poems, which abound with the noblest efforts of genius. This bard has stamped a dignity on the monsters and fictions of the east, equal to that which the prince of epic poetry has given to the mythology of ancient Greece. His language may at the same time be considered as the most refined dialect of the ancient Persian, the Arabic being introduced with a very sparing hand: whilst Sadi, Jami, Hafiz, and other succeeding writers, in prose as well as verse, have blended in their works the Arabic without reserve; gaining perhaps in the nervous luxuriance of the one language what may seem to have been lost in the softer delicacy of the other. Hence Ebn Fekreddin Anju, in the preface to the dictionary called Farhang Jehanguri, says, that the Deri and the Arabic idioms were the languages of heaven; God communicating to the angels his milder mandates in the delicate accents of the first, while his stern commands were delivered in the rapid accents of the last.

For near 300 years the literary fire of the Persians seems Persian seems indeed to have been almost extinguished; since, during that time, hardly any thing of that people which deserves attention has appeared in Europe; enough, however, has already been produced, to inspire us with a very high opinion of the genius of the east. In taste, the orientals are undoubtedly inferior to the best writers of modern Europe; but in invention and sublimity, they are excelled, perhaps equalled, by none. The Persians affect a rhetorical luxuriance, which to a European wears the air of unnecessary redundancy. If to these leading distinctions we add a peculiar tone of imagery, of metaphor, of allusion, derived from the difference of government, of manners, of temperament, and of such natural objects as characterize Asia from Europe; we shall see, at one view, the great points of variation between the writers of the east and west. Amongst the oriental historians, philosophers, rhetoricians, and poets, many will be found who would do honour to any age or people; whilst their romances, their tales, and their fables, stand upon a ground which Europeans have not yet found powers to reach. We might here quote the Arabian Nights Entertainments, Persian Tales, Pilpay's Fables, &c.

We shall now annex a few strictures on the genius of that noble language; though it is our opinion that the province of the philologist is to investigate the origin, progress, and final improvement of a language, without descending to its grammatical minutiae or peculiar idiomatic distinctions. We have already observed, that the tongue under consideration is partly Arabic and partly Persian, though the latter generally has the ascendant. The former is nervous, impetuous, and masculine; the latter is flowing, soft, and luxuriant. Wherever the Arabic letters do not readily incorporate with the Persian, they are either changed into others or thrown away. Their letters are the Arabic with little variation; these being found more commodious and expeditious than the old letters of the Deri and Parfi. Their alphabet consists of 32 letters, which, like the Arabic, are read from right to left; their form and order will be learned from any grammar of that language. The letters are divided into vowels and consonants as usual. The Arabic characters, like those of the Europeans, are written in a variety of different hands; but the Persians write their poetical works in the Talick, which answers to the most elegant of our Italic hands.

There is a great resemblance between the Persian and English languages in the facility and simplicity of their form and construction: the former, as well as the latter, has no difference of terminations to mark the gender either in substantives or adjectives; all inanimate things are neuter; and animals of different sexes have either different names, or are distinguished by the words ner male, and made female. Sometimes indeed a word is made feminine, after the manner of the Arabs, by having a added to it.

The Persian substantives have but one variation of case, which is formed by adding a syllable to the nominative in both numbers; and answers often to the dative, but generally to the accusative, case in other languages. The other cases are expressed for the most part by particles placed before the nominative. The Persians have two numbers, singular and plural; the latter is formed by adding a syllable to the former.

The Persian adjectives admit of no variation but in the degrees of comparison. The comparative is formed by adding ter, and the superlative by adding terin to the positive.

The Persians have active and neuter verbs like other nations; but many of their verbs have both an active and neuter tense, which can be determined only by the construction. These verbs have properly but one conjugation, and but three changes of tense: the imperative, the aorist, and the preterite; all the other tenses being formed by the help of particles or of auxiliary verbs. The passive voice is formed by adding the tenses of the substantive verb to the participle of the active.

In the ancient language of Persia there were very few or no irregularities; the imperative, which is often irregular in the modern Persian, was anciently formed from the infinitive, by rejecting the termination eden: for originally all infinitives ended in den, till the Arabs introduced their harsh consonants before that syllable, which obliged the Persians, who always affected a sweetness of pronunciation, to change the old termination of some verbs into ten, and by degrees the original infinitive grew quite obsolete; yet they still retain the ancient imperative, and the aorists which are formed from it. This little irregularity is the only anomalous part of the Persian language; which nevertheless far surpasses in simplicity all other languages ancient or modern.

With respect to the more minute and intricate parts of this language, as well as its derivations, compositions, constructions, &c., we must refer our readers to Minniskie's Institutiones Linguae Turcicae, cum rudimentis parallelis linguarum Arab. et Perf.; Sir William Jones's Persian Grammar; Mr Richardson's Arabian and Persian Dictionary; D. Herbelot's Bibl. Orient.; Dr Hyde de Relig. vet. Perf. &c. Our readers, who would penetrate into the innermost recesses of the Persian history, colonies, antiquities, connections, dialects, may consult the last mentioned author, especially chap. xxxv. De Persia et Perforum nominibus, et de moderna atque veteri lingua Persica, ejusque dialectis. In the preceding inquiry we have followed other authors, whose accounts appeared to us more natural, and much less embarrassing.

To conclude this section, which might easily have been extended into a large volume, we shall only take the liberty to put our readers in mind of the vast utility of the Arabian and Persian languages. Numberless events are preserved in the writings of the orientals which were never heard of in Europe, and must have for ever lain concealed from the knowledge of its inhabitants, had not these two tongues been studied and understood by the natives of this quarter of the globe. Many of these events have been transmitted to posterity in poems and legendary tales like the Runic fragments of the north, the romances of Spain, or the heroic ballads of our own country. Such materials as these, we imagine, may have suggested to Firdausi, the celebrated heroic poet of Persia, many of the adventures of his Shahnameh; which, like Homer when stript of the machinery of supernatural beings, is supposed to contain much true history, and a most undoubted picture of the superstition and manners of the times. The knowledge of these two languages has laid open to Europe all the treasures of oriental learning, and has enriched the minds of Britons with with Indian science as much as the produce of these regions has increased their wealth and enervated their constitution.

Before we conclude this section, we shall subjoin a few strictures on the nature of Persian poetry, in order to render our inquiry the more complete. The modern Persians borrowed their poetical measures from the Arabs: they are exceedingly various and complicated; they consist of 19 different kinds; but the most common of them are the Iambic or Trochaic measure, and a metre that chiefly consists of those compounded feet which the ancients called Enneasyllables, which are composed of iambic and spondees alternately. In lyric poetry their verses generally consist of 12 or 16 syllables: they sometimes, but seldom, consist of 14. Some of their lyric verses contain 13 syllables: but the most common Persian verse is made up of 11; and in this measure are written all their great poems, whether upon heroic or moral subjects, as the works of Ferdowsi and Jami, the Bostan of Sadi, and the Mefnavi of Ghalibaddin. This sort of verse answers to our common heroic rhyme, which was brought to so high a degree of perfection by Pope. The study of the Persian poetry is so much the more necessary, as there are few books or even letters written in that language, which are not interspersed with fragments of poetry. As to their profody, nothing can be more easy and simple. When the student can read prose easily, he will with a little attention read poetry with equal facility.

Sect. V. Sanscrit and Bengalese Languages.

The Sanscrit, though one of the most ancient languages in the world, was little known even in Asia till about the middle of the present century. Since that period, by the indefatigable industry of the very learned and ingenious Sir William Jones and the other worthy members of that society of which he has the honour to be president, that noble and ancient language has at length been brought to light; and from its vast treasures of oriental knowledge will be communicated both to Europe and Asia; knowledge which, without the exertions of that happy establishment, must have lain concealed from the researches of mankind to the end of the world. In this section we propose to give to our readers such an account of that language as the limits of the present article, and the helps we have been able to procure, shall permit.

The Sanscrit language has for many centuries lain concealed in the hands of the bramins of Hindoostan. It is by them deemed sacred, and is of consequence confined solely to the offices of religion. Its name imports the perfect language, or, according to the eastern style, the language of perfection; and we believe no language ever spoken by man is more justly intitled to that high epithet.

The grand source of Indian literature, and the parent of almost every dialect from the Persian gulf to the China seas, is the Sanscrit; a language of the most venerable and most remote antiquity, which, though at present shut up in the libraries of the bramins, and appropriated solely to the records of the religion, appears to have been current over most of the oriental world. Accordingly traces of its original extent may be discovered in almost every district of Asia. Those who are acquainted with that language have often found the similitude of Sanscrit words to those of Persian and Arabic, and even of Latin and Greek; and that not in technical and metaphorical terms, which refined arts and improved manners might have occasionally introduced, but in the main groundwork of language, in monosyllables, the names of numbers, and appellations of such things as would be first discriminated on the immediate dawn of civilization.

The ancient coins of many different and distant kingdoms of Asia are stamped with Sanscrit characters, and mostly contain allusions to the old Sanscrit mythology. Besides, in the names of persons and places, of titles and dignities, which are open to general notice, even to the farthest limits of Asia, may be found manifest traces of the Sanscrit. The scanty remains of Coptic antiquities afford little scope for comparison between that idiom and this primitive tongue; but there still exists sufficient ground to conjecture, that at a very early period, a correspondence did subsist between these two nations. The Hindoos pretend, that the Egyptians frequented their country as disciples, not as instructors; that they came to seek that liberal education and those sciences in Hindoostan, which none of their own countrymen had sufficient knowledge to impart. Perhaps we may examine the validity of this claim hereafter.

But though numberless changes and revolutions have from time to time convolled Hindoostan, that part of it which lies between the Indus and the Ganges still preserves that language whole and inviolate. Here they number of still offer a thousand books to the perusal of the curious; books in many of which have been religiously handed down from the earliest periods of human existence.

The fundamental part of the Sanscrit language is divided into three classes: Dhaat, or roots of verbs, which some call primitive elements; Skubd, or original nouns; and Eya, or particles. The latter are ever indeclinable, as in other languages; but the words comprehended in the two former classes must be prepared by certain additions and inflexions to fit them for a place in composition. And here it is that the character of the grammarian has found room to expand its riches of itself, and to employ all the powers of refinement. Not a syllable, not a letter, can be added or altered but by regimen; not the most trifling variation of the senfe, in the minutest subdivision of declension or conjugation, can be effected without the application of several rules: all the different forms for every change of gender, number, case, person, tense, mood, or degree, are methodically arranged for the assistance of the memory, according to an unerring scale. The number of the radical or elementary parts is about 700; and to these, as to the verbs of other languages, a very plentiful stock of verbal nouns owes its origin; but these are not thought to exceed those of the Greek either in quantity or variety.

To the triple source of words mentioned above, every term of truly Indian original may be traced by a laborious and critical analysis. All such terms as are thoroughly proved to bear no relation to any one of the Sanscrit roots, are considered as the production of some remote and foreign idiom, subsequently ingrafted upon the main stock; and it is conjectured, that a judicious investigation of this principle would throw a new light. light upon the first invention of many arts and sciences, and open a fresh mine of philological discoveries. We shall now proceed to give as exact an account of the constituent parts of this language as the nature of our design will permit.

The Sanscrit language is very copious and nervous. The first of these qualities arises in a great measure from the vast number of compound words with which it is almost overstocked. "The Sanscrit (says Sir William Jones), like the Greek, Persian, and German, delights in compounds; but to a much higher degree, and indeed to such excess, that I could produce words of more than 20 syllables; not formed ludicrously like that by which the buffoon in Aristophanes describes a feast, but with perfect seriousness, on the most solemn occasions, and in the most elegant works." But the style of its best authors is wonderfully concise. In the regularity of its etymology it far exceeds the Greek and Arabic; and, like them, has a prodigious number of derivatives from each primary root. The grammatical rules also are numerous and difficult, though there are not many anomalies. As one instance of the truth of this assertion, it may be observed, that there are seven declensions of nouns, all used in the singular, the dual, and the plural numbers, and all of them differently formed, according as they terminate with a consonant, with a long or a short vowel; and again, different also as they are of different genders; not a nominative case can be formed to any one of these nouns without the application of at least four rules, which vary likewise with each particular difference of the nouns, as above stated: add to this, that every word in the language may be used through all the seven declensions, which is a full proof of the difficulty of the idiom.

The Sanscrit grammars are called Beeakarun, of which there are many composed by different authors; some too arbitrary even for the comprehension of most brahmins, and others too prolix to be ever used as references. One of the shortest, named the Sardjotee, contains between two and three hundred pages, and was compiled by Anobhoojee Seroopanam Acharya, with a conciseness that can scarcely be paralleled in any other language.

The Sanscrit alphabet contains 50 letters; and it is one boast of the brahmins, that it exceeds all other alphabets in this respect: but it must be observed, that as of their 34 consonants, near half carry combined sounds, and that five of their vowels are merely correspondent long ones to as many which are short, the advantage seems to be little more than fanciful. Besides these, they have a number of characters which Mr Halhed calls connected vowels, but which have not been explained by the learned president of the Asiatic Society.

The Sanscrit character used in Upper Hindostan is said to be the same original letter that was first delivered to the people by Brahma, and is now called Divanagar, or the language of angels, which shows the high opinion that the brahmins have entertained of that character. Their consonants and vowels are wonder-

fully, perhaps whimsically, modified and diversified; to Sanscrit enumerate which, in this place, would contribute very little either to the entertainment or instruction of our readers. All these distinctions are marked in the Beeds (L), and must be modulated accordingly; so that they produce all the effect of a laboured recitative; but by an attention to the music of the chant, the sense of the passage recited equally escapes the reader and the audience. It is remarkable, that the Jews in their synagogues chant the Pentateuch in the same kind of melody; and it is supposed that this usage has descended to them from the remotest ages.

The Sanscrit poetry comprehends a very great variety of different metres, of which the most common are these:

The munnee hurreneh chlund, or line of 12 or 19 syllables, which is scanned by three syllables in a foot, and the most approved foot is the anapoeit.

The cabee chlund, or line of eleven syllables.

The anijstofe chlund, or line of eight syllables.

The poems are generally composed in stanzas of four lines, called ajbhoguees, which are regular or irregular.

The most common ajbhogue is that of the anijstofe chlund, or regular stanza of eight syllables in each line. In this measure the greatest part of the Mahabarat is composed. The rhyme in this kind of stanza should be alternate; but the poets do not seem to be very nice in the observance of a strict correspondence in the sounds of the terminating syllables, provided the feet of the verse are accurately kept.

This short anijstofe ajbhogue is generally written by two verses in one line, with a pause between; so the whole then assumes the form of a long distich.

The irregular stanza is constantly called anijchhund, of whatever kind of irregularity it may happen to consist. It is most commonly compounded of the long line cabee chlund and the short anijstofe chlund alternately; in which form it bears some resemblance to the most common lyric measure of the English.

Perhaps our readers may feel a curiosity to be informed of the origin of this oriental tongue. If we believe the brahmins themselves, it was coeval with the race of man, as was observed towards the beginning of this section. The brahmins, however, are not the only people who ascribe a kind of eternity to their own particular dialect. We find that the Sanscrit in its primitive definition was appropriated to the offices of religion. It Origin of is indeed pretended, that all the other dialects spoken in this tongue Hindostan were emanations from that fountain, to which they might be traced back by a skilful etymologist. This, we think, is an argument of no great consequence, since we believe that all the languages of Europe, by the same process, may be deduced from any one of those current in that quarter of the globe. By a parity of reason, all the different dialects of Hindostan may be referred to the language in question. Indeed, if we admit the authority of the Mosaic history, all languages whatsoever are derived from that of the first man. It is allowed that the language under consideration is impregnated with Persian, Chaldaic, Phoenician, Greek, and

(l) The books which contain the religion of the brahmins. and even Latin idioms. This, we think, affords a presumption that the Sanskrit was one of those original dialects which were gradually produced among the descendants of Noah, in proportion as they gradually receded from the centre of population. What branch or branches of that family emigrated to Hindoostan, it is not easy to determine. That they were a party of the descendants of Shem is most probable, because the other septs of his posterity settled in that neighbourhood. The sum then is, that the Hindoos were a colony consisting of the descendants of the patriarch Shem.

It appears, however, by almost numberless monuments of antiquity still existing, that at a very early period a different race of men had obtained settlements in that country. It is now generally admitted, that colonies of Egyptians had peopled a considerable part of Hindoostan. Numberless traces of their religion occur everywhere in those regions. The very learned president himself is positive, that vestiges of those sacerdotal wanderers are found in India, China, Japan, Tibet, and many parts of Tartary. Those colonists, it is well known, were zealous in propagating their religious ceremonies wherever they resided, and wherever they travelled. There is at the same time even at this day a striking resemblance between the sacred rites of the vulgar Hindoos and those of the ancient Egyptians. The prodigious statues of Sallute and Elephants fabricated in the Egyptian style; the vast excavations hewn out of the rock in the former; the woolly hair of the statues, their distorted attitudes, their grotesque appearances, their triple heads, and various other configurations—plainly indicate a foreign original. These phenomena suit no other people on earth so exactly as the sons of Mizraim. The Egyptian priests used a sacred character, which none knew but themselves; none were allowed to learn except their children and the choice of the initiated. All these features mark an exact parallel with the bramins of the Hindoos. Add to this, that the drefs, diet, lustrations, and other rites of both sects, bore an exact resemblance to each other. Sir William Jones has justly observed, that the letters of the Sanscrit, stript of all adventitious appendages, are really the square Chaldaic characters. We learn from Caffiodorus* the following particulars: "The height of the obelisks is equal to that of the circus; now the higher is dedicated to the sun, and the lower to the moon, where the sacred rites of the ancients are intimated by Chaldaic signatures by way of letters." Here then it is plain that the sacred letters of the Egyptians were Chaldaic, and it is allowed that those of the bramins were of the same complexion; which affords a new presumption of the identity of the Sanscrit with those just mentioned.

That the Egyptians had at a very early period penetrated into Hindoostan, is universally admitted. Osiris, their celebrated monarch and deity, according to their mythology, conducted an army into that country; taught the natives agriculture, laws, religion, and the culture of the vine, &c. He is said at the same time to have left colonies of priests, as a kind of missionaries, to instruct the people in the ceremonies of religion. Sefois, another Egyptian potentate, likewise overrun Hindoostan with an army, and taught the natives many useful arts and sciences. When the pafor-kings invaded and conquered Egypt, it is probable that numbers of the priests, in order to avoid the fury of the merciless invaders who demolished the temples and persecuted the ministers of religion, left their native country, and transported themselves into India. These, we should think, were the authors both of the language and religion of the bramins. This dialect, as imported by the Egyptians, was probably of the same contexture with the sacred language of that people, as it appeared many ages after. The Indians, who have always been an inventive and industrious race of men, in process of time cultivated, improved, diversified, and constructed that language with such care and fidelity, that it gradually arrived at that high degree of perfection in which at present it appears.

Had the learned president of the Asiatic Society (m), when he instituted a comparison between the deities of Hindoostan on the one side and of Greece and Italy on the other, examined the analogy between the gods of Hindoostan and those of Egypt, we think he would have performed a piece of service still more eminent. Having first demonstrated the similarity between the divinities of India and Egypt, he might then have proceeded to investigate the resemblance of the Egyptian and Phoenician with those of Greece and Rome. By this process a chain would have been formed which would have conducted his reader to comprehend at one view the identity of the Zabian worship almost throughout the world.

We foresee that it will be objected to this hypothesis, that all the dialects of Hindoostan being clearly reducible to the Sanscrit, it is altogether impossible that it could have been a foreign language. To this we answer, that at the early period when this event is supposed to have taken place, the language of the posterity of the sons of Noah had not deviated considerably from the primitive standard, and consequently the language of the Egyptians and the Hindoos was nearly the same. The Sanscrit was gradually improved: the language of the vulgar, as is always the case, became more and more different from the original archetype; but still retained such a near resemblance to the mother-tongue as proved the verity of its extraction.

To the preceding account of the Sanscrit language Bengalese derived from the Sanscrit.

Though most of the ancient oriental tongues are read from right to left, like the Hebrew, Chaldaic, Arabic, &c. yet such as properly belong to the whole continent of India proceed from left to right like those of Europe. The Arabic, Persian, &c. are the grand sources whence the former method has been derived; but with these, the numerous original dialects of Hindoostan have not the smallest connection or resemblance.

The great number of letters, the complex mode of combination, and the difficulty of pronunciation, are considerable.

(m) See that gentleman's discourse, Researches, Vol. I. considerable impediments to the study of the Bengal language; and the carelessness and ignorance of the people, and the inaccuracy of their characters, aggravate these inconveniences. Many of their characters are spurious; and these, by long use and the hurry of business, are now almost naturalized into the language.

The Bengal alphabet, like that of the Sanskrit, from which it is derived, consists of 50 letters, whose form, order, and sound, may be learned from Mr Halhed's grammar of the Bengal language. The vowels are divided into long and short, the latter of which are often omitted in writing. Most of the oriental languages are constructed upon the same principle, with respect to the omission of the short vowel. The Hebrews had no sign to express it before the invention of the Majorelle points; in Arabic it is rarely inserted unless upon very solemn occasions, as in the Koran; in the modern Persian it is universally omitted: so to all the consonants in the Sanskrit, the short vowel is an invariable appendage, and is never signified by any diacritical mark; but where the construction requires that the vowel should be dropped, a particular stroke is set under the letter. It is in vain to pretend, in a sketch like this, to detail the sound and pronunciation of these letters: this must be acquired by the ear and by practice.

In the Bengal language there are three genders, as in Greek, Arabic, &c. The authors of this threefold division of genders, with respect to their precedence, appear to have considered the neuter as a kind of residuum resulting from the two others, and as less worthy or less comprehensive than either (see Section of the Greek.) The terminations usually applied upon this occasion are _aa_ for the masculine, and _ee_ for the feminine. In Sanskrit, as in Greek and Latin, the names of all things inanimate have different genders, founded on vague and incomprehensible distinctions: the same is the case with the Bengal.

A Sanskrit noun, on its first formation from the general root, exists equally independent of case as of gender. It is neither nominative, nor genitive, nor accusative; nor is impressed with any of those modifications which mark the relation and connection between the several members of a sentence. In this state it is called an imperfect or crude noun. To make a nominative of a word, the termination must be changed and a new form supplied. Thus we see, that in the Sanskrit, at least, the nominative has an equal right with any other inflexion to be called a case. Every Sanskrit noun has seven cases, exclusive of the vocative; and therefore comprehends two more than even those of the Latin. Mr Halhed above mentioned details all the varieties of these with great accuracy, to whose Grammar we must refer our readers. The Bengal has only four cases beside the vocative; in which respect it is much inferior to the other.

It would be difficult to account for the variety of words which have been allotted to the class of pronouns by European grammarians. The first and second person are chiefly worthy of observation: these two should seem to be confined to rational and conversable beings only: the third supplies the place of every object in nature; wherefore it must necessarily be endowed with a capacity of shifting its gender respectively as it shifts the subject; and hence it is in Sanskrit frequently denominated an adjective. One of the demonstratives _hic_ or _ille_ usually serves for this purpose; and generally the latter, which in Arabic has no other name than _dhamer el ghayib_, "the pronoun of the absentee," for whose name it is a substitute.

In most languages where the verb has a separate inflection for each person, that inflection is sufficient to ascertain the personality; but in Bengal compositions, though the first and second persons occur very frequently, nothing is more rare than the usage of the pronoun of the third; and names of persons are inserted with a constant and disagreeing repetition, to avoid, as it should seem, the application of the words _he_ and _she_. The second person is always ranked before the first, and the third before the second. The personal pronouns have seven cases, which are varied in a very irregular manner. Leaving these to the Bengali grammar, we shall proceed to the verb.

The Sanskrit, the Arabic, the Greek and Latin verbs, are furnished with a set of inflections and terminations so comprehensive and so complete, that by their form alone they can express all the different distinctions both of persons and time. Three separate qualities in them are perfectly blended and united. Thus by their root they denote a particular act, and by their inflection both point out the time when it takes place and the number of the agents. In Persian, as in English, the verb admits but of two forms, one for the present tense and one for the aorist; and it is observable, that while the past tense is provided for by a peculiar inflection, the future is generally supplied by an additional word conveying only the idea of time, without any other influence on the act implied by the principal verb. It is also frequently necessary that the different state of the action, as perfect or imperfect, be further ascertained in each of the tenses, past, present, and future. This also, in the learned languages, is performed by other variations of inflections, for which other verbs and other particles are applied in the modern tongues of Europe and Persia.

Every Sanskrit verb has a form equivalent to the Middle voice of the Greek, used through all the tenes of voice with a reflexive sense, and the former is even the most extensive of the two in its use and office: for in Greek verbs, the reflexive can only be adopted intransitively when the action of the verb descends to no extraneous subject; but in Sanskrit, the verb is both reciprocal and transitive at the same time.

Neither the Sanskrit, nor the Bengalese, nor the Hindustanic, have any word precisely answering to the sense of the verb _I have_, and consequently the idea is always expressed by _eht mithi_; and of course there is no auxiliary form in the Bengal verb correspondent to _I have written_, but the sense is conveyed by another mode. The verb fublantive, in all languages, is defective and irregular, and therefore the Sanskrit calls it a _fani-verb_. It is curious to observe that the present tense of this verb, both in Greek and Latin, and also in the Persian, appears plainly to be derived from the Sanskrit. In the Bengalese, this verb has but two distinctions of time, the present and the past; the terminations of the several persons of which serve as a model for those of the same tense in all other verbs respectively.

Verbs of the Bengal language may be divided into three classes, which are distinguished by their penultimate letter. The simple and most common form has verbs... an open consonant immediately preceding the final letter of the infinitive. The second is composed of those words whose final letter is preceded by another vowel or open consonant going before it. The third consists entirely of causals derived from verbs of the first and second conjugations. The reader will easily guess at the imposibility of prosecuting this subject to any greater length: we shall therefore conclude with a few remarks collected from the grammar so often mentioned, which we apprehend may be more amusing, if not more instructing.

The Greek verbs in -ει are formed exactly upon the same principle with the Sanscrit conjugations, even in the minutest particulars. Instances of this are produced in many verbs, which from a root form a new verb by adding the syllable -ει, and doubling the first consonant. This mode furnishes another presumption of the Egyptian origin of the Sanscrit. Many Greeks travelled into Egypt; many Egyptian colonies settled in Greece. By one or other of these channels the foregoing innovation might have been introduced into the Greek language.

To form the past tense, the Sanscrit applies a syllabic augment, as is done in the Greek: the future has for its characteristic a letter analogous to that of the same tense in the Greek, and it omits the reduplication of the first consonant. It may be added, that the reduplication of the first consonant is not constantly applied to the present tense of the Sanscrit more than to those of the Greek.

The natural simplicity and elegance of many of the Asiatic languages are greatly debased and corrupted by the continual abuse of auxiliary verbs; and this inconvenience has evidently affected the Persian, the Hindostanee, and the Bengal idioms.

The infinitives of verbs in the Sanscrit and Bengalese are always used as substantive nouns. Every body knows that the same mode of arrangement very often occurs in the Greek.

In the Sanscrit language, as in the Greek, there are forms of infinitives and of participles comprehensive of time; there are also other branches of the verb that seem to resemble the gerunds and supines of the Latin.

All the terms which serve to qualify, to distinguish, or to augment, either substance or action, are classified by the Sanscrit grammarians under one head; and the word used to express it literally signifies increase or addition. According to their arrangement, a simple sentence consists of three members: the agent, the action, the subject: which, in a grammatical sense, are reduced to two; the noun and the verb. They have a particular word to specify such words as amplify the noun which imports quality, and answers to our adjectives or epithets: Such as are applied to denote relation or connection, are intimated by another term which we may translate preposition.

The adjectives in Bengalese have no distinction of gender or number; but in Sanscrit these words preserve the distinction of gender, as in the Greek and Latin.

Prepositions are substitutes for cases, which could not have been extended to the number necessary for expressing all the several relations and predicaments in which a noun may be found, without causing too much embarrassment in the form of a declension. Those are too few in the Greek language, which occasions much inconvenience. See sect. Greek.

The Latin is less polished than the Greek, and of consequence bears a much nearer resemblance to the Sanscrit, both in words, inflections, and terminations.

The learned are now convinced that the use of numerical figures was first derived from India. Indeed the antiquity of their application in that country far exceeds the powers of investigation. All the numerals in Sanscrit have different forms for the different genders, as in Arabic. There appears a strong probability that the European method of computation was derived from India, as it is much the same with the Sanscrit, though we think the Europeans learned it from the Arabians. The Bengalese merchants compute the largest sums by fours; a custom evidently derived from the original mode of computing by the fingers.

The Sanscrit language, among other advantages, has a great variety in the mode of arrangement; and the words are so knit and compacted together, that every sentence appears like one complete word. When two or more words come together in regime, the last of them only has the termination of a case; the others are known by their position; and the whole sentence so connected, forms but one compound word, which is called a foot.

Sect. VI. Of the Chinese Language.

The Chinese, according to the most authentic accounts, are a people of great antiquity. Their situation was such, as, in the earliest ages of the world, in a great measure secured them from hostile invasion. Their little commerce with the rest of mankind prevented them the knowledge of those improvements which a mutual emulation had often generated among other nations, who were situated in such a manner, with relation to each other, as served to promote a mutual intercourse and correspondence. As China is a large and fertile country, producing all the necessaries, conveniences, and even the luxuries of life, its inhabitants were not under the necessity of looking abroad for the two former, nor exposed to the temptation of engaging in foreign commerce, in order to procure the latter. Perfectly satisfied with the articles which their own country produced, they applied themselves entirely to the practice of agriculture and other arts connected with that profession; and their frugality, which they retain even to this day, taught them the lesson of being contented with little; of consequence, though their population was almost incredible, the produce of their soil was abundantly sufficient to yield them a subsistence. Their inventions were their own; and as they borrowed nothing from other people, they gradually began to despise the rest of mankind, and, like the ancient Egyptians, branded them with the epithet of barbarians.

Those people had at an early period made amazing proficiency in the mechanical arts. Their progress in the liberal sciences, according to the latest and indeed the most probable accounts, was by no means proportioned. In mathematics, geometry, and astronomy, their knowledge was contemptible; and in ethics, or moral philosophy, the complexion of their laws and customs... Chinese customs prove their skill to have been truly superficial.

They value themselves very highly at present upon their oratorical talents; and yet of all languages spoken by any civilized people, theirs is confessedly the least improved. To what this untoward defect is owing, the learned have not yet been able to determine.

The language of the Chinese is totally different from those of all other nations, and bears very strong marks of an original tongue. All its words are monosyllabic, and compositions and derivations are altogether unknown. Their nouns and verbs admit of no flexions; in short, every thing relating to their idioms is peculiar, and incapable of being compared with any other dialect spoken by any civilized people. Most barbarous languages exhibit something that resembles an attempt towards those dictatorial modifications of speech; whereas the Chinese, after a space of 4000 years, have not advanced one step beyond the very first elements of ideal communication. This circumstance, we think, is a plain demonstration that they did not emigrate from that region where the primitive race of mankind is thought to have fixed its residence. Some have imagined, we believe with good reason, that they are a Tartarian race, which, breaking off from the main body of that numerous and widely extended people, directed their march towards the south east. There, falling in with delightful and fertile plains which their poverty now inhabit, they found themselves accommodated to much to their liking, that they dropped all desire of changing their habitations. The country of China is, indeed, so environed with mountains, deserts, and seas, that it would have been difficult for men in their primitive state to have emigrated into any of the neighbouring regions. Thus secluded from the rest of mankind, the Chinese, in all probability, were left to the strength of their own inventive powers to fabricate a language, as well as the other arts and improvements necessary for the support and convenience of life.

It is indeed obvious that their stock of vocables, when they emigrated from Tartary, was neither ample nor properly accommodated to answer the purposes of the mutual conveyance of ideas. With this slender stock, however, they seem to have been satisfied; for it does not appear that any additions were afterwards made to that which was originally imported. Instead of framing a new race of terms by compounding their primitive ones; instead of diversifying them by inflections, or multiplying them by derivatives, as is done in every other language; they rather chose to retain their primitive words, and by a variety of modifications, introduced upon their orthography or pronunciation, to accommodate them to a variety of significations. Were it possible to scrutinize all the Tartarian dialects, and to reduce them to their primitive monosyllabic character, perhaps the original language of the Chinese might be investigated and ascertained. We know that attempts have been made to compare it with some of the other Asiatic languages, especially the Hebrew: This labour has, however, proved unsuccessful, and no primeval identity has been discovered. Before this comparison could be instituted with the most distant prefect of success, the language last mentioned must be stripped of all its adventitious qualities; and not only so, but it must be reduced to the monosyllabic tone, and then contrasted with the Chinese monosyllables; an undertaking which we are persuaded would not be readily executed. After all, we are convinced that no resemblance of any importance would be discovered.

The Chinese language must then, in our opinion, have been a Tartarian dialect, as the people themselves were colonists from Tartary. We have observed above, that those people have not hitherto found out the art of composition of words. This is the more surprising, when we consider that, in the characters which form their written language, they employ many compositions. For example; the character by which they represent misfortune, is composed of one hieroglyphic which represents a house, and another which denotes fire; because the greatest misfortune that can befall a man is to have his house on fire. With respect to the language which they use in speech, though they very often employ many words to express one thing, yet they never run them together into one word, making certain changes upon them that they may incorporate the more conveniently, but always preserve them entire and unaltered.

The whole number of words in the Chinese language does not exceed 1200: the nouns are but 326. It must certainly appear surprising, that a people whose manners are so highly polished and refined, should be able to express so many things as must of necessity attend such a course of life by so small a number of words, and those too monosyllables. The difficulties which attend this singular mode must be felt almost every instant; circumstances which, according to the ordinary course of things, should have induced them to attempt both an augmentation of the number of their words and an extension of those which they had by composition and derivation. We learn from Du Halde* that the Chinese have two different dialects: the one vulgar, which is spoken by the vulgar, and China, varies according to the different provinces; the other is called the Mandarin language, and is current only among the learned. The latter is properly that which was formerly spoken at court in the province of Kiang-nan, and gradually spread among the polite people in the other provinces; accordingly, this language is spoken with more elegance in the provinces adjoining to Kiang-nan than in any other part of the kingdom. By slow degrees it was introduced into all parts of the empire, and consequently became the universal language.

It then appears that the modern language of China was originally the court dialect, and utterly unknown to the bulk of the people. From this circumstance we think it may fairly be concluded that this dialect was deemed the royal tongue, and had been fabricated on purpose to distinguish it from the vulgar dialects. We learn from Hellodorus, that the Ethiopians had a royal language which was the same with the sacred idiom of the Egyptians. This Mandarin tongue was originally an artificial dialect fabricated with a view to enhance the majesty of the court, and to raise its very style and diction above that of the rest of mankind. The Chinese, a wonderfully inventive people, might actually contrive a language of that complexity, with an intention to render it obscure and enigmatical (n). Such a plan would excite their admiration, and would at the same time greatly exceed their comprehension. In process of time, when the Chinese empire was extended, the Mandarins who had been brought up at court, and understood nothing of the provincial dialects, found it convenient to have the most eminent persons in every province taught the language employed by themselves in order to qualify them for transacting the affairs of government with them in a language which both understood. By this means the royal dialect descended to the vulgar, and in process of time became universal. The Tartar dialect formerly in use vanished; only a few vestiges of it remained; which gradually incorporating with the royal language, occasioned the variation of provincial tongues above mentioned.

We are therefore clearly of opinion, that the modern language of the Chinese was deduced from the original Mandarin, or court dialect, and that this last was an artificial speech fabricated by the skill and ingenuity of that wonderful people. The learned have long held it up as the primary dialect, because, say they, it bears all the signatures of an original unimproved language. In our opinion, nothing appears more ingeniously artificial. It is universally allowed that, in its structure, arrangement, idioms, and phraseology, it resembles no other language. Is not every learned man now convinced that all the Asiatic languages yet known, discover unequivocal symptoms of their cognation and family resemblance? The Ethiopians, Chaldeans, Arabians, Persians, Egyptians, Hebrews, Physicians, the Brahmins, Bengalese, the Hindoos bordering upon China, all speak only different dialects of one language, varying from the original in dialect only, some in a greater some in a lesser degree: why should the Chinese alone stand altogether insulated and unallied?

The languages of the North all wear congenial features. The Tartar or Tatar dialects of every clan, of every canton, of every denomination, exhibit the most palpable proofs of a near affinity: the Gothic and Slavonian dialects, which pervade a great part of Europe and some parts of Asia, are obviously brethren, and may easily be traced up to an Asiatic original. Even some of the American jargon dialects contain vocabularies which indicate an Asiatic or European original. Our readers, we flatter ourselves, will agree with us, that had the language of the Chinese been the original language, a resemblance must have still existed between it and its descendants. If it had originated from any other language, it would have retained some characteristic features of its parent archetype. As neither of these is to be found in the fabric of the language under consideration, the conclusion must be, that it is a language entirely different from all other tongues; that it is constructed upon different principles, descended from different parents, and framed by different artists.

The Chinese themselves have a common and immemorial tradition, that their language was framed by Tao their first emperor, to whom they attribute the invention of every thing curious, useful, and ornamental. Traditional history, when it is ancient, uniform, and universal, is generally well founded: upon this occasion we think the tradition above mentioned may be fairly admitted as a collateral evidence.

The paucity of vocables contained in this singular language, we think another presumption of its artificial contexture. The Chinese Onomasticon would find it an arduous task to devise a great number of new terms, and would therefore rest satisfied with the smallest number possible. In other languages we find the like economy was observed. Rather than fabricate new words, men chose sometimes to adapt old words to new, and, upon some occasions, even to contrary significations. To spare themselves the trouble of coining new terms, they contrived to join several old ones into one; whence arose a numerous race of compounds. Derivatives too were fabricated to answer the same purpose. By this process, instead of creating new vocables, old ones were compounded, diversified, deflected, ramified, metamorphosed, and tortured into a thousand different shapes.

The Greek is deservedly esteemed a rich and copious language; its radical words have been curiously traced by several learned men, who, after the most laborious and exact scrutiny, have found that they do not amount to more than 350. The Sanscrit language is highly compounded; its radical terms, however, are very few in number. Upon the whole, we think we may conclude, that the more any language abounds in compounds and derivatives, the smaller will be the number of its radical terms. The Arabic admits of no composition, and of consequence its words have been multiplied almost in infinitum; the Sanscrit, the Persian, and the Greek, abound with compounds, and we find their radicals are few in proportion.

There are, we think, three different methods which may be employed in order to enrich and extend the range of a language. 1st, By fabricating a multitude of words; the plan which has been pursued by the Arabs. 2d, By framing a multitude of compounds and derivatives; the artifice employed by the Greeks and the authors of the Sanscrit. 3d, By varying the signification of words without enlarging their number; the method practised by the Chinese and their colonists. The Arabians, we think, have shown the most fertile and inventive genius, since they have enriched their language by actually creating a new and a most numerous race of words. The fabricators of the Sanscrit and the collectors of the Greek have exhibited art, but comparatively little fertility of genius. Leaving, therefore, the Arabians, as in justice we ought, matters of the field in the contest relating to the formation of language, we may range the Greek and Sanscrit on the one side, and the Chinese on the other; and having made this arrangement, we may attempt to discover on which side the largest proportion of genius and invention seems to rest.

(n) An attempt of this nature, among a people like the Chinese, is by no means improbable; nor is its success less probable. For a proof of this, we need only have recourse to Bishop Wilkins's Artificial Language, and Pfalmanazar's Dictionary of the language of Formosa. The Greek and Sanscrit (for we have selected them as most highly compounded) exhibit a great deal of art in modifying, arranging, and diversifying their compounds and derivatives, in such a manner as to qualify them for intimating complex ideas; but the Chinese have performed the same office by the help of a race of monosyllabic notes, simple, inflexible, invariable, and at the same time few in number. The question then comes to be, whether more art is displayed in new-modelling old words by means of declensions, compounds, and derivatives; or by devising a plan according to which monosyllabic radical terms, absolutely invariable, should, by a particular modification of sound, answer all the purposes performed by the other. The latter appears to us much more ingeniously artificial. The former resembles a complicated machine composed of a vast number of parts, congenial indeed, but loosely connected; the latter may be compared to a simple, uniform engine, easily managed, and all its parts properly adjusted. Let us now see in what manner the people in question managed their monosyllabic notes, so as to qualify them for answering all the purposes of speech.

Though the number of words in the Chinese language does not amount to above 1200; yet that small number of vocables, by their artificial management, is sufficient to enable them to express themselves with ease and perspicuity upon every subject. Without multiplying words, the sense is varied almost in infinitum by the variety of the accents, inflections, tones, aspirations, and other changes of the voice and enunciation; circumstances which make those who do not thoroughly understand the language frequently mistake one word for another. This will appear obvious by an example.

The word teow pronounced slowly, drawing out the o and raising the voice, signifies a lord or master. If it is pronounced with an even tone, lengthening the o, it signifies a hog. When it is pronounced quick and lightly, it imports a kitchen. If it be pronounced in a strong and masculine tone, growing weaker towards the end, it signifies a column.

By the same economy, the syllable po, according to the various accents, and the different modes of pronunciation, has eleven different significations. It signifies glaze, to boil, to winnow rice, wise or liberal, to prepare, an old woman, to break or cleave, inclined, a very little, to water, a slave or captive. From these examples, and from almost numberless others which might be adduced, it is abundantly evident that this language, which at first sight appears so poor and confined, in consequence of the small number of the monosyllables of which it is composed, is notwithstanding very copious, rich, and expressive.

Again, the same word joined to various others, imports a great many different things; for example mou, when alone, signifies a tree, wood; but when joined with another word, it has many other significations. Mou leoo, imports "wood prepared for building;" mou lan, is "bars, or wooden grates;" mou hia, "a box;" mou fang, "a chest of drawers;" mou tjiang, "a carpenter;" mou eul, "a mushroom;" mou nu, "a sort of small orange;" mou fing, "the planet Jupiter;" mou mien, "cotton," &c. This word may be joined to several others, and has as many different significations as it has different combinations.

Thus the Chinese, by a different arrangement of their monosyllables, can compose a regular and elegant discourse, and communicate their ideas with energy and precision; nay even with gracefulness and propriety. In these qualities they are not excelled either by the Europeans or Asiatics, who use alphabetical letters. In fine, the Chinese so naturally distinguish the tones of the same monosyllable, that they comprehend the sense of it, without making the least reflection on the various accents by which it is determined.

We must not, however, imagine, as some authors have conjectured, that those people cant in speaking, and make a sort of music which is very disagreeable to the ear; method on these different tones are pronounced so curiously, that even strangers find it difficult to perceive their difference even in the province of Kiang-nan, where the accent is more perfect than in any other. The nature of it may be conceived by the guttural pronunciation in the Spanish language, and by the different tones that are used in the French and Italian: these tones are almost imperceptible; they have, however, different meanings, a circumstance which gave rise to the proverb, that the tone is all.

If the fineness and delicacy of their tones are such as to be scarcely perceptible to a stranger, we must suppose that they do not rise high, but only by small intervals; so that the music of their language must somewhat resemble the music of the birds, which is within a small compass, but nevertheless of great variety of notes. Hence it will follow, that strangers will find it very difficult, if not impossible, to learn this language; more especially if they have not a delicate ear and a flexible voice, and also much practice. The great difference then between the Chinese and Greek accents consists in this, that the Greeks had but two accents, the grave and acute, distinguished by a large interval, and that not very exactly marked: for the acute, though it never rises above a fifth higher than the grave, did not always rise so high, but was sometimes pitched lower according to the voice of the speaker. The Chinese must have many more accents, and the intervals between them must be much smaller, and much more carefully marked; for otherwise it would be impossible to distinguish them. At the same time, their language must be much more musical than the Greek, and perhaps more so than any language ought to be; but this becomes necessary for the purposes above-mentioned. Du Halde is positive, that notwithstanding the perpetual variation of accents in the Chinese tongue, and the almost imperceptible intervals between these tones, their enunciation does not resemble singing: many people, however, who have resided in China, are equally positive that the tone with which they utter their words does actually resemble canting; and this, when we consider the almost imperceptible intervals by which they are perpetually raising and lowering the tone of their voice, appears to us highly probable.

As the people of whose language we are treating at present communicate a variety of different significations to their monosyllabic words by their different accentuation, so they employ quantity for the very same purpose. By lengthening or shortening the vowels of their words, they employ them to signify very different things. The same they perform by giving their words different aspirations. Chinese rations, as likewise by sounding them with different degrees of roughness and smoothness; and even sometimes by the different motion, posture, or attitude, with which their enunciation is accompanied. By these methods of diversifying their monosyllables (says Du Halde), they make 330 of them serve all the purposes of language, and they too not much varied in their termination; since all the words in that language either terminate with a vowel or with the consonant g annexed.

From this account, we think it is evident that the Chinese, by a wonderful exertion of ingenuity, do, by different tones and profuse modifications, by means of a very inconsiderable number of words, all invariable radicals, actually perform all that the most polished nations have been able to achieve by their compounds, derivatives, &c., diversified by declensions, conjugations, and flexions of every kind; circumstances which, in our opinion, reflect the greatest honour on their inventive powers.

With respect to the grammar of this language, as it admits of no flexions, all their words being indeclinable, their cases and tenses are all formed by particles. They have no idea of genders; and even the distinction of numbers, which in almost all other languages, even the most unimproved, is marked by a particular word, is in the Chinese only indicated by a particle. They have only the three simple tenses, namely, the past, present, and future; and for want of different terminations, the same word stands either for the verb or the verbal substantive, the adjective or the substantive derived from it, according to its position in the sentence.

The Chinese language being composed of monosyllables, and these indeclinable, can scarce be reduced to grammatical rules: we shall, however, attempt to lay before our readers as much of the texture of that singular dialect as may enable them to form some vague idea of its genius and constitution. We shall begin with the letters, and proceed regularly to the remaining parts as they naturally succeed each other.

The art of joining the Chinese monosyllables together is extremely difficult, and requires a very long and laborious course of study. As they have only figures by which they can express their thoughts, and have no accents in writing to vary the pronunciation, they are obliged to employ as many different figures or characters as there are different tones, which give so many different significations to the same word. Besides, some single characters signify two or three words, and sometimes even a whole period. For example, to write the words, good morrow, Sir, instead of joining the characters which signify good and morrow with that of Sir, a different character must be used, and this character alone expresses these three words. This circumstance greatly contributes to multiply the Chinese characters.

This method of joining the monosyllables is indeed sufficient for writing so as to be understood; but it is deemed trifling, and is used only by the vulgar. The style that is employed, in order to shine in composition, is quite different from that which is used in conversation, though the words are in reality the same. In writings of that species, a man of letters must use more elegant phrasés, more lofty expressions, and the whole must be dignified with tropes and figures which are not in general use, but in a peculiar manner adapted to the nature of the subject in question. The characters of Cochin-China, of Tongking, of Japan, are the same with those of the Chinese, and signify the same things; though, in speaking, these nations do not express themselves in the same manner: of consequence the language of conversation is very different, and they are not able to understand each other; while, at the same time, they understand each other's written language, and use all their books in common.

The learned must not only be acquainted with the characters that are employed in the common affairs of life, but must also understand their various combinations, and the numerous and multiform dispositions and arrangements which of several simple strokes make the compound characters. The number of their characters amounts to 82,000; and the man who knows the greatest number of them is of course the most learned. From this circumstance we may conclude, that many years must be employed to acquire the knowledge of such a prodigious number of characters, to distinguish them when they are compounded, and to remember their shape and import. After all, a person who understands 10,000 characters may express himself with tolerable propriety in this language, and may be able to read and understand a great number of books. The generality of their learned-men do not understand above 15,000 or 20,000, and few of their doctors have attained to the knowledge of above 40,000. This prodigious number of characters is collected in their great vocabulary called Hoi-pien. They have radical letters, which show the origin of words, and enable them to find out those which are derived from them: for instance, the characters of mountains, of trees, man, the earth, of a horse, under which must be sought all that belongs to mountains, trees, man, &c. In this search one must learn to distinguish in every word those strokes or figures which are above, beneath, on the sides, or in the body of the radical figure.

Clemens Alexandrinus (see Section Chaldean, &c.) informs us, that the Egyptians employed three sorts of characters: the first was called the epistolary, which was used in writing letters; the second was denominated sacred, and peculiar to the sacerdotal order; the last hieroglyphical, which was appropriated to monumental inscriptions and other public memorials. This mode of representation was twofold: one, and the most simple, was performed by describing the picture of the object which they intended to represent, or at least one that resembled it pretty nearly; as when they exhibited the sun by a circle and the moon by a crescent; the other was properly symbolic; as when they marked eternity by a serpent with his tail in his mouth, the air by a man clothed in an azure robe studded with stars, &c.

The Chinese, in all probability, had the same variety of characters. In the beginning of their monarchy, they communicated their ideas by drawing on paper the images of the objects they intended to express; that is, they drew the figure of a bird, a mountain, a tree, waving lines, to indicate birds, mountains, forests, rivers, &c.

There were, however, an infinite number of ideas to be communicated, whose objects do not fall under the cognizance of the senses; such as the soul, the thoughts, The passions, beauty, deformity, virtues, vices, the actions of men and other animals, &c. This inconvenience obliged them to alter their original mode of writing, which was too confined to answer that purpose, and to introduce characters of a more simple nature, and to invent others to express those things which are the objects of our senses.

These modern characters are, however, truly hieroglyphical, since they are composed of simple letters which retain the signification of the primitive characters. The original character for the sun was a circle, thus ⊙; this they called ga. They now represent that luminary by the figure ☀️, to which they still give the original name. But human institutions having annexed to these last framed characters the very same ideas indicated by the original ones, the consequence is, that every Chinese letter is actually significant, and that it still retains its signification, though connected with others. Accordingly the word 灾 (zāi), which imports "misfortune, calamity," is composed of the letter 火 (huǒ) "a house," and the letter 灾 (zāi) "fire;" so that the symbolical character for misfortune is the figure of a house on fire. The Chinese characters, then, are not simple letters without any signification, like those of the Europeans and other Asiatics; but when they are joined together, they form many hieroglyphics, which form images and express thoughts.

Upon the whole, the original characters of the Chinese were real pictures (see Section of the Egyptian language); the next improvement was the symbolical character; the third and last stage is the present mode, in which artificial signs have been fabricated, in order to represent such thoughts or ideas as could not be represented by one or other of the methods above described. Du Halde, vol. ii. p. 400, et seq., has furnished us with rules for pronouncing the Chinese vowels and consonants; a piece of information which, we apprehend, would be of little consequence to our readers, and which we shall therefore pass over, and proceed to give a brief account of their grammar. As the whole language is composed of monosyllables, and these indeclinable, its grammatical structure must be simple and obvious: we shall only mention what to us appears singular and important.

In the Chinese language there is no diversity of genders or cases, and of consequence no declensions. Very often the noun is not distinguished from the verb; and the same word which in one situation is a substantive, in another may become an adjective, and even a verb.

The adjective always goes before the substantive; but if it follow it, it becomes a substantive.

The cases and numbers are known only by the composition. The plural number is distinguished by the particle men, which is common to all nouns; but when the noun is preceded by some word that signifies number, the particle men is not annexed.

The Chinese genitive, both singular and plural, when it comes after nouns, is often made by ti; and there is no other case in that language. The same particle is sometimes placed after pronouns, as if they were derivatives.

The comparative degree is formed by adding the particle long, which is always set before the noun, and signifies much. The particle to is sometimes used, which likewise imports much.

The Chinese have only three personal pronouns, ngo "I," ni "thou," and ta "he;" these become plural by adding the syllable men. They are made possessive by adding the syllable ti, as ngo ti "mine," ni ti "thine," ta ti "his." The patronymics are formed by putting the name of the city, country, &c., after the pronoun: chon is the pronoun relative who, what, which.

Chinese verbs have only three tenses, the preterperfect, the present, and the future. When there is no particle added to the verb, it is the present; the preterperfect is made by adding the particle keo: to distinguish the future tense they use the particle yiang or hoei; and these are all the varieties incident to their verbs.

The Chinese language has no words that are properly adverbs; they only become so by custom, or by the place they possess in discourse. They are often obliged to employ several words to express the adverbs of other languages: they have none that are demonstrative, or proper for calling or exhorting; but in their stead they are obliged to use nouns and verbs.

Perhaps our readers may wish to know the Chinese numerals; and may imagine that they bear a resemblance to those of the European or other Asiatic dialects. In this, however, they will be disappointed.

They stand as follows:

| Y | One | |---|-----| | Eut | Two | | San | Three | | Sace | Four | | Ou | Five | | Lou | Six | | Tji | Seven | | Pa | Eight | | Kieou | Nine | | Che | Ten | | Che y | Eleven | | Eut che | Twelve | | San che | Thirteen | | Pe | One hundred | | Eut pe | Two hundred | | Y tsien | One thousand | | Y ouan | Ten thousand | | Che ouan | Twenty thousand | | Eut ouan | One hundred thousand | | Che ouan | Two hundred thousand | | Y pe ouan | One million |

There are a great many particles proper to numbers in the Chinese language: they are frequently used, and in a way peculiar to it; for every numeral has a particle importing the object to which it is attached. Thus co is used for man, and y co for a woman, &c.; hoei is used for illustrious men; tche or tchi is used for ships, dogs, hens; mey is used for pearls and precious things; pen is used for books; teng is appropriated to oxen and cows; too is used for letters and little bundles of paper; oo is employed for corn and pulse. Those distinctions indicate a language manufactured on purpose to be employed. The style of the Chinese, in their elaborate compositions, is mysterious, concise, and allegorical, after the eastern manner. It is often obscure to those who do not understand the language thoroughly; and it requires a considerable degree of skill to avoid mistakes in reading an author of elegance and sublimity. Their writers express a great deal in few words; and their expressions are lively, full of spirit, intermingled with bold comparisons and lofty metaphors. They affect to infer in their compositions many sentences borrowed from their five canonical books; and as they compare their books to pictures, so they liken their quotations to the five principal colours employed in painting; and in this their eloquence chiefly consists.

They prefer a beautiful character to the most finished picture; and nothing is more common than to see a single page covered with old characters, if they happen to be fair and elegant, sold at a very high price. They honour their characters in the most common books; and when they happen to light by chance upon a printed leaf, they gather it up with the greatest care and respect.

In China there are three varieties of language; that of the common people, that of the people of fashion, and that employed in writing books. Though the first is not so elegant as either of the other two, it is not however inferior to our European languages; though those who are but superficially acquainted with the Chinese may, in fact, imagine it uncouth and barbarous. This low and rude language is pronounced and written many different ways, as is generally the case in other countries.

But a more polished, and at the same time a much more energetic, language, is employed in an almost infinite number of novels; some perhaps true, but many more the vehicles of fiction. These are replete with lively descriptions, characters highly finished, morality, variety, wit, and vivacity, in such a degree as to equal in purity and politeness the most celebrated authors of Europe. This was the language of the Mandarins; and though exquisitely beautiful in its kind, was still inferior to the language of books. This last might be styled the hyperbolical; and of this there are several degrees and intervals before an author can arrive at what they call the language of the king. This mode of writing cannot be well understood without looking upon the letters; but when understood, it appears easy and flowing. Each thought is generally expressed in four or six characters: nothing occurs that can offend the nicest ear; and the variety of the accents with which it is pronounced produces a soft and harmonious sound.

The difference between the king and their other books consists in the difference of the subjects upon which they are written. Those of the former are always grand and sublime, and of course the style is noble and elevated: those of the latter approach nearer to the common affairs and events of life, and are of consequence detailed in the Mandarin tongue. In writing on sublime subjects no punctuations are used. As these compositions are intended for the learned only, the author leaves to the reader to determine where the sense is complete; and those who are well skilled in the language readily find it out.

The copiousness of the Chinese language is in a great measure owing to the multitude of its characters. It is likewise occasioned, in some degree, by the difference of their signification, as also by the artificial method of their conjunction, which is performed most commonly by uniting them two and two, frequently three and three, and sometimes four and four.

Their books are very numerous and bulky, and of their course exceedingly cumbrous. A dictionary of their language was compiled in the 18th century. It consisted of 95 large volumes. An appendix was annexed of 25 volumes. Their other books are voluminous in proportion. The Chinese, one may say, are a nation of learned men. Few people of rank neglect the belles lettres; for ignorance in a man of any degree of eminence is deemed an indelible stain on his character.

For their manner of writing, the implements with which they write, and the materials upon which they draw their characters, we must refer our readers to the article Writing. It would, we believe, afford our readers some pleasure, could we discover and explain the reasons which have hitherto prevented the Chinese from adopting the letters employed from time immemorial by the other nations of Europe and Asia.

The Chinese have ever looked upon themselves as greatly superior to the rest of mankind. In ancient times they entertained such contemptible notions of foreigners, that they scorned to have any further commerce with them than to receive their homage. They were indeed, at a very early period, highly revered by the Indians, Persians, and Tartars. In consequence of this veneration, they looked upon themselves as the favourites of heaven. They imagined they were situated in the middle of the earth, in a kind of paradise, in order to give laws to the rest of mankind. Other men they looked upon with contempt and disdain, and deemed them deformed in body and defective in mind, cast out into the remote corners of the world as the dregs and refuse of nature. They boasted that themselves only had received from God rational souls and beautiful bodies, in order to qualify them for being foreigners of the species.

Such are the sentiments of the Chinese; and with such sentiments it is by no means surprising that their improvements in language, in writing, and other appendages of the belles lettres, have not been proportioned to their progress in mechanics. When people are once fully persuaded that they have already arrived at the summit of perfection, it is natural for them to fit down contented, and solace themselves with the idea of their own superior attainments. The Chinese had early entertained an exalted opinion of their own superiority to the rest of mankind; and therefore imagined that they had already carried their inventions to the ne plus ultra of perfection; the consequence was, that they could make no exertions to carry them higher.

The Chinese, for the space of 3000 years, had almost no intercourse with the rest of mankind. This was the consequence of their inflated situation.—They, of course, compared themselves with themselves; and finding that they excelled all their barbarian neighbours, Chinese bours, they readily entertained an opinion that they excelled all the rest of mankind in an equal proportion. This conceit at once stifled the emotions of ambition, and deprived them of all opportunities of learning what was going forward in other parts of the world.

They despised every other nation. People are little disposed to imitate those whom they despise; and this perhaps may be one reason why they are at this day so averse from adopting the European inventions.

A superstitious attachment to the customs of the ancients, is the general character of the Asiatic nations. This is evidently a kind of diacritical feature among the Chinese. The institutions of Fohi are looked up to among them with equal veneration as those of Thoth were among the Egyptians. Among the latter, there was a law which made it capital to introduce any innovation into the music, painting, or statutory art, instituted by that legislator. We hear of no such law among the former; but custom established, and that invariably, for a space of 3000 years, might operate as forcibly among them as a positive law did among the people first mentioned. An attachment to ancient customs is often more powerful and more coercive than any law that can be promulgated and enforced by mere human authority. These reasons, we think, may be assigned as the impediments to the progress of the Chinese in the belles lettres, and perhaps in the cultivation of the other sciences.

Though the language of the Chinese is confessedly different from all the other known languages in its character and construction, it contains, however, a great number of words evidently of the same origin with those which occur in other dialects, used by people who, according to the natural course of things, could never have been connected with that remote country. A few of these shall produce before we conclude this section. We shall begin with the import of the name China.

China, or, as the orientals write it, Sin, is perhaps the Latin sinus, "the bosom, the heart, the middle." The Chinese actually imagine that their country is situated in the very middle of the earth, and of consequence call it Cham, "the middle, the heart;" a denomination which exactly suits their opinion.

Tu, in Chinese, intimates every thing that falls under the cognizance of the senses, every thing that strikes the sight; in Latin, tueor.

Tia, a table, a plank, a figure that renders everything sensible: 2. To see, to look upon, to appear; Greek ταυτα, whence ταυτος, tendo.

Tuo, to examine attentively, to inspect carefully.

Tui, the most apparent, chief, principal, first; 2. Lightning, thunder.

Teu, a sign by which to know one, letter of acknowledgment. All these ideas are contained in the Hebrew תוע, thus, signum, which we believe has produced the Egyptian theuth, the god or godlike man who invented letters, geometry, music, astronomy, &c.

Toi, a dye, a theatre; Greek of old θεωρη, then θεωρημα, "to see, to look."

Tou, Latin tantum, "so much."

Tou, land, country, region, a syllable annexed to the end of a great number of words. Aquitan, Aquitania, "a land of water;" Mauritan, Mauritania, "the land of the Moors." The orientals prefix r, whence Farzian, Farzistan, "the land or country of the Persians;" Chuzjian, Chuzistan, "the country of Chuz;" Turkestan, Turkestan, "the land of the Turks."

Ti, a chief, an emperor, a title of dignity; whence the Greek τιον "to honour;" hence, too, the word di "bright, glorious;" whence Διός Jupiter, Διός divine;" the Latin Deus, now Deus, "God," and Divus, with the digamma Ἀλκίων inserted; the Celtic Divo, &c. It signified originally "bright, glorious," and was an epithet of the Sun.

Tum, Latin tumo, "to swell."

Liven, "to love;" Hebrew אֶרֶב, heb, "the heart;" Latin, liber. This word pervades all the dialects of the Gothic tongue, still retaining either the same or a nearly analogous signification.

Li, "letters;" Latin, linco, "to daub," as the Chinese actually do in forming their letters.

Lo, "to contain, that which contains;" Celtic, log; French, loge, logis, loger.

Lim, "a rule;" hence Latin, linea, "a line."

Su, "with;" Greek, εν, "with;" Celtic, cyn, cym; whence Latin, cum, con, &c.

Sim, "very high, elevated, sacred, perfect;" Latin, eximius.

Sin, "the heart;" Persian, Sin, "the heart."

Sien, "chief, first;" Celtic, cen, cean, fan, "the head;" metaphorically, the chief, the first, the principal; Thibet, sen, or ken, "great, elevated;" Arabic, fane, "to be elevated or raised."

Sim, or Sim, "a constellation, a star, an element;" Hebrew, שמיים; Greek, σύμπασις; Latin, firmamentum.

Sie, "a man of learning;" Goth. Sax. Engl. "fee; to see, feer."

Cen, "a priest:" Hebr. cohen; Syr. con; Egypt. cen, cen.

Quin, "a king;" Celtic, ken, kend, "head, chief;" Gothic, könig; Germ. Flem. Eng. king, also queen.

Hu, "a door;" Goth. Germ. Engl. hus, hauson, house.

Min, "a river;" Welch, men, "the water of a river;" Latin, mano, "to flow," and perhaps amoenum, "pleasant."

Hen, "hatred;" Greek, αγνώστος, "cruel, horrible, odious."

Kiven, "a dog;" Greek κύων, id.

Ven, "beauty;" Latin Venus, venustas; Iceland, Swed. wen, "pleasant;" Scotch, winifome.

Han, "the foul, breath;" Greek, ανέμος; Latin, anima, animus.

To these instances of the analogy between the Chinese language and those of the other people of Asia and Europe many more might be added; but the preceding, it is hoped, will serve as a specimen, which is all that can be expected from an inquiry of the nature of the present.

SECT. VII. Of the Greek Language.

Before we enter upon the consideration of the essential and constituent parts of this noble language, we must beg leave to settle a few preliminaries, which, we The Greeks, according to the most authentic accounts, were descended of Javan or Jon, the fourth son of Japhet, the eldest son of the patriarch Noah. The Scriptures of old, and all the orientals to this day, call the Greeks Jonim, or Jonnam, or Javenoth.

We have already observed, in the beginning of the article concerning the Hebrew language, that only a few of the descendants of Ham, and the most profligate of the posterity of Shem and Japhet, were concerned in building the tower of Babel. We shall not now resume the arguments then collected in support of that position; but proceed to investigate the character of that branch of the posterity of Javan which inhabited Greece and the neighbouring regions.

At what period the colonists arrived in these parts cannot be certainly determined; nor is it of great importance in the question before us. That they carried along with them into their new settlements the language of Noah and his family, is, we think, a point that cannot be controverted. We have endeavoured to prove that the Hebrew, or at least one or other of its sister-dialects, was the primeval language of mankind. The Hebrew, then, or one of its cognate branches, was the original dialect of the Jonim or Greeks.

Be that as it may, before these people make their appearance in profane history, their language deviates very widely from this original archetype. By what means, at what period, and in what length of time this change was introduced, is, we believe, a matter not easy to be elucidated. That it was progressive, is abundantly certain both from the rules of analogy and reason.

The colonies, which traversed a large tract of country before they arrived at their destined settlements, must have struggled with numberless difficulties in the course of their peregrinations. The earth, during the period which immediately succeeded the universal deluge, must have been covered with forests, interlocked with swamps, lakes, rivers, and numberless other impediments. As the necessaries, and a few of the conveniences of life, will always engross the first cares of mankind, the procuring of these comforts will, of necessity, exclude all concern about arts and sciences which are unconnected with these pursuits. Hence we think it probable, that most of those colonies which migrated to a very great distance from the plains of Shinar, which we believe to have been the original seat of mankind, in a great measure neglected the practice of the polite but unnecessary modes of civilization which their ancestors were acquainted with, and practised before the era of their migration. Certain it is, that those nations which continued to reside in the neighbourhood of that centre of civilization, always appear in a cultivated state; while, at the same time, the colonists who removed to a considerable distance appear to have sunk into barbarism, at a period more early than the annals of profane history can reach.—This appears to have been the situation of the primary inhabitants of Greece. Their own historians, the most partial to their own countrymen that can well be imagined, exhibit a very unpromising picture of their earliest progenitors. Diodorus Siculus, in delineating the character of the original men, we believe sketches his draught from the first inhabitants of Greece*. He represents them as absolute savages, going out in small parties to make war upon the wild beasts of the field, which (according to him) kept them in continual alarm. "Necessity obliged them to band together for their mutual security; they had not sagacity enough to distinguish between the wholesome and poisonous vegetables; nor had they skill enough to lay up and preserve the fruits of autumn for their subsistence during the winter." The scholiast on Pindar describes the situation of the inhabitants of Peloponnesus in the following manner†. "Now Python-fomae have affirmed that the nymphs, who officiated in performing the sacred rites, were called Melifera. Of these Mnaeaeas of Patara gives the following account. They prevailed upon men to relinquish the abominable practice of eating raw flesh torn from living animals, and persuaded them to use the fruits of trees for food. Melifera, one of them, having discovered bee-hives, ate of the honey-combs, mingled the honey with water for drink, and taught the other nymphs to use the same beverage. She called bees Μελισσαι Melifera, from her own name, and bestowed much care on the management of them.

"These things (says he) happened in Peloponnesus; nor is the temple of Ceres honoured without nymphs, because they first pointed out the mode of living on the fruits of the earth, and put an end to the barbarous practice of feeding on human flesh. The same ladies, too, from a sense of decency, invented garments made of the bark of trees."

Hecataeus the Milesian, treating of the Peloponnesians, affirms*, "that before the arrival of the Hellenes, Strabo, a race of barbarians inhabited that region; and that all Greece was, in ancient times, inhabited by barbarians†. In the earliest times (says Paufanias) (o)† Id.lib.i.barbarians inhabited most part of the country called Hellas." The original Greeks, if we may believe an author of deep research and superior ingenuity‡, were strangers to all the most useful inventions of life. Even Hylas, the use of fire was unknown till it was found out and communicated by Prometheus, who is thought to have been one of the first civilizers of mankind. Hence Aeschylus §, introduces Prometheus commemorating the benefits which he had conferred upon mankind by his inventions, in a strain that indicates the uncultivated state of the world prior to the age in which he flourished. For the entertainment of our readers, we shall translate as much of that passage as suits our present purpose.

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* The Greeks borrowed this contemptuous epithet from the Egyptians. See Herod. lib. ii. cap. 158. In wild confusion: for they neither knew Tile-cover'd houses standing in the sun, Nor timber work; but, like the earth-bred ant, They lodg'd in funke's caves dug under ground: No certain sign had they of winter cold, Nor of the flow'ry spring, or summer store, But blindly manage'd all; till I them taught What time the stars appear, what time they set, Hard to be scan'd: then arithmetic rare, That queen of arts, by dint of patient thought Defy'd, I taught them; and how vocal sounds From letters join'd arose."

This character, though applied to mankind in general, was in reality that of the most ancient Greeks. These forbidding features had been transmitted to the poet by tradition as those of his ancestors: he was a Greek, and of consequence imputes them to all mankind without dilution.

*Phoroneus, the son and successor of Inachus*, is said to have civilized the Argives, and to have taught them the use of some new inventions. This circumstance raised his character so high among the savage aborigines of the country, that succeeding ages deemed him the first of men. Pelagius obtained the like character, because he taught the Arcadians to live upon the fruit of the fig-tree, to build sheds to shelter them from the cold, and to make garments of the skins of swine.

But what clearly demonstrates the unpolished character of the most ancient Greeks is, the extravagant honours lavished by them upon the inventors of useful and ingenious arts. Most of these were advanced to divine honours, and became the objects of religious worship to succeeding generations. The family of the Titans affords a most striking instance of this species of adulation. Jupiter, Juno, Mars, Apollo, Venus, Diana, &c. were sprung from this family. By the useful inventions which these personages communicated to the uncultivated nations of Greece, they obtained such lasting and such extravagant honours, that they justified out the sidereal divinities of the country, and possessed their high rank as long as Paganism prevailed in those regions. To these testimonies of the veneration of the original Greeks, others almost without number might be added; but those adduced in the preceding part of this inquiry will, I hope, satisfy every candid reader as to the truth of the position advanced.

While matters were in this situation with respect to the primitive Jonim or Greeks, a new colony arrived in those parts, which in a few years considerably changed the face of affairs. The people who composed this colony were called Pelagi; concerning whose origin, country, led Pelagi character, and adventures, much has been written, and many different opinions exhibited by the learned. It is not our province to enter into a detail of their arguments and systems; we shall only inform our readers, that the general opinion is, that they were natives either of Egypt or Phoenicia. We have seen a dissertation in manuscript upon this subject, from which we are allowed to extract the following particulars.

The author, we think, has proved by very plausible arguments, that these people could not be descendants of the Egyptians nor Phoenicians. He maintains, that the Pelagi were a great and numerous tribe; that they overspread all the coast of Asia Minor from Mount Mycale to Troas; that they were masters at one time of all the Asiatic and Grecian islands; that they overran Greece and many of the neighbouring countries; and all this in less than half a century.—These facts he seems to have proved from Homer, Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Paulanias, and other Greek authors of approved authenticity. He shows, that they were a civilized generation; that they were well acquainted with military affairs, legislation, agriculture, navigation, architecture, letters, &c. He infers, that Phoenicia could not at any given period have furnished such a numerous body of emigrants, even supposing the whole nation had emigrated, and left their native country a desert. He believes that this event took place before the invasion of Canaan by the Israelites; that consequently the Pelagic migration was not occasioned by that catastrophe. He has shown, we think by very probable arguments, that the Egyptians in the earliest ages were averse to foreign expeditions, especially by sea; because that people hated this element, and besides could be under no temptation to emigrate: add to this, they were accustomed to live on small matters, and their country was exceedingly fertile and easily cultivated. It appears (says he) from Herodotus, that the Pelagi were not acquainted with the religion of the Zabians, which could not have been the case had they emigrated from either of these countries. He makes it appear, at least to our satisfaction, that Herodotus is mistaken when he supposes that the deities of Greece were derived from Egypt. He demonstrates, that the names of the greatest part of those deities are of Phoenician extraction; and this opinion he establishes by a very plausible etymological deduction. He affirms, that had the Pelagi been natives of either of the countries above-mentioned, it would be absurd to suppose them ignorant of the names and religious rites of their respective nations. He finds, that the Egyptian and Phoenician colonies, which afterwards settled in Greece, were enemies to the Pelagi, and either subdued or expelled them the country, which, he imagines, would scarce have been the case had both parties sprung from the same ancestors. After settling these points, he concludes, that the people in question were the progeny of the Arabian shepherds, who, at a very early period, invaded and subdued both the Lower and Upper Egypt. After possessing that country about a century and a half, they were conquered by Amenophis king of the Upper Egypt, who drove them out of the country. Upon this the fugitives retired to Palestine, where Manetho the Egyptian historian loses sight of them, and either through malice or ignorance confounds them with the Israelites. This writer supposes that those fugitives gradually directed their course for the west and north-west coasts of Asia Minor, whence they conveyed themselves over to Greece.

Such are the arguments by which the author of the dissertation above-mentioned supports his hypothesis. It is, for aught we know, altogether new, and to us it appears by no means improbable. If our curious readers should wish to know more of this subject, they may consult Gebelin's preliminary Discourse to his Greek Dictionary, Lord Monboddo's Inquiry into the Origin and Progress of Language, vol. i. towards the end, and Mr Bryant's Analysis of Ancient Mythology, paff.

Be this as it may, nothing is more certain than that the Pelagi were the first people who in some degree civilized the savages of ancient Greece. It is not our business busines at present to enumerate the many useful inventions which they communicated to the Greeks, at that time worse than barbarians. We deem it, however, absolutely necessary, as an introduction to our subject, to hazard a few conjectures on the language and letters of those adventurers; a point strictly connected with the subject soon to fall under consideration.

Whether we suppose the Pelasgi to have been the offspring of the Phoenicians, Egyptians, or Arabian shepherds, it will make little difference as to their language; every man of learning and research is convinced that those three nations, especially at that early period, spoke a dialect of the Hebrew. The Pelasgi, then, must have spoken a dialect of that language when they arrived in Greece. Perhaps it might have undergone several changes, and acquired some new modifications, during so many years as had passed since they began to be a separate nation, and in the course of so many peregrinations. Some monuments of theirs still extant prove this fact beyond all contradiction. As these people incorporated with the aborigines of Greece, the remains of the original language of mankind, or at least so much of it as had been retained by them, gradually coalesced with that of the new settlers. From this, we think, it is obvious, that prior to the arrival of the new colonists from the East, the language now current among the two united tribes must have been a dialect of the Phoenician, Arabian, Hebrew, &c. Be that as it may, Herodotus * affirms that the Pelasgi in his time spoke a barbarous language, quite unintelligible to the modern Greeks.

The reason of this difference between the language of the Hellenes or Greeks in the age of Herodotus, and that of the remains of the Pelasgi at that period, seems to be this: Prior to the time of that historian, the Greek language had, from time to time, undergone many changes, and received vast improvements; whereas, on the contrary, that of the remnant of the Pelasgi, who were now reduced to a very low state, had remained stationary, and was then just in the same predicament in which it had been perhaps a century after their arrival in the country.

As the Pelasgi, as was observed above, were a people highly civilized and well instructed in the various arts at that time known in the eastern world, they were skilled in agriculture, architecture, music, &c. (p): The presumption then is that they could not be unacquainted with alphabetical writing. This most useful art was well known in the countries from which they emigrated; and of course it is impossible to imagine that they did not export this art as well as the others above-mentioned. Diodorus Siculus imagines that the Pelasgi knew not the use of alphabetical letters, but that they received them from Cadmus and his Phoenician followers; that those letters were afterwards called Pelasgic, because the Pelasgi were the first people of Greece who adopted them. This account must go to the score of national vanity, since very soon after he acknowledges * that Linus wrote the exploits of the first Bacchus and several other romantic fables in Pelasgic characters; and that Orpheus, and Pronapiades the matter of Homer, employed the same kind of letters. Zenobius likewise informs us † that Cadmus flew Linus for teaching characters differing from his. These letters could be none other than the Pelasgic §.

Pausanias, in his Attics, relates †, that he himself saw an inscription upon the tomb of Corebas, who lived at the time when Crotopus, who was contemporary with Xerxes, was king of the Argives. This inscription Lib. i. then was prior to the arrival of Cadmus; and consequently letters were known in Greece before they were introduced by this chief. It likewise appears from Herodotus himself, that the Ionians were in possession of alphabetical characters before the coming of the Phoenicians. "For (says he) § the Ionians having received letters from the Phoenicians, changing the figure and &c. §§ found of some of them, ranged them with their own, and in this manner continued to use them afterwards." If, then, the Ionians (Q) ranged the Phoenician characters with their own, it is obvious that they had alphabetical characters of their own.

Besides these historical proofs of the existence of Pelasgic characters, monuments bearing inscriptions in the same letters have been discovered in several parts of Greece and Italy, which place this point beyond the reach of controversy. What characters these were may be easily determined. As the Pelasgi emigrated from Arabia, the presumption is that their letters were Phoenician. They are said by Dr Swinton to have been 13 in number, whereas the Phoenician alphabet consists of 16. The three additional letters were probably invented by the latter people after the Pelasgi had left the eastern quarters. The Phoenician letters imported by the Pelasgi were, no doubt, of a coarse and clumsy con- texture, unfavourable to expedition in writing, and unpleasant to the sight. Besides, the Phoenician characters had not as yet received their names; and accordingly the Romans, who derived their letters from the Arcadian Pelasgi *, had no names for theirs. The probability is, that prior to this era the Pelasgic letters had not been distinguished by names. There were of course no other than the original letters of the Phoenicians in their first uncouth and irregular form; and for this reason they easily gave way to the Cadmean, which were more beautiful, more regular, and better adapted to expedition.

Hitherto we have seen the Pelasgi and the Ionim incorporated, living under the same laws, speaking the same language, and using the same letters. But another nation, and one too of vast extent and populousness, had at an early period taken possession of a considerable part of the country afterwards distinguished by the name of Hellas or Greece. The Thracians were a great and mighty nation; inferior to none except the Indians †, Herodotus the father of Grecian history. These people at a very early period, had extended their quarters over all the northern parts of that country. They were, in ancient times, a learned and polished nation. From them, powerful in nation at a very early period,

(p) The Arcadians, who were a Pelasgic tribe, were highly celebrated for their skill in music. They introduced this art into Italy. See Dion. Halicar. lib. i.

(Q) The Athenians were originally called Ionians. Greek Language

In succeeding ages, the Greeks learned many useful and ornamental sciences. Orpheus (r) the musician, the legislator, the poet, the philosopher, and the divine, is known to have been of Thracian extraction. Thamyris and Linus were his disciples, and highly respected among the Greeks for their learning and ingenuity. That these people spoke the same language with the Greeks, is abundantly evident from the connection between them and these Thracian bards. The Thracian language, then, whatever it was, contributed in a great proportion towards forming that of the Greeks. From the remains of the Thracian dialect there appears to have been a very strong resemblance between it and the Chaldean. This position we could readily support by the most plausible etymological deduction, did the limits preferred us in this article admit such an inquiry. It appears, however, that the * Thracians, Getæ, and Daci or Davi, spoke nearly the same language. The Goths, so much celebrated in the annals of the lower empire, were the descendants of the Getæ and Daci, and consequently retained the dialect of their ancestors. The reader, therefore, must not be surprised, if in tracing the materials of which the Greek language is composed, we should sometimes have recourse to the remains of the Gothic.

We have now found out three branches of the Greek language; that of the Ionim or Aborigines, that of the Pelasgic tribe, and that of the Thracians. These three, we imagine, were only different dialects of the very same original tongue. This assertion we could readily prove by the comparison of a great number of words taken from the two last, were this a proper place for such a discussion.

Some centuries after the arrival of the Pelasgi, Cadmus, an Egyptian (s) by birth, and a sojourner in Phoenicia, arrived in Boeotia with a multitude of followers. This colony-chief and his countrymen introduced letters and several other useful improvements into the country in question. As these people were natives of Phoenicia and its environs, their alphabet was that of their native country, consisting of 16 letters. That the Phoenician alphabet was nearly the same with the Samaritan and Hebrew, has been too often and too clearly demonstrated by the learned of this and the former century, that it would be altogether superfluous to insist upon it in this short inquiry. The Phoenicians, as is generally known, wrote from right to left, and the old Grecian characters inverted, exactly resemble the other.

The names of the Cadmean characters are Syrian (t), which shows the near resemblance between that language and the Phoenician. They stand thus: alpha, beta, gamma, delta, &c. The Syrians used to add a to the Hebrew vocables; hence alph becomes alpha, beth, betha or beta, &c. In the Cadmean alphabet we find the vowel letters, which is an infallible proof that this was the practice of the Phoenicians in the age of Cadmus; and this very circumstance furnishes a presumption that the Jews did the same at the same period.

After all, it is evident that the oldest Greek letters, which are written from right to left, differ very little from those of the Pelasgi. The four double letters θ, φ, χ, ψ, are said to have been added by Palaemon about 20 years before the war of Troy. Simonides is generally supposed to have added the letters ζ, η, θ, though it appears by some ancient inscriptions that some of these letters were used before the days of Palaemon and Simonides.

In the year of our Lord 1456 seven brazen tables were discovered at Engubium, a city of Umbria in the Apennines, of which five were written in Pelasgic or Etruscan characters and two in Latin. The first of these tables is thought to have been composed about 168 years after the taking of Troy, or 1256 years before Christ. By comparing the inscription on these tables with the old Ionic characters, the curious have been enabled to discover the resemblance.

The old Ionic character wrote from right to left. The old timed in general use for several centuries: it was composed of the Cadmean and Pelasgic characters, with some variations of form, position, and sound. The Athenians continued to use this character till the year of Rome 350. The old Ionic was gradually improved into the new, and this quickly became the reigning mode. After the old Ionic was laid aside, the (Bouropoabos) Buitro-Phaon, phonon came into esteem, which goes backwards and forwards as the ox does with the plough. They carried cap. 17. the line forward from the left, and then back to the right. The words were all placed close together, and few small letters were used before the fourth century. If our curious readers would wish to know more of letters and alphabets, we must refer them to Chipul, Morton, Poitellus, the great Montfaucon, Gebelin, Aitle, &c. For our part we are chiefly concerned at present with the Phoenician and Cadmean systems; and on these perhaps we may have dwelt too long. Having now, we hope sufficiently proved that the Greek alphabet was derived from the Phoenician, in order to convince our curious but illiterate readers of the certainty of our position, as it were by ocular demonstration, we shall annex a scheme of both alphabets, to which we shall subjoin some strictures upon such letters of the Greek alphabet as admit any ambiguity in their nature and application.

A, alpha, had two forms, the one broad like a in the English word all; the other slender, as e in end, spend, defend. The Hebrews certainly used it so, because they had no other letter to express that sound; the Arabs actually call the first letter of their alphabet elif; and they as well as the Phoenicians employ that letter to express both the sound of A and E promiscuously. The Greeks call their letter Ε-αλον, that is, E slender, which seems to have been introduced to supply the place of A slender.

H, eta, was originally the mark of the spiritus asper, and no doubt answered to the Hebrew ἑ. It is still retained in that capacity in the word ἑκατόν, and in words with the spiritus asper beginning books, chapters, sections,

(r) Orpheus seems to be compounded of two oriental words, or "light," and phi "the mouth." Though some deduce it from the Arabian arif "a learned man."

(s) Joseph Scaliger's account of the origin of the Ionic letters. Euseb. Chron. tions, &c. E originally marked both the sound of Εύδαιος and Ἑταῖος; that is, it was sometimes founded short as at present, and sometimes long, where it is now supplied by Η. As it was found convenient to distinguish these two different quantities of sound by different letters, they adopted Η, the former spiritus asper, to denote the long sound of Ε, and substituted the present spiritus asper [?] in its place.

I, iota, is the Hebrew or Phoenician jod or yod. We imagine it originally served the purpose of both iota and epsilon. It had two different sounds; the one broad and full, the other weak and slender. The latter had the sound of the modern υ. That this was actually the case appears in several monumental inscriptions: And upon this depends the variation of some cases of the demonstrative pronoun and of the second declension.

O, omicron, or small o, in the original Greek had three different sounds. It founded o short, as at present; and likewise o long, now denoted by Ω or large O. It likewise marked the sound of the improper diphthong ωυ, founded like the English diphthong oo. The Ω was taken from the Phoenician wau or V.

Y, ypsilon, we have observed before, was adopted to supply a mark for the sound of I slender.

Z, zeta, is compounded of δ. Dion. Halic. however, informs us, that this letter should be pronounced δ, according to the Doric plan.

Θ, theta, was not known in the old Greek. It is compounded of τ and the spiritus asper, both which were of old written separately thus TH.

Ξ, xi, is compounded of γι, κι, ρι. These letters, too, were originally written separately.

Φ, phi. This letter is compounded of β, π, and the spiritus asper; thus BH, RH.

Χ, chi, like the foregoing, is compounded of γ, ρ, and the spiritus asper as above.

Ψ, ψι, like some of the rest, is made up of βι, πι, which, too, were originally written in separate characters.

These observations are thrown together purely for the use of students who may not choose to inquire into the minutiae. We are sorry that the nature of the work will not permit us to extend our researches to greater length. The reader will find an ancient inscription on Plate CCCCXVI., in which the powers of the letters are exemplified as they were in the first stage of the Greek language. Every language, we believe, was originally composed of inflexible words; the variations which now distinguish nouns and verbs were the effects of progressive improvements. What might have been the state of the Greek language with respect to these variations in its original form, it is not now possible to discover. That it was rude and irregular, will not, we imagine, be controverted. One of the first attempts towards forming the variations, now denominated declensions and conjugations, would probably be made upon the demonstrative article and the substantive verb. This observation will be found to hold good in most polished languages. In the Greek tongue, this was evidently the method.

The original Greek article was imported from the east. It was the Hebrew or Phoenician ה. This particle sometimes signifies one, and sometimes it answers to our demonstrative the; both in its adverbial and demonstrative capacity it imports demonstration. In the earliest stages of the two oriental languages, it was probably written apart, as ha-melech "the king." In processes of time it came to be joined with the following word, as Hammeloch. From this we think the Greek article was deduced. It is still retained in the Doric dialect in its pristine character. The difference between ho and ha in the eastern language is nothing. Here then we have the articles ὁ masculine and ἡ feminine. Upon these several changes were superinduced, in order to render them more useful for the purposes of language. For these changes we know of no archetype.

The Greeks then having adopted the Hebrew, or Phoenician, or Chaldean article ha, and changed it into ὁ for the masculine, seem to have arranged its variations in the following manner:

| Sing. | Plu. | |-------|-----| | Nom. ὁ | ὁι | | Gen. ὁν | ὁν | | Dat. ὁι | ὁις | | Acc. ὁ | ὁις |

In the earliest stages of the Greek language, ὁ and ἡ were founded in the same manner, or nearly so, as was the flexion observed above. The accusative was at first like the nominative; for distinction's sake it was made to terminate the first in -ι, which letter was likewise adopted to characterize declensions, the genitive plural; οι was annexed to the dative plural, to distinguish it from the dative singular. The radical word was still without inflexion.

When the article was inflected in this manner, the process stood as follows: we take λόγος for an example.

| Sing. | Plu. | |-------|-----| | Nom. ὁ λόγος | ὁι λόγοι | | Gen. ὁν λόγου | ὁν λόγων | | Dat. ὁι λόγῳ | ὁις λόγοις | | Acc. ὁ λόγος | ὁις λόγοις |

In this arrangement our readers will observe, that in the time under consideration, οι was not yet introduced; and therefore συμπέρασεν or little οι was the same letter in the genitive plural as in the accusative singular; but in the latter case it was founded long by way of distinction.

The article ha, which is still retained in the Doric dialect, was varied as follows:

| Sing. | Plu. | |-------|-----| | Nom. ἂ | ἂι | | Gen. ἂν | ἂν | | Dat. ἂι | ἂις | | Acc. ἂ | ἂις |

These variations differ a little from those of the masculine; and they were no doubt made for the sake of distinction, as is usual in such cases. We shall now give an example of the feminine as it must have stood before variations were introduced. We shall employ τιμήν.

| Sing. | Plu. | |-------|-----| | Nom. ἂ τιμήν | ἂι τιμάν | | Gen. ἂν τιμῆς | ἂν τιμῶν | | Dat. ἂι τιμῇ | ἂις τιμῶν | | Acc. ἂ τιμήν | ἂις τιμῶν |

Afterwards, Afterwards, when the Chaldean article da was adopted for the neuter gender, the letter r or d was changed into r, and prefixed to it; and then the Greeks, who, in their declension of adjectives, always followed the neuter gender, began to prefix it to the oblique cases.

In this manner we think the Greek nouns stood originally; the only change being made upon the article. At length, instead of prefixing that word, and expressing it by itself, they found it convenient to affix a fragment of it to the noun, and so to pronounce both with more expedition. Thus ἀναγινώσκω, e.g., became ἀναγινώσκειν, ἀναγινώσκειν became ἀναγινώσκονται, and of course ἀναγινώσκονται, &c. The spiritus asper, or rough breathing, was thrown away, in order to facilitate the coalition. Nouns of the neuter gender, as was necessary, were distinguished by using r, instead of s. In Oriental words the Greeks often change s into r, and vice versa.

In this case the Greeks seem to have copied from an Eastern archetype. In Hebrew we find an arrangement exactly similar. To supply the place of the pronouns possessive, they affix fragments of the personalis: Thus, they write ben-i, "my son," instead of ben-anu, and debir-nu, "our words," instead of debir-anu, &c. The persons of their verbs are formed in the same manner. In this way, in our opinion, the variations of the first and second declensions were produced.

After that a considerable number of their nouns were arranged under these two classes, there remained an almost infinite number of others which could not conveniently be brought into these arrangements; because their terminations did not readily coalesce with the articles above mentioned. These, like nouns of the neuter gender, were in a manner secluded from the society of the two other classifications. It is probable that these for a long time continued indeclinable. At last, however, an effort was made to reduce them into a class as well as the others. All these excluded nouns originally terminated with s, which appears from their genitives as they stand at present. By observing this case, we are readily conducted to the termination of the pristine vocable. The genitive always ends in es, which ending is formed by inserting s between the radical word and e. By throwing out s we have the ancient nominative: Thus, Tirat, genitive Tiratou; taking out s we have Tiratou, the original inflexible termination. Αἰτη, genitive Αἴτους; throw out s and you have Αἴτους. Παλλάδης, genitive Παλλάδους; take away s and there remains παλλάδους. Οἰκής, genitive Οἰκῆς; by throwing out s we have Οἰκῆς. Αἰακός, genitive Αἰακοῦς, Αἰακῆς. Κρατῆς, genitive Κρατοῦς, Κρατῆς; originally Κρατῆς, because originally s had the sound of s, as was observed above. Μαλί, genitive Μαλῶν, Μαλῆς. Εἰδὼς, genitive Εἰδοῦς, Εἰδῆς, the old noun. In short, the genitive is always formed by inserting s immediately before s, which is always the termination of the nominative; and by this rule, we easily discover the noun such as it was in its original form.

The dative of this declension was closed with i afscrip- tum; the same with that of the second, namely, i sub- scrip- tum. The accusative commonly terminates with a; but was originally ended with n. The Romans imitated the Æolian dialect, and they commonly ended it with em or im. The Greeks, perhaps, in this imitated their progenitors, for a was their favourite vowel. The nominative plural ended in es, which nearly resembles the English plural, and was possibly borrowed from the Thracians. The genitive plural in all the declensions ends in os; the dative ends in ei, the s being inserted to distinguish it from the dative singular. When a strong consonant, which would not easily coalesce with s, comes immediately before it, that consonant is thrown out to avoid a harsh or difficult sound. The sum then is; the cases of nouns of the first and second declensions consist of the radical word with fragments of the articles annexed, and these were the first classifications of nouns. The other nouns were left out for some time, and might be denominated neuters; at length they too were classified, and their variations formed as above. In this process the Greeks deviated from the oriental plan; for these people always declined their nouns by particles prefixed. Whether the Greeks were gainers by this new process, we will not pretend positively to determine. We are, however, inclined to imagine that they lost as much in perplexity as they gained by variety.

It is generally believed that the Greeks have no Greek ablative; to this opinion, however, we cannot assent, latice. It is true, that the dative, and what we would call the ablative, are always the same: yet we think there is no more reason to believe that the latter is wanting in Greek, than that the ablative plural is wanting in Latin, because in that language both these cases are always alike.

In the Eastern languages there are only two genders, analogous to the established order of nature, where all animals are either male or female. But as the people of the east are, to this day, strongly addicted to personification, they ranged all objects of which they had occasion to speak, whether animate or inanimate, under one or other of these two classes. Hence arose what is now called the masculine and feminine genders. The Orientals knew nothing of a neuter gender, because, indeed, all objects were comprehended under the foregoing classes. The Phoenician feminine was formed from the masculine, by adding ru, ah. In this the Greeks in many cases imitated them. The Greeks and Latins left a vast number of substantives, like a kind of outcasts, without reducing them to any gender; this process gave rise to the neuter gender, which imports, that such substantives were of neither gender. This has the appearance of a defect, or rather a blemish, in both. Sometimes, too, they make words neuter, which, according to the analogy of grammar, ought to be either masculine or feminine. And again, they range words under the masculine or feminine, which by the same rule ought to have been neuter. In short, the doctrine of generic distribution seems to have been very little regarded by the fabricators of both tongues. The beauty which arises from variety seems to have been their only object.

The use of the article in the Greek language is, we farther observe, rather indeterminate; it is often prefixed to proper names, where there is no need of demonstration nor the generic distinction. On the contrary, it is often omitted in cases where both the one and the other seem to require its affixture. In short, in some cases it seems to be a mere expletive. Though both Lord Monboddo and Mr Harris have treated of this part of speech, neither the one nor the other has ascertained its proper use. (See Origin and Progress of Language, vol. ii. p. 53. Hermes, p. 214, et seq.)—We know not any objection to to the early use of articles among the Greeks is plausible as the total neglect of them among the Romans. But it ought to be considered, that after the flexions were introduced, the use of the article was in a great measure neglected. Accordingly, Lord Monboddo observes that it is very seldom used as such by Homer, but commonly in place of the relative pronoun ἐστιν, ἦν, ἦν. Thus it would appear, that at the time when the Roman language was reduced to the Grecian standard, the article was not commonly used by the Greeks; and of course the Latins never employed it. There can be no doubt but the pronoun who, in the northern languages, is the same with the Greek ἐστιν, and the Hebrew ἐστιν. This among the northern people is always a relative, which affords a presumption that the Greeks originally used the article in the same manner as we do at present. The fact is, that the articles having once got into vogue, were often positively used as mere expletives to fill up a gap; and that, on the other hand, when there was no occasion for pointing out an object, it being fully determined by the tenor of the discourse, it was often omitted.

In forming adjectives, they followed the same plan that they had done with substantives. Their great effort was to make their adjectives agree with their substantives in gender, number, and case. This arrangement improved the harmony of speech; and nothing could be more natural than to make the word expressing the quality correspond with the subject to which it belonged.

As adjectives denote qualities, and thus are susceptible of degrees, nature taught them to invent marks for expressing the difference of these degrees. The qualities may exceed or fall below each other by almost numberless proportions; it was, however, found convenient to restrict these increases and decreases to two denominations. The positive is, properly speaking, no degree of comparison at all; therefore we need only point out the formation of the comparative and superlative.

The former is generally thought to be fabricated, by first adding the Hebrew word יְהוּ, excellent, to the positive, and then affixing the Greek termination ἐστιν; and the latter, by affixing the Syrian word ταῦθα and the syllable ἐστιν, in the same manner.

Every nation, even the most uncivilized, have early acquired the notion of number. Numerical characters and names are the same in many different languages. These terms were discovered, and in use, long before grammar came to any perfection; and therefore remain either inflexible or irregular. The first way of computing among the Greeks was by the letters of the alphabet; so that Α signified one and Ω twenty-four: in this manner the rhapsodies of Homer are numbered; and so are the divisions of some of the Pylons, as is generally known. But a more artificial plan of computation was obviously necessary. They divided the letters of the alphabet into decades or tens, from Α to Ω = 10. To express the number 6, they inferred Σ = 6; so that by this means the first decade amounted to 10. In the next decade every letter increased by tens, and so Ρ denoted 100. In this decade they inferred Σ = 900. In the third, every letter rose by 100; so that Α = 900. By inferring these three Phoenician characters they made their alphabet amount to 900. To express chilaidas or thousands, they began with the letters of the alphabet as before; and to make the distinction, they placed a dot under each character, as the units, tens, hundreds, were distinguished by an acute accent over them.

But in monumental inscriptions, and in public instruments, a larger and more lasting numerical character was fabricated. They began with Ι, and repeated that letter till they arrived at Ι = 5. This is the first letter of περισσός, five. Then they proceeded, by repeating Ι till they came to Ι = Δ, the first letter of δέκα, 10. Then they repeated Δ over and over, so that four Δ = 40. To express 50, they used this method; they enclosed Δ in the belly of Α = 50, Η = 500, Η = 50,000 etc. Often, however, X signifies 1000, and then we have δική χιλίων, 2000; τρική χιλίων, 3000; and so of the rest.

The word pronoun signifies a word placed instead of pronouns, a noun or name; and indeed the personal pronouns are really such: this needs no explication. The pronoun of the first person is one of those words which have continued invariable in all languages; and the other personals are of the same character. The relatives, possessives, demonstratives, and gentiles, are generally derived from these, as may be discerned by a very moderate adept in the language. Our readers will therefore, we hope, easily dispense with our dwelling upon this part of speech.

Verb. In most ancient languages, verbs, according Greek to the order of nature, have only three tenses or times, verbs, namely, the past, present, and future. The intermediate tenses were the invention of more refined ages. The Greek, in the most early periods, had no other tenses but those above-mentioned. The manner of forming them we shall endeavour to point out, without touching upon the nature of the rest, since an idea of them may be acquired from any common grammar.

We have observed above, that the flexion of nouns of the first and second declensions are formed by annexing fragments of the articles to the radical words; and that the variation of the tenses was produced by joining the substantive verb, according to the same analogy. Every Greek verb was originally an inflexible biliteral, trilateral, quadrilateral or diphthongal radix. The variations were formed a long while after in the manner above intimated.

The Greeks had their substantive or auxiliary verb, from the Phoenician or Chaldean verb ἐστιν, exist. This verb, taking away the gentle aspirate from both beginning and end, actually becomes εἰσιν. This vocable the Greeks brought along with them from the East, and manufactured after their own manner, which appears to have been thus:

Pref. εἰσιν, εἰσιν, εἰσιν, εἰσιν, εἰσιν, Cont. εἰσιν, εἰσιν, εἰσιν, εἰσιν, εἰσιν, Fut. εἰσιν, εἰσιν, εἰσιν, εἰσιν, εἰσιν,

We place εἰσιν in the third person plural, because for many centuries εἰσιν supplied the sound of the diphthong εἰσιν. By these variations it will appear that the radical verb was rendered capable of inflection. We have observed that Greek verbs were a collection of biliteral, Exemplum Ionicarum Priscarum Literarum ex columna que in via Appia reperta postea ad hortos Farnesianos traducta est.

ODEVI. ΘΕΜΙΤΟΝ. ΜΕΤΑΚΙΝΕΣ. ΑΙ. ΕΚ. ΤΟ. ΤΡΙΟΦΙΟ. ΗΟ

ESTIV. ΕΠΙ. ΤΟ. ΤΡΙΤΟ. ΕΝ. ΤΕΙ. ΗΟΔΟΙ. ΤΕΙ. ΑΡΛΑΙ. ΕΝΤΟΙ

HERODO. ΑΡΒΟΙ. Ο. ΙΑΡ. ΛΟΙΟΝ. ΤΟΙ. ΚΙΝΕΣΑΝΤΙ. ΜΑΡΤΥΣ

ΔΑΙΜΟΝ. ΕΝΗΟΔΙΑ. ΚΑΙ. ΗΟΙ. ΚΙΟΝΕΣ. ΔΕΜΕΤΡΟΣ

ΚΑΙ. ΚΟΡΕΣ. ΑΒΑΘΕΜΑ. ΚΑΙ. ΧΟΜΙΟΝ. ΘΕΟΝ. ΚΑΙ.

Sanscrit Alphabet.

Vowels.

Connected Vowels.

Consonants.

A.B. Bell. Priv. Mat. Sculptor. fecit. Greek literal, triliteral, or quadrilateral, radical words.—The following may serve for examples: τι, ἀνα, Μαξ, τυπτ, φερε, τατ, εστι, Δαρε, Δαρε, Δαρε.

These radicals are taken at random; and we believe our Grecian student, by adding the terminations, will readily find them all significant verbs. With these radicals, then, and the substantive verb, we suppose the present and future tenses were formed.

But it is now generally admitted that the modern present was not the original one of the verb. The second, or Attic future, appears plainly to have been the most ancient present. When the language was improved, or rather in the course of being improved, a new present was invented, derived indeed from the former, but differing widely from it in its appearance and complexion. Upon this occasion, the old present was degraded, and instead of intimating what was doing at present, was made to import what was immediately to be done hereafter. By this means, γραφω, contracted into γραφά, I am writing, came to intimate I am full going to write. This change was probably made for the sake of enriching the language, for variety, for energy. Thus, τομω contracted τομά became τομώ, τομώ, τομώ, &c. According to this theory, we find, that such verbs as now have no second future retain their original form, only the circumflex has been removed in order to accommodate them to the general standard. Grammarians have now chosen the three characteristic letters of active verbs from the present, first future, and perfect. The true characteristic of the original verb was that of the present second future. Many verbs are now defective of that tense, because since the invention of the new present, those have fallen into disuse.

Let us now take the verb λέγω, dico, in order to make a trial; and let us write the radix and the auxiliary, first separately, and then in conjunction:

Thus,

λέγω-εις, λέγεται, λέγεται, λέγεται, λέγεται, λέγεται. Then we will have contracted λέγω, λέγεται, λέγεται, λέγεται, λέγεται. Here, we believe, everything is self-evident.

The English would run thus: Saving I am, saying thou art, saying he is, &c. At first the radix and the auxiliary were pronounced separately, as we do our helping verbs in English, and would have been written in the same manner had words been then distinguished in writing.

The present first future occupied the same place that it now does, and concurred in its turn to complete the future in conjunction with the radix. That the substantive verb was inflected in the manner above laid down, is obvious from its future middle εργάζεται, and from the future of the Latin verb sum, which was of old efo, efis, &c. Verbs in λα, μα, εμα, εμα, often take εν in the first future. See Fad. Cret. ap. Marm. Oxon. Lib. 87. Verbs in λα and εμα affix εν by analogy, as κελλα, περα, Eurip. Hecub. v. 1057. καλεσ Hom. Od. x. v. 511. τελα, τελα, unde τελουν, II. x. v. 707. ερω, ερω, Pind. Nem. Od. 9. Diadec. 2. περα, περα, Theoc. Idyll. 22. v. 63. In fine, the Æolic dialect after the liquids often inferts εν.

It must be observed, that the Greeks, in order to accelerate the pronunciation, always threw out the ε and α, except in verbs ending in αμ, εμ, εμα; where they generally change them into ο and ω. When the last letter of the radix can coalesce with ο after ε is thrown out, they transform it, so as to answer that purpose; if not, they sometimes throw it out. We shall once more take λέγω for an example:

λέγω-εις, λέγεται, λέγεται, λέγεται, λέγεται, λέγεται.

Throwing out ε, it would stand λέγεται, λέγεται, &c. by changing γε into ξ it becomes λέγεται. Δ and σ cannot coalesce with ε, therefore they throw them out: thus, Δεσ, future first ενω; παραδει, future first παρω; Αντω, Αντω, &c.

These are the general rules with respect to the formation of the present and future of active verbs in the earliest stages of the Greek language. The limits prescribed will not allow us to pursue these conjectures; but the reader may, if he thinks proper, carry them a great way.

The preterite tense falls next under consideration, preterite tense.

If we may trust analogy, this, as well as the other two, must have owed its conformation to the radix of the verb, and some other word fitted to eke out its terminations. It has been thought by some critics, that this addition was taken from the Hebrew word און; and we should be of the same opinion did not another auxiliary present itself nearer home, which appears to us much more congruous to such a purpose. Perhaps, indeed, Origin of the people from whom we suppose it borrowed, derived it from the eastern quarters. We have already observed, that the Thracians were masters of a great part of Greece in the very earliest ages. At that time they were a polite and learned people. From them a considerable part of the Greek language was derived. If, therefore, we should find a word in their language employed for the same purpose, and accommodated to coalesce with the radical verb, we feel ourselves very much inclined to prefer such a word.

The word ha pervades many different languages as an auxiliary verb. From it we have the Italian ho, the Spanish he, the French ai; and in one shape or other it appears in all the German and Scandinavian dialects. It is the Gothic auxiliary; and, we believe, it forms the termination of the perfect active of the first conjugation in the Latin tongue: For there am is the radix of amo; in the preterite am-avi, amavi; and the preterperfect am-hav-eram, i.e. amaveram, compounded of am, hav, and eram, the imperfect of the indicative of the substantive verb. This proceeds, in the formation of the preterite of Latin verbs, will scarce be questioned, and forms certainly a presumptive proof that the Greeks pursued the same line. From this verb is likewise derived the Latin habeo, by changing o into b, which are indeed the same letter. Our readers, after this detail, will not be surprised if we should now hazard a conjecture, and declare it as our opinion, that this same Gothic auxiliary ha is actually the additional part of the preterite of Greek verbs, and that part upon which the conjugation depends.

In forming this combination between the radix and the auxiliary, the Greeks were obliged to fabricate several devices. As often as the last letter of the radix could not unite with the aspirate in ha, they metamorphosed it into one of the double letters, which are capable of coalescing with it. In the verb λέγω, γ was changed into ξ; thus, λεγ ἤ became λεξε, τυπτω preterite τυπ ἤ ha, was combined into τυφξ. In verbs which had a radix that would not admit this conjunction, they hardened the h into k, as in τιον, preterite τικα, ἀκρω-κα. Many other ways were contrived to facilitate this re-union. These are detailed in every Greek grammar, and so need not be mentioned.—What has been said with respect to this configuration, we offer as a pure conjecture, without the most remote intention of obtruding it upon our readers.

If it is admitted, that the auxiliary ha formed the conjugating termination of the active verb among the Greeks, it will likewise be admitted, that the radical verb and the other made originally two distinct words: that, according to this scheme, the preterite would proceed thus, ἦν ha, said I have; ἦν ha, said thou hast; ἦν he, said he hath, &c. This proceeds to us appears rational, elegant, and advantageous. The pluperfect was not then invented, and therefore it does not come under our consideration. The other tenses were all deduced from those described; and in forming these intermediate distinctive tenses, we believe that both critics and grammarians, and perhaps philosophers too, were employed.

The eastern nations have diversified their verbs, by affixing fragments of the personal pronouns to the radix, by which they gained only the advantage of exhibiting the genders of the persons engaged in being, acting, and suffering; but a perpetual repetition of these was unavoidable. The Greeks, by their artificial combination of the radix with the two auxiliaries, avoided the necessity of repeating their personal pronouns, as we and the other modern inhabitants of Europe are obliged to do; and at the same time, by diversifying the terminations of their nouns and verbs, wonderfully improved the beauty and harmony of their language. The arrangement above inflicted on it is very different from that of the orientals, and so entirely Gothic, that we think there can be no doubt that the Greeks borrowed this manoeuvre from the Thracians. Every person moderately acquainted with the Greek language will, upon examination, discover a wonderful coincidence between the structure, idioms, and phraseology, of the English and Greek languages; so many congenial features must engender a strong suspicion that there once subsisted a pretty intimate relation between them.

In the preceding deduction, we find ourselves obliged once more to differ from the very learned author of the Origin and Progress of Language. As we took the liberty to question his originality of the Greek language, and at the same time professed to attack the goodly structure raised by philosophers, critics, and grammarians; so we now totally differ from that learned writer as to his theory of the creation of verbs out of the inhabile matter of εω, εω, &c. This whole fabric, in our opinion, leans on a feeble foundation.

The apparatus of intermediate tenses, of augments, derivation of tenses, with their formation, participles, and idiomatical constructions, and other essentials or appendages, we omit, as not coming within the verge of the disquisition.

The derivation and formation of the middle and passive voices, would certainly afford matter of curious speculation; but the labour necessary to investigate this connection would greatly overbalance the benefit expected.

However, to complete our plan, we shall subjoin a few strictures with respect to the formation of the middle voice, which was, in our opinion, immediately formed from the active.

We have seen already, that the active voice in its original state was formed by annexing fragments of the substantive or auxiliary verb to the radix. The same economy was observed in fabricating the flexible parts of the verb of the middle voice. To demonstrate this, we shall first conjugate the present tense of the auxiliary passive upon the principles above laid down.

Present, ἤσθη, ἤσθε, ἤσθαι, ἤσθεις, ἤσθε, ἤσθηται. Such was the passive-present of the auxiliary. We shall now take our example from the verb τυχώ; second future τυχώ-ται, struck I am, τυχώ-ται, struck thou art, τυχώ-ται, struck he is, &c. contracted τυχώται, τυχά, τυχώ-ται.

The conjunction and formation here is obvious. Perhaps, in the second person, o was inserted, which, however, is thrown out in the process of the persons. The future middle is clearly formed, by affixing the future-passive of the verb εω, only as η was introduced into the language for ε long, it was generally (τ) substituted instead of that vowel in verbs ending in εω and εω, and η for ε in verbs ending in εω; the two vowels ε and η being originally long as well as short, till η was adopted to denote the long sound of the former, and η that of the latter. In many verbs, before the conjunction of the radix and auxiliary, η was thrown out: thus, τυχώ-ται became τυχόται, λέγω-ται, λέγοται, &c.

The preterite was deduced from that of the active by a very slight variation, so trifling, indeed, that it need not be mentioned; only we may observe, that the aspirate η is never retained in this tense, which originally seems to have been the only distinguishing character by which that tense of the middle voice differed from the same tense of the active.

From the strict analogy between the mode of forming the three primary tenses of the active and middle voice, we are led to suspect that what is now the middle was originally the passive voice.

The immediate formation of the former, by annexing the passive auxiliary, is obvious. The middle voice still partakes of the passive signification, since it has sometimes a passive, though more frequently an active. There are several parts of the present passive quite analogous to the same tenses in the middle; and, lastly, it is the common progress, in the course of improvement, to proceed step by step, and by approximation. What is most simple and easy is the first object, then succeeds what is only a little more difficult, and so on till we arrive at the last stage, when human ingenuity can go no farther. Now, it will readily be admitted, that the passive voice is much more embarrassed and intricate in its texture than the middle; and, therefore,

(t) We say generally, because in verbs ending in εω, the ε is sometimes retained, as τυχώ, τυχών, τυχώ-ται. Greek Language

the former should have been posterior in point of time to the latter.

We are well aware, that the very learned Kuster, and most other moderns, deeply skilled in the origin, progress, and structure, of the Greek language, have thought otherwise. The general opinion has been, that the Greek middle voice answered exactly to the Hebrew conjugation hithpael, and in its primitive signification imported a reciprocity, or when the agent acts upon itself. For our part, we only intended a few hints upon the subject, which our learned readers may pursue, approve, or reject, at pleasure.

If we might pretend to investigate the formation of the passive voice, we should imagine that the modern present was formed from the ancient one, by inserting such letters as were found necessary for beauty, variety, energy, &c.; the first future from the second future middle of the verb παίνω, once ἔτω. This future is ἔτοιμος; and, joined to the radix, always occupies that place, τι-τινάζειν, τιλαθοῦσαι, Φιληθοῦσαι, τυφοῦσαι, and so of the rest: whether με, εις, τι, which occur so frequently as the terminations of the middle and passive voices, are fragments of some obsolete verb, we will not pretend to determine.

From verbs in εις, εις, εις, εις, are formed verbs in εις; which in the present, imperfect, and second aorist, as it is called, only have a different form, by affixing εις with a long vowel preceding it, in the present active; which vowel is preserved in each person singular. This collection of irregular verbs seems to be formed from the verb εις, which in some dialects might be εις. Indeed the imperfect εις, εις, εις, seems to imply as much: in this, however, we dare not be positive.

In the whole of this analysis of the formation of verbs, we have laid down what to us appears most plausible. That metaphysical critics may discover inaccuracies in the preceding detail we make no doubt; but our candid readers will doubtless reflect, that no language was ever fabricated by philosophers, and that the elements of language were hammered out by peasants, perhaps by savages. Critics have created a philosophy of language we admit, and have a thousand times discovered wonderful acuteness and ingenuity in the mechanism of words and sentences, where the original onomatopoeia never apprehended any, and which possibly never existed but in their own heated imagination. If our more enlightened readers should find anything in the preceding detail worthy their attention, so much the better; if the contrary should happen, we presume they will take up with the hackneyed system. We have all along neglected the dual number, because it regularly follows the type of the other numbers.

Be that as it may, before we drop this subject we must take the liberty to submit an observation or two with respect to the consequences of the practice of new modelling the present, and of course the imperfect, tenses of verbs. 1st, After this arrangement they commonly retained all the other tenses exactly as they had stood connected with the primitive verb: this needs no example. 2d, They often collected the tenses of verbs, whose present and imperfect were now obsolete, in order to supply this defect. Thus we have φιλο-θεα, ἐπι-θεα, ἐπι-θεα. 3d, They often formed present and imperfect tenses without any other tenses annexed: The poets in particular seem to have fabricated these two tenses at pleasure.

If this procedure was convenient for the poets, it was certainly most inconvenient with respect to the vulgar, as well as to foreigners who had an inclination to learn the language. The vulgar, some ages after Homer and Hesiod, must have found it as difficult to understand their poems as our people do to comprehend those of Chaucer and Spenser. By this disposition, too, the etymology of verbs was almost entirely confounded. The present second future being, as has been observed, the ancient present, the attention of the curious etymologist was naturally diverted to the modern present, where it was utterly impossible to discover the radical word. A few examples will elucidate this point: τυπεῖν, to stretch, to extend, old present τυπεῖν; τυπεῖν is the radix, which at once appears to be a Persian word signifying a large tract of country. Hence Mauritania "the land of the Mauri," Aquitania, Bretania; and with prefixed Hindo-Iran, Chusi-Iran, Turkestan. The obsolete verb εις, whence εις, is evidently derived from εις, an Egyptian name of the moon: φιλον, second future φιλον, to φιλον, from the Egyptian word phan or pan, a name of the sun: τυπεῖν, future second τυπεῖν; τυπεῖν is obviously the offspring of εις thoph, "a drum or timbrel," from beating or striking, &c. In such etymological researches, the student must be careful to turn the Ionic ει into the Doric ει; because the Doric was latest from the coast of Palestine, and consequently retained the largest share of the Phoenician dialect: thus γιοβεῖν, to rejoice, turning ει into α becomes γιοβεῖν. This word, throwing away the termination, becomes γαθος, plainly signifying a wine press (U). It is likewise to be observed, that the Æolians often change ει into ει, as εις instead of εις, &c.

It is not our intention to enter into the arrangement and peculiar constructions of the Greek language. There is, however, one, which we cannot well pass over in silence. As that tongue is destitute of those words Greek in which the Latins call gerunds, to supply this defect they have employed the infinitive with the article prefixed; thus, nouns:

Εἰς τοὺς ἀνδρῶν ἀνδρῶν, φίλοις, in order to their being friends; ἀνδρῶν τοὺς ἀνδρῶν ἀνδρῶν, ἀνδρῶν, from their having elected a king; ἐν τοῖς ἀνδρῶν ἀνδρῶν, ἀνδρῶν, from their flying out of the city. In these phrases the infinitive is said to assume the nature of a substantive noun; agreeing with the article before it, exactly as if it were a noun of the neuter gender. Idioms of this kind occur in our own tongue; only with us the verb, instead of being expressed in the infinitive, is turned into the participle. According to this arrangement, the first of the preceding phrases, which, according to the Greek, would stand toward to be friends, in English is, in order to their being friends. This anomaly, then, if indeed it be such, is of no manner of consequence. The French, if we are not mistaken, would express it in the very same manner with the Greek, that is, pour être amis.

From treating of verbs, we should naturally proceed to the consideration of adverbs, which are so denominated, because they are generally the concomitants of verbs. Every thing relating to that part of speech, in the Greek tongue, may be seen in the Port Royal or any other Greek grammar. Instead therefore of dwelling upon this beaten topic, we shall hazard a conjecture upon a point to which the critics in the Greek tongue, as far as we know, have not hitherto adverted.

The most elegant and most admired writers of Greece, and especially Homer, and after him Hesiod, abound with small particles, which appear to us pure expletives, created as it were to promote harmony, or fill up a blank without tenue or signification. How those expletive particles should abound in that language beyond any other, we think, is a matter not easy to be accounted for. It has been said by the Zoilus, that if you extract these nonentities from the poems of that bard, qui solus meruit dici poeta, a magnum inane, a mighty blank, would be left behind. We would willingly do justice to that pigmy race of words, and at the same time vindicate the prince of poets from that groundless imputation. Plato likewise, the prince of philosophers, has been often accused of too frequently employing those superfluous auxiliaries.

Those particles were no doubt imported from the east. It would be ridiculous to imagine that any description of men, however enthusiastically fond they might be of harmonious numbers, would fit down on purpose to fabricate that race of monosyllables purely to eke out their verses; mere sounds without significance. In the first place, it may be observed, that there is a very strict connection among the particles of all cognate languages. To this we may add, that the not understanding the nature, relations, signification, and original import of those seemingly unimportant terms, has occasioned not only great uncertainty, but numberless errors in translating the ancient languages into the modern. The Greek language in particular loses a considerable part of its beauty, elegance, variety, and energy, when those adverbial particles with which it is replete are not thoroughly comprehended. An exact translation of those small words, in appearance insignificant, would throw new light not only on Homer and Hesiod, but even upon poets of a much posterior date. Particles, which are generally treated as mere expletives, would often be found energetically significant. It is, however, altogether impossible to succeed in this attempt without a competent skill in the Hebrew, Chaldaic, Arabian, Perisan, and old Gothic languages. We shall here take the liberty to mention a few of those particles which are most familiar, one or other of which occur in almost every line of Homer, and which we believe are either not understood or misunderstood. Such are Δα, ὅν, ἐπιτελοῦ, ἐπαυ, ἐπι, ἐπαυ, ἐπαυ, ἐπαυ. Δα is nothing else but the Chaldaic particle ἐπαυ, the parent of the English the. It likewise signifies by turns, in your turn; ὅν is the same word in the Ionic dialect; ἐπαυ is a particle of the Hebrew affirmative ἐπαυ amen, fides, veritas. ἐπαυ, a kind of oath by the moon, called mana, almost over all the east; hence Dor. ἐπαυ; ἐπαυ, an oath by ἐπαυ, that is, the earth; ἐπαυ, another oath by the same element, probably from the oriental word of the same import; ἐπαυ is a fragment of ἐπαυ mentioned before; ἐπαυ, of ἐπαυ the earth, and ἐπαυ or ἐπαυ, an Egyptian name of the sun; ἐπαυ as a particle which pervades all the dialects of the Gothic language. In this manner we believe all those final words that occur frequently in the Greek tongue, and which have hitherto been held inexplicable, may be easily rendered in significant terms: and were this done, we believe they would add both beauty and energy to the clauses in which they stand. But this discussion must be left to more accomplished adepts.

We shall not explain the nature of prepositions, because we are convinced that few people will take the trouble to peruse this disquisition who are not already acquainted with their import in language. The Greek prepositions are eighteen in number, which need not be enumerated here. Most of these might be easily shown to be particles, or fragments deduced from oriental or Gothic words. The use of these words is to connect together terms in discourse, and to show the relation between them. In languages where, as in English, all these relations are expressed without any change on the termination of the nouns to which they are prefixed, the process is natural and easy. The whole is performed by juxtaposition. But in the Greek and Latin tongues, this effect is produced partly by prefixing prepositions and partly varying the terminations of nouns. Had the Greeks been able to intimate all those relations by varying the terminations, or had they multiplied their prepositions to such a number as would have enabled them to express these relations without the casual variations, as the northern languages have done; in either case their language would have been less embarrassing than it is in its present state. According to the present arrangement both prepositions and the casual variations are used promiscuously to answer that purpose; a method which appears to us not altogether uniform. Though this plan might occasion little embarrassment to natives, it must, in our opinion, have proved somewhat perplexing to foreigners. The difficulty would be, as to the latter, when to adopt the one and when the other expedient.

Another inconvenience arises from the exceeding small number of prepositions in that language, which bear too small a proportion to the great variety of relations which they are appropriated to express. This deficiency obliged them often to employ the same preposition to denote different relations: For instance, ἐπαυ intimates, 1st, ἐπαυ, upon the stone; and then it takes the genitive. 2d, It denotes near upon; as ἐπαυ τῷ λίθῳ, and then it governs the dative. 3d, The same preposition signifies motion towards; as ἐπαυ τῷ λίθῳ, he fell upon the stone. In these instances the same preposition intimates three different relations; and, which is still more embarrassing, each of these requires a different case. The difficulty in this instance is to considerate, that even the most accurate of the Greek writers themselves often forget or neglect the true application. Many examples of this might be adduced, did the limits assigned us admit such illustrations. Every man who has carefully perused the Grecian authors will readily furnish himself with examples.

Again, some prepositions, which indicate different relations irregularly, are prefixed to the same case. Thus, ἐπαυ signifies, from; as, ἐπαυ ἐκ τῆς ἀρχῆς, from Jupiter we begin; ἐπαυ ἐκ τῆς ζωῆς, from my life, or my course of life; ἐπαυ τῶν πορών, before the doors; ἐπαυ τῶν εὐχαριστῶν, an encouagement before the victory; ἐπαυ ἀγάθων ἀπὸδομῶν κακῶν, to render evil Greek evil for good; ἀντί, against you. In these examples, and indeed everywhere, those prepositions intimate different relations, and yet are prefixed to the same cases. Sometimes the same preposition seems to assume two opposite significations: this appears from the preposition ἀντί just mentioned, which intimates both for, instead of, and against or opposite to.

What has been observed with respect to the prepositions above mentioned, the reader will readily enough apply to κατά, μετά, διά, πρός. These incongruities certainly imply something irregular; and seem to intimate that those anomalies were so deeply incorporated with the constitution of the language, that the subsequent improvers found it impossible to correct them. Indeed to prefix a preposition to a case already distinguished by the affixed termination, appears to us a superfluity at least, if not an absurdity; for certainly it would have been more natural to have said ἐκ Ζεύς αἰγοποιὸς, than ἐκ Διός αἰγοποιὸς. Some very learned men, who have inquired into the origin of language, have been of opinion that prepositions were the last invented species of words. If this opinion be well founded, we may suppose (and we think that this supposition is not altogether improbable) that the causal terminations of the Greek language were first affixed to the radix, in the manner above exhibited; and that prepositions were afterwards fabricated and prefixed to the cases already in use.

The syntax or construction of the Greek language does not, according to our plan, come within the compass of our present inquiry. This the curious Greek student will easily acquire, by applying to the grammars composed for that purpose. We have already hazarded a few conjectures with respect to the formation of the most important and most distinguished classes of words into which it has been divided by the most able grammarians, without, however, defending to the minute of the language. As prepositions are the chief materials with which its other words, especially verbs, are compounded, we shall briefly consider the order in which they probably advanced in this process.

Complex ideas are compounded of a certain number or collection of simple ones. Of those complex notions, some contain a greater and some a smaller number of simple conceptions. In language, then, there are two ways of expressing those complex ideas, either by coining a word to express every simple idea separately, according to the order in which they stand in the mind; or by trying to combine two or more simple terms into one, and by that method to intimate one complex idea by one single word. The Arabians, notwithstanding all the boasted excellencies of their language, have never arrived at the art of compounding their words, in order to answer this noble purpose; and the sister dialects are but feebly provided with this species of vocables. The Greeks, of all other nations (except perhaps those who spoke the Sanscrit language), are unrivalled in the number, variety, propriety, elegance, energy, and expression of their compound terms. The Greeks, like the Arabians, in the earliest stages of their language, had only a collection of radical disjointed words, consisting of the jargons of the aboriginal Greeks, of the Pelasgi, Thracians, &c. How these words were arranged and constructed, we have no data remaining upon which we can find a critical investigation. We must therefore remain satisfied with such probable conjectures as the nature of the case, and the analogy of the language, seem to suggest.

The prepositions were originally placed before the nouns, whose relations they pointed out. For example, let us take the ἐξαναγκασμένος τῶν ἄλλων, he died along with the rest, or he died out of hand along with the others. These words were arranged thus: ἐξαναγκασμένος τῶν ἄλλων; and ἐξαναγκασμένος τῶν ἄλλων. In this manner the parts of every compound word were placed separately, at least as much as other words which had no connection.

The first compound words of the Greek language were the radical nouns with the article, and the radical words in part of the substantive or auxiliary verb. The success of this experiment encouraged them to attempt the same in other words. By this noble invention they found themselves able to express, in one word, with ease and significance, what in other languages, and formerly in their own, required a tedious ambiguity or circumlocution. In process of time, as their language was gradually meliorated, they increased the number of their compounds, till their language, in that respect, infinitely excelled all its parent dialects. In this process they were careful to unite such letters as not only prevented asperity and difficulty of pronunciation, but even promoted harmony and elegance. But this was the labour of posterior ages.

The Greeks were entirely ignorant of the derivation or etymology of their language: for this we need only consult Plato's Cratylus, Aristotle's Rhetoric, Demetrius Phalereus, Longinus, &c. In deducing patronymics, abstracts, poetesses, gentiles, diminutives, verba, &c., from radicals of every kind, they have shown the greatest art and dexterity. Examples of this occur almost in every page of every Greek author. But this extended no farther than their own language; every foreign language was an abomination to the Greeks. But more of this in the sequel.

The original materials of the Greek tongue were undoubtedly rough and discordant, as we have described them above. They had been collected from different quarters, were the produce of different countries, and hence had been imported at very distant periods. It would therefore be an entertaining, if not an instructing, speculation, if it were possible to discover by what men and by what means, this wonderful fabric was founded, erected, and carried to perfection. The writers of Greece afford us no light. Foreigners were unacquainted with that originally insignificant canton. Everything beyond Homer is buried in eternal oblivion. Orpheus is indeed reported to have composed poems; but these were soon obliterated by the hand of time. The verses now ascribed to that philosophical hero are none of his*. Linus wrote, in the Pelasgic dialect, the art. * Pausan. achievements of the first Bacchus; Thamyris the Thracian wrote; and Pronapides the master of Homer was a celebrated poet. The works of all these bards did not long survive; and it is a certain fact that the Greek tongue was highly polished even more early than the age in which these worthies flourished. Homer, no doubt, imitated their productions, and some are of opinion that he borrowed liberally from them. The Greeks knew no more of the original character of their language, than of the original character and complexion of... of their progenitors. They allowed, indeed, that their language was originally barbarous and uncouth; but by what means or by what persons it was polished, enriched, and finally arranged, was to them an impenetrable secret.

We have already demonstrated that the Ionim or aborigines of Greece were a race of barbarians; that consequently their language, or rather their jargon, was of the same contexture. The Pelasgi found both the people and their speech in this uncultivated state. These people arrived in Greece about the year before Christ 1760. It was then that the language of Greece began to be cultivated. Before the age of Homer the work seems to have been completed. Nothing of consequence was afterwards added to the original stock; on the contrary, not a few moieties were deducted from the Homeric treasure. The Pelasgi, as was said before, arrived in Greece an. ant. Chr. 1760. Homer is thought to have been born an. ant. Chr. 1041; consequently the cultivation of the Greek tongue was completed in a period of about 700 years. But upon the supposition that Orpheus, Linus, Thamyris, &c. wrote long before Homer, as they certainly did, that language had arrived nearly at the standard of perfection two centuries before; by which computation the period of its progress towards its stationary point is reduced to 500 years. But as the Pelasgi were a colony of foreigners, we ought to allow them one century at least to settle and incorporate with the natives, and to communicate their language, laws, manners, and habits, to the aborigines of the country. By this deduction we shall reduce the term of cultivation to less than four centuries.

During this period Greece was furiously agitated by tumults and insurrections. That country was divided into a number of independent states, which were perpetually engaged in quarrels and competitions. The profession of arms was absolutely necessary for the protection and preservation of the state; and the man of conduct and prowess was honoured as a demi-god, and his exploits transmitted with eclat to posterity. The Greek tongue was then rough and unpolished; because, like the ancient Romans, the bravest men were more disposed to act than to speak. Every language will take its colour from the temper and character of those who employ it; and had it not been owing to one class of men, the Greek tongue would have continued equally rough to the era of Homer as it had been a century after the arrival of the Pelasgi.

There has appeared among barbarous or half-civilized people a description of men whose profession it has been to frequent the houses or palaces of the great, in order to celebrate their achievements, or those of their ancestors, in the sublime strains of heroic poetry. Accordingly, we find that the Germans had their bards, the Gauls their poets, the Scandinavians their seafarers or seafarers, the Irish their filers, all retained for that very purpose. They lived with their chieftains or patrons; attended them to battle; were witnesses of their heroic deeds; animated them with martial strains; and celebrated their prowess, if they proved victorious; or, if they fell, raised the song of woe, and chanted the mournful dirge over their sepulchres. These bards were always both poets and musicians. Their persons were held sacred and inviolable. They attended public entertainments, and appeared in all national con-

ventions. The chief of them were employed in the Greek temples of the gods; and the leis illustrious, like our Language mintrills of old, strolled about from place to place, and exercised their functions wherever they found employment.

Among the ancient Greeks there was a numerous by the tribe of men of the very same description, who were, etc., who at once poets and musicians, and whose office it was to celebrate the praises of the great, and to transmit their exploits to posterity in the most exaggerated ecomiums. These poetical vagrants were styled Aoidoi or songsters. Some of these lived in the housetops of great men; while others, less skilful or less fortunate, strolled about the country in the manner above described. The more illustrious of these Aoidoi who were retained in the temples of the gods, were certainly the first improvers of the language of the Greeks. Among the Hebrews we find the first poetical compositions were hymns in honour of Jehovah, and among the Pagans the same practice was established. In Greece, when all was confusion and devastation, the temples of the gods were held sacred and inviolable. There the Aoidoi improved their talents, and formed religious anthems on those very models which their progenitors had chanted in the east.

The language of the Greeks was yet rugged and unmellowed: their first care was to render it more soft and more flexible. They enriched it with vocables suited to the offices of religion; and these, we imagine, were chiefly imported from the east. Homer everywhere mentions a distinction between the language of gods and men. The language of gods imports the distinction oriental terms retained in the temples, and used in between treating of the ceremonies of religion; the language of men intimates the ordinary civil dialect which sprung gods and from the mixed dialects of the country. The priests, of men, no doubt, concurred in promoting this noble and important purpose. From this source the frolicking Aoidoi drew the rudiments of their art; and from these last the vulgar deduced the elements of a polished style.

To these Aoidoi of the superior order we would ascribe those changes mentioned in the preceding part of this inquiry, by which the Greek tongue acquired that variety and flexibility, from which two qualities it has derived a great share of that ease, beauty, and versatility, by which it now surpasses most other languages. The diversity of its terminations furnishes a most charming variety, while at the same time the sense is communicated to the reader or hearer by the relation between them. By this economy the poet and orator are left at liberty to arrange their vocables in that order which may be most pleasing to the ear, and best adapted to make a lasting impression on the mind.

Few colonies have emigrated from any civilized country without a detachment of priests in their train. The supreme powers, whoever they were, have always been worshipped with music and dancing. The Hebrews, Phoenicians, and Egyptians, delighted in these musical and jocund festivals. The priests who attended the Iones, Dorics, Æolians, Thebans, Athenians, &c., from the east, introduced into Greece that exquisite taste, those delicate musical feelings, which distinguished the Greeks from all the neighbouring nations. Hence that numerous race of onomatopoeas, by which the Greek language is invested with the power of expressing almost every passion of the human soul, in such terms as oblige it to feel and actually to assimilate to the passion it would excite. Numberless instances of this occur in every page of Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Sophocles, Euripides, and even of Aristophanes; to quote instances would be to insult the Greek student.

Every body knows that the practice of writing in verse was antecedent to the date of profuse composition. Here, then, the Aeschyli and the ministers of religion chiefly displayed their skill and discernment. By a judicious mixture of short and long syllables; by a junction of consonants which naturally slide into each other; by a careful attention to the rhythm, or harmony resulting from the combination of the syllables of the whole line—they completed the metrical tone of the verse, guided by that delicacy of musical feeling of which they were possessed before rules of prosody were known among men.

Much liberty was certainly used in transposing letters, in varying terminations, in amending prefixes and suffixes, both to nouns and other kinds of words where such adjuncts were possible: and upon this occasion we think it probable, that those particles of which we have spoken above were inserted like filling stones thrust in to stop the gaps or chinks of a building. Verses were then clumsy and irregular, as the quantity of vowels was not duly ascertained, and the collision of heterogeneous consonants not always avoided. Probably these primitive verses differed as widely from the finished strains of Homer and his successors, as those of Chaucer and Spencer do from the smooth polished lines of Dryden and Pope.

The poetical compositions of the earliest Greeks were not, we think, in the hexameter style. As they were chiefly calculated for religious services, we imagine they resembled the Hebrew jambics preserved in the song of Aaron and Miriam, Deborah and Barak, Psalms, Proverbs, &c., which were indeed calculated for the same purpose. Archilochus perhaps imitated these, though the model upon which he formed his jambics was not generally known. The later dramatic poets seem to have copied from the same archetypes. Hexameters, it is probable, were invented by Orpheus, Linus, Thamyris, Musaeus, &c. The first of these travelled into Egypt, where he might learn the hexameter measure from that people, who used to bewail Maneros and Osiris in elegiac strains. This species of metre was first consecrated to theology, and the most profound sciences of moral and natural philosophy; at length it was brought down to celebrate the exploits of kings and heroes.

Res gestas regumque, ducumque, et fortia bella, Quo ferri possint numero monstrari! Homerus.

We have hazarded a conjecture above, importing that the earliest poetical compositions of the Greeks were consecrated to the service of the gods. We shall now produce a few facts, which will furnish at least a presumptive evidence of the probability of that conjecture.

Orpheus begins his poem with ancient chaos, its transformations and changes, and pursues it through its various revolutions. He then goes on to describe the offspring of Saturn, that is time, the ether, love, and light. In short, his whole poem is said to have been an oriental allegory, calculated to inspire mankind with the fear of the gods, and to deter them from murder, rapine, unnatural lusts, &c.

Musaeus was the favourite scholar of Orpheus, or perhaps his son. He composed prophecies and hymns, and wrote sacred instructions, which he addressed to his son. He prescribed atonements and lustrations; but his great Musaeus work was a Theogony, or History of the Creation, &c.

Melampus brought the mysteries of Proserpine from Melampus, Egypt into Greece. He wrote the whole history of the disasters of the gods. This fact is mentioned by Homer himself.

Olen came from Lycia, and composed the first hymn Olen, that was sung in Delos at their solemnities; he probably emigrated from Patara a city of Lycia, where Apollo had a celebrated temple and oracle.

The Hyperborean damels used to visit Delos, where they chanted sacred hymns in honour of the Delian god.

To these we add the great Homer himself, if indeed Homer and the hymns commonly annexed to the Odyssey are his Hesiod composition. Hesiod's Theogony is too well known to need to be mentioned.

From these instances we hope it appears, that the origin of the poetry of Greece is to be found in the temples; and that there, its measure, numbers, rhythm, and other appendages, were originally fabricated.

The Grecian poets, however, enjoyed another advantage which that class of writers have seldom possessed, which arose from the different dialects into which their language was divided. All those dialects were adopted indifferently by the prince of poets; a circumstance which enabled him to take advantage of any word with their origin from any dialect, provided it suited his purpose. This, at the same time that it rendered versification easy, diffused an agreeable variety over his composition. He even accommodated words from Macedonia, Epirus, and Illyricum, to the purposes of his versification. Besides, the laws of quantity were not then clearly ascertained; a circumstance which afforded him another conveniency. Succeeding poets did not enjoy these advantages, and consequently have been more circumscribed both in their diction and numbers.

The Greek language, as is generally known, was divided into many different dialects. Every sept, or petty canton, had some peculiar forms of speech which distinguished it from the others. There were, however, four different dialectical variations which carried it over all the others. These were the Attic, Ionic, Aeolic, and Doric. These four dialectical distinctions originated from the different countries in the east from which the tribes respectively emigrated. The Attics consisted, 1st, of the barbarous aborigines; 2d, of an adventitious colony of Egyptian Satires; 3d, a branch of Ionians from the coast of Palestine. These last formed the old Ionian dialect, from which sprung the Attic and modern Ionic. The Aeolians emigrated from a different quarter of the same coast; the inhabitants of which were a remnant of the old Canaanites, and consequently different in dialect from the two first mentioned colonies. The Dorics sprang from an unpolished race of purple fishers on the same coast, and consequently spoke a dialect more coarse and rustic than any of the rest. These four nations emigrated from different regions; a circumstance which, in our opinion, laid the foundation of the different dialects by which they were afterwards distinguished.

It is impossible in this short sketch to exhibit an exact view of the distinguishing features of each dialect. Such an analysis would carry us far beyond the limits of the article. article in question. For entire satisfaction on this head, we must refer the Grecian student to Mattaire's *Grecce Linguae Dialecti*, where he will find every thing necessary to qualify him for understanding that subject. We shall content ourselves with the few observations following.

The Athenians being an active, brisk, volatile race, delighted in contractions. Their style was most exquisitely polished. The most celebrated authors who wrote in that dialect were the following: Plato, Thucydides, Xenophon, Demosthenes, and the other orators; Æschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Menander, Diphilus, with the other comic and tragic poets. That dialect was either ancient or modern. The ancient Attic was the same with the Ionic.

The Ionic, as was said, was the ancient Attic; but when that nation emigrated from Attica and settled on the coast of Asia Minor, they mingled with the Carians and Pelasgi, and of course adopted a number of their vocabularies. They were an indolent, luxurious, and dissolute people; of course their style was indeed easy and flowing, but verbose, redundant, and without nerves. This, however, is the leading style in Homer; and after him a prodigious number of writers on every subject have used the same dialect, such as Herodotus of Halicarnassus the celebrated historian; Ctesias of Cnidus the historian of Persia and India; Hecateus of Miletus; Megasthenes the historian, who lived under Seleucus Nicator; Hippocrates the celebrated physician of Cos; Helanicus the historian often mentioned with honour by Polybius; Anacreon of Teia, Alcæus, Sappho of Lesbos, excellent poets; Pherecydes Syrus the philosopher, and a multitude of other persons of the same profession, whom it would be superfluous to mention upon the present occasion.

The Æolic and Doric were originally cognate dialects. When the Dorians invaded Peloponnesus and settled in that peninsula, they incorporated with the Æolians, and their two dialects blended into one produced the new Doric. The original Doric inhabited a rugged mountainous region about Ossa and Pindus, and spoke a rough unpolished language similar to the foil which they inhabited. Andreas Schottus, in his observations on poetry, lib. ii. cap. 50, proves from an old manuscript of "Theocritus, that there were two dialects of the Doric tongue, the one ancient and the other modern; that this poet employed Ionic and the modern Doric; that the old Doric dialect was rough and cumbrous; but that Theocritus has adopted the new as being more soft and mellow." A prodigious number of poets and philosophers wrote in this dialect, such as Epicharmus the poet; Ibycus the poet of Rhegium; Corinna the poetess of Thebes, or Thebes, or Corinth, who bore away the prize of poetry from Pindar; Erymna the poetess of Lesbos; Moschus the poet of Syracuse; Sappho the poetess of Mytilene; Pinдарus of Thebes, the prince of lyric poets; Archimedes of Syracuse, the renowned mathematician; and almost all the Pythagorean philosophers. Few historians wrote in that dialect; or if they did, their works have not fallen into our hands. Most of the hymns sung in temples of the gods were composed in Doric; a circumstance which evinces the antiquity of that dialect, and which, at the same time, proves its affinity to the oriental standard.

After that the Greek tongue was thoroughly polished by the steps which we have endeavoured to trace in the preceding pages, conscious of the superior excellency of their own language, the Greeks, in the pride of their language, heart, stigmatized every nation which did not employ their language with the contemptuous title of barbarians. This particular delicacy of their pampered ears, that they could not endure the untutored voice of the people whom they called Barbari. This extreme delicacy produced language, and led them to metamorphose sometimes even to mingle foreign names, in order to reduce their found to the Grecian standard; and, 2d, It prevented their learning the languages of the east, the knowledge of which would have opened to them an avenue to the records, annals, antiquities, laws, customs, &c. of the people of those countries, in comparison of whom the Greeks themselves were of yesterday, and knew nothing. By this unlucky bias, not only they, but even we who derive all the little knowledge of antiquity we possess through the channel of their writings, have suffered an irreparable injury. By their transformation of oriental names they have in a manner stopped the channel of communication between the histories of Europe and Asia. This appears evident from the fragments of Ctesias's Persian history, from Herodotus, Xenophon, and all the other Grecian writers who have occasion to mention the intercourse between the Greeks and Persians. 3d, It deprived them of all knowledge of the etymology of their own language, without which it was impossible for them to understand its words, phraseology, and idioms, to the bottom. We mentioned Plato's Cratylus above. In that dialogue, the divine philosopher endeavours to investigate the etymology of only a few Greek words. His deductions are absolutely childish, and little superior to the random conjectures of a school-boy. Varro, the most learned of all the Romans, has not been more successful. Both stumbled on the very threshold of that useful science; and a scholar of very moderate proficiency in our days knows more of the origin of these two noble languages, than the greatest adepts among the natives did in theirs. By prefixes, affixes, transpositions of letters, new conjunctions of vowels and consonants for the sake of the music and rhythm, they have so disguised their words, that it is almost impossible to develop their original. As a proof of this, we remember to have seen a manuscript in the hands of a private person where the first twelve verses of the Iliad are carefully analysed; and it appears to our satisfaction that almost every word may be, and actually is, traced back to a Hebrew, Phoenician, Chaldean, or Egyptian original: And we are convinced that the same process will hold good in the like number of verses taken from any of the most celebrated poets of Greece. This investigation we found was chiefly conducted by reducing the words to their original invariable state, which was done by stripping them of prefixes, affixes, &c. These strictures are, we think, well founded; and consequently need no apology to protect them.

These imperfections, however, are counterbalanced by numberless excellencies: and we are certainly much the more indebted to that incomparable people for the information they have transmitted to us through the medium of their writings, than injured by them in not conveying to us and to ourselves more authentic and more ample communications of ancient events and occurrences. Without fatiguing our readers with superfluous encomiums on a language which has long ago been extolled perhaps Every word in the Greek language beginning with a vowel is marked with a spirit or breathing; this aspiration is double, namely *lenis et asper*, "the gentle, and rough or aspirated." The gentle accent, though always marked, is not now pronounced, though in the earliest periods of the language it was undoubtedly enounced, though very softly. Both these aspirations were imported from the east. They were actually the Hebrew *n he* and *n heth*. The former denoted the *spiritus lenis*, and the latter the *spiritus asper*. The Hebrew prefixed *ha* or *he* to words beginning with a vowel, and of course the Greeks followed their example. These people seem to have delighted in aspirates; and of consequence the letter *i* is, I think, rather too often affixed to the terminations of their words. Every word beginning with *g* had the aspirate joined to *e*, probably with a design to render the aspiration still more rough.

The Greek accents are three in number; the acute, the grave, and the circumflex. The acute raises and sharpens the voice; the grave depresses and flattens it; the circumflex first raises and sharpens the voice, and then depresses and flattens it. It is obviously composed of the other two. The learned author of the Origin and Progress of Language has taken much pains to prove that these accents were actually musical notes, invented and accommodated to raise, depress, and suspend the voice, according to a scale of musical proportions. It is scarcely possible, we think, for a modern Greek scholar to comprehend distinctly the ancient theory of accents. These the native Greeks learned from their infancy, and that with such accuracy, that even the vulgar among the Athenians would have hissed an actor or actresses off the stage or an orator off the pulpitum*, on account of a few mistakes in the enunciation of those notes.

The elevations, depressions, and suspensions of the voice upon certain syllables, must have made their language found in the ears of foreigners somewhat like recitative, or something nearly resembling cant. But the little variety of those syllabic tones, and the voice not resting upon them, but running them on without interruption, sufficiently distinguished them from music or cant. Be that as it may, we think it highly probable, that the wonderful effects produced by the harangues of the orators of Greece on the enraptured minds of their hearers, were owing in a good measure to those artificial musical tones by which their syllables were so happily diversified.

To this purpose we shall take the liberty to transcribe a passage from Dion. Halic. De Structura Orationis, which we find translated by the author of the Origin and Progress of Language, vol. ii. book 3d, part ii. chap. 7, page 381. "Rhetorical composition is a kind of music, differing only from song or instrumental music, in the degree, not in the kind; for in this composition the words have melody, rhythm, variety, or change, and what is proper or becoming: So that the ear in it, as well as in music, is delighted with the melody, moved by the rhythm, is fond of variety, and desires with all these what is proper and suitable. The difference, therefore, is only of greater and less."

With respect to accents, it may be observed that only one syllable of a word is capable of receiving the acute accent, however many there be in the word. It was thought that raising the tone upon more than one syllable of the word, would have made the pronunciation too various and complicated, and too like chanting.

The grave accent always takes place when the acute is wanting. It accords with the level of the discourse; whereas the acute raises the voice above it.

The circumflex accent being composed of the other two is always placed over a long syllable, because it is impossible first to elevate the voice and then to depress it on a short one. Indeed among the Greeks a long syllable was pronounced like two short ones; and we apprehend it was sometimes written *fo*, especially in later times. It is altogether obvious from two learned Greek authors, Dion. Halic. and Aristofoxenus, that the Greek accents were actually musical notes, and that these tones did not consist of loud and low, or simply elevating and depressing the voice; but that they were uttered in such a manner as to produce a melodious rhythm in discourse.

In a word, the acute accent might be placed upon any syllable before the antepenult, and rose to a fifth in the diatonical scale of music; the grave fell to the third below it. The circumflex was regulated according to the measure of both, the acute always preceding. The grave accent is never marked except over the last syllable. When no accent is marked, there the grave always takes place. Some words are called enclitics. These have no accent expressed, but throw it back upon the preceding word. The circumflex, when the last syllable is short, is often found over the penult, but never over any other syllable but the last or the last but one.

The ancient Greeks had no accentual marks. They learned those modifications of voice by practice from their infancy; and we are assured by good authority, that in pronunciation they observe them to this day. Marks. The accentual marks are said to have been invented by a famous grammarian, Aristofoxenus of Byzantium, keeper of the Alexandrian library under Ptolemy Philopater, and Epiphanius, who was the first likewise who is supposed to have invented punctuation. Accentual marks, however, were not in common use till about the seventh century; at which time they are found in manuscripts. If our curious readers would wish to enter more deeply into the theory of accents, we must remit them to Origin of Language, vol. ii. lib. 2, passim; and to Mr Foster's Essay on the different Nature of Accent and Quantity.

Such, in general, are the observations which we thought the nature of our design obliged us to make on the origin and progress of the Greek language. Some of our more learned readers may perhaps blame us for not interspersing the whole disquisition with quotations from the most celebrated writers in the language which has been the object of our researches. We are well aware that this is the general practice in such cases. The books were before us, and we might have transcribed from them more quotations than the nature of an article of this kind would permit. In the first part there were no books in that language to quote from, because the Greeks knew nothing of their own origin, nor of that of their language, and consequently have recorded nothing but dreams and fictions relating to that subject. Even when we had made considerable progress in our inquiry, the nature of the plan we have adopted excluded in a great measure the use of quotations. When we drew near the conclusion, we imagined that our learned readers would naturally have recourse to the passages alluded to without our information, and that the unlearned would not trouble themselves about the matter. The Greek student who intends to penetrate into the depths of this excellent language, will endeavour to be thoroughly acquainted with the books before mentioned.

Arriollet's Rhetoric and Poetics, his book De Interpretatione, especially with Ammonius's Commentary. Ammonius was a native of Alexandria, and by far the most acute of all the ancient grammarians.

Dion. Halic. De Structura Orationis, where, amidst abundance of curious and interesting observations, will be found the true pronunciation of the Greek letters.

Demetrius Phalereus De Elocutione; a short essay indeed, but replete with instruction concerning the proper arrangement of words and members in sentences.

Longinus, the prince of critics, whose remains are above commendation. Theodorus Gaza† and the other refugees from Constantinople, who found a hospitable reception from the munificent family of the Medici, and whose learned labours in their native language once more revived learning and good taste in Europe. These, with some other critics of less celebrity, but equal utility, will unlock all the treasures of Grecian erudition, without however disclosing the source from which they flowed. To these one might add a few celebrated moderns, such as Monsr. Fourmont the Elder, Monsr. Gebelin, Abbé Pezron, Salmasius, and especially the learned and industrious Lord Monboddo.

We shall now give a very brief account of the vast extent of the Greek language even before the Macedonian empire was erected; at which period, indeed, it became in a manner universal, much more than ever the Latin language could accomplish notwithstanding the vast extent of the Roman empire.

Greece, originally Hellas, was a region of small extent, and yet sent out many numerous colonies into different parts of the world. These colonies carried their native language along with them, and industriously diffused it wherever they formed a settlement. The Iones, Aiolos, and Doros, possessed themselves of all the west and north-west coast of the Lesser Asia and the adjacent islands; and there even the barbarians learned that polished language. The Greek colonies extended themselves along the south coast of the Euxine sea as far as Sinope, now Trebizond, and all the way from the west coast of Asia Minor; though many cities of barbarians lay between, the Greek tongue was understood and generally spoken by people of rank and fashion.

There were Greek cities on the north coast of the Euxine sea to the very eastern point, and perhaps beyond even those limits; likewise in the Taurica Cheroneus, or Crim Tartary; and even to the mouth of the Danube, the straits of Caffa, &c. In the neighbourhood of all these colonies, the Greek language was carefully propagated among the barbarians, who carried on commerce with the Greeks.

A great part of the south of Italy was planted with Greek cities on both coasts; so that the country was denominated Magna Graecia. Here the Greek tongue universally prevailed. In Sicily it was in a manner vernacular. The Ionians had sent a colony into Egypt in the reign of Ptolemy; and a Greek settlement had been formed in Cyrenaica many ages before. The Phocians had built Massilia or Marseille as early as the reign of Cyrus the Great, where some remains of the Greek language are still to be discovered. Caesar tells us, that in the camp of the Helvetii registers were found in Greek letters. Perhaps no language ever had so extensive a spread, where it was not propagated by the law of conquest.

The Greek tongue, at this day, is confined within very narrow limits. It is spoken in Greece itself, except in Epirus, and the western parts of Macedonia. It is likewise spoken in the Grecian and Asiatic islands, in Candia or Crete, in some parts of the coast of Asia Minor, and in Cyprus; but in all these regions, it is much corrupted and degenerated.

As a specimen, we shall insert a modern Greek song, and the advertisement of a quack medicine, which with other plunder, was brought by the Russians from Chocism or Chotzim in 1772.

Song in modern Greek.

Με δοκείαν πλάσαι με σκέψασαι ἐς τὸ λύκον Εἰμι, καὶ κρίνων, καὶ νὰ χάσω κοιτῶν Στὸ πλάγιον των συμβολών με επικοινωνῶ Μ' αὐτῶν θάβων σοδόνες καὶ σταυρούς. Τι κρίνων πολλῶν καὶ μὲν τυφλοὶ ανασκοποῦν. Θάβων παχύνων, πόλεις οργιζοῦν, "Οπ' ἀρχῆς καὶ Φωκὴ τη συμπαθεία περιέχει Σύνεισιν ευτυχίας καὶ καταστροφής, Καὶ τα Φωκαί με ταυτότητα, νὰ ὑπὸ τα μακρά μαστίγια. Γλίκα την ἡμέρα, πολύπον καὶ ἐν ἀνάστασι, Ν' ἐρείπη καὶ ἐν μακράς προς λίμνην τη Νεάπολη. Μ' ἀπλοίας Σερένης στα μέρη της Εύξεινης. Πέρα ποταμοὺς καὶ τη πονηρή τη συμπαθεία ἐνώπιον, Καὶ τοῦτο ἀν βασιλεύει, φανεῖται τη με Θάβωνα.

Translation.

With dire misfortunes, pains, and woes, O'erwhelm'd, ingulp'd, I struggling fight; O'er my frail bark proud billows close, To plunge her deep in lasting night. Rough seas of ill's incessant roar, Fierce winds adverse, with howling blast, Heave surge on surge. Ah! far from shore My found'ring skiff shall sink at last. Involv'd in low'ring darksome clouds, 'Mid fultry fogs, I pant for breath; Huge foaming billows rend my shrouds, While yawning gulfs extend beneath. From bursting clouds loud thunders roll, And deaf'ning peals terrific spread; Red lightnings dart from pole to pole, And burst o'er my devoted head. When shall the friendly dawning rays Guide me to pleasures once possest? And breezy gales, o'er peaceful seas, Waft to some port of endless rest? In dark despair, with tempests toss, I veer my sail from side to side. Conduct me, Heav'n! to yond' fair coast, Or plunge me in the 'whelm'ing tide.

The Quack Bill.

ΒΑΛΣΑΜΟΝ ΤΗΣ ΙΕΡΟΤΣΑΛΗΜ, ΑΠΟ ΤΑΙΣ, ΚΑΙ ΝΟΥΡΙΑΣ, ΚΑΙ ΠΑΛΕΑΙΣ ΡΕΤΖΕΤΑΙΣ.

ΤΟΥΤΟ το μυστικόν ἀφείτη εἰς τὸ ἀναπνεῖν τομάχι, και βροχή τον χολικόν διαμετρεῖ τὸ παράξιμον. εἰκάζω ὅτι τὰ ἐρεύνηται τῆς κοιλίας ἀδέλφη ἐστὶ τὸ σύνολον και βάρβρα πα- λαιόν. Ἀναγκάζεται τὸ ἐπιστημονικόν πληρώνει τὸ γένος, και τὸ πα- τρικόν ἂν τοῦ πλημνούντος, καὶ τὸ πατρικόν τῶν γονέων. Ἐκ τῆς ἐπιστημονικῆς παραγωγῆς πρέπει να βασίζεται με τὸ ἔργον τοῦ τοῦ παλαιοῦ. Οὐκοῦν και ἄρτιον, καὶ ἅπαξ ἴσως ἢ ἀπαλλαγής, και παραγωγῆς, και ἀλλὰ ἀναγκαία ἵστορας παραγωγῆς Φιλολογίας, και ὅλως τοῦ ἀναγκαίου πληρώνει ὅτι ἐξοφθαλμῶσι τὸ παλαιόν Παλαιότητος, ἀφείτης τὸ τοῦ ἀναγκαίου ἐπιστημονικόν πληρώνει ἡμεῖς ἢ ἀναγκαίας ἢ ἀναγκαίας ἢ ἀναγκαίας ἢ ἀναγκαίας ἢ ἀναγκαίας ἡμεῖς τοῦ ἀναγκαίου πληρώνει ὅτι ἐξοφθαλμῶσι τὸ παλαιόν ἡμεῖς τοῦ ἀναγκαίου πληρώνει ὅτι ἐξοφθαλμῶσι τὸ παλαιόν ἡμεῖς τοῦ ἀναγκαίου πληρώνει ὅτι ἐξοφθαλμῶσι τὸ παλαιόν ἡμεῖς τοῦ ἀναγκαίου πληρώνει ὅτι ἐξοφθαλμῶσι τὸ παλαιόν

Ἡ δύναμις ἐπιστημονικῆς ἢ ἀναγκαίας ἢ ἀναγκαίας ἢ ἀναγκαίας ἢ ἀναγκαίας ἡμεῖς τοῦ ἀναγκαίου πληρώνει ὅτι ἐξοφθαλμῶσι τὸ παλαιόν ἡμεῖς τοῦ ἀναγκαίου πληρώνει ὅτι ἐξοφθαλμῶσι τὸ παλαιόν ἡμεῖς τοῦ ἀναγκαίου πληρώνει ὅτι ἐξοφθαλμῶσι τὸ παλαιόν

Ἀληθὲς ἀληθὲς τὸ παλαιόν.

Instead of giving a literal and bald translation of this advertisement, which runs exactly in the style of other quack bills, it may be sufficient to observe, that the medicine recommended is said, when taken inwardly, to raise the spirits, remove coffiveness and inveterate coughs; to cure pains of the breast and bellyaches; to assist respiration, and remove certain female obstructions. When applied externally, it cures wounds and sores, whether old or fresh, removes ringing of the ears, fastens the teeth when loose, and strengthens the gums.

All this, and much more, it is said to do in a wonderful manner; and is declared to be the true royal balsam of Jerusalem, and an universal specific.

It is indeed next to a miracle that so many monuments of Grecian literature are still to be found among men. Notwithstanding the burning of the famous library of Alexandria, and the almost numberless wars, massacres, and devastations, which have from time to time in a manner defoliated those countries where the Greek language once flourished; we are told that there still remain about 3000 books written in that language.

We shall now conclude this section with a brief detail of the most distinguished stages and variations through which this noble tongue made its progress from the age of Homer to the taking of Constantinople, an. ant. Chr. 1453; a period of more than 2000 years.

Homer gave the Greek poetry its colour and consistence, and enriched, as well as harmonized, the language. It seems, from the coincidence of epithets and cadence in Homer and Hesiod, that the Greek heroic verse was formed spontaneously, by the old Αοιδοι, a sort of improvisatori; and that Homer and his first followers adopted their versification. The Iliad and Odyssey have much of the air of extempore composition; an epithet is never wanting to fill up a verse; and a fet of expressions are mechanically annexed to such ideas as were of frequent recurrence. Hence that copiousness and waste of words in the old Greek bard, which forms such a contrast to the condensed and laboured composition of Virgil.

The Greek prose was of a more difficult structure; and it may be distributed into different styles or degrees of purity. Of the prose-authors now extant, the first and best style is that of Herodotus; and of Plato in the florid or mixed kind, of Xenophon in the pure and simple, of Thucydides and Demosthenes in the austere. Nothing, perhaps, is so conducive to form a good taste in composition as the study of these writers.

The style of Polybius forms a new epoch in the history of the Greek language: it was the idiotic or popular manner of expression, especially among military men, in his time, about the 150th Olympiad. It became the model of succeeding writers, by introducing a simple unflustered expression, and by emancipating them from the anxious labour of the old Greeks respecting the cadence and choice of words. The style of the New Testament, being plain and popular, frequently resembles that of Polybius, as has been shown by Raphelius, and by Kirchmeyer, de parallelo mo N. T. et Polybii, 1725.

Before this historian, the Alexandrian Jews had formed a new or Hellenistic style, resulting from the expression of oriental ideas and idioms in Greek words, after that language had lost of its purity, as it gained in general use, by the conquests of Alexander. The Hellenistic is the language of the Septuagint, the Apocrypha, the New Testament, and partly of Philo and Josephus. This mixture in the style of the evangelists and apostles, is one credential of the authenticity of the best of all books, a book which could not have been written but by Jewish authors in the first century. See the fine remarks of Bishop Warburton, Doctrine of Grace, book i. ch. 8—10. Critics lose their labour in attempting to adjust the Scripture-Greek to the standard of Atticism.

The diction of the Greek historians, and geographers of the Augustan age, is formed on that of Polybius; but improved and modernized, like the English of the present age, if compared with that of Clarendon or Bacon. More perspicuous than refined, it was well suited to such compilations as were then written by men of letters, such as Dionysius, Diodorus, and Strabo, without much experience or rank in public life.

The ecclesiastical style was cultivated in the Christian schools of Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople; rank and luxuriant, full of oriental idioms, and formed in a great measure on the Septuagint version. Such is, for instance, the style of Eusebius. After him, the best Christian writers polished their compositions in the schools of rhetoric under the later sophists. Hence the popular and flowing purity of St Chrysostome, who has more good sense than Plato, and perhaps as many good words.

On the Greek of the Byzantine empire, there is a good dissertation by Ducange, de causis corruptae Graecitatis, prefixed to his Glossary, together with Portius's Grammar of the modern Greek. This last stage of the Greek language is a miserable picture of Turkish barbarism.

Sect. VIII.

Greek Language.

And which is most surprising, there is no city of Greece where the language is more different from the ancient than at Athens. The reason of that is, because it has been long inhabited by a mixed multitude of different nations.

To conclude, the Greeks have left the most durable monuments of human wisdom, fortitude, magnificence, and ingenuity, in their improvement of every art and science, and in the finest writings upon every subject necessary, profitable, elegant, or entertaining.

The Greeks have furnished the brightest examples of every virtue and accomplishment, natural or acquired, political, moral, or military; they excelled in mathematics and philosophy; in all the forms of government, in architecture, navigation, commerce, war; as orators, poets, and historians, they stand as yet unrivalled, and are like to stand so for ever; nor are they less to be admired for the exercises and amusements they invented, and brought to perfection, in the institution of their public games, their theatres, and sports.

Let us further observe, that in vain our readers will look for these admired excellencies in any of the best translations from the Greek: they may indeed communicate some knowledge of what the originals contain; they may present you with propositions, characters, and events: but allowing them to be more faithful and more accurate than they really are, or can well be, still they are no better than copies, in which the spirit and lustre of the originals are almost totally lost. The mind may be instructed, but will not be enchanted: The picture may bear some faint resemblance, and if painted by a masterly hand give pleasure; but who would be satisfied with the canvas, when he may possess the real object? who would prefer a piece of coloured glass to a diamond? It is not possible to preserve the beauties of the original in a translation.—The powers of the Greek are vastly beyond those of any other tongue. Whatever the Greeks describe is always felt, and almost seen; motion and music are in every tone, and enthusiasm and enchantment possess the mind:

Graius ingenium, Graiae dedit ore rotundo, Myia loqui. Hor.

Sect. VIII. Of the Latin Language.

This language, like every other spoken by barbarians, was in its beginning rough and uncultivated.—What people the Romans were, is a point in which antiquarians are not yet agreed. In their own opinion they were sprung from the Trojans*; Dion. Halicar. derives them from the Greeks†; and Plutarch informs us‡ that some people imagined that they were sprung from the Pelagii. The fact is, they were a mixture of people collected out of Latium and the adjacent parts, which a variety of accidents had drawn together, to establish themselves on that mountainous region, in order to secure their own property, and plunder that of their neighbours. They were in all probability composed of Arcadians, Sabines, Latins, Etruscans, Umbrians, Oscans, Pelagii, &c.; and if so, their language must have been a mixture of the different dialects peculiar to all these discordant tribes.

The Latin language ought then to be a mingled mass of the Arcadian, that is, the Æolian || Greek, the Pelagian, Etruscan, and Celtic dialects. These jarring elements, like the people to whom they belonged respectively, gradually incorporated, and produced what was afterwards called the Latin tongue.

The Arcadians were a Pelagian tribe, and consequently spoke a dialect of that ancient Greek produced by the coalition of this tribe with the savage aborigines of Greece. This dialect was the groundwork of the Latin. Every scholar allows, that the Æolian Greek, which was strongly tinctured with the Pelagian, was the model upon which the Latin language was formed. From this deduction it appears, that the Latin tongue is much more ancient than the modern Greek; and of course we may add, that the Greek, as it stood before it was thoroughly polished, bore a very near resemblance to that language. Hence we think we may conclude, that the knowledge of the Latin language is necessary in order to understand the Greek. Let us not then expect to find the real ingredients of the Greek tongue in the academic groves of Athens, or in Smyrna, or in Rhodope, or in Hæmos; but on the banks of the Tiber and on the fields of Laurentum.

A very considerable part of the Latin tongue was derived from the Etruscan. That people were the masters of the Romans in every thing sacred. From them they learned the ceremonies of religion, the method of arranging games and public festivals, the art of divination, the interpretation of omens, the method of lustrations, expiations, &c. It would, we believe, be easy to prove, that the Pelagii* and Hetruci (x) were the same race of people; and if this was the case, their det., lib. iv. languages must have differed in dialect only.

The Umbrian or Celtic enters deeply into the composition of the Latin tongue. For proof of this, we need only appeal to Pelloutier, Bullet's Memoires de la Langue Celtique, partie premiere, Abbé Perizon's Origin of Ancient Nations, &c. Whether the old Celtic differed essentially from the Pelagian and Etruscan, would be a matter of curious investigation, were this a proper subject for the present article.

The Latin abounds with oriental words, especially Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Persian. These are certainly remains of the Pelagian and Etruscan tongues, spoken originally by people who emigrated from regions where those were parts of the vernacular language.—The Greeks,

(x) The Hetruci were variously denominated by the Greeks and Romans. The former called them ἑρεμοί; which was their true name, for they actually emigrated from Tarshish, or the western coast of Asia Minor, and consequently Herodotus everywhere calls them ἑρεμοί. The Æolians changed ε into η; hence in that dialect they were called ἑρεμοί, from Tarshish. The Romans styled them Tyrci, probably from the Greek verb τυρκόν, sacrifice, alluding to the skill which that people professed in the ceremonies of religion. They called their country Hierururia, we think from the Chaldaic word heretum, "a magician or sorcerer;" a name deduced from their skill in divination. Latin Greeks, in polishing their language, gradually distorted and disfigured vast numbers of the rough eastern vocabularies, which made a very great part of it. (See the preceding section).

The Romans, of less delicate organs, left them in their natural state, and their natural air readily beaways their original. We had collected a large list of Latin words still current in the east; but find that Thomasson and Ogerius (Y), and especially Monf. Gebelin, in his most excellent Latin Dictionary, have rendered that labour superfluous.

In this language, too, there are not a few Gothic terms. How these found their way into the Latin, it is not easy to discover, unless, as Pelloutier supposes, the Celtic and Gothic languages were originally the same: or perhaps we may conjecture, that such words were parts of a primitive language, which was at one time universal.

There are, besides, in the Latin a great number of obsolete Greek words, which were in process of time obliterated, and others substituted in their room; so that, upon the whole, we are persuaded, that the most effectual method to distinguish the difference between the early and modern Greek, would be to compare the ancient Latin with the latter; there being, we imagine, very little difference between the ancient Greek and Latin in the earliest periods.

However that may be, it is certain that the Roman letters were the same with the ancient Greek.—Forme literis Latinis quae veterrimis Gracorum, says Tacitus *; and Pliny + says the same thing, and for the truth of his assertion he appeals to a monument extant in his own times.

These old Greek letters were no other than the Pelagian, which we have shown from Diodorus Siculus (see preceding Section) to have been prior to the Caddonian. For the figure of these letters, see Ashle, Postellus, Montfaucon, Paleographia Graeca, Monf. Gebelin, and our Plates XV and XVI.

That the Latins borrowed the plan of their declensions from the Greeks, is evident from the exact resemblance of the terminations of the cases throughout the three similar declensions. In nouns of the first declension, the resemblance is too palpable to stand in need of illustration. In the second, the Greek genitive is ai. In Latin the o is thrown out, and the termination becomes i. In the Greek section, we have observed, that the sounds of i and u differed very little; therefore the Latins used i instead of u. The Latin dative ends in o, which is the Greek dative, throwing away falscriptum, which was but faintly founded in that language. No genuine Greek word ended in p or m.

The Hellenes seemed to have abhorred that bellowing liquid; it is, however, certain that they imported it from the east, as well as the other letters, and that they employed it in every other capacity, except in that of closing words. In the termination of flexions, they changed it into v.

The Latins retained m, which had been imported to them as a terminating letter at an era before the Greek language had undergone its last refinement.—Hence the Latin accusative in um, instead of the Greek or. The vocative case, we imagine, was in this declension originally like the nominative. The Latins have no dual number, because, in our opinion, the Aeolian dialect, from which they copied, had none. It would be, we think, a violent stretch of etymological exertion, to derive either the Latin genitive plural of the second declension from the same case of the Greek, or that of the latter from the former; we therefore leave this anomaly, without pretending to account for its original formation. The third declensions in both languages are so exactly parallel, that it would be superfluous to compare them. The dative plural here is another anomaly, and we think a very disagreeable one, which we leave to the conjectures of more profound etymologists.

For the other peculiarities of Latin nouns, as they are nearly similar to those of the Greek, we must beg leave to remit our readers to that section for information.

The Latins have no articles, which is certainly a defect in their language. The Pelagian, from which they copied, had not adopted that word in the demonstrative of articles. Homeric indeed seldom uses it; and the probability is, that the more early Greek used it less frequently, at least in the sense above-mentioned. Thus in Latin, when I say, video hominem, it is impossible to find out by the bare words whether the word hominem intimates “a man,” or “the man;” whereas in Greek it would be Βλέπω ἄνθρωπον, I see a man, Βλέπω τὸν ἄνθρωπον, I see the man. Hence the first expression is indefinite, and the second definite.

The subjunctive verb sum in Latin seems to be partly formed from the Greek and partly not. Some of the origin of persons of the present tense have a near resemblance to the subjunctive Greek verb εἰμί or ἐόν, while others vary widely from the archetype. The imperfect, pluperfect, and preterperfect have nothing common with the Greek verb, and cannot, we think, be forced into an alliance with it. The future ero, was of old e/o, and is indeed genuine Greek. Upon the whole, in our apprehension the Latin subjunctive verb more nearly resembles the Persian verb hafsten than that of any other language we are acquainted with.

From what exemplar the Latin verbs were derived, is not, we think, easily ascertained. We know that attempts have been made to deduce them all from the Aeolian verbs, and that the Romans themselves were extremely fond of this chimera; but the almost numberless irregularities, both in the formation and conjugation of their verbs, induce us to believe that only a part of them were formed upon that model. We are apt to think that the terminations in biam, bar, bat, bamos, &c., are produced by their union with a fragment of some obsolete verb, which is now wholly lost. In the verb amo, e.g., we are sure that the radix am is the Hebrew word mother; but how am-abam, am-abo, am-arem were fabricated, and connected with the radical am, is not so easily determined. That Latin verbs are composed of an inflexible radix and another flexible verb, as well as the Greek, cannot be doubted; but what this

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* Tacitus, Anal. lib. ii. † Nat. Hist. lib. vii. cap. 53.

(v) Graeca et Latina lingua Hebraicae, Venice 1763: If these books are not at hand, Dr Littleton's Dictionary will, in a good measure, supply their place. flexible auxiliary was, we think, cannot now be clearly ascertained. It is not altogether improbable that such parts of the verbs as deviate from the Greek archetype were supplied by fragments of the verb *ha*, which pervades all the branches of the Gothic language, and has, we think, produced the Latin verb *habeo*. When the Greeks began to etymologize, they seldom overpassed the verge of their own language: the Latins pursued nearly the same course. If their own language presented a plausible etymology, they embraced it; if not, they immediately had recourse to the Greek; and this was the *ne plus ultra* of their etymological researches. Cicero, Quintilian, Festus, &c., and even Varro, the most learned of all the Romans, stop here; all beyond is either doubt or impenetrable darkness. The opinion above-mentioned we offer only as a conjecture; the decision we leave to more able critics.

The want of aorists or indefinite tenses seems to us a palpable defect in the Latin language. The use of these among the Greeks enabled the writer to express the specific variations of time with more accuracy and precision than the Latins, who never attempted to specify them by any other tense but the imperfect and pluperfect. Indeed we should imagine, that both the Greeks and Latins were much inferior to the English in this respect. The Latin word *lego*, for example, may be translated into English three different ways: 1st, I read; 2d, I do read; 3d, I am reading.

The Latins, in reducing verbs to their four conjugations, formed their inflexions in a very irregular manner. Many verbs of the first class inflect their preterite and supine like those of the second: thus *domo*, instead of giving *avi* and *atum*, has *ui* and *itum*, like *monui* and *montium*. Again, not a few verbs of the third conjugation have *ivi* and *itum*, as if they belonged to the fourth; e.g., *peto*, *petiv*, *petitionem*. Then, some verbs have *io* in the present, *ivi* in the preterite, and *itum* in the supine, while, contrary to the rules of analogy, they in reality belong to the third: such are *cupio*, *cupisti*, *cupitum*, *cupere*, &c. Some verbs of the second conjugation have their preterite and supine as if they belonged to the third; thus, *jubeo*, *jussi*, *jussum*, *jubere*; *augeo*, *aui*, *auctum*, *augere*. Some verbs, which are actually of the fourth conjugation, have their preterite and supine as if they were of the third; thus *sentio*, *senfi*, *sentum*, *sentire*; *hauro*, *haui*, *haustum*, *hauire*, &c. If these are not manifest irregularities, we cannot say what deserves the name. The fact seems to stand thus: The Romans were originally a banditti of robbers, bankrupts, runaway slaves, shepherds, husbandmen, and peasants of the most unpollished character. They were engaged in perpetual broils and quarrels at home, and seldom enjoyed repose abroad. Their profession was robbery and plunder. Like old Ishmael, their hands were against every man, and every man's hand against them. In such a state of society no time was left for cultivating the sciences. Accordingly the arts of war and government were their sole profession. This is so true, that their own poet characterizes them in the following manner:

*Excedunt ali* spirantia mollius aer, &c.

Another blemish in the Latin tongue is occasioned by its wanting a participle of the praeterite tense in the active voice. This defect is perpetually felt, and is the cause of an awkward circumlocution wherever it happens to present itself. Thus, "The general having crossed the river, drew up his army;" *Imperator, cum transflisset flumen, aciem infructu.* Here *cum transflisset flumen* is a manifest circumlocution, which is at once avoided in the Greek ἐν ὕδατι προσέφερε τοῖς στρατεύμασιν, &c. This must always prove an incumbrance in the case of active intranitive verbs. When active deponent verbs occur, it is easily avoided. Thus, "Caesar having encouraged the soldiers, gave the signal for joining battle;" *Caesar cohortatus milites, praeli committendi signum dedit.*

Another palpable defect in this language arises from the want of a participle of the present passive. This again must produce an inconvenience upon many occasions, as will be obvious to every Latin student almost every moment.

The two supines are universally allowed to be substantive nouns of the fourth declension. How these assumed the nature of verbs it is not easy to determine. When they are placed after verbs or nouns, the matter is attended with no difficulty; but how they should acquire an active signification, and take the case of the verb with which they are connected, implies, we should think, a stretch of prerogative.

The Latin gerunds form another unnatural anomaly. Every Latin scholar knows that these words are nothing but the neuters of the participles of the future passive. The fabricators of the Latin tongue, however, elevated them from their primary condition, giving them upon many occasions an active signification. In this case we must have recourse to

*Si volet uter,* *Quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi.*

Another inconvenience, perhaps more severely felt than any of the preceding, arises from the want of the use of the present participle of the verb *sum*. Everybody knows what a convenience is derived from the frequent use of the participle *en* in Greek; and indeed it appears to us somewhat surprising that the Latins neglected to introduce the participle *ens* into their language. In this we believe they are singular. Here again a circumlocution becomes necessary in such a case as the following: "The senate being at Rome, passed a decree." Instead of saying *senatus ens Romae, legem tulit*, we are obliged to say *cum senatus Romae esset*, &c. If the words *ens* or *existens* had been adopted, as in the Greek, this odious circumlocution would have been avoided.

Many other defects of the like kind will occur to every person who shall choose to search for them, and those in the most approved classical authors. Perhaps our mentioning so many may be deemed invidious by the admirers of that language; but we write from conviction, and that must be our apology.

If one take the trouble to compare the structure of the different Greek and Latin languages, he will, we think, quickly be convinced that their characteristic features are extremely different. The genius of the former seems easy and natural; whereas that of the latter, notwithstanding the united efforts of poets, orators, and philologists, still bears the marks of violence and restraint. Hence it appears that the Latin tongue was pressed into the service, and compelled almost against its will to bend to the laws of the Grecian model. Take a sentence of Hebrew, Latin Hebrew, Chaldean, Arabian, &c. and try to translate it into Greek without regarding the arrangement of the words, and you will find it no difficult attempt; but make the same trial with respect to the Latin, and you will probably find the labour attended with considerable difficulty. To translate Greek into English is no laborious task; the texture of the two languages is so congenial, that the words and phrases, and even the idiomatic expressions, naturally slide into each other. With the Latin the case is quite otherwise; and before elegant English can be produced, one must deviate considerably from the original. Should we attempt to translate a piece of English into Greek, and at the same time into Latin, the translation of the former would be attended with much less difficulty than that of the latter, supposing the translator equally skilled in both languages.

This incongruity seems to spring from the following cause. Before any man of considerable abilities, either in the capacity of a poet, grammarian, or rhetorician, appeared at Rome, the language had acquired a strong and inflexible tone, too stubborn to be exactly moulded according to the Grecian standard. After a language has continued several centuries without receiving a new polish, it becomes like a full grown tree, incapable of being bent to the purposes of the mechanic. For this reason, it is highly probable, that the tongue in question could not be forced into a complete assimilation with the Greek. Notwithstanding all these obstructions, in proofs of time it arrived at such an exalted pitch of perfection, as to rival, perhaps to excel, all the other European languages, the Greek only excepted. Had men of the taste, judgement, and industry of Ennius, Plautus, Terence, Cicero, and the worthies of the Augustan age, appeared in the early stages of the Roman commonwealth, we may believe that their language would have been thoroughly reduced to the Grecian archetype, and that the two dialects might have improved each other by a rivalryship between the nations who employed them.

Without pretending to entertain our readers with a pompous and elaborate account of the beauties of that imperial language which have been detailed by writers almost without number, we shall endeavour to lay before them as briefly as possible its pristine character, the steps and stages by which it gradually rose to perfection, the period when it arrived at the summit of its excellence, and by what means it degenerated with a rapid career till it was lost among those very people to whom it owed its birth.

We have observed already, that the Latin tongue was a collection of all the languages spoken by the vagrant people who composed the first elements of that republic. The prevailing dialects were the Pelasgic or Hetruscan, which we think were the same; and the Celtic, which was the aboriginal tongue of Italy. Hence the primary dialect of the Romans was composed of discordant materials, which in our opinion never acquired a natural and congenial union. Be that as it may, this motley mixture was certainly the original dialect of the Romans. The Pelasgic or Hetruscan part of it retained a strong tincture of the oriental style. The Celtic part seems to have been prevalent, since we find that most of the names of places (z), especially in the middle and northern parts of Italy, are actually of Celtic origin. It is therefore clear that the style of the first Romans was composed of the languages above mentioned. Who these first Romans were, we believe it is impossible to determine with any degree of certainty. The Roman historians afford us as little information upon that subject, as their etymologists do upon the origin of their language. Their most celebrated writers upon this point were Aelius Gallus, Quintus Cornificius, Nonius Marcellus, Fellus, and some others of less note. At the head of these we ought to place Terentius Varro, whom Cicero styles the most learned of all the Romans. From these writers we are to expect no light. Their etymologies are generally childish and futile. Of the language of the most ancient Romans we can only reason by analogy; and by that rule we can discover nothing more than what we have advanced above.

In the first place we may rest assured that the dual number, the articles, the participle above mentioned, the aorists, and the whole middle voice, never appeared in the Latin tongue; and accordingly were not current in those languages from which it was copied, at least at the time when it was first fabricated.

Besides all this, many circumstances concur to make it highly probable that, in the earliest period of the language, very few inflexions were introduced. 1st, When the Pelasgi left Greece, the Greek language itself was not fully polished. 2nd, The Arcadians were never thoroughly cultivated. They were a rustic pastoral people, and little-minded the refinements of a civilized state; consequently the language they brought into Italy at that era must have been of a coarse and irregular texture. 3rd, When the Thessalian* Pelasgi arrived in * Dionys* Italy about the time of Deucalion, the Greek itself was illiterate, rude and barbarous; and, which is still more consequence, if we may credit Herodotus quoted in the former section, that people had never adopted the Hellenic tongue. Hence it appears, that the part of the Latin language derived from the Pelasgic or Hetruscan (for those we believe to have been the same) must have taken a deep tincture from the oriental tongues. (See preceding Section). If we may judge of the Celtic of that age by that of the present, the same character must likewise have distinguished its structure.

From these circumstances, we think it appears that hence little the earliest language of the Romans was very little disinflected in verified with inflexions. It nearly resembled the oriental exemplar, and consequently differed widely from the modern Latin. The effect of this was, that the modern Romans could not understand the language of their early progenitors. Polybius† speaking of the earliest treaty‡ Lib. 7, between the Romans and Carthaginians, makes the following observation: "Believe me (says he), the Roman language has undergone so many changes since that time

(z) For proof of this our readers may consult Abbé Pezron, Pelloutier, Bullet's Mem. Gebelin Prof. Diet. Lat. and many others. time (a) to the present, that even those who are most deeply skilled in the science of antiquities cannot understand the words of that treaty but with the greatest difficulty."

From this source we make no doubt has flowed that vast number of oriental words with which the Latin language is impregnated. These were originally inflexible, like their brethren of the east. They were not disguised as they now are with prefixes, affixes, metatheses, syncope, antitheses, &c., but plain and unadorned in their natural dress.

After the Romans became acquainted with the Æolian Greeks, who gradually seized upon both coasts of Italy towards the south, which they called Magna Graecia, they began to affect a Grecian air, and to torture their language into that foreign contorture. It appears, however, that at first the Grecian garb was rather awkwardly, and several marks of violence were easily discerned. The most ancient specimen of this kind that we can recollect consists of the remains of the Twelve Tables. Here everything is rude and of a clumsy cast; for though by this time considerable progress had been made in refinement, and the language of Rome had begun to appear in a Grecian uniform, still those changes were not altogether natural. Soon after appeared Marcus Fabius Pictor and Sifemus; historians often quoted by Livy, but whose works are long since irrecoverably lost. The Fafl Capitolini are often mentioned; but they too perished in the burning of the Capitol during the civil wars between Marius and Sylla. Had those monuments escaped the ravages of time, we should have been able to mark the progress of the Latin tongue from stage to stage, and to ascertain with the greatest accuracy its gradual configuration in the course of its progress towards the Grecian standard. We must therefore leave the Latin tongue during those periods rude and barbarous, and descend to others better known and more characteristically marked. Those commenced after that

Grecia capta ferum victorem cepit, et artes Intulit agresti Latio.

In this period we find Ennius, who wrote a Roman history in hexameter verse in 18 books, which he called Annals; most part of which is now lost. He likewise translated Euhemerus de Origine Deorum; a work often mentioned by the Christian fathers in their disputes with the Pagans. It is sometimes quoted by Cicero. Then followed Caius Lucilius the famous satirist, and a number of other writers, such as Accius, Valerius, Aeditius, Alpinus, &c., whose fragments were published by the Stephens, Paris, 1564. All these imitated the writers of Greece or translated from them. By their perseverance and active exertions the spirit of these authors was transferred into the Latin tongue, and its structure accommodated to the Grecian plan.

Plautus and Terence, by translating the comedies of Menander and Diphilus into their own language, taught the Latin mules to speak Attic Greek. To speak that language was then the ton of the times, as it is now with us to chatter French. Greek tutors were retained in every reputable family; and many Romans of the first rank were equally qualified to speak or write both in Greek and Latin. The original jargon of Latium was now become obsolete and unintelligible; and Cato the Ancient endeavored to learn the Greek language at 80.

To pretend to enumerate the various, and we may add inimitable, examples of the Augustan or golden age of the Roman tongue, would be an insult to the under-Rome. Standing of our readers: we shall only take the liberty to translate a few lines from a most excellent historian.* Velleius who, had his honesty been equal to his judgment, Paternicul, might have rivalled the most celebrated writers of his country. Having observed, that the Greek authors, who excelled in every province of literature, had all made their appearance nearly about the same space of time, confined within very narrow limits, he adds, "Nor was this circumstance more conspicuous among the Greeks than among the Romans; for unless we go back to the rough and unpolished times, which deserve commendation only on account of their invention, the Roman tragedy is confined to Accius and the period when he flourished. The charming wit of Latin elegance was brought to light by Cecilies, Terentius, and Afranius, nearly in the same age. As for our historians (to add Livy also to the age of the former), if we except Cato and some old obscure ones, they were all confined to a period of 80 years; so neither has our stock of poets extended to a space much backward or forward. But the energy of the bar, and the finished beauty of prose eloquence, setting aside the same Cato (by leave of P. Crassus, Scipio, Laelius, the Gracchi, Fannius, and Ser. Galba, be it spoken), broke out all at once under Tully the prince of his profession; so that one can be delighted with none before him, and admire none except such as have either seen or were seen by that orator."

From this quotation it plainly appears, that the Romans themselves were convinced of the short duration of the golden age of their language. According to the most judicious critics, it commenced with the era of Cicero's oratorical productions, and terminated with the reign of Tiberius, or perhaps it did not reach beyond the middle of that prince's reign. It is generally believed that eloquence, and with it everything liberal, the degenerated, and manly, was banished Rome by the despotic tyranny of the Caesars. We imagine that the transition was too instantaneous to have been entirely produced by that unhappy cause. Despotism was firmly established among the Romans about the middle of the reign of Augustus; and yet that period produced such a group of learned men as never adorned any other nation in so short a space of time. Despotism, we acknowledge, might have affected the eloquence of the bar; the noble and important objects which had animated the republican orators being now no more; but this circumstance could not affect poetry, history, philosophy, &c. The style employed upon these subjects did not feel the fetters of despotism. The age of Louis XIV. was the golden period.

(a) This treaty, according to the same historian, was concluded in the consulship of Lucius Junius Brutus and Marcus Valerius, 28 years before Xerxes made his descent upon Greece. Latin Language.

Latin Language.

period of the French tongue; and we think that age produced a race of learned men, in every department superior in number and equal in genius to the literati who flourished under the noble and envied constitution of Britain during the same age, though the latter is universally allowed to have been the golden period of this country. The British isles, we hope, enjoy still as much liberty as ever; yet we believe few people will aver, that the writers of the present age are equal either in style or in genius to that noble group who flourished from the middle of the reign of Charles I. to the middle of the reign of George II.; and here despotism is quite unconcerned.

In the east the same observation is confirmed. The Persians have long groaned under the Mohammedan yoke; and yet every oriental scholar will allow, that in that country, and under the most galling tyranny, the most amazing productions of taste, genius, and industry, that ever dignified human nature, have been exhibited. Under the Arabian caliphs, the successors of Mohammed, appeared writers of a most sublime genius, though never was despotism more cruelly exercised than under those fanatics. The revival of letters at the era of the Reformation was chiefly promoted and cherished by petty despotic princes.

We cannot therefore be persuaded, that the despotism of the Caesars banished eloquence and learning from Rome. Longinus indeed has attributed this misfortune to that cause, and tells us, ὑπὸ τοῦ προστατεύοντος τῶν Μυστικῶν καὶ Εὐγένειας, &c. "It is liberty that is formed to nurse the sentiments of great geniuses, to push forward the propensity of content, to inspire them with hopes, and the generous ambition of being the first in rank." When Longinus wrote this, he did not reflect that he himself was a striking instance of the unfoundedness of his observation.

As to science, the fact is undoubtedly on the other side. That Seneca was superior to Cicero in philosophy, cannot be reasonably contradicted. The latter had read, and actually abridged, the whole extent of Grecian philosophy; this displayed his reading rather than his learning. The former had addicted himself to the stoic sect; and though he does not write with the same flow of eloquence as Tully, he thinks more deeply and reasons more closely. Pliny's Natural History is a wonderful collection, and contains more useful knowledge than all the writings of the Augustan age condensed into one mass. We think the historical annals of Tacitus, if inferior to Livy in style and majesty of diction, much superior in arrangement and vigour of composition. In short, we discover in these productions a deep insight into human nature, an extensive knowledge of the science of government, a penetration which no dissimulation could escape, together with a sincere attachment to truth both with respect to events and characters; nor is he inferior in the majesty, energy, and propriety of his harangues, wherever an equal opportunity presents itself. Quintilian, Pliny the younger, Suetonius, Petronius Arbiter, and Juvenal, deserve high esteem; nor are they inferior to their immediate predecessors. We think there is good reason to conclude, that the loss of liberty among the Romans did not produce the extinction of eloquence, science, elevation of sentiment, or refinement of taste. There were, we believe, other circumstances which chiefly contributed to produce that revolution.

The fame Velleius Paterculus whom we have quoted affirms some plausible and very judicious reasons for this catastrophe. "Emulation (says he) is the nurse of genius; and one while envy, and another admiration, fires imitation. According to the laws of nature, that which is pursued with the greatest ardour mounts to the top; but to be stationary in perfection is a difficult matter; and by the same analogy, that which cannot go forward goes backward. As at the outset we are animated to overtake those whom we deem before us, so when we despair of being able to overtake or to pass by them, our ardour languishes together with our hope, and what it cannot overtake it ceases to pursue; and leaving the subject as already engrossed by another, it looks out for a new one upon which to exert itself. That by which we find we are not able to acquire eminence we relinquish, and try to find out some object elsewhere upon which to employ our intellectual powers. The consequence is, that frequent and variable transitions from subject to subject proves a very great obstacle to perfection in any profession."

This perhaps was the case with the Romans. The heroes of the Augustan age had borne away the prize of eloquence, of history, of poetry, &c. Their successors deprived of being able to equal, much less to surpass them, in any of these walks. They were therefore laid under the necessity of striking out a new path by which they might arrive at eminence. Consequently Seneca introduced the style couper, as the French call it; that is, a short, sparkling, figurative diction, abounding with antitheses, quainteties, witticisms, embellished with flowers and meretricious ornaments; whereas the style of the Augustan age was natural, simple, solid, unaffected, and properly adapted to the nature of the subject and the sentiments of the author.

The historian Sallust laid the foundation of the unnatural style above mentioned. Notwithstanding all the excellencies of that celebrated author, he everywhere exhibits an affectation of antiquity, an antithetical cast, an air of austerity, an accuracy, exactness, and regularity, contrary to that air de grâce which nature displays in her most elaborate efforts. His words, his clauses, seem to be adjusted exactly according to number, weight, and measure, without excess or defect. Velleius Paterculus imitated this writer; and, as is generally the case with imitators, succeeded best in those points where his archetype had failed most egregiously. Tacitus, however excellent in other respects, deviated from the Augustan exemplars, and is thought to have imitated Sallust; but affecting brevity to excess, he often falls into obscurity. The other contemporary writers employ a cognate style; and because they have deviated from the Augustan standard, their works are held in less estimation, and are thought to bear about them marks of degeneracy.

That degeneracy, however, did not spring from the despotic government under which these authors lived, but from that affectation of singularity into which they were led by an eager but fruitless desire of signalizing themselves in their mode, as their predecessors had done in theirs. But the mischiefs of this rage for innovation did not reach their sentiments, as it had done their style; style; for in that point we think they were so far from falling below the measure of the writers of the former age, that in many instances they seem to have surpassed them.

With respect to sentiment and mental exertions, the authors in question preserved their vigour, till luxury and effeminacy, in consequence of power and opulence, enervated both the bodies and minds of the Romans. The contagion soon became universal; and a little thefts, or intellectual torpor, the usual concomitant of luxury, spread indolence over the mental faculties, which rendered them not only averse to, but even incapable of, industry and perseverance. This lethargic disposition of mind seems to have commenced towards the conclusion of the silver age; that is, about the end of the reign of Adrian. It was then that the Roman eagle began to stoop, and the genius of Rome, as well in arts as in arms, began to decline. Once more, the declension of the intellectual powers of the writers of that nation did not arise from the form of the government, but from the causes above specified.

As the Roman genius, about that period, began to decline, so the style of the silver age was gradually vitiated with barbarisms and exotic forms of speech. The multitudes of barbarians who flocked to Rome from all parts of the empire; the ambassadors of foreign princes, and often the princes themselves, with their attendants; the prodigious numbers of slaves who were entertained in all the considerable families of the capital, and over all Italy; the frequent commerce which the Roman armies upon the frontiers carried on with the barbarians; all concurred to vitiate the Latin tongue, and to interlard it with foreign words and idioms. In such circumstances, it was impossible for that or any other language to have continued pure and untainted.

This vitiated character both of style and sentiment became more and more prevalent, in proportion as it descended from the reign of Adrian towards the era of the removal of the imperial seat from Rome to Constantinople. Then succeeded the iron age, when the Roman language became absolutely rude and barbarous.

Towards the close of the silver, and during the whole course of the brazen age, there appeared, however, many writers of no contemptible talents. The most remarkable was Seneca the Stoic, the master of Nero, whose character both as a man and a writer is discussed with great accuracy by the noble author of the Characteristics, to whom we refer our readers.

About the same time lived Persius the satirist, the friend and disciple of the Stoic Cornutus; to whose precepts he did honour by his virtuous life; and by his works, though small, he showed an early proficiency in the science of morals.

Under the mild government of Adrian and the Antonines lived Aulus Gellius, or (as some call him) Agelius; an entertaining writer in the miscellaneous way, well skilled in criticism and antiquity. His works contain several valuable fragments of philosophy, which are indeed the most curious part of them.

With Aulus Gellius we may rank Macrobius; not because he was a contemporary (for he is supposed to have lived under Honorius and Theodosius), but from his near resemblance in the character of a writer. His works, like those of the other, are miscellaneous; filled with mythology and ancient literature, with some philosophy intermixed.

In the same age with Aulus Gellius flourished Apuleius of Madaura in Africa; a Platonic writer, whose matter in general far exceeds his perplexed and affected style, too conformable to the false rhetoric of the age in which he lived.

Boethius was descended from one of the noblest of the Roman families, and was consul in the beginning of the fifth century. He wrote many philosophical works; but his ethical piece on the Consolation of Philosophy deserves great encomiums, both for the matter and the style; in which latter he approaches the purity of a far better age than his own. By command of Theodoric king of the Goths this great and good man suffered death; and with him the Latin tongue, and the last remains of Roman dignity, may be said to have sunk in the western world.

There were besides a goodly number both of poets and historians who flourished during this period; such as Silius Italicus, Claudian, Ausonius, &c., poets and historians to a very great number, for whom our readers may consult Joh. Alberti Fabricii Bibl. Lat.

There flourished, too, a number of ecclesiastical writers, some of whom deserve great commendation. The chief of these is Lactantius, who has been deservedly dignified with the title of the Christian Cicero.

The Roman authors amount to a very small number in comparison of the Greek. At the same time, when we consider the extent and duration of the Roman empire, we are justly surprised to find so few writers of character and reputation in so vast a field. We think we have good reason to agree with the prince of Roman poets in the sentiment already quoted.

Upon the whole, the Latin tongue deserves our attention beyond any other ancient one now extant. The grandeur of the people by whom it was spoken; the lustre of its writers; the empire which it still maintains among ourselves; the necessity we are under of learning it in order to obtain access to almost all the sciences, nay even to the knowledge of our own laws, of our judicial proceedings, of our charters; all these circumstances, and many others too numerous to be detailed, render the acquisition of that imperial language in a peculiar manner at once improving and highly interesting. Spoken by the conquerors of the ancient nations, it partakes of all their revolutions, and bears continually their impress. Strong and nervous while they were employed in nothing but battles and carnage, it thundered in the camps, and made the proudest people to tremble, and the most despotic monarchs to bend their stubborn necks to the yoke. Copious and majestic, when, weary of battles, the Romans inclined to vie with the Greeks in science and the graces, it became the learned language of Europe, and by its lustre made the jargon of savages disappear who disputed with it the possession of that quarter of the globe. After having controlled by its eloquence, and humanized by its laws, all those people, it became the language of religion. In short, the Latin language will be studied and esteemed as long as good sense and fine taste remain in the world. § I. Of the Celtic Language.

In treating of the origin of the Latin tongue (see Sect. VIII.), we observed that a great part of it is derived from the Celtic. We shall now endeavour to give some account of the origin and extent of that ancient language; still leaving the minutiae to grammars and dictionaries, as we have done with respect to the other dialects which have fallen under our consideration. Our candid readers, it is hoped, will remember, that we are acting in the character of philologers, not in that of grammarians and lexicographers.

The descendants of Japhet having peopled the western parts of Asia, at length entered Europe. Some broke into that quarter of the globe by the north, others found means to cross the Danube near its mouth. Their posterity gradually ascended towards the source of that river; afterwards they advanced to the banks of the Rhine, which they passed, and thence spread themselves as far as the Alps and the Pyrenees.

These people, in all probability, were composed of different families; all, however, spoke the same language; their manners and customs bore a near resemblance; there was no variety among them but that difference which climate always introduces. Accordingly they were all known, in the more early times, by the general name of Celto-Scythae. In process of time, becoming exceedingly numerous, they were divided into several nations, which were distinguished by different names and territorial appellations. Those who inhabited that large country bounded by the ocean, the Mediterranean, the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, were denominated Gauls or Celts. These people multiplied prodigiously in the space of a few centuries, that the fertile regions which they then occupied could not afford them the means of subsistence. Some of them now passed over into Britain; others crossed the Pyrenees, and formed settlements in the northern parts of Spain. Even the formidable barriers of the Alps could not impede the progress of the Gauls: they made their way into Italy, and colonized those parts which lie at the foot of the mountains; whence they extended themselves towards the centre of that rich country.

By this time the Greeks had landed on the eastern coast of Italy, and founded numerous colonies in those parts. The two nations vying as it were with each other in populousness, and always planting colonies in the course of their progress, at length encountered about the middle of the country. This central region was at that time called Latium. Here the two nations formed one society, which was called the Latin people. The languages of the two nations were blended together; and hence, according to some, the Latin is a mixture of Greek and Gaelic.

As the Gauls were a brave and numerous people, they certainly maintained themselves in their pristine possessions, uninvaded, unconquered, till their civil animosities and domestic quarrels exposed them as a prey to those very Romans whom they had so often defeated, and sometimes driven to the brink of destruction. They were not a people addicted to commerce; and, upon the whole, considering their situation both in their primary feats and afterwards in Italy, they had little temptation or opportunity to mingle with foreigners. Their language, therefore, must have remained unmixed with foreign idioms. Such as it was when they settled in Gaul, such it must have continued till the Roman conquests. If therefore there is one primitive language now existing, it must be found in the remains of the Gaelic or Celtic. It is not, then, surprising, that some very learned men, upon discovering the coincidence of very great numbers of words in some of the Greek dialects with other words in the Celtic, have been inclined to establish a strict affinity between those languages. The Reformed Pelagian and the Celtic at least must have nearly blended before they resembled each other, admitting a dialectical difference only, and that discrimination which climate and a long and that period of time must always produce.

Some have thought that the Gauls lost the use of their native language soon after their country was conquered by the Romans; but M. Bullet, in his Memoirs de la Langue Celtique, has proved almost to a demonstration, that the vulgar among those people continued to speak it several centuries after that period. When a great and populous nation has for many ages employed a vernacular tongue, nothing can ever make them entirely relinquish the use of it, and adopt unmixed that of their conquerors.

Many learned men, among whom is the lexicographer above mentioned, have shown that all the local names in the north of Italy are actually of Celtic extraction. These names generally point out or describe some circumstances relating to the nature of their situation; such as exposure, eminence, lowlands, moistness, dryness, coldness, heat, &c. This is a very characteristic feature of an original language; and in the Celtic it is so prominent, that the Erse names of places all over Scotland are, even to this day, peculiarly distinguished by this quality. We have heard a gentleman, who was well skilled in the dialect of the Celtic still spoken in the Highlands of Scotland, propose to lay a bet, at very great odds, that if one should pronounce the name of any village, mountain, river, gentleman's seat, &c., in the old Scottish dialect, he should be able, by its very name, to give a pretty exact description of its local situation.

To discover the sources from which the Celtic tongue is derived, we must have recourse to the following expedients.

1. We must consult the Greek and Latin authors, who have preserved some Gaelic or Celtic terms in their writings.

2. We must have recourse to the Welsh and Breton Breizh-Breizh dialects; in which, indeed, there are many new words, but these are easily distinguished from the primitive stock.

3. If one would trace another source of the Celtic, he must converse with the country people and peasants, who live at a distance from cities, in those countries where it was once the vernacular tongue. We have been credibly informed, that a Highland gentleman crossing the Alps for Italy, accidentally fell in with an old woman, a native of those parts, who spoke a language so near akin to his native Erse, that he could understand her with little difficulty; and that she, on the other hand, understood most of his words. That an event of this nature should actually take place is by no means means surprising, when we consider that the Gaelic spoken in the Highlands of Scotland is perhaps the most genuine remnant of the Celtic now existing, and at the same time reflect that there may be some remote cantons among those wild and inaccessible mountains, the Alps, where some remains of that tongue may still be preserved.

4. We have said that the most genuine remains of the Gaelic tongue are to be found in the Highlands of Scotland; and the reason is obvious. The Scottish Highlanders are the unmixed unconquered posterity of the ancient Britons, into whose barren domains the Romans never penetrated; not, we imagine, because they were not able, since they subdued both North and South Wales, equally inaccessible, but because they found no scenes there either to fire their ambition or allure their avarice. Amidst all the revolutions that from time to time shook and convulsed Albion, those mountainous regions were left to their primitive lords, who, like their southern progenitors, hospitable in the extreme, did not, however, suffer strangers to reside long among them. Their language, accordingly, remained unmixed, and continues to even unto this day, especially in the most remote parts and unfrequented islands.

The Norwegians subdued the western islands of Scotland, at a time when the Scottish monarchy was still in its minority. They erected a kind of principality over them, of which the Isle of Man was the capital. Though they maintained the sovereignty of those islands for some centuries, built many forts, and strengthened them with garrisons, and in fine were the lawgivers and administrators of justice among the natives; yet we have been informed by the most respectable authority, that there is not at this day a single vocable of the Norse or Danish tongue to be found among these islanders. This fact affords a demonstration of that superstitious attachment with which they were devoted to their vernacular dialects.

The Welsh dialect cannot, we think, be pure and unsophisticated. The Silures were conquered by the Romans, to whom they were actually subject for the space of three centuries. During this period a multitude of Italian exotics must have been transplanted into their language; and indeed many of them are discernible at this day. Their long commerce with their English neighbours and conquerors hath adulterated their language, so that a great part of it is now of an English complexion. The Irish is now spoken by a race of people whose morality and ingenuity is nearly upon a level. Their latest historians have brought them from the confines of Asia, through a variety of adventures, to people an island extra annis foliique vias. However this genealogical tale may please the people for whom it was fabricated, we must still suspect that the Irish are of Celtic extraction, and that their forefathers emigrated from the western coast of Britain at a period prior to all historical or even traditional annals. Ireland was once the native land of saints. The chief actors on this sacred stage were Romanists, and deeply tinctured with the superstition of the times. They pretended to improve the language of the natives; and whatever their success was, they improved it in such a manner as to make it deviate very considerably from the original Celtic; so that it is not in Ireland that we are to look for the genuine characters of the dialect under consideration.

Though the Hibernian tongue, in our opinion, differs considerably from the original Celtic, some very ingenious essays have been lately published by the learned and laborious members of the Antiquarian Society of Cork, Dublin; in which the coincidence of that tongue with some of the oriental dialects, has been supported by very plausible arguments. In a dissertation published in the year 1772, they have exhibited a collection of Punic-Maltese words compared with words of the same import in Irish, where it must be allowed the resemblance is palpable. In the same dissertation they have compared the celebrated Punic scene in Plautus with its translation into the Irish; in which the words in the two languages are surprisingly similar. If those criticisms are well founded, they will prove that the Celtic is coeval and congenial with the most ancient languages of the east; which we think highly probable. Be that as it may, the Danes and Norwegians formed settlements in Ireland; and the English have long been sovereigns of that island. These circumstances must have affected the vernacular idiom of the natives; not to mention the necessity of adopting the language of the conquerors in law, in sciences, in the offices of religion.

The inhabitants of the highlands and islands of Scotland are the descendants of those Britons who fled from the power of the Romans, and sheltered themselves among the fens, rocks, and fastnesses of those rugged mountains and sequestered glens. They preferred those wastes and wilds, with liberty and independence, to the pleasant and fertile valleys of the south, with plenty embittered by slavery. They no doubt carried their language along with them; that language was a branch of the Celtic. With them, no doubt, fled a number of the druidical priests, who unquestionably knew their native dialect in all its beauties and varieties. These fugitives in process of time formed a regular government, elected a king, and became a considerable state. They were sequestered by their situation from the rest of the world. Without commerce, without agriculture, without the mechanical arts, and without objects of ambition or emulation, they addicted themselves wholly to the pastoral life as their business, and to hunting and fishing as their diversion. Those people were not distinguished by an innovating genius; and consequently their language must have remained in the same state in which they received it from their ancestors. They received it genuine Celtic, and such they preserved it.

When the Scots became masters of the low country, and their kings and a great part of the nobility embraced the Saxon manners, and adopted the Saxon language, the genuine Caledonians tenaciously retained their native tongue, dress, manners, clanships, and feudal customs, and could never cordially assimilate with their southern neighbours. Their language, therefore, could not be polluted with words or idioms borrowed from a people whom they hated and despised. Indeed it is plain from the whole tenor of the Scottish history, that neither Caledonian chieftains, nor their vassals, were ever steadily attached to the royal family after they fixed their residence in the low country, and became Saxons, as the Highlanders called them by way of reproach. Indeed the commerce between them and those of the south, till about a century and a half ago, was only transient and and accidental; nor was their native dialect in the least affected by it.

Their language, however, did not degenerate, because there existed among them a description of men whose protection obliged them to guard against that misfortune. Every chieftain retained in his family a bard or poet laureate, whose province it was to compose poems in honour of his lord, to commemorate the glorious exploits of his ancestors, to record the genealogy and connections of the family; in a word, to amuse and entertain the chief and his guests at all public entertainments and upon all solemn occasions. Those professors of the Parnassian art used to vie with each other; and the chiefs of families often assembled their respective bards, and encouraged them by considerable premiums to exert their poetic talents. The victor was rewarded and honoured; and the chieftain deemed it an honour to himself to entertain a bard who excelled his peers. The ancient Gauls, as we learn from Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Tacitus, Lucan, &c., entertained persons of that profession; and certainly the ancient Britons did the same. Those bards were highly revered; their persons were deemed sacred; and they were always rewarded with salaries in lands or cattle (See section Greek). Those poetical geniuses must have watched over their vernacular dialect with the greatest care and anxiety; because in their compositions no word was to be lost, but as many gained as possible.

The use of letters was not known among the ancient Celts; their druidical clergy forbade the use of them. All their religious rites, their philosophical dogmas, their moral precepts, and their political maxims, were composed in verses which their pupils were obliged to commit to memory. Accordingly letters were unknown to the Caledonian Scots, till they learned them either from their southern neighbours or from the Romans. The Irish, indeed, pretend to have letters of a very ancient date; the Highlanders of the country in question make no claim to the use of that invention. Their bards, therefore, committed every thing to memory; and of course the words of their language must have been faithfully preserved. We find that the celebrated poems of Ossian, and others of an inferior character, or at least fragments of such poems (see Ossian), have thus been preserved from father to son for more than 1000 years. The beauty, significance, harmony, variety, and energy of these verses, strike us even in a prose translation; how infinitely more charming must they appear in their native form and poetical attire!

In order to exhibit the genius of the Celtic in as striking a light as the nature of our present design will permit, we shall lay before our readers a very contracted sketch of the Gaelic or Caledonian dialect as it now stands; which we hope will go a great way to convince them that this is the genuine offspring of the other. In doing this we shall borrow many hints from a gentleman* whose learning seems to equal his zeal for his native language; which, in compliance with the modern practice, we shall for the future distinguish by the name of Gaelic.

The Gaelic is not derived from any other language as far as we know, being obviously reducible to its own roots. Its combinations are formed of simple words of a known signification; and those words are resolvable into the simplest combinations of vowels and consonants, and even into simple sounds. In such a language we may expect that some traces will be found of the ideas and notions of mankind living in a state of primeval simplicity; and if so, a monument is still preserved of the primitive manners of the Celtic race while yet under the guidance of simple nature, without any artificial restraint or control.

The sudden sensations of heat and cold, and bodily pain, are expressed by articulate sounds, which, however, are not used in this language to denote heat, cold, or bodily pain. A sudden sensation of heat is denoted by an articulate exclamation ha! of cold, by id; of bodily pain, by oich. All these sounds may be called interjections, being parts of speech which discover the mind to be seized with some passion. Few of the improved languages of Europe present so great a variety of sounds which instantaneously convey notice of a particular passion, bodily or mental feeling.

The pronouns he and she are expressed by the simple sounds e and i, and these are the marks of the masculine and feminine genders; for a neuter gender is unknown in the Gaelic. The compositions of rude and barbarous ages are universally found to approach to the style and numbers of poetry; and this too is a distinguishing character of the Gaelic. Bodily subsistence will always be the principal concern of an uncultivated people. Hence ed or oid is used upon discovery of any animal of prey or game: it is meant to give notice to the hunting companion to be in readiness to seize the animal; and hence we believe eda “to eat” in Latin, and ed in Irish, signifies “cattle”; likewise in Scotch edal “cattle,” literally signifies “the offspring or generation of cattle.” Coed or cued, “a share or portion of any subject of property,” literally “common food.” Fead “hunting,” literally “gathering of food.” Edra “the time of the morning when cattle are brought home from pasture to give milk,” literally “meal-time.” These are words importing the simplicity of a primitive state, and are common in the Gaelic idiom.

Traces of imitative language remain in all countries. The word used for cow in the Gaelic language is bo, plainly in imitation of the lowing of that animal.

In joining together original roots in the process of improving language and rendering it more copious, its combinations discover an admirable justness and precision of thought, which one would scarce expect to find in an uncultivated dialect. It will, however, be found, upon examination, that the Gaelic language, in its combination of words, specifies with accuracy the known compounds, qualities, and expresses with precision the nature and properties which were attributed to the object denominated.

An appears to have been a word of frequent use in this language, and seems to have been originally a name applied indefinitely to any object. According to Bullet, it was used to signify “a planet;” hence the sun had the name of grian, which is a compound of gri “hot,” and an “a planet.” Re signifies originally and radically “division.” The changes of the moon and the variety of her phases were early employed to point out the divisions of time. The present name for the moon is geulach; a word derived from her whiteness of colour. To these we might add a vast number more whose signification precisely indicates their shape, colour, effects, &c. Many of these would be found exactly similar to Greek... Greek and Latin words of the same found and signification. In order to satisfy our curious readers, we shall annex a few, though some of them may perhaps be questionable.

The Venus of the Latins is said to be a compound of *hen* and *jus*, which literally signify "the first woman," the letter *b* in Gaelic being softened into *v*. *Edag* and *edag* signify "food." These words are compounded of the Gaelic words *ed* or *eid* and *ar*; the former denotes food simply, and the latter ploughed land. These are the roots of the Greek and Latin words *eda*, *edo*; *agros*, *aro*. *Edag*, which signifies "a feat," has an evident reference to food. It is compounded of two Gaelic words *ed* and *ira*, which literally signifies "meal-time." *Edag*, which signifies "the present which a bridegroom made to his bride," is a compound of two Gaelic words *ed* and *na* or *naul*, literally signifying "raw food." From or there are many Greek derivatives. *Agros* signifies "ploughed land," also "crop of corn;" *Agros*, "bread." In Gaelic a crop of corn and bread are expressed by *arbhar*, commonly pronounced *arar* and *aran*; all being equally derivatives of the root *ar*. So the Greek and Latin words *agros*, *arabilius*, "arable;" *agreum*, *aratum*, "a plough;" *agros*, *arator*, "a ploughman;" and many others, are evidently derived from the same source. We would not, however, suggest, in consequence of this coincidence, that either the Greek or Latin languages was derived from the Gaelic; we rather believe that these are remains of a primeval tongue, which are still retained in all the three; and we produce them upon the present occasion as presumptions that the Gaelic is an original, underived language, and of course the most pure and unadulterated relic of the Celtic now existing. If our readers should incline to know more of this subject, they may consult Pezron's Origin of Ancient Nations, Bullet's Memoire de la Langue Celtique, Parfion's Rem. of Japhet, Gebelin's Monde prim. &c.

When the Celtic language was generally spoken over Europe, it seems to have been amazingly copious. By consulting Bullet's Memoires, it appears that its names for the common and various objects of nature were very numerous. The words denoting water, river, wood, forest, mountain, lake, &c., were most precisely accommodated to specify each modification and variety, with such peculiar exactness as even the Greek, with all its boasted idiomatical precision and copiousness, has not been able to equal. The appearances which diversify the visible face of inanimate nature, arrest the attention of men in an uncultivated state. Unaccustomed to thought and abstract reasoning, their minds expand and exercise their powers upon sensible objects, and of course mark every minutia and almost imperceptible distinction with an accuracy to us seemingly impossible.

We hope it now appears to every reader, that the Celtic was one of the dialects of the primitive language; that it once overspread by far the greatest part of Europe; that the Gaelic now spoken in the northern parts of Scotland and the adjacent islands is the most pure and unmixed relic of that tongue now anywhere existing. We would willingly refer our readers to some well composed grammar of that language; but indeed we know of none that deserves our recommendation. Some years ago we were flattered with the prospect of seeing one published by a gentleman whose deep skill in that language is universally acknowledged. We have likewise heard of an intended dictionary of the same tongue; but hitherto our hopes have been disappointed.

We are, however, happy to find that there is now publishing an excellent translation of both the Old and New Testaments into Gaelic, which has hitherto been a dead letter among those who speak this language. Such a translation will at once contribute to preserve that ancient tongue, and disseminate the knowledge of the truth among the natives of that country.

Every affluence towards acquiring the knowledge of a tongue which was once universal over a great part of Europe, will certainly be an acceptable present to the public. The antiquary, who is desirous of tracing the affinity of languages, and wishes to mark the migrations of people, ought certainly to apply himself to the study of its remaining branches; and, if we mistake not, he will soon be convinced, that they all breathe a spirit congenial to the manners and sentiments of a people who are just entering upon the first stage of improvement and civilization.

Perhaps it may be expected, that, before we conclude this short sketch of the Celtic tongue, we should give some account of the origin of the words Gaul and Gal, the two names by which this people was distinguished by the Greeks and Romans. Mr M'Pherson imagines, that the appellation of Celt is an adjective derived from Gal, the aboriginal name of the inhabitants of ancient Gaul. For our part, we can see no connection between Gaul and Kelty, nor do we think that the latter is an adjective. We believe that those people called themselves Cael and not Gael. We are sure that Caledonia, or Caldon or dun, was an ancient name of the mountainous parts of Scotland.

Though many different opinions have been advanced with relation to the etymology of this word, we imagine that none is so probable as that which supposes that it is compounded of the two Celtic words Cal or Kal, that is, "Gal or Gaul," and dun, which signifies "a hill or mountain." Upon this ground, the Caledonii will import the Gauls of the mountains, or, which is the same, the Highland Gauls. The Irish and Highlanders reciprocally denominate themselves by the general title of Cael, Gael, or Gauls. They also distinguish themselves, as the Welch originally did, and as the Welch distinguish them both at present, by the appellation of Gwthill, Gwthel, and Gwthel. The intermediate th, they lay, is left quiescent in the pronunciation, as it is in many words of the British language; in which case Gwthel would immediately be formed into Gael; and Gwthel is actually founded like Gael by both the Irish and Highlanders at present. The appellation of Gwthel, therefore, say they, was originally the same with Gael, and the parent of it. The quiescent letters in British are frequently transferred from the middle to the conclusion of the word: by which manoeuvre, Gwthel is changed into Galath, Galat, Galt, and Celt. It is true, that Gael of the continent is universally denominated Galatea and Celtica by the Grecians, and Galli and Galatta by the Irish. The appellations, therefore, of Gwthel-i, Galt-i, Galat-a, Galet-er, An-cail-er, and Celt-a, are all one and the same denomination, only varied by the afflicting ductility of the Celtic, and disguised by the alterations ever incident to a language that has been merely oral for ages.

It may perhaps appear prehumpuous in us to dif- Celtic fer from two such respectable authorities as McPherson and Whitaker; we must, however, acknowledge, that neither the one nor the other appears to us well founded. Besides, they convey no idea of the signification of the words, though in the Celtic language they must have been significant. The name Gael, the same with Gal, was probably given them in the East from the Greek γαλα, which in many oriental languages denotes fair; and γαλατία may be easily derived from γαλα or γαλατία, Gal or Galath.—This denomination might be given them by their neighbours, in allusion to their fair complexion.

§ 2. Of the Gothic Language.

The Celtic and Gothic tongues at one time divided Europe between them. Both were of equal antiquity, both originated in Asia, both were dialects of the original language of mankind. The Celtic, however, was first imported into Europe. The Gauls or Celts had penetrated farther towards the west; a circumstance which plainly intimates the priority of their arrival. In the population of countries, we believe it may be held as a maxim, that the colonies who emigrated first were generally impelled by succeeding emigrants; and that of consequence the most early were pushed forward to the parts most distant. The Celts, then, having overspread the most western parts of Europe, must have arrived more early in those regions.

The Goths and Getae were the same race of people, according to Procopius*, de bello Goth.; and Strabo† (B) informs us, that they spoke the same language with the Thracians, from whose confines they had spread themselves northward as far as the western banks of the Danube. Vopiscus, in the History of Probus, tells us, that this emperor † obliged “the Thracians, and all the Gothic tribes, either to surrender or accept of his friendship.” This expression indicates, that the Thracians and the Gothic tribes were deemed the same race of people. From this deduction it is clear, that the Getae and Thracians were brethren; that they spoke the same language; and that their laws, manners, customs, and religious tenets, were the same, might easily be shown, were this a proper place for an inquiry of that nature.

The Thracian language, as might be demonstrated from names of persons, offices, places, and customs, among that people, was nearly related to the Chaldean and other oriental languages.

They are thought to have been the descendants of Tiras, one of the sons of Japhet, and consequently must have preserved the speech of the Nosachian family. The Gothic language abounds with Pahlavi, or old Peric words, which are no doubt remains of the primeval dialect of mankind. The Thracians peopled a considerable part of the northern coast of Asia Minor; and consequently we meet with many names of cities, mountains, rivers, &c. in those parts, exactly corresponding with many names in Europe, evidently imposed by our Gothic progenitors. Any person tolerably acquainted with the remains of the Gothic tongue, will be able to trace these with little difficulty.

We learn from Herodotus* that Darius in his * Lib. iv. expedition against the wandering Scythians who lived pellucum, on the other side of the Ister or Danube, in his progress subdued the Getæ; and in the same passage the historian informs us, that these people held the immortality of the human soul, and that they were the bravest and most just of all the Thracians. After this period, we find them mentioned by almost every Greek writer, even familiarly; for Geta, in the comedies of that nation, is a common name for a slave. The Getae then occupied all that large tract of country which extended from the confines of Thrace to the banks of the Danube; were a brave and virtuous people; and spoke the same language with the Thracians, with whom they are often confounded both by Greek and Roman historians.

But the name of Goths is by no means so ancient. It was utterly unknown both to the ancient Greeks and Romans. The first time that the name Goth is mentioned is in the reign of the emperor Decius, about the year of Christ 250. About that time they burst out of Getia, and rushing like a torrent into the empire, laid waste everything with fire and sword. The name of their leader or king was Cnemao. Decius, endeavouring to expel them from Thrace, was vanquished and slain.

After this irruption, we find them frequently in the Latin authors under the name of Getæ or Gothi; though the Greeks generally denominate them Scythe. Torfæus tells us, that get † and got are actually the same word, which anciently, according to him, denoted a Norwegian, “soldier.” Got in Icelandic signifies a “horse or horseman,” and gata a “wanderer”; and this last was perhaps the import of the term Geta, they being originally an unfettered vagrant people. As nations generally assume to themselves some high auspicious denomination, we may believe the Goths did the same. We may therefore rest satisfied, that the Getae assumed the Icelandic name above mentioned as their national one; or perhaps, notwithstanding their Greek denomination, they called themselves Gots or Goths from the beginning.

The original seat of the Goths was the country now called Little Tartary, into which they had extended themselves from the frontiers of Thrace. This country was called Little Scythia by the Greek writers; and it was the station whence those innumerable swarms advanced, which, in conjunction with the Alani and other barbarous tribes, at length overran and subverted the western empire. One part of the Gothic nation was allowed by Constantine to settle in Moesia. Before the year 420 most of the Gothic nations who had settled within the limits of the Roman empire had been converted to the Christian faith; but,

(B) Lib. vii. page 295, B.; ibid. page 305, G. (Casaubon). From this passage it appears, that the Greeks were of opinion that the Getæ were Thracians. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. iv. cap. 11. mentions a tribe of the Getæ called Gaudæ. but, unhappily, the greater part of the apostles by whom they had been profelyted, were Arians, which proved fatal to many of the orthodox Christians; for the Arian Goths persecuted them with unrelenting cruelty.

About the year 367, Ulphilas bishop of the Moesian Goths, translated the New Testament into the Gothic language. The remains of this translation furnish a genuine, and at the same time venerable, monument of the ancient Gothic dialect. No more is now extant of that valuable translation than the four Gospels, and another fragment containing part of the epistle to the Romans. The Gospels have been repeatedly published since the first edition by Junius 1665, down to that of Mr Lye. Other fragments of the Gothic language have also been found, which our curious readers may see in Lye's Notes to his Edition of the Gothic Gospels. The fragment of the Epistle to the Romans was lately discovered in the library at Wolfenbuttle, and published by Knitel archdeacon of Wolfenbuttle.

The Goths, prior to the age of Ulphilas, were ignorant of the use of alphabetical characters. The bishop fabricated an alphabet for them, which is a medley of Greek and Roman letters, but rather inclining to the former.

This alphabet consists of 25 letters (see Plate XV.). Junius has carefully analyzed these letters, and pointed out their powers and founds in his Gothic alphabet, prefixed to his Glossarium Gothicum. They were long retained in all the European languages derived from the Gothic source, which will be enumerated in the sequel.

What kind of language the ancient Gothic was, is plain from the fragments above mentioned; but in what respects it agrees with the oriental tongues, or differs from them, is not easy to ascertain with precision. We have observed in our section on the Greek, that a considerable part of that language must have been derived from the Thracian; which, according to Strabo there quoted, was the same with the Celtic or Gothic. The Thracian tongue will, we are convinced upon comparison, be found analogous to the Chaldean or Syrian. The German, which is a genuine descendant of the Gothic, is full of Persian words: the old Persian or Pahlavi appears to be a dialect of the Chaldean. The learned Junius, near the beginning of his Gothic alphabet, remarks, that a very considerable part of the language in question is borrowed from the most ancient Greek.

Both the learned Ihre in his Glossarium Suio-Gothicum, and Wachter in his excellent German and Latin Dictionary, often remark the coincidence of Gothic and German words with oriental vocables of the like sound and of the same signification. In the old Saxon, which is another ramification of the Gothic tongue, numberless terms of the very same complexion appear. From this deduction we hope it will follow, that the Gothic tongue, in its original unmixed state as it was spoken by the ancient Geatae, was a dialect of the primeval language; that language which the sons of Tiraz brought with them from the plains of Shinar or from Armenia, or from any other region where the primitive mortals had fixed their residence. To confirm this position, we shall annex a few instances.

The Thracian tribes, in all probability, first took possession of those tribes of Asia Minor which stretch towards the east. Thence they crossed the Hellespont, and spread themselves far and wide northward. Strabo supposes that they first settled in the regions to the north of those straits, and thence transported numerous colonies into Asia Minor. The reverse was probably the case: but be that as it may, it is universally agreed, that both sides of the Hellespont were peopled with Thracians.

In Asia Minor we meet with the city Perga, which, throwing away the a, is Perge. In every tongue descended from the Gothic, the word Berg signifies a "rock," and metaphorically a "town or burgh;" because towns were originally built on rocks for the sake of defence. Hence likewise Pergamos, the fort or citadel of Troy. Beira in Thracian signified a "city;" the Chaldaic and Hebrew word Beer imports a "well," and is possibly the original of the Gothic word beer, ale. In ancient times, especially in the East, it was customary to build cities in the neighbourhood of fountains. The ancients called the Phrygians Beyse, Bryger, or Bruges; the Gothic word coinciding is obvious. Dyndymus, the name of a city sacred to Cybele, is compounded of two Gothic words dun and dum, both signifying "a height, an eminence;" and hence a town, an inclosure. The word tros seems to be the very Gothic trob, "brave, valiant." The words father, mother, dochter, bruder, are so obviously Persian, that every etymologist has assigned them to that language.

Many futile etymologies have been given of the sacred name God, which is in reality the Persian word Cho-da, commonly applied by them to their Hormozd or Ormuzes. The Persian bad or bod signifies a "city;" the same word in Gothic imports a "house, a mansion, an abode." Band, in Persian, a "strait place;" in Gothic, "to bend." Heim or ham, "a house," is generally known to be of Persian origin. Much critical skill has been displayed in tracing the etymology of the Scotch and old English word Lute, "Christmas." Yule, derived from iul, was a festival in honour of the sun, which was originally celebrated at the winter solstice. Wick or wick is a Gothic term still preserved in many names of towns; it signifies "a narrow corner, or small strip of land jutting into the sea, or into a lake or river;" hence the Latin vicus, and Greek φάρος. In Spanish, we have many old Gothic words; among others hijo a "son," the same with the Greek ἄνης. In some places of Scotland, we call anything that is little, small, wee; originally felt wi, if we mistake not, from the very same word.

These few examples we have thrown together, without any regard to order, persuaded that almost every word of the language, truly Gothic, may with a little pains and judgment be traced to some oriental root or cognate. We may observe in passing, that many Gothic nouns end in a, like the Chaldaic and Syriac; that their substantive verb very much resembles that of the Persian, Greek, and Latin; and that their active and auxiliary verb has furnished the common preterperfect tense of Greek verbs in the active voice: that verb is haban, haban, but originally ha, as the common people pronounce it at this day, especially in the north of Scotland, and among the Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, and Icelanders.

We shall now leave the other inferior arrangements of this ancient language to grammarians and lexicographers, and proceed to inquire what modern tongues are deduced from it as their stock, and which of them makes the nearest approaches to its simplicity and rusticity.

We have already observed that the Goths, formerly Getæ, were possessed of a vast extent of country, reaching from the frontiers of Thrace to the banks of the Ister or Danube. We have seen that a colony of them settled in Moesia under Constantine II. They then spread themselves into Dacia, and from thence into Germany. All these countries were situated in such a manner, that the progress of population was forward, and according to the natural course of emigration. From Germany they extended themselves into Scandinavia, that is, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. Their whole ancient Edda, Sagas, "Chronicles," show that the Goths arrived in Scandinavia by this route, without, however, fixing the era of that event with any tolerable degree of accuracy. By the Germans, we believe the ancients understood all the nations eastward, westward, and northward, reaching from the Danube on the south up to the extremity of Scandinavia on the Northern ocean; and from the Rhine and German ocean on the west, to the river Chronus or Niemen on the east. All those nations spoke one or other of the Gothic dialects, some approaching nearer, and others deviating farther from, the parent language.

The Francic is a dialect of the Teutonic, Tudefque, or old German; and the Gospels of Ulpilhas bear such a resemblance to the Francic, fragments of which are preserved in the early French historians, that some learned men have pronounced those gospels to be part of an old Francic version; but others of equal respectability have refuted this opinion, both from history and comparison of the dialects. Schiller has given us large monuments of the Tudefque or old German from the seventh century, which evidently prove that the Gothic of Ulpilhas is the same language. Wachter's learned Glossary of the ancient German likewise confirms this position. Mr. Ihre, after hesitating whether the Gospels of Ulpilhas bear most resemblance to the German or Scandinavian dialect of the Gothic, declares at last in favour of the former. The Anglo-Saxon is also known to be a venerable dialect of the Tudefque; and is so intimately connected with the gospels, that some valuable works on this subject are wholly built upon that supposition.

The Icelandic is the oldest relic of the Scandinavian. It begins with Arius Frode in the eleventh century, and is a dialect of the German. The remains we have of it are more modern by four centuries than those of the German: they are more polished than the other. The words are shortened, not only because they are more modern than the German, but because the Icelandic was polished by a long succession of poets and historians almost equal to those of Greece and Rome. Hence the Icelandic, being a more polished language than the German, has less affinity with the parent Gothic. The Swedish is more nearly related to the Icelandic than either the Danish or Norwegian. That the Swedish is the daughter of the Gothic, is fully shown by Mr. Ihre above mentioned, in his Glossarium Suio-Gothicum. There is, therefore, no manner of doubt as to the identity of the Gothic, preserved in Ulpilhas and other ancient remains, with the German and Scandinavian tongue.

The modern German, a language spoken in a far greater extent than any other of modern Europe, resembles the Gothic Gospels more than the present Danish, Norwegian, or Swedish; and has certainly more ancient stamina. Its likeness to the Asiatic tongues, in harshness and inflexible thickness of sound, is very apparent.

Bulfequius shows, that the clowns of Crim Tartary, remains of the ancient Goths, speak a language almost German. These clowns were no doubt descendants of the ancient Goths, who remained in their native country after the others had emigrated. It is therefore apparent from the whole of this investigation, that the Gothic was introduced into Europe from the East, and is probably a dialect of the language originally spoken by men.

§ 3. Of the Slavonian Language.

There is another language which pervades a considerable part of Europe, and this, like the Gothic, seems to have originated in the east. The language Slavonic, we mean is the Slavonic or rather Slavonic, which prevails far and wide in the eastern parts of this division of the globe. It is spoken by the Dalmatians, by the inhabitants of the Danubian provinces, by the Poles, Bohemians, and Ruthenians. The word slav, that is, "slave" (whence the French word esclave, and our word slave), signifies "noble, illustrious;" but because in the lower ages of the Roman empire, vast multitudes of these people were spread over all Europe in the quality of slaves, that word came to denote the servile tribe by way of distinction in the same manner as the words Geta, Davus, and Syrus, did among the Greeks at a more early period.

The Slavi dwelt originally on the banks of the Bo, spoken by rythenes, now the Dnieper or Nieper. They were one of the tribes of the European Sarmatians who in ancient times inhabited an immense tract of country, bounded by the Vistula, now the Weifel; on the south-east by the Euxine sea, the Bosphorus Cimmerius, the Palus Moestis, and the Tanais or Don, which divides Europe from Asia.

In this vast tract of country, which at present comprehends Poland, Russia, and a great part of Tartary, there dwelt in ancient times many considerable tribes. To enumerate these, we believe, would not much edify our readers: we shall only inform them, that among these Sarmatian clans were the Roxolani, now the Ruthenians, and likewise the Slavi, who dwelt near the Boryshenes, as was observed above.

The Slavi gradually advanced towards the Danube; and in the reign of Justinian having passed that river, they made themselves masters of that part of Illyricum which lies between the Drave and the Save, and is to this day from them called Slavonia. These barbarians by degrees overrun Dalmatia, Liburnia, the western parts of Macedonia, Epirus; and on the east they extended their quarters all along to the western bank. The Poles are the genuine descendants of the ancient Sarmatae (c), and consequently speak a dialect of their language, but much adulterated with Latin words, in consequence of the attachment the Polanders have long professed to the Roman tongue.

The Silehans and Bohemians have corrupted their dialects in the very same manner. In those countries, then, we are not to search for the genuine remains of the ancient Sarmatian.

The modern Ruffians, formerly the Roxhani or Roxolani, are the posterity of the Sarmatae, and are a branch of the Slavi; they inhabit a part of the country which that people possessed before they fell into the Roman provinces; they speak the same language, and wear the very same dress; for, on the historical pillar at Constantinople, the Sclovonians are drapped like the Ruffian boors. If then the Slavi are Sarmatae, the Ruffians must of course be the descendants of the same people. They were long a sequestered people, and consequently altogether unconnected with the other nations of Europe. They were strangers to commerce, inhospitable to strangers, tenacious of ancient usages, averse to improvements of every kind, wonderfully proud of their imaginary importance; and, in a word, a race of people just one degree above absolute savagism. A people of this character are, for the most part, enemies to innovations; and if we may believe the Ruffian historians, no nation was ever more averse to innovations than the one in question. From the ninth century, at which era they embraced Christianity, it does not appear that they moved one step forward towards civilization, till Peter the Great, not a century ago, in consequence of his despotic authority, compelled them to adopt the manners and customs of their more polished neighbours.

We may then conclude, that the Ruffians made a little change in their language during that period, as they did in their dress, habits, and manner of living. Whatever language they spoke in the ninth century, the same they employed at the beginning of the 18th. They were, indeed, according to Appian de bel. Mithrid. once conquered by Diophantus, one of Mithridates's generals, but that conquest was for a moment only; they were likewise invaded, and their country overrun, by the great Timor or Tamerlane; but this invasion was like a torrent from the mountains, which spreads devastation far and wide while it rages, but makes little alteration on the face of the country.

We find likewise, that upon some occasions they made incursions upon the frontiers of the Roman empire; but we hear of no permanent settlements formed by them in these quarters. Upon the whole, we take the Ruffians to have been, with respect to their language, in the very same predicament with the high-

(c) This appears by their character, their laws, their manners, their form of government, their military equipment, their impetuosity, their aristocratic splendor. Sect. IX.

Slavonian oriental languages, of which we take the Sarmatian to have been one, is so palpable, that any person of a moderate capacity who is perfectly master of one, will find little difficulty in acquiring any other. If, therefore, the coincidence between the Greek and Ruffian should actually exist, we think this circumstance will not authenticate the supposition, that either of the two is derived from the other.

In the course of this argument, our readers will be pleased to observe, that we all along suppose, that the Slavonian, of which we think the Ruffian is the most genuine remain, is the same with the old Sarmatian. We shall now take the liberty to hazard a conjecture with respect to the syntactical coincidence of that language with the Greek; for we acknowledge that we are not profoundly versed in the Ruffian dialect of the Slavonian as to pretend to pronounce a definitive sentence.

As the Ruffians were a generation of savages, there is no probability that they were acquainted with the use of letters and alphabetical writing till they acquired that art by intercourse with their neighbours. It is certain, beyond all contradiction, that few nations had made less proficiency in the fine arts than that under consideration: and we think there is little appearance of their having learned this art prior to their conversion to Christianity. Certain it is, that the Slavi, who settled in Dalmatia, Illyria, and Liburnia, had no alphabetical characters till they were furnished with them by St Jerome. The Servian character, which very nearly resembles the Greek, was invented by St Cyril; on which account the language written in that character is denominated Chavrilizza. These Slavonic tribes knew nothing of alphabetic writing prior to the era of their conversion. The Moesian Goths were in the same condition till their bishop Ulphilas fabricated them a set of letters.

If the Slavi and Goths, who resided in the neighbourhood of the Greeks and Romans, had not learned alphabetical writing prior to the era of their conversion to Christianity, it must hold, a fortiori, that the Ruffians, who lived at a very great distance from those nations, knew nothing of this useful art antecedent to the period of their embracing the Christian faith.

The Ruffians pretend that they were converted by St Andrew; but this is known to be a fable. Christianity was first introduced among them in the reign of the grand duke Wladimir, who marrying the daughter of the Grecian emperor Basilus, became her convert about the year 889. About this period, we imagine, they were taught the knowledge of letters by the Grecian missionaries, who were employed in teaching them the elements of the Christian doctrines. Their alphabet consists of 31 letters, with a few obsolete additional ones; and these characters resemble those of the Greeks so exactly, that there can be no doubt of their being copied from them. It is true, the shape of some has been somewhat altered, and a few barbarian ones have been intermingled. The Ruffian liturgy, everybody knows, was copied from that of the Greeks; and the best specimen of the old Ruffian is the church offices for Easter, in the very words of Chrysofoam, who is called by his name Zlatu yfii, "golden-mouthed." The power of the clergy in Ruffia was excessive; and no doubt their influence was proportioned to their power. The first race of clergy in that country were undoubtedly Greeks. We know how active and industrious those people were in propagating their language as well as their religion. The offices of religion might be at first written and pronounced in the Greek tongue, but it would soon be found expedient to have them translated into Ruffian. The persons employed in this work must have been Greeks, who understood both languages.

As it is confessedly impossible that a people so dull and uninventive as the Ruffians originally were, could ever have fabricated a language so artificially constructed as their present dialect; and as it is obvious, that till Christianity was introduced among them by the Greeks, they could have no correspondence with that people—it must appear surprising by what means their language came to be fashioned so exactly according to the Greek model. We have observed above, that the Ruffian letters must have been invented and introduced into that country by the Greek missionaries. We think it probable, that those apostles, at the same time that they taught them a new religion, likewise introduced a change into the idiom of their language. The influence of those ghoulish teachers over a nation of savages must have been almost boundless; the force of their precepts and example almost uncontrollable. If the savage converts accepted a new religion from the hands of those Grecian apostles, they might with equal submission adopt improvements in their language. Such of the natives as were admitted to the sacerdotal function must have learned the Greek language, in order to qualify them for performing the offices of their religion. A predilection for that language would be the immediate consequence. Hence the natives, who had been admitted into holy orders, would co-operate with their Grecian masters in improving the dialect of the country; which, prior to the period above mentioned, must have greatly deviated from the original standard of the Sarmatian tongue.

Upon this occasion, we imagine the Greek apostles, in conjunction with their Ruffian disciples, reduced the language of the country to a resemblance with the Greek idiom. They retained the radical vocables as they found them; but by a variety of flexions, conjugations, derivations, compositions, and other modifications, transformed them into the Grecian air and apparel. They must have begun with the offices of the church; and among a nation of savages newly converted, the language of the new religion would quickly obtain a very extensive circulation. When the Grecian garniture was introduced into the church, the laity would in process of time assume a similar dress. The fabric of the Grecian declensions, conjugations, &c., might be grafted upon Ruffian stocks without affecting the radical parts of the language. If the dialect in question, like most others of a very ancient date, laboured under a penury of vocables, this manoeuvre would contribute exceedingly to supply that defect. By this expedient the Greek language itself had been enlarged from about 350 radical terms to the prodigious number of words of which it now consists.

The Latin tongue we have seen above in its original constitution differed widely from the Greek; and notwithstanding this incongruity, the improvers of the former have pressed it into a very strict agreement with the latter. This, we think, was still a more difficult task; as, in our opinion, the genius of the Latin differs in a much greater degree than that of the Russian does from the Greek. We know, that the genius of the Gothic tongue and those of all its descendants are much more in union with the Greek than with that of the Latin. The Spanish, Italian, and French, have cudgelled many of their Gothic, Teutonic, and Celtic verbs, into a kind of conjugations, imitating or rather aping those of the Latin. The Persians have formed most elegant and energetic declensions and conjugations, upon inflexible roots, borrowed from the Pahlavi and Deri, and even from Tartar originals.

Upon the grounds above-mentioned we have taken the liberty to hazard the following conjectures, which we cheerfully submit to the cognizance of our more enlightened readers.

1. That the Sarmatian was a dialect of the original language of mankind. 2. That the Slavonian was a dialect of the Sarmatian. 3. That the Russo is the most genuine unsophisticated relic of the Slavonian and Sarmatian. 4. That the Russians had no alphabetic characters prior to the era of the introduction of Christianity, that is, towards the end of the tenth century. 5. That they were converted by Grecian missionaries. 6. That those missionaries copied their present letters from those of Greece; and in conjunction with the more enlightened natives, reduced the original unimproved Russo to its present resemblance to the Greek standard.

The Russian language, like most others, contains eight parts of speech, noun, pronoun, &c. Its nouns have three genders, masculine, feminine, and neuter; it has also a common gender for nouns, intimating both sexes. It has only two numbers, singular and plural. Its cases are seven, nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, instrumental, and prepositional. These cases are not formed by varying the termination, as in Greek and Latin; but generally by placing a vowel after the word, as we imagine, was the original practice of the Greeks (See Greek Section). Thus in Russo, *gen*, *ruk*, "the hand;" nominative, *gen*-a, "the hand;" genitive, *gen*-N, "of the hand," &c. See Les Élém. de la Langue Russo par Charpentier. Nouns substantive are reduced to four declensions, and adjectives make a fifth. These agree with their substantives in case, gender, and number. They have three degrees of comparison, as is common in other languages; the positive, comparative, and superlative. The comparative is formed from the feminine of the nominative singular of the positive, by changing *a* into *e*, that is, *ae* in English; the superlative is made by prefixing *προ*, *pre*, before the positive. These rules are general; for the exceptions, recourse must be had to the Russian grammar above-mentioned.

The numeral adjectives in Russo have three genders like the rest, and are declined accordingly. Their pronouns have nothing peculiar, and are divided and arranged in the same manner as in other languages. Verbs in the Russian language are comprehended under two conjugations. The moods are only three; the indicative, the imperative, and the infinitive; the subjunctive is formed by placing a particle before the indicative. Its tenes are eight in number; the present, the imperfect, the preterite simple, the preterite compound, the Slavonian pluperfect, the future indeterminate, the future simple, the future compound. The verbs have their numbers and persons as in other languages. To enter into a detail of their manner of conjugating their verbs would neither be consistent with our plan, nor, we are persuaded, of much consequence to our readers. Their other parts of speech differ nothing from those of other languages. Their syntax nearly resembles that of the Greek and Latin. All these articles must be learned from a grammar of the language. Whether there is any grammar of the Russian language composed in English we know not. That of Mons. Charpentier in French, printed at Peterburgh in 1768, is the only one we have seen, and which appears to us a very excellent one. We could wish to be able to gratify our readers with a more authentic account of the origin of the Slavonian language; but this we find impossible, in consequence of the want of memorials relating to the state of the ancient Sarmatia. Towards the era of the subversion of the western empire, the nations who inhabited the countries in question were so blended and confounded with each other, and with Huns and other Scythian or Tartar emigrants, that we believe the most acute antiquarian would find it impossible to investigate their respective tongues, or even their original residence or extraction. We have selected the Russo as the most genuine branch of the old Slavonian, and to this predilection we were determined by the reasons above mentioned. We are sorry that we are not so well acquainted with the idiom of the Russian language as to be able to compare it with those of the east; but upon such a comparison, we are persuaded that the radical materials of which it is composed would be found to have originated in the oriental regions. The word *Tjor*, for example, is probably the Phoenician and Chaldean *Sar*, or Chal-Zar, "a prince, a grandee." Diodorus Siculus calls the queen of the Maffagetae, who, according to Ctesias, cut off Cyrus's head, *Zarina*; which was not many years ago the general title of the empress of all the Russias. Herodotus calls the same princess *Tomyris*, which is the very name of the famous Timor or Tamur, the conqueror of Asia. The former seems to have been the title, and the latter the proper name, of the queen of the Maffagetae. In the old Persian or Pahlavi, the word *Gard* signifies "a city;" in Russian, *Grad* or *Grad* intimates the very same idea; hence Constantinople in old Russo is called *Tjargrad* or *Tjargorad*. These are adduced as a specimen only; and able etymologists might, we believe, discover a great number.

The Slavonian language is spoken in Epirus, the western part of Macedonia, in Bosnia, Servia, Bulgaria, in part of Thrace, in Dalmatia, Croatia, in Poland, Bohemia, Russia, and Mingrelia in Asia, whence it is frequently used in the feraglio at Constantinople. Many of the great men of Turkey understand it, and frequently use it; and most of the janizaries having been stationed in garrisons on the Turkish frontiers in Europe, use it as their vulgar tongue. The Hungarians, however, and the natives of Wallachia, speak a different language; and this language bears evident signatures of the Tartarian dialect, which was the tongue of the original Huns. Upon the whole, the Slavonian is by much the most extensive language in Europe, and extends far into Asia. Sect. X.

If we call all the different dialects of the various nations that now inhabit the known earth, languages, the number is truly great; and vain would be his ambition who should attempt to learn them, though but imperfectly. We will begin with naming the principal of them: There are four, which may be called original or mother-languages; and which seem to have given birth to all that are now spoken in Europe. These are the Latin, Celtic, Gothic, and Sclavonian. It will not, however, be imagined, from the term original given to these languages, that we believe them to have come down to us, without any alteration, from the confusion of tongues at the building of the tower of Babel. We have repeatedly declared our opinion, that there is but one truly original language, from which all others are derivatives variously modified. The four languages just mentioned are original only as being the immediate parents of those which are now spoken in Europe.

I. From the Latin came, 1. The Portuguese. 2. Spanish. 3. French. 4. Italian.

From the Celtic, 5. The Erse, or Gaelic of the Highlands of Scotland. 6. The Welsh. 7. The Irish. 8. Basle-Bretagne.

From the Gothic, 9. The German. 10. The Low Saxon or Low German. 11. The Dutch. 12. The English; in which almost all the noun-substantives are German, and many of the verbs French, Latin, &c. and which is enriched with the spoils of all other languages. 13. The Danish. 14. The Norwegian. 15. Swedish. 16. Icelandic.

From the Sclavonian, 17. The Polonese. 18. The Lithuanian. 19. Bohemian. 20. Transylvanian. 21. Moravian. 22. The modern Vandalian, as it is still spoken in Lusatia, Prussian Vandalia, &c. 23. The Croatian. 24. The Russian or Muscovite; which, as we have seen, is the purest dialect of this language. 25. The language of the Calmucs and Cossacs. 26. Thirty-two different dialects of nations who inhabit the north-eastern parts of Europe and Asia, and who are defended from the Tartars and Huno-Scythians. There are polyglott tables which contain not only the alphabets, but also the principal distinct characters of all these languages.

II. The languages at present generally spoken in Asia are,

27. The Turkish and Tartarian, with their different dialects. 28. The Persian. 29. The Georgian or Iberian. 30. The Albanian or Circassian. 31. The Armenian. 32. The modern Indian. 33. The Formolans. 34. The Indo-Faric. 35. The Malabarian. 36. The Warugian. 37. The Talmulic or Damulic. 38. The modern Arabic. 39. The Tanguian. 40. The Mungalie. 41. The language of the Nigarian or Akar Nigarian. 42. The Grufinic or Grufinian. 43. The Chinefe. 44. The Japonefe.

We have enumerated here those Asiatic languages only of which we have some knowledge in Europe, and even alphabets, grammars, or other books that can give us information concerning them. There are doubtless other tongues and dialects in those vast regions and adjacent islands; but of these we are not able to give any account.

III. The principal languages of Africa are,

45. The modern Egyptian. 46. The Fetuetic, or the language of the kingdom of Fetu. 47. The Moroccan; and, 48. The jargons of those savage nations who inhabit the desert and burning regions. The people on the coast of Barbary speak a corrupt dialect of the Arabic. To these may be added the Chilhic language, otherwise called Tamaseghi; the Negritian, and that of Guinea; the Abyssinian; and the language of the Hottentots.

IV. The languages of the American nations are but little known in Europe. Every one of these, though distant but a few days journey from each other, have their particular language or rather jargon. The languages of the Mexicans and Peruvians seem to be the most regular and polished. There is also one called Poconchi or Pocomana, that is used in the bay of Honduras and towards Guatimal, the words and rules of which are most known to us. The languages of North America are in general the Algonhnic, Appalachian, Mohogic, Savanahamic, Virginiae, and Mexican; and in South America, the Peruvian, Caribic, the language of Chili, the Cairic, the Tucumanian, and the languages used in Paraguay, Brazil, and Guiana.

V. We have already said, that it would be a vain and General reflection on study of all these languages, and to make his head an universal dictionary; but it would be still more absurd in us to attempt the analysis of them in this place: some general reflections therefore must here suffice. Among the modern languages of Europe, the French seems to merit great attention; as it is elegant and pleasing in itself; as it is become so general, that with it we may travel from one end of Europe to the other without without scarce having any occasion for an interpreter; and as in it are to be found excellent works of every kind, both in verse and prose, useful and agreeable. There are, besides, grammars and dictionaries of this language which give us every information concerning it, and very able masters who teach it; especially such as come from those parts of France where it is spoken correctly; for with all its advantages, the French language has this inconvenience, that it is pronounced scarce anywhere purely but at Paris and on the banks of the Loire. The language of the court, of the great world, and of men of letters, is moreover very different from that of the common people; and the French tongue, in general, is subject to great alteration and novelty. What pity it is, that the style of the great Corneille, and that of Molière, should already begin to be obsolete, and that it will be but a little time before the inimitable chefs d'œuvre of those men of sublime genius will be no longer seen on the stage: The most modern style of the French, moreover, does not seem to be the best. We are inclined to think, that too much conciseness, the epigrammatic point, the antithesis, the paradox, the sententious expression, &c., diminish its force; and that, by becoming more polished and refined, it loses much of its energy.

VI. The German and Italian languages merit likewise a particular application; as does the English, perhaps above all, for its many and great excellencies (See Language). Authors of great ability daily labour in improving them; and what language would not become excellent, were men of exalted talents to make constant use of it in their works! If we had in Iroquois books like those which we have in English, Italian, French, and German, should we not be tempted to learn that language? How glad should we be to understand the Modern Spanish tongue, though it were only to read the Araucana of Don Alonso D'Ercilia, Don Quixote, some dramatic pieces, and a small number of other Spanish works, in the original; or the poem of Camoens in Portuguese.

VII. The other languages of Europe have each their beauties and excellencies. But the greatest difficulty in all living languages constantly conficts in the pronunciation, which it is scarce possible for any one to attain unless he be born or educated in the country where it is spoken: and this is the only article for which a master is necessary, as it cannot be learned but by teaching or by conversation: all the rest may be acquired by a good grammar and other books. In all languages whatever, the poetical style is more difficult than the prosaic: in every language we should endeavour to enrich our memories with great store of words (copia verborum), and to have them ready to produce on all occasions: in all languages it is difficult to extend our knowledge so far as to be able to form a critical judgement of them. All living languages are pronounced rapidly, and without dwelling on the long syllables (which the grammarians call moras): almost all of them have articles which distinguish the genders.

VIII. Those languages that are derived from the Latin have this further advantage, that they adopt without restraint, and without offending the ear, Latin and Greek words and expressions, and which by the aid of a new termination appear to be natives of the language. This privilege is forbidden the Germans, who in their best translations dare not use any foreign word, unless it be some technical terms in case of great necessity.

PHIOMATHES, a lover of learning or science. PHILOMELA, in fabulous history, was a daughter of Pandion king of Athens, and sister to Procne, who had married Tereus king of Thrace. Procne separated from Philomela, to whom she was much attached, spent her time in great melancholy till she prevailed upon her husband to go to Athens and bring her sister to Thrace. Tereus obeyed; but he had no sooner obtained Pandion's permission to conduct Philomela to Thrace, than he fell in love with her, and resolved to gratify his passion. He dismissed the guards whom the suspicions of Pandion had appointed to watch him; offered violence to Philomela; and afterwards cut out her tongue, that she might not discover his barbarity, and the indignities she had suffered. He confined her in a lonely castle; and having taken every precaution to prevent a discovery, he returned to Thrace, and told Procne that Philomela had died by the way, and that he had paid the last offices to her remains. At this sad intelligence Procne put on mourning for the loss of Philomela; but a year had scarcely elapsed before she was secretly informed that her sister was not dead. Philomela, in her captivity, described on a piece of tapestry her misfortunes and the brutality of Tereus, and privately conveyed it to Procne. She was going to celebrate the orgies of Bacchus when she received it, but the disguised Philomela, her resentment; and as during those festivals she was permitted to rove about the country, she hastened to deliver her sister Philomela from her confinement, and concerted with her on the best measures of punishing the cruelty of Tereus. She murdered her son Itylus, then in the fifth year of his age, and served him up as food before her husband during the festival. Tereus, in the midst of his repast, called for Itylus; but Procne immediately informed him that he was then feasting on his flesh, when Philomela, by throwing on the table the head of Itylus, convinced the monarch of the cruelty of the scene. He drew his sword to punish Procne and Philomela; but as he was going to stab them to the heart, he was changed into a hoopoe, Philomela into a nightingale, Procne into a swallow, and Itylus into a pheasant. This tragedy happened at Daulis in Phocis; but Pausanias and Strabo, who mention the whole of the story, are silent about the transformation; and the former observes, that Tereus, after this bloody repast, fled to Megara, where he laid violent hands on himself. The inhabitants of the place raised a monument to his memory, where they offered yearly sacrifices, and placed small pebbles instead of barley. It was on this monument that the birds called hoopoes were first seen; hence