W: 
 


 
 CONJECTURA1 
 
 ON THE 
 
 ORIGIN 
 
 AND 
 
 PROGR ESS 
 
 O F 
 
 ALPHABETIC WRITING. 
 
 
 
 J'JUl 
 
 4 
 

 
 
 
 i. I 
 
 •I 
 
 \ 
 
 5 
 
 ■ 
 
CONJECTURAL, OBSERVATIONS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 ORIGIN AND PROGRESS 
 
 O F 
 
 ALPHABETIC WRITING. 
 
 Quale per incertam Lunam, fub luce maligna 
 ER iter in lilvis, ubi coelum condidit umbra « 
 
 Jupiter, et rebus nox abftulit atra colorem. ViRG. 
 
 ]^eque inter nos et eos qui fe fcire arhitrantur quicquam intcreji^ 
 -ftiji quod nil non duhitant quin ea njera Jint qua defendunt^ 
 Nos prohahilia multa habemuSy qua fequi faciky affirmarc 
 
 CiCER. Acad. Lib. ii, 
 
 r/ix pojfuitius.' 
 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY T. WRIGHT, 
 
 TOR T. CADELL, AND P. eLMSLY, STRAND J 
 M. HINGESTON, TEMPLE-BAR ; 
 
 S. LEACROFT, CHARING-CROSS ; AND 
 G. PEARCH, CHEAPSIDE. 
 
 ' M.DCC.LXXII. 
 

m 
 
 r 0 
 
 Sir GEORGE BEAUMONT, Bart, 
 
 O F 
 
 BUNMOWj IN THE COUNTY OF ESSEXj 
 THIS 
 
 ESSAY 
 
 IS INSCRIBED, 
 
 WITH THE GREATEST RESPECT, 
 
 BY HIS MOST OBUOED HUMBLE SERVANT, 
 
 (■ 
 
 The EDITOR! 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 following EiTay was 
 
 begun and well nigh finillied 
 
 wdthout any regular plan. An 
 
 attempt to gain a juft idea of the 
 (Trecian muftc, having led the 
 Writer to compare the compafs 
 of the voice in fotig., with the 
 compafs of the voice' in ordi- 
 
 A 3 
 
 nary 
 
» PREFACE. 
 
 nary fpeaking ; This by accident 
 occahoned an enquiry into the 
 number of elemental fomids in lan- 
 guage, upon which the conftruc- 
 tion of an Alphabet is founded ; 
 and he was afterwards induced to 
 connect his fcattered remarks up- 
 on the difcovery of Letters, which 
 are here fubmitted to the Public. 
 Should they carry the Reader into 
 an entangled path, he is at liberty 
 to retreat when he pleafes ; and 
 muft blame himfelf, if he pur- 
 fue it longer than may fuit with 
 his amufement. The knov/iedge 
 we acquire by travelling up to 
 the remotefi; ages, rarely anfwers 
 its fatigues ; our journey for the 
 
 moft 
 
PREFACE. iii 
 
 moft part lies through barren de- 
 ferts, or a deep enchanted wood ; 
 where the traveller is ever liable 
 to be feduced by falfe lights j 
 whilft the avenues to Truth are 
 guarded by the phantoms of My- 
 thology ; and, having reached, at 
 length, the diftant point, from 
 whence he hoped to find the 
 profped' clear before him, his far- 
 ther progrefs is cut olf by an un- 
 navigable ocean, and all beyond 
 it is obfcurity. 
 
 With regard to the Principle 
 upon which the Grecian Alphabet 
 is here fuppofed to have been al- 
 tered 
 
iV 
 
 PREFACE, 
 
 tered from the Hebrew or Sama-^ 
 ritan^ however probable the Wri- 
 ter thinks it, he is far from pre- 
 fuming it will appear as probable 
 to others. It might poffibly have 
 flood a fairer chance for an al- 
 lowance^ had a more exaft deli- 
 neation of what are conceived to 
 have been the original forms of the 
 Greek letters been given ; but a 
 hint may be fufficient for thofe, 
 whofe judgement is of moft 
 importance in deciiions of this 
 kind, which require fome little 
 pra(flical fkill in drawing, or at 
 leaft a habit of difcerning what 
 are the principal lines of any ob- 
 jedl upon which its chara6ter de- 
 pends ; 
 
PREFACE. 9 
 
 pends ; and it is to be lamented, 
 that thefc but feldom are accom- 
 plifhments of the moft profound 
 fcholars. This defeat in our ge- 
 neral method of Education hath 
 been a fource of error, in tranf- 
 cribing monuments of antient lite- 
 rature ; nor is the evil confined 
 only to infcriptions upon brafs 
 • and marble. 
 
 Whether what hath been ad- 
 vanced in fupport of the Divine 
 Infpiration of Alphabetic Writing, 
 (which by fomehath been /oo zeal- 
 oufly afferted) fhall be thought 
 conclufive, is a matter hkewife 
 about which the Writer is not 
 
 follicitous. 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 felicitous, fince there is undoubt- 
 ed room for a diverfity of opi- 
 nion. Should the more judicious 
 favour his defiign, and not en- 
 tirely difapprove the manner of 
 its execution, the attempt will 
 give him pleafure ; but if other- 
 wife, the Reader ftill may be 
 indebted to his errors, and he 
 trufts it to the cenfure of the 
 Public j mqm vero errajfe turpe 
 ejl enim initium fapkntice j Ji 
 non ei, ipji qui fallitur., at aliis non 
 falkndi *; or, as one of our own 
 countrymen, by whom the Church 
 hath been unwittingly obliged, 
 
 Ipeaks 
 
 * Seal, de Cauf. L. L. 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 /peaks more fully ; Even mljidken 
 •writers-, hy putting men upon en- 
 quiries may make them fee farther 
 than themfelves j and, by this 
 means, both encreafe the number of 
 capable judges, and render fome of 
 the Learned better judges than they 
 •were before To fupport known 
 errors, hath either a degree of 
 madnefs in it, or what is worfe ; 
 and a rigid ftiffnefs in opinion, 
 however it may be by accident 
 conhftent with a love of Truth, 
 is always inconhftent with the 
 method of acquiring it ; as, un- 
 happily, we find it is too often 
 
 with 
 
 J Mr. Collins, 
 
viii P R E F A ' C E. 
 
 with that candour, which is due 
 to thofe who differ from us. 
 
 If any other apology is want- 
 ing, it may be for feeming to 
 affed; a greater fhare of {kill in 
 oriental learning, than the writer 
 knows himfelf entitled to ; and 
 digrefhng fometimes into obfer- 
 vations, that are flightly, if at all 
 connedled with his argument. 
 
 Enough is faid in this acknow- 
 ledgement to obviate the 
 remark, with thofe whom' he 
 would wifh to fatisfy : for tlio 
 Jecond^ if the obfervations of their- 
 felves be juft, it matters little 
 ' upon 
 
PREFACE. is 
 
 upon wHat occafions he hath in- 
 troduced them, fince though to 
 many they are needlefs, yet others 
 poffibly may think them written 
 to fome purpofe. 
 
 
 45 
 
 44. 
 
 \J r 
 
 
 O B S E R- 
 
 
 
. E R R A T A. 
 
 PAGE 28, line 3d, Ihoiild not have begun a new paragraph i 
 Page 39, note, 1 . 2, for Scei\ read Skei, 
 
 Page 57 and 39, note, for read 
 
 Page 69^ 1 . II, for fecond and third pctges^ read fifth page. 
 Page 71 ,iecond reference, (otpage 2, 3, note^ read page note. 
 
 Page 78, 1 . I, for n, read n. 
 
 Page 92, 1 . 9, for d, read D. ' , 
 
 Page 94, 1 . 2, for D, read D, 
 
 Page 95, reference at the bottom, for p. 3, read p. 
 
 Page 109, 1 . 13, dele which. 
 
 Page ii/|, 1 . 2, for Scriptures , read Scripture % 
 
 Page 1 2 1, 1. 2, for noD, read ‘iDD. » 
 
 The Three Plates are to be inferted between 
 pages 110 and iii* 
 
 / 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 
 
 T hat Writing, In the earlieft ages 
 of the world, was a delineation of 
 the outlines of thofe things men 
 wanted to remember, rudely graven either 
 upon {hells or ftones, or marked upon the 
 leaves or bark of trees ; and that this 
 reprefentatlon of forms was next 
 B 
 
 fie 
 
2 OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 ceeded by fymbolic figures, will generally 
 be allowed : if afterwards we add to thefe 
 fuch contracted reprefentations of them 
 as the characters of the Chinefe are faid 
 to be, together with ^ fyllabical marks 
 which flill continue with their neigh- 
 bours of yapariy we poflibly may com- 
 prehend the whole that human unaflifted 
 wifdom contributed towards ’the com- 
 pletion of the art. But to wave the de- 
 termination of this at prefent ; if the 
 knowledge of alphabetic writing was not 
 originally communicated by Mofes to the 
 ' Jfraelites at the delivery of the law from 
 Sinai, by whom it was imparted to the 
 nations around them, fuch is the confu- 
 fion of hifioric *f* evidence upon the fub- 
 
 jeCt, 
 
 * Dr. Kcmpfer’s Hiflory of Japan, Vol. II. 
 
 t Literas femper arbitror AfT) rias fuifR, faith PUny, 
 fed alii apud^gyptios diMercurio ut GelliuSjalii apud 
 repertas volunt; utique in Graeciam intulifle* e 
 Phcenice Cadmum fedccim numero, quibus Trojano 
 hello Palamedim adjecifle quatuor hac figura 0, £, O, 
 X, totidem poft eum Simnidgm meliciim z, H, V, n, 
 quariim omnium vis in noftris recognofcitur. Ari- 
 2 ftoteles 
 
alphabetic writing. 3 
 
 jed:, that we are altogether at a k)fs to fix 
 even the date of this aftonifhing, if not 
 divine, difcovery; a difcovery which, 
 after Providence thought proper to con- 
 trad the term of human life within the 
 narrow boundary of feventy years be- 
 B 2 came 
 
 ftoteles decern & o6lo prifcas fuiffe A, B, r, A, E, z, 
 
 I, K. A, M, N, o, n, P, E, T, Y, <I>, et duas ab 
 Epicharrho additas ©, x, quam a Palamede mavult. 
 Anticlides in iEgypto inveniffe quendam nomine 
 Menona tradit, XV annis ante Phoroneum antiquifli- 
 mum Graeciae regem ; idque monumentis adprobare 
 conatur\ e diverfo Epigenes apud Babylonios DCCXX 
 annorum obfervationes fyderum, codlilibus latercu- 
 lis infcriptas docet, gravis amSlor imprimis ; qui mi- 
 jaimum Berofus Sc Critodemus CCCCLXXX anno- 
 rum ; ex quo apparet aternus literarum ufus. NaU ^ 
 Tlift, 1. vii. c, 56. 
 
 Berofus lived in the time of Alexander, and Epi* 
 genes in that of Auguftus. 
 
 ^ It appears from the xcth PfaJm, (if this Pfalm 
 be afcribed to its proper author) that the general 
 term of human life was reduced to feventy years be- 
 fore the death of Mofesj though his own life, as 
 well as that of Joftiua, were lengthened out beyond ' 
 it ; for Adofes lived to 120, and Jofhua to no years : 
 and it is fubmitted to the reader, whether the period 
 
 ■ • i 
 
I 
 
 4 OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 came necejjary to advance the progrefs of 
 Science, as well to enlighten and prepare 
 mens minds once more for the reception 
 of revealed Truths, which had been fo 
 generally perverted, as in order to prevent 
 fuch a perverfion of thern for the future. 
 Upon a fuppofition that letters, properly 
 fo called, were not firft taught by Mofes, 
 all that we are able to trace out from hif- 
 tory concerning their invention, amounts 
 to little more than fome few plaufible 
 conjeftures in what country they were 
 earlieft propagated, whilft the author of 
 them is entirely unknown ; and thefe 
 conjedlures arc fupported, rather upon our 
 knowledge of what relative height the arts 
 and fciences had attained in fome nations 
 above others, (as it is natural to fuppofe 
 
 they 
 
 of this reduction may not probably be placed be- 
 tween the death of Jofeph, and the departure of the 
 Ifraelites from iEgypt. Jacob, when he firft ap- 
 peared before Pharaoh, fpeaks of the days of the years 
 of his life as few, though he was then 130 years old, 
 and Jofeph lived to fee Ephraim’s children of the 
 third generation. 
 
alphabetic writing, 5 
 
 they might have been advanced by the 
 facility of conveying mens ideas in ^vrit- 
 ten language) than upon any credit that 
 is due to the authority of the mofl an- 
 tient writers in this particular; fince 
 whoever fhall take the trouble of enquir- 
 ing into their feveral pretenfions, will 
 find the accounts they have left us to be 
 not only different from each other, but, 
 for the moft part, inconfiftent in their- 
 felves* 
 
 The Hebrew^ the Samaritariy the Syriac^ 
 and the Greek Alphabets, not to mention 
 any other, feem to have had but one author, 
 forafmuch as their refpedlive letters follow 
 each other in the fame ^ order, having the 
 B 3 ' fame 
 
 * It will very likely be obje£led that this is not 
 really the cafe ; that the letter Y for inftance, in the 
 Greek alphabet, which ranks after T, the nineteenth 
 letter, and hath the numeral power of 400, ought, 
 according to the Hebrew order of fucceflion, to have 
 been the fixth letter, with the numeral power of 6 
 only ; and that other letters of the Greek alpha- 
 bet might be brought to oppofe what is. here laid 
 
 down. 
 
6 OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 fame numeral as well as vocal powers, 
 (for 'which no other fufficient caufe than 
 imitation can be affigned) with fuch an 
 agreement in the forms oi fame charac- 
 ters, and the names of all, as to render 
 it highly probable that they were but 
 tranfcripts of the fame original : under 
 fb many circumftances^of refemblance a$ 
 
 they 
 
 down. In anfwer to which it may be obferved, that 
 the fixth place in the Greek alphabet was originally 
 filled up with another charaaer, called Uo, which 
 had the numeral power of 6 j and that this charaaer 
 was not merely a numeral, as fome have fuppofed, 
 is likely for the following reafons. Firft, becaufe 
 the epithet given to the Greek T, would have 
 been not only unneceflary but improper, if there had 
 not been a charaaer appointed for a different found 
 of the fame letter ; but this I think can be afcribed, 
 with no degree of probability, td any other charaaer 
 than that of We may argue, fecondly, from 
 
 the firm of this charaaer (r) which differs very lit- 
 tle from that of the Hebrew Vau reverfed, as like- 
 ■wife from its name, that the Greeks intended it 
 fhould take the literal power of i as well as its numeral 
 
 one • and this is farther confirmed by the name, and 
 
 charaaer, and power of the F, which fuc- 
 
 ceeded into the place of this numeral, and makes 
 
alphabetic writing. 
 
 7 
 
 they appear to us, it is indeed fearcely 
 poffible to doubt it. 
 
 It was the opinion of a late learned 
 antiquary that literal writing was invented 
 by the Arabs, merely from the names of 
 the alphabetic characters correfponding to 
 the furniture of an Arabian tent, with 
 B 4 the 
 
 the fixth letter of the Roman alphabet. What other 
 variations from the numeral powers of the Hebrew 
 letters occur in the Greek alphabet, will appear here- 
 after and it is fufficient to the argument, that thefe 
 alphabets agree thus in general. 
 
 As the numeral powers of letters were undoubted- 
 ly derived at firft from their order of fequence in the 
 alphabet, it is remarkable of the Arabic and Perfian 
 alphabets, (the former of which confifts of 28, and 
 the latter of 32 letters) that thofe chara-dlers in 
 them, which correfpond with the Hebrew in their 
 vocal powers, ftill do the fame in their numeral ones, 
 notwithftanding the difference of their htuation in 
 the feries, and the interpofal of many letters' un- 
 known to the Hebrew language, which letters there- 
 fore have no numeral powers aligned to them at 
 all. 
 
 The chara£lers of the prefent Arabic and Perhan* 
 alphabets, it is true, are but of a modern date ; yet 
 
8 OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 the animals about It ; as the ox, the ca- 
 mel, the goad or fpit, the drinking-cup, 
 the hook or ftaple upon which they 
 hanged^ their arms, the hunting-horn, 
 the adze or battle-ax, the lappet of the 
 curtain or tent-door, &c. That the names 
 of the eaftern letters were many of them 
 borrowed from thefe things is indifputa- 
 ble ; and even allowing their forms like- 
 
 wife 
 
 £s it appears from this circumftance of their nume- 
 ral powers, that the Hebrew alphabet was the ori- 
 ginal whence both thefe alphabets were copied ; fo it 
 affords us a prefumptive argument, that it was the 
 original of their more antient alphabets likewife ; for- 
 afmuch as the numeral powers of their prefent let- 
 ters, were much more likely to have been taken 
 from the order of fequence in their own alphabets, 
 than from that in the Hebrew : but if their own an- 
 tient alphabets had been truly original, it is next to 
 impoflible that the order of the letters in them fhould 
 have been the fame with the order of the Hebrew 
 letters ; and we may argue e converfo^ if the order of 
 the letters in the antient Arabic and Perfian alphabets 
 coincided with the order of the Hebrew, that they cer- 
 tainly had all but one author. Seethe Second Plate, 
 in which the order and powers of the Perfian and 
 Arabic letters are compared with thofeof the Hebrew 
 s^jphabet. 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. $ 
 
 wife to have been taken from the outlines 
 of thofe objedls whofe names they bear, 
 (which feems highly probable) yet ftill it 
 is not difficult to conceive the tents of the 
 Ifraelites in the wildernefs to have pre- 
 fen ted the fame objefts ; or if they did . 
 not, yet Mofes fojourned long enough 
 under the character of a fhepherd, whilfl: 
 he kept the flocks of Jethro, and led a 
 wandering life in the Arabian valleys, to 
 be fufficiently acquainted with them. 
 But, in truth, the mind is barely amufed 
 here with an apparent fource of the in- 
 vention of alphabetic writing, from what' 
 was nothing more than an arbitrary con- 
 nexion of forms ^ by which to exhibit the 
 elemental powers of Letters to the eye, 
 after thofe powers were difcovered ; that 
 is, nothing more than the adapting of a 
 fet of charaXers to the elements of fpeech 
 already known ; whereas the great diffi- 
 culty of the Invention conflfted in ac- 
 quiring a perfect knowledge of thefe elements 
 themfelveSy as a Principle -y or, in other 
 words,' in the being fo well acquainted 
 
 with 
 
10 OBSERVATIONS upoji 
 
 with the powers and extent of human ut-?. 
 terance, as to be able to afEgn a fufficient 
 number of charadiers for all the variety of 
 founds we want in Language; I fay ^ for aU 
 the founds we want, fo far only as they are 
 neceiSary to convey our ideas ^lihclearnefs; 
 for to extend them to thofe minute diffe- 
 rences of pronunciation, to which the 
 force and elegance of fpeech ^ are prin- 
 cipally owing, would be endlefs : thus far 
 we are certain, and it is not lefs fo, that 
 the objefts from which the forms of the 
 Hebrew letters were taken, could never 
 have originally fuggefted ideas of the 
 
 founds 
 
 * It is moft undoubtedly evident, that the force as 
 well as the elegance of fpeech depends much more 
 upon an expreffive Rythmus, arifing from a juftly 
 varied compolition of related feet, together with the - 
 Tone^ the Emphafisy and the Accenty our words and 
 fentences are delivered in (which no alphabetic cha- 
 radfers can point out) than upon the meaning which 
 is fimply conveyed by the terms theirfelves ; and as 
 no characters whatever can mark thepredfe elevation 
 of the voice for all the intermediate accents required 
 in the moft common converfation, though its utmoft. 
 
 limits 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING, it 
 
 founds affixed to them, except in fome 
 very few inftances. If we imagine . 
 the ox, (for example) to have fu^gefted 
 the found of the broad A, which is the 
 voice of the animal ■, and that p and D, 
 for a fimilar rcafon, migAt have fuggefted 
 thofe of Qjind X j yet ftill the other e- 
 Jemental founds, having no fuch natural 
 relation to figure, muft at firft have been 
 determined to belong to this clafs (the 
 clafs of elemental founds), before they 
 had any arbitrary marks affigned them ; 
 and it is this previous difcernment of all 
 the original founds, that are neceflary to 
 
 the 
 
 limits be confined nearly within the fyftem of a Dia- 
 pente including odaves ; fo a juft ear may diftinguifh 
 a great variety of founds in the pronunciation of the 
 five vowels, by attending to the continued difcourfe 
 af a good fpeaker, beyond what may be called their 
 ordinary legitimate powers ; and the fame is true of 
 many confonants llkewife. The Maforetic Jews, 
 admit of fourteen characters for as many dilFerent 
 founds of the Hebiew vowels ; and if we mayjudge 
 of the Hebrew language by our own, this number 
 muft have fallen very far {hort of the variety of their 
 modifications. 
 
12 O B S E RVATI G N S upon 
 
 the conftruftion of a perfeft alphabet^ 
 which feems a ftretch beyond the unaf- 
 fifted powers of human wit. Dionylius 
 of Halicarnaffus, who lived (according to 
 Strabo) in the Auguflan age, whofe ge- 
 nius appears to have been, as equal to an 
 enquiry of this fort as any man’s, ac- 
 knowledges that it was not in his power 
 to afcertain what number of letters were 
 necelTary to a conlpleat alphabet. ‘ This, 
 he tells us had been in vain attempted 
 before his time ; and if it continued to 
 be a matter of doubt and obfcurity fo 
 long after the invention and improvement 
 of alphabetic writing by the Greeks, 
 what difficulties muft have attended the 
 original invention itfelf ? 
 
 But belides this prefumptiony arilirig 
 from the nature of the fubjeeft, it is highly 
 probable, from feveral hiftorical circum- 
 ftances, that epiftolic writing, as I think it 
 hath been fometimes called in oppofition 
 to fymbolical, was utterly unknown in the 
 
 World 
 
 * On the Compofition of Words, feet. XIV. 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 13 
 
 'I 
 
 world to the time of the Exodus ; and 
 lince we know that every letter of the He- 
 brew alphabet (except which like the 
 Grecian © was not required to its comple- 
 tion, its power being only, the combined 
 powers of n ^^d n) is contained within 
 the Decalogue, written upon the tables 
 of ftone ; it inclines us rather to believe, 
 that a knowledge of the elemental founds 
 was fupernaturally imparted to Mofes 
 immediately after the firft defeat of the 
 Amaleklte$^, (upon which occafion wri- 
 ting is firft mentioned in the Scriptures) 
 and that he invented thofe literal charac- 
 ters, which were afterwards communi- 
 cated to the Ifraelites at the delivery of 
 the Law, If fome learned men, parti- 
 cularly fome of the Fathers, have been of 
 opinion that the knowledge of alphabetic 
 writing was either fupernaturally im- 
 parted to our firft parents, or difcovered 
 very foon after the Creation by the effort 
 of their own powers ; their opinion refts 
 upon the proofs they have produced, or 
 
 upon. 
 
 * Exod. xvii. 
 
14 observations opok 
 
 upon the reafons they have affigned fof 
 it, which the writer hath not undertaken 
 to examine ; and allowing all thefe fea- 
 fons to be valid, it might ftill be fo far 
 loft again in barbarifm, the natural effedl 
 of vicious manners, or fo obfcured by 
 theyz/^/a<^/ Providence of God, astoftand 
 in need of a revival. Many of the arts, we 
 may believe, were carried to a high degree 
 of perfedlion in the antediluvian world j 
 but we meet with no relation of an al- 
 phabetic charafter before the Flood ; what 
 is faid of the infcription upon pillars by 
 the firft Mercury from Manetho, or thofe 
 of Seth mentioned by Jofephus *, or the 
 other at Joppa -f by Mela, being evident- 
 ly fables too ridiculous to deferve atten- 
 tion ; nor is there any credible account 
 of fuch a charadler, from the Flood to the 
 arrival of the Ifraelites at Horeb. It may 
 be added, that if letters had been known 
 to the fons of Noah before their depar- 
 ture from Shinar, we might reafonably 
 
 have 
 
 ^ * Antiq. 1 . i. c. 2. 
 t See Purchas, b. i. ch, 7, 17* 
 
alphabetic writing. 15 
 
 have expefted to find them amongft the 
 Chinefe, who boaft an authentic leries of 
 records from the days of their pretended 
 emperor Fohi and to whom they would 
 have been ready enough to afcribe the in- 
 vention, had they known it fo early as 
 their neighbours : but as the more wef- 
 tern nations were too long poflefled of it 
 before them, to admit of fuch a claim, 
 they have ever affefted to defpife the art 
 of alphabetic writing, and very philofo- 
 phically perfift in rejefting the ufe of 
 letters to this time. 
 
 There are feveral neceffary occafions 
 for the ufe of alphabetic writing, upon 
 
 which 
 
 * Fohi is fiippofcd, by many learned and judicious 
 writers, to have been no other than the Patriarch 
 Noah, whom the overweening vanity of the Chinefe 
 hath enrolled in the number of their Emperors. 
 Taking this for granted, at leaft it fliews that nei- 
 ther Noah or his fons had yet communicated the 
 knowledge of an alphabetic chara( 5 fer to their poUe- 
 rity in general, at the time of the migration into 
 China ; a circumftance which is hardly confiiUnt 
 with his having any knowledge of it himfelf. 
 
i6 OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 .which .it is improbable to imagine .it 
 would often have been oi^iitted, after 
 it was generally known ; and fuppo- 
 fing it to have been known before the 
 .days of Mofes, confidering how exaft 
 and circumftantial a relation of antient 
 ufages and manners the Sacred Hiftory 
 affords us, it is as unlikely to conceive 
 the application of it, in all thefe cafes, 
 would have been entirely paffed over un- 
 .noticed (without fo much as being once 
 Ipoken of) in any hiftorical tranfaftion, 
 from the time of its difcovery to the age 
 in which he lived. 
 
 The firfl employment of letters, fup- 
 pofing they were of human invention, 
 we may reafonably prefume to have been 
 in the fervice of the paffions ; that is, in 
 the conveyance of our tender fentiments> 
 which no fymbols can exprefs with half 
 the force and delicacy of a written lan- 
 guage. Bufinefs of any fort could have 
 been but ill tranfadled without it at a 
 diftance, and its peculiar ufe i^ traffic 
 I need? 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 13? 
 
 needs not to be infilled on ; yet this we 
 know was largely carried on by the Mi-? 
 dianites, and that there was a ftandardj^ 
 either of purity or weight, even in the 
 days of Abraham to filver current with 
 the merchant. Other neceffary ufes of an 
 alphabetic charadler were in order to perr 
 petuate, with more precilion, the remem- 
 brance of certain circumftances or ac- 
 tions, which were proper to be conveyed 
 to after-ages ; for fpecifying conditions of 
 covenant ^ for the conveyance of pro^* 
 perty ; or for afcertaining the particulars 
 of teftamentary difpolitions : ‘ and in each 
 of thefe cafes the uniform lilence of the 
 Scriptures to a certain period, concern- 
 ing this kind of writing, though it doth 
 not amount to an abfolute proof, yet ren^ 
 ders it highly probable that it was not 
 known till that very time. Add, more- 
 over, that the revelations of God to the 
 Patriarchs, of whatever importance to 
 Religion, were not enjoined to be re^ 
 C corde^ 
 
 * Gen. xxiii, ^ 0 . 
 
i8 OBSERVATIONS upow 
 
 corded f9l the giving of the Law; where- 
 as, after the delivery of the Law, they 
 were in general directed to be written^ for 
 the generations to come. Let us confider 
 fome particular cafes, as they occur in 
 Scripture, in fupport of what hath been 
 advanced. 
 
 When Abraham ^ commiffioned his 
 fteward to go to his own country, to take 
 a wife for his fon Ifaac, he gave him no 
 literal teftimonial or credentials, as ap- 
 pears from all the circumftances of Elea- 
 zer’s conference with Bethuel and the 
 brother of Rebecca. 
 
 When Rebecca -f* fent away her fa- 
 vourite fon into a ftrange land, had lite- 
 ral writing been familiar in that age, we 
 may reafonably fuppofe he would have 
 carried fome written account from her^ 
 of the reafons for his departure from his 
 father’s houfe, accompanied with the 
 t . warmeft 
 
 Gen, xxiw 
 
 t Gen. xxviii. 7. 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING, 19 
 
 v/armeft recommendation of him to the 
 affedlion of her brother j whereas he 
 quits his native country, and trufts for a 
 reception amongft idolaters (or infidels 
 at leaft, with refped: to the doftrine of 
 redemption) to the credit of a Ample 
 narrative. It pleafed God^^. indeed, to 
 appear to him by the way, to fupport 
 his mind under the diftrelTes he was like- 
 ly to encounter, and to reward his faith ; 
 but this was not to be expeBed: and had 
 any letters been committed to him, con- 
 fidering how minute the Hiftorian is in 
 relating his converfation with the fhep- 
 herds, and the particulars of his meet- 
 ing Rachel and her father, we can hard- 
 ly fuppofe fo natural a circumftanco 
 would not have been recorded 
 
 C % Up- 
 
 * It may not be amifs to obferve here, that thd 
 charadtef of Rebecca feems to have been commonly 
 tniftaken. She is ufually reprefented, as governed 
 by a cruel partiality in favour of her younger fon# 
 to the prejudice of the elders but if we confided 
 
 Wh^t 
 
10 OBSERVATIONS upqi^? 
 
 Upwards of twenty years at leaft liad 
 elapfed, from the time of JofepVs being 
 fold into iEgypt, to the arrival of his 
 brethren in that country, without any re-? 
 
 lation 
 
 what was revealed to her at the time of their birth 
 (Gen. XXV. 23.) ; thatEfauftill inherited his father’s 
 fubftance,'notwithftanding the privation of his blef- 
 fing; and that Jacob was wittingly expofed, by her 
 advice, to poverty and banifhment ; we -may eafily 
 conceive her to have been a£luated by a higher prin- 
 ciple than blind parental fondnefs ; as rejecting Efau 
 for his prophanenefs in defpiling the Priefthood, and 
 marrying into a devoted family, the family of Ca- 
 nearly both which anions evidently proceeded from 
 a want of faith j and he muft be confidered as re- 
 nouncing, by thefe adls, the expectation of the pro- 
 mifes made to Abraham ar?d to his Father. We are 
 told in the laft verfe of the xxvith chapter of Ge- 
 nefis, that Efau’s marriages were hitternefs of fpirlt 
 both to Ifaac and to Rebecca ; and the laft verfe of 
 the xxviith chapter concludes 'with her pathetic la- 
 mentation of the ruin of their hopes, ftiould Jacob 
 follow the example of his brother : Jnd Rebecca faid 
 unto Ifaac ^ My life is ditireffed from the fa,ces of the 
 daughters of Heth. Should Jacob take a wife of the 
 jdaiighiers of Heihy fuch as be thefe (namely, the 
 ^ - wives 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 21 
 
 latioA of his circumftances being tranf- 
 mitted to his father ; which is not eafily 
 reconcileable with the opinion, that lite- 
 ral Vv^riting was then known ; nor indeed 
 can we well fuppofe, had this been the 
 C 3 cafe, 
 
 'wJ’IvGs of EfaU^ whom I difclalm as ffiy daughters) t/p^ 
 daughters of the land^ what good will my life do 
 me ? or, as the words CD»n T\rd? may be tranflated 
 literally, Ad quid mihi vivenies ? that is, What blef- 
 ling can I expe 6 l in the lives of my children, who 
 will both have forfeited their title to the promifes of 
 God? In this light, Rebecca’s conduvSI appears to 
 have been the effed^ of piety, inftead of prejudice ; 
 and her fuperior alFedlion for one Ton, to have been 
 Owing to the profligate infidelity of the other. She 
 was well acquainted with the will of God concern-' 
 ing them both ; the Patriarchs were not exempted 
 from the weaknefs incident to ag-e ; Ihe knew her 
 hufband’s partiality; and thdugh her condudf might 
 in fome refpedls be wrong, in taking confequences 
 to herfelf, by the pradlice of deceit; upon the whole, 
 it was but prudent, by every method poflible, with- 
 out the ftaining of her confcience, to prevent an old 
 man, in his dotage, from attempting to defeat the 
 defignations of Providence. Accordingly we find, 
 that Ifaac did at laft perceive the impropriety of his 
 behaviour, and difmifled his younger fon with the 
 bicfiing of Abraham, 
 
22 OBSEi^VATlONS 
 
 cafe, they would fo imprudently have ha-* 
 zarded a difcovery of their wickednefs, 
 by Iparing his life : and when he fent 
 home all his brethren, except Simeon, 
 we hear of no written memorial of the 
 terms upon which he was to be fet at 
 liberty ; but they told their father what 
 the man^ the Lord of the country, had 
 fatdi and infifled on. 
 
 A ftone was confecrated to God, upon 
 the fpot where he manifefted himfelf to 
 Jacob ; the memory of Rachel’s burial- 
 place was perpetuated by fetting up a 
 pillar; in neither cafe we read of any 
 ittfcription. Signets, indeed, we know 
 V/ere in ufe during the lives of the Pa- 
 triarchs, for Judah pledged his fignet to 
 Tamar, and Pharaoh put a fignet upon 
 the hand of Jofeph ; but what was the 
 nature qf their devices is altogether un- 
 certain, It is furely inconclulive to ar- 
 gue from the defeription of the drefs of 
 the Higb-Prirfly as it is given us in the 
 
 twenty- 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 23 
 
 twenty-eighth chapter of the book of 
 Exodus; where engraving upon fignets is 
 alluded to, after the difcovery of alpha- 
 betic writing, that fignets had a literal 
 infcription upon them upwards of twQ 
 hundred years before y efpecially as no- 
 thing more can be collefted from the 
 words made ufe of upon this occafion 
 by Mofes, than that cutting precious 
 ftones, and fetting them for the putpofes 
 of fignature, were arts well known be- 
 fore the time of the Exodus, without 
 determining what fpecies of engraving 
 was antiently put upon them* 
 
 With refpedl to covenants : The cove- 
 nants between Abraham and Abimelech ^ 
 were ratified in the acceptance of oxen 
 and ftieep by the latter, and by a mutual 
 oath, without any mention being made 
 of a written memorial. That between 
 Jacob and Laban was ratified by col- 
 lecting a heap of ftones, upon which 
 C 4 they 
 
 * Gen. xxi. 23. xxvi, 2§ — 31. f Gen. xxxi. 
 
4 C) B S E R V ATI ON g upon 
 
 they partook of a common entertain-* 
 ment, and eredled a pillar ; and after this 
 the agreement was concluded with art 
 oath : Laban faid to "Jacoby Behold 
 
 this heapy arid behold this pillar which I 
 have caji between me and thee,: Tlhis heap 
 be witnefsy and "Lhis pillar be witnefs, that 
 I will not pafs over this heap to theey and 
 that thou jhalt not pafs over this heap and 
 this pillar to me, for harm : ’Lhe God of 
 'Abrahaniy and the God of Nahory the God of 
 THEIR Father, judge betwixt us. And 
 Jacob fware by the fear of his father 
 Isaac, and offered facrifice to him upon the 
 mounty and called his brethren to eat ' 
 bread ^y but we have not the lead: hint 
 
 of 
 
 # 
 
 * It fhould feem from henc^, that eating upon the 
 heap of ftones was in conformity to a mere civil 
 rite, which had now grown into general eftablifli- 
 ihent at the concluding of a treaty, and that Labari 
 did not partake of this religious entertainment after- 
 wards. There is a remarkable difference in the oaths 
 here recorded, which Ihews the zeal of Laban in 
 fupport of the old family-worfhip, and as fteady a 
 
 de- 
 
alphabetic- writing. 
 
 bf any engraved memorial upon the pil-r 
 lar that was erefted, not even a fymbo- 
 , lie one ; or of any written terms of a- 
 greement, upon a ftone or a fhell, deli- 
 vered or received by either of the con- 
 tradling parties* 
 
 When 
 
 determination in Jacob to adhere to the faith of his 
 father Ifaac ; for Jacob calls the God of Abraham 
 only to witnefs ; whereas Laban had joined the God 
 of Nahor, in his invocation, with the God of A- 
 braham, particularizing whom he meant, by calling 
 him likewife the God of their father Terah\ intimat- 
 ing by this, that he was determined not to depart front 
 the religion of their common anceftor, whom he 
 names, without any mention of the God of Ifaaa^ 
 as a rebuke for his fon-in-law’s perfifting jn the de- 
 fection which was begun by Abraham. 
 
 The character of Laban, from his behaviour in the 
 marriage of Leah, and in changing the wages of Jacob 
 fo many times, appears to have been that of a felflfh, 
 unjuft man ; but this paiTage fhews, that the reli- 
 gious difterence between the family of Nahor and that 
 
 Ahraham had irnbittered the fpirits of the former; 
 and that therefore, had literal writing been known 
 in the days of Ifaac, Rebecca would certainly not 
 have failed to make ufe of it, to foften the rugged 
 temper of her brother, for the more benevolent re- 
 ception of her fon. 
 
OBSERVATIONS Vpop 
 
 When Abrahaifti purchafed the field of 
 Machpelah we read of no written 
 conveyance : He wighed unto Ephron the 
 four hundred Jhekels of fiver ^ and the field 
 of Ephron which was in Machpelah near 
 Mamre ^ the fields and the cave that was 
 therein, and all the trees that were in the 
 field, that were in all the borders round 
 about, were made fure unto Abraham for a 
 pojfejjion, in the prefence of the children of 
 Heth, before all that went in at the gate 
 of his city, who were witneffes of the 
 contradl, and confirmed it : and thus, 
 when Jacob purchafed the right of pri- 
 mogeniture of his brother, there was 
 no written memorial between them, but 
 the contract was made, and confirmed 
 fimply by an oath, 
 
 Teftamentary requeftg, before the Ex- 
 odus, (if this epithet may be attributed 
 to thofe of the Patriarchs) were certainly 
 
 only 
 
 * Gen. xxiii. 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 
 
 Only nuncupatory; and it feemS extremely 
 probable, from the particular condudl. of 
 Abraham and Jacob, in the twenty-fourth 
 and forty-feventh chapters of the book 
 of Genelis, that perfons intrufted with 
 the execution of them were bound by a 
 particular oath, the penalty of which (as 
 may be conjedlured from the manner of 
 its being adminiftered) was, either a tem-» 
 poral curfe upon their own pofterity, 
 an exclufion from the benefits of thQ 
 promifed feed, (in whom all the families 
 of the earth were to be blefled) if they 
 failed to perform the will of the de- 
 ceafed. This was doing all that could: ho. 
 done in this cafe, to fupply the deficiency 
 of writing : in particular, with refped: to. 
 the delire of Jofeph ^ at his death, that 
 the defcendants of his brethren would 
 carry up his bones from ^Egypt, whert 
 God Ihould vifit them, to bring thent 
 into the land which he fware unto their 
 fathers to give them ; had writing then 
 
 been 
 
 Gen. chap. I, 
 
OBSERVATIONS up&n 
 
 been known, we cannot fuppofe it would 
 have been omitted upon this occalion. 
 
 • The memory of fuch a requeft might? 
 be forgotten, long before the period of 
 their deliverance arrived, without fome 
 fixt memorial ; and the oath of an aii- 
 ceftor, long buried in his grave, per- 
 haps, might hot bq thbught to bind 
 his children to the obfervance of what 
 was liable to be rnifreprefented by tradi- 
 tion, however the penalty of the oath 
 might regard them in its original tenor. 
 
 ' That we meet with no written tefla- 
 tnentary difpolitions in the Scripture, af- 
 ter the invention of Jetters, may be 
 thought to invalidate the argument, from 
 their being only nunciipatory before ' it ^ 
 but this is to be afcribed to the peculiar 
 fpirit of the Mofaic law, which left very 
 little difcretionary power, in thefe mat- 
 ters, to the determination of private 
 |>erfons. The firfl-born fon was to in- 
 j herit 
 
. ALPHABETIC WRITING. 29 
 
 herit the family-eftate, with a double 
 portion of his father’s goods ; and the 
 remainder was -to be equally divided ar 
 mongll the younger children. If a man 
 had only daughters they were to in- 
 herit equally ; the perfons with whom 
 they were to naarry, were determined by 
 Jaw ; eftates were unalienable, fo long 
 as any one of the family was living ; and 
 as to the difpofal of men’s bodies after 
 death, it was a general cuftom for them 
 to be buried with their fathers, and a 
 defire to be interred in any other place 
 would have been thought prepofterous 
 and unnatural : but thefe are all, or at 
 Jeaft the chief ends for which teftament^ 
 are neceflary. 
 
 / Other inftances might perhaps be pro- 
 duced, of circumftances recorded, and 
 covenants ratified, before the promulga- 
 tion of the Law by Mofes, without the 
 mention of alphabetic writing ; and fince 
 
 ' the 
 
 * Numb, xxvii.i — 12, and xxxvi. i — 10. 
 
Jd OBSERVATIONS ur^N 
 
 the Scriptures are filent upon this point, 
 and a^ion with memorial fongs were the 
 original manner of hiftorical Convey- 
 ance and inftruftion, it is no unreafona- 
 ble conjeftiite, that letters were not pub^ 
 liflied till the whole alphabet was given 
 to the Ifraelites, with the Decalogue, from 
 mount Sinai. 
 
 How long they were confined princi-- 
 pally to the affairs of religion, is uncer- 
 tain ; they made but little popular pro*«« 
 grefs during the time of the Judges, the 
 turbulence of that period preventing an 
 attention to any thing, beyond the ne*< 
 ceflary employments of Jife, to the ge-^ 
 nerality of the people. An attachment 
 to ancient cuftoms ^ operated ftrongly 
 the fame way ^ and it was not, probably, 
 till the eftablifhment of the kingdom 
 under David, that letters were in gene- 
 ral applied to the purpofes of domeftic 
 concernment, as well as to religion and 
 affairs of Hate, 
 
 But 
 
 * Ruth iv, 7, 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING* 31 
 
 But granting that the Ifraelltes were 
 not acquainted with alphabetic writing, 
 at the time of their going down to 
 i$lgypt ; yet, fince it appears to have beeii 
 knowi> to them during their abode in ^ 
 the wildernefs, foon after the Exodus, 
 they may ftili be thought (v/hich is the 
 moft prevailing opinion) to have learned 
 it of their mafters the ^Egyptians \ or at 
 leaft, that it was one of thofe arts which 
 Mofesy who was {killed in all the wifdom 
 of iEgypt, had acquired in that country* 
 It hath been already obferved, that let- 
 ters were moft probably unknown there in 
 the age of Jofeph, about two hundred years 
 before the birth of Mofes 5 their inven- 
 tion by Taaut, the firft Hermes, muft 
 confequently be a fidlion ; for that fuch 
 ^ an art, once known, fhould be entirely 
 loft, with a people not abfolutely dege- 
 nerated into a favage life, unlefs obfcured 
 by Divine interpolition, is hardly to be 
 imagined: but the contradiilory accounts 
 I in 
 
OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 in the chronological hiftory of the 
 Egyptians, not to niention other argu- 
 ments, fufficiently confute their pre-r 
 tences to the earlieft ufe of it, . as thefe 
 evince it to have been unknow'n in 
 ^gypt long after the giving of the Law. 
 Such abfurdities would naturally follow, 
 from the vague interpretation of which 
 their records, in fynibolic charadlers 
 were capable ; but could not furely have 
 been paffed fo long upon the credulity of 
 the world without detedlion, or haply 
 h^ve deceived themfelves, had their pub- 
 lic 
 
 * We learn from Horapollo, that the hawk figni- 
 fied, in hieroglyphic writing, either God, fublimi- 
 ty, excellence, humility, the wind, blood, victory, 
 •Mars, Venus, or the foul ; and that if they meant to 
 exprefs a facred feribe, a prophet, an undertaker, the 
 fpleen, fmelling, laughter, fneezing, an oiUcer, or a 
 judge, the fymbol of all thefe was a dog, for reafons 
 many of which appear as ridiculous as the mean- 
 ing was uncertain. The reader may fee a fufficient 
 number of examples in the two books of this Au- 
 thor, to convince him how precarious all hiftoric 
 eyidence muft have been, which was handed dow n in 
 fuch a manner. 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 33 
 
 He adls been regiftered with the precifion 
 of alphabetic writing. To this it may 
 be added likewife, that the wifdom 
 brought from'^gypt by the antient 
 Greeks, v/as confeffedly written either in 
 their natural or iymbolical hieroglyphics, 
 of which many precepts of Pythagoras 
 are fuppofed to be, if we may fo exprefs 
 it, a literal tranllation ^ : but Pythagoras 
 and Herodotus -f* were amongft the firft 
 ' D who 
 
 See Plutarch’s Rom. Queft, fe« 5 i:. 112. and Ifis 
 and Ofyris, at-the beginning, 
 
 f What this flowing Father of Romance aflerts in 
 his fecond book, concerning the pillars of Sefoftris, 
 will undoubtedly be objedled ; but thefe relations are 
 of no more weight than thofe of his followers Mane- 
 tho and Jofephus, mentioned above. In reality his 
 evidence, unfupported by better authority, or by the 
 nature of the fubjedl itfelf, is altogether unworthy of 
 belief j nor would it ever have been attended to, in a 
 doubtful matter of importance, if the fweetnefs of hi,s 
 language, and a veneration for antiquity, had not pre- 
 judiced the judgment of the learned. To tranflate fuch 
 a hiftory, with the utmofl: faithfulnefs^ would effectu- 
 ally diferedit it, notwithftanding his applaufes at 
 
 Olympus : 
 
34 OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 who availed themfelves of .the ^Egyptian 
 learning and difcoveries, more than a 
 
 thou- 
 
 Olympus : and Plutarch, who hath written a fingle 
 clTay to expofe his malice, might have filled a volume 
 with remarks on his credulity. 
 
 Upon the ruppofition that he a61:ually faw feme an- 
 tient monuments, which were certainly ereeSfed by Se- 
 foftris, and that the facred chara6Ier of iEgypt was 
 properly a literal chara^er^ it is far from being clear 
 that the age of Sefoftris was fo high as that of Mofes, 
 by many centuries ; but from the only infeription he 
 hath given us, which was cut between the fhoulders 
 cf a ftatue or of a figure, carved in bafs relief, upon 
 the road between Ephefus and Phocaea, allowing the 
 infeription to have been coeval with this monument, 
 it does not appear that he could more than guefs at the 
 perfon for whom it was intended. 7'he Syriac in- 
 feriptions of Semiramis, upon Mount Bagiftan, are 
 yet more vainly urged from Diodorus, [B. 2 .] to prove 
 the earlier antiquity of an alphabetic charadler j fince 
 the related faeSf, that there were any inferiptions at all, 
 is far from being certain j and it is well known, that 
 many Queens of AfTyria were diftinguifhed by the 
 name of Semiramis. 
 
 Vt qui regnavit fine nomine, mox Sefooflris. 
 
 Ausonius. 
 
 And the columns of Ofyris have as airy a founda- 
 tion. , , 
 
 2 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 35' 
 
 thoufand years after the Exodus : and as 
 it doth not appear that iEgypt was pof- 
 feffed of letters at the time of their tra- 
 velling into that country, we may almoft 
 certainly conclude, that however the 
 ^Egyptians might be before their neigh- 
 bours in grandeur and policy, they were 
 later than the' Greeks, whom they de- 
 fpifed, in the knowledge of literal wri- 
 ting -y or, what is really difgraceful, were 
 backward in improving the advantages of 
 an art, without which even the pyra- 
 mids are but vain and infignificant me- 
 morials. 
 
 With refped: to the opinion, that let- 
 ters were invented by the Arabs, before the 
 time of Mofes ; confidering the rude- 
 nefs of their life and manners, and that 
 iEgypt ^ was much farther advanced in 
 D 2 the 
 
 It is the opinion of Sir Kaac Newton, that let- 
 ters diJ not begin to be in ufe in Egypt till after the 
 flight of the Edomites from David, about which time, 
 Cadmus brought them into Europe; and that there is 
 
 no 
 
36 OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 the improvement of the arts, than any 
 other country at this early period, where 
 pi5lur e-writing efpecially was encouraged 
 and improved, perhaps, as much as it 
 was capable of 'improvement ; confider- 
 ing withal the firmnefs and liability of 
 the j®gyptian government, which left 
 particular perfons more at liberty to cul- 
 tivate their * genius, than a wandering 
 
 uncer- 
 
 no inftance of charadters for writing down founds 
 being in ufe, before the days of this monarch, among 
 any other nation befides the pofterity of Abraham, 
 though he fuppofes letters to have been in the Abra- 
 hamic family before the age of Mofes. But had al- 
 phabetic writing been originally invented by the 
 Arabs, we fhould probably have found their favourite 
 animal the Horfe, in the number of the primitive 
 characters ; whereas, upon a fuppofition of their be- 
 ing invented by Mofes at the Exodus, it was not like- 
 ly to be infertcd, as the Ifraelites at this time had ng 
 cavalry amongft them. 
 
 * There Teems to have been a ftrange fatality at- 
 tending the ^Egyptian learning. The ^Egyptians, 
 doubtlefs, carried Tome of the arts and fciences, and 
 efpecially f Geometry, to an aftonifhing height, from 
 
 their 
 
 I Diod. B, z. 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 37 
 
 uncertain Hate of almoft favage life ; we 
 may conclude, without prefumption, that 
 if the^Egyptians were not inventors of the 
 alphabet, as they moft probably were not, 
 D 3 it 
 
 their beginnings very early ; haftening with rapidity to 
 a certain point, at which they flopped, without getting 
 one ftep farther ; and this, unlefs we fuppofe it to have 
 been owing in fome meafure to the want of alpha- 
 betic writing, appears to have been the utmofl boun- 
 dary of their underftanding. They jufl camefliort of 
 the knowledge of letters, as they did of Painting, 
 Statuary, and Architecture ; of which they boafted, 
 notwithflanding, the difcovery and perfection ; and 
 claimed a fuperiority over other nations upon that ac- 
 count, which was too readily allowed them. In 
 truth, they fo much refembled what the Chinefe now 
 are, and always have been, (fo far as we can trace 
 their manners) in almofl every particular, as well a^ 
 pride and idolatry, as renders it highly probable they 
 were defcended from one common flock; or, other- 
 wife, that both thefc people have laboured under a 
 fimilar kind of judicial blindnefs. In a qualifled fenfe, 
 the likenefs might be urged as a ftriking example of 
 the favourite opinion that prevailed in antient iEgypt, 
 the dodtrine of tranfrnigration, which, we are told, 
 continues to be a favourite dodlrine in China to 
 this very time. It is well known, that vanity and 
 pride are amongfl the chief motives of the Chinefe, 
 
 for 
 
38 OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 it muft be afcribed with' much lefs like- 
 lihood to the invention of the ruder 
 Arabs.. 
 
 Hunt- 
 
 for rej piling the advantages of alphabetic writing, 
 v;hich they have been fo long acquainted with : how 
 far the fame narrow turn of mind prevented the an- 
 tientiEgyptians from receiving it, muft be left to the 
 opinion of the reader. It is ftrange, if thefe availed 
 themfelves of letters, even fo early as the reign of 
 Solomon, according to the opinion of Sir Ifaac New- 
 ton, that we fhould have no certain knowledge of 
 their forms, by any memorials inferibed upon their 
 buildings or obelilks ; whereas we only meet with 
 now and then a detached fcrawl, refembling the Gre- 
 cian Alpha orTau, which were probably made ufe of 
 merely as hieroglyphics : and the only letters, pro- 
 perly fo called, we can affirm to have been ufed as 
 letters in iEgypt, are the Coptic, Thefe undoubtedly 
 were borrowed from the Greeks, but not till after the 
 entire fubverfion of their antient government. Nam 
 poji Qracorum vt£lorlas (faith Bifliop Walton Pio- 
 lemaum linguam^ cum Uteris Gracis^ in Mgyptum intu- 
 UJJe nemo duhitare poiej}^ qui libros Coptos Greocis vocahu^ 
 Vis refertos legerity vel ipforum alphaletum cum Graco con- 
 iulerit. And if the number of ^Egyptian letters was 
 only twenty»five in the age of Plutarch, which he 
 affirms in Ifis and Ofyris, we may probably conclude 
 
 that 
 
 * Prolegom. u. p. 7. 
 
alphabetic writing. 39 
 
 Hunting and war have ever been the 
 chief employments of this wild race of 
 D 4 men 5 
 
 that, except' the letter So, which occupies the place 
 of /3ay, the other redundant letters, Scel^ Fei, Chei, 
 Hori, Giangia, Scima, and Dei, are but of a modern 
 date. See Plate II. — Monifaucon indeed, in his fe- 
 cond volume of Antiquity Explained^ Plate 46, hath 
 given us an ^Egyptian infcription in fmall characters, 
 very different either from their cuftomary contracted 
 hieroglyphics, or the Coptic letters f ; but he only 
 calls it indeterminately old, without eftablifhing its 
 antiquity, or telling us from whence he had it. An 
 cxaCt copy of this infcription is added in the Tnird 
 Plate, as it is much to be wifhed its aera could be af- 
 certained j and it is hoped the learned in decypher-. 
 ing may be induced to try it by the principles of their 
 art, that we may know at leaft in what clafs we ought 
 to rank its charaders, whether that of the literal, 
 fyllabical, or hieroglyphic writing. Many of the 
 charadfers fomewhat refemble thofe of the old Etruf- 
 can letters, as <7, ?, ^7, /, /, w, r, yj and r, with 
 
 fame others of a IcUr form. How far this circum- 
 ffance may favour the opinion of the learned Kir- 
 chcr, concerning the original tradu6Hon of letters 
 from JE<^ypt into Greece, muft depend upon what 
 fh^ii appear to be the age of the infcription. 
 
 4 CemfareNo. I. Plate 44, of the fame Volume. 
 
4d OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 men, who were remarkable for defpifing 
 the advantages and arts of civil fociety ; 
 neither planting, nor building, nor car- 
 rying on any traffic, except the accidental 
 bartering of their fpoils, and difpofing 
 ^ of their flaves to the Midianites, who 
 fold them again into iEgypt. Nor could 
 writing either be much wanted or ef- 
 teemed by a people whofe hand was againji 
 every many and every mans hand againJl 
 them y and who, in general to this 
 day, are utter flrangers to the refined 
 pleafures of friendffiip, or to any kind of 
 tender domeftic endearments. 
 
 The sera, then, of the invention of let- 
 ters, properly fo called, being that of 
 the Ifraelites deliverance from bondage ^ 
 we are no longer at a lofs who the fecre- 
 tary of an ^Egyptian King was, to whom 
 the Greek writers in general fo juftly af- 
 
 cribe 
 
 * Dr. Shaw*s Account of the Bedowcen Arabs, 
 p. 234. Baker's RefiCctions on Learning, ch. xvii. 
 p. 255. 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING." 41 
 
 cribe it ; lince we know that Mofes, as 
 the adopted fon of Pharaoh's daughter, 
 and intended to fucceed her father in 
 the kingdom, may be fuppofed of courfe 
 admitted to the knowledge of ftate-af- 
 fairs, and might probably have had the 
 chief adminiftration of civil government, 
 under Pharaoh, in all things. But as the 
 difficulty of determining all the powers 
 of utterance to which a moft exadl and 
 critical analyjis of the human voice was 
 neceffary, and the completion of the art 
 of literal writing, almofl: at once, feem 
 to evince that it was ' not difcovered by 
 the unaffifted efforts of his own mind ; 
 we may not unreafonably prefume it was 
 fuggefted to him, at the inflant, by the 
 divine wifdom, for the immediate ufe of 
 God's peculiar people ; or, in other 
 words, that the elements of language 
 
 (the 
 
 * By the elements of language are here meant the 
 very beginnings of every fimple unarticulated found 
 from which thefe are produced, as lines are generated 
 by the fluxion of a point. Now the ideas of all thefe 
 
 elements 
 
42 OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 (the mlnuteil parts of which it is com- 
 pounded, and beyond which it is incapa- 
 ble of being refolved) were, as hath 
 already been obferved, revealed to Mofes 
 upon the firft arrival of the Ifraelites be- 
 fore Horeb ; whilft their characters, with 
 the arrangement of them, might be left 
 to his difcretion. And if the manner in 
 which the Divine Wifdom aided the 
 difcovery of alphabetic writing, thus 
 explained, appears agreeable to his ufual 
 method of interpofal in other cafes ; par- 
 ticularly the related one of Prophecy, in 
 which the facred Penmen were undoubted^ 
 ly left to ufe their own accuftomed ftyle, 
 that is, to the choice and arrangement of 
 their own words 5 it is no way inconfift- 
 
 ent 
 
 elements muft have previoufly exifted in the mind of 
 the firft inventor of a compleat alphabet, or it would 
 have been impoflible to determine what number of 
 elemental charaSiers were requifite, to exprefs the Teem- 
 ing infinite variety of complex founds in every lan- 
 guage upon earth, even in the moft ordinary conver- 
 fation. 
 
alphabetic writing. 43 
 
 ^nt with thofe fads the facred Hiflory 
 records of this tranfadion. 
 
 • Mofes was commanded to write the 
 denunciation of God’s vengeance againft 
 Amalek ^ in a book, immediately after 
 the defeat of that impious nation, and to 
 rehearfe it in the ears of Jofhua. This, 
 at leaft, fuppofes him acquainted with 
 the terms ; and although the latter part 
 of the command was not executed,That 
 we read of, till the people were ready to 
 pafs over Jordan •f, the memorial might 
 be written during the interval that paffed 
 between this vidory, and the arrival of 
 the Ifraelites at Sinah. Not to mention 
 the Name of the altar raifed upon this 
 occalion, which fome fuppofe to have 
 been infcribed upon it, Mofes is faid to 
 have written all the words, and all the 
 judgments of the Lord, contained in the 
 tv/enty-iirit and the two following chap- 
 ters of the book of Exodus, upon his 
 
 third 
 
 * Exod. xvii. 14. 
 
 f Dcut. XXV. 17, 
 
44 OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 third defcent ^ from mount Sinah, not-i 
 withftanding the delivery of the Tables 
 is not mentioned till the eighteenth verfe 
 of the thirty-firft chapter, after God hacl 
 made an end of communing with him. 
 upon the Mount the fourth time •f'.* 
 
 Thofe writers who have efpoufed the 
 opinion of a Divine infpiration of alpha- 
 betic 
 
 % Exod, xxivt 4, and 7, 
 
 4 Thefe different times of Mofes* going up into 
 the Mount, are diftinguifiied in the following paf- 
 fages : 
 
 Firft afcent. Second afc. 
 Exod.xix. 3. Ex, xix. 8. 
 
 Third afc. 
 Ex. xix. 20. 
 
 Fourth aic-. 
 Ex. xxiv, 13, 
 
 Firft defcent. Second defc. 
 Exod. xix. 7. Ex. xix. 14. 
 
 Third defc. 
 Ex. xix. 25. 
 
 Fourth defc. 
 Ex.xxxii. 15; 
 
 We may obferve likewife from Exod. xx. ig. and 
 xxiv. 12. and from Deut. v. 4. and 5. that although 
 the promulgation of the Ten Commandments was 
 made [immediately after the third defcent to the 
 whole people, whilft Mofes ftood upon the plain, at 
 the head of the congregation, by the foot of the 
 mountain, yet that the tables of ftone were not fo 
 much as promifed^ till God called him up into the 
 Mount the fourth time. 
 
alphabetic writing. 4i 
 
 betic writing, have in general fuppofed 
 the account of thefe judgments to be 
 proleptically fet down, merely to favour 
 an hypothefis, ^2X a knowledge of the frjl 
 alphabetic characters, likewife, was fu- 
 pernaturally df cover ed^ by a miraculous im- 
 prejjion upon the two tables of fione. That 
 this was really a miraculous impreffion 
 hath been doubted, though perhaps ^ 
 
 with- 
 
 ♦ The follov/ing quotations will enable the reader 
 to determine for himfelf : 
 
 Exod. xxiv. 12. “ And the Lord faid unto Mofes, 
 Come up to me into the Mount, and be there ; and I 
 will give thee tables of ftone, and a law, and com* 
 mandments, which I have ivrittenJ'^ 
 
 Exod, xxxi. i8. ‘‘ And he gave unto Mofes, when 
 he had made an end of communing with him upon 
 Mount Sinah, two tables of teftimony, tables of ftone, 
 written with the finger of God, ” 
 
 Exod. xxxii. i6. And the tables were the work 
 of God, and the writing was the writing of God^ graven^ 
 upon the tables'^ 
 
 Exod. xxxiv. I. And the Lord faid unto Mofes, 
 Hew thee two tables of ftone, like unto the firftj 
 and 1 will write upon thefe tables the words that were 
 in the firft tables, which thou brakedft.” 
 
 Exod.* 
 
46 OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 without fufficient reafon. But granting 
 that the charafters of the Decalogue were 
 actually v/ritten by the linger of God, 
 that is, imprinted by a fupernatural 
 
 agency, 
 
 Exod. xxxiv. 27, 28. And thp Lord faid unto 
 Mofes, Write thou thefe words, [viz. from the 9th 
 to the end of the 26th verfe] for after the tenor of 
 thefe w'ords I have made a covenant with thee and 
 with Ifrael ; and he w^as there with the Lord, forty 
 days and forty nights, he did neither eat bread nor 
 drink water ; and he wrote upon the tables the words of 
 the covenant^ the ten commandments d' 
 
 Deut. ix. 9, 10. “ When I was gone up into the 
 Mount, to receive the tables of Itone, the tables ®f 
 the covenant, which the Lord made with you 5 then. 
 I abode in the' Mount forty days and forty nights ; I 
 neither did eat bread nor drink water ; and the Lord 
 delivered unto me two tables of ftone, written with 
 the finger of God^ See, And it came to pafs, at the 
 end of forty days and forty nights, that the Lord 
 gave me the two tables of ftone, even the tables of 
 the covenant.” 
 
 Deut. X. 2, 3, 4. And / will write on the tables 
 the words that were in the lirft tables, which thou 
 brakedft. — And 1 made an ark of Setim wood, and 
 hewed the two tables of ftone, like unto the firft. — 
 And He wrote on the tables, according to the firft 
 writing, the ten commandments, 
 
alphabetic writing. 47 
 
 agency, this by no means furely proves, 
 that Mofes had not been already inftruft- 
 ed in the principles of alphabetic writ- 
 ing, and permitted to devife thefe cha- 
 racters for their expreffion, as a matter of 
 indifference; unlefs it can be fhewn that 
 God could not make ufe of any human 
 characters to ftamp a value upon his 
 Laws, or that the Mofaic letters might 
 not flill require this mark of his approve- 
 ment. That Mofes might apply fuch 
 forms to letters, as were likely to im- 
 print their powers upon the mind, by 
 connecting them with fome familiar ob- 
 jects, is what we may fuppofe him capa- 
 ble of doing, without miraculous affift- 
 ance : the fymbolic characters of the 
 -/Egyptians had furnifhed him with am- 
 ple hints to this purpofe ; nor v/as there 
 any danger of thefe being mifapplied to 
 the purpofes of idolatry, fince they 
 confeffedly ftood for nothing more than 
 founds, and had no greater likenefs of the 
 objects they refembled, than was barely 
 fufficient for exciting the idea of their 
 
 names. 
 
48 OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 names. Had literal charaSters not origi- 
 nally been contradted delineations of real 
 objefts, their forms, in all likelihood,"' 
 would have been much more Ample than 
 we find them to have been, from the ear- 
 iieft ages ; fuch complicated figures not 
 being necejfary to the art of writing, and 
 an embarralTment to the facility of its ex- 
 ecution j but which, permitted or 
 
 authorifed by Providence, in the infancy 
 of this difcovery, were doubtlefs after- 
 wards continued in the oriental nations, 
 chiefly from the influence of cuftom. 
 And if what hath been obferved concern- 
 ing the particular forms of fome letters, 
 as connedled with their names, in the 
 beginning of this Eflfay, be allowed ; it 
 feems to determine the difpute about pri- 
 ority between the Hebrew and Samaritan 
 charadlers, in favour of the former ; for- 
 afmuch as, though the letters of both 
 alphabets retain the fame names, the 
 refemblances of thofe things whofe names 
 they carry are much mere difficult to be 
 I traced 
 
alphabetic writing. 49 
 
 traced In the Samaritan than in the He- 
 brew charafters, except in one or two 
 inftances only, if indeed it be poffible, 
 at this day, to trace them out with cer- 
 tainty in either ; nor were it to be won- 
 dered at fhould the refemblances be ut- 
 terly worn out in fuch a length of time, 
 if we confider how much of original 
 likenefs is loft in every fucceffive copy 
 from a’ drawing, even by the beft ar- 
 tifts-^ 
 
 E To 
 
 * At what time letters were Introduced to Perlia, 
 is a fact about which we can form no conjecture ; but 
 feveral infcriptions, taken from the ruins of the pa- 
 lace of Perfepolis, which is faid to have been built 
 near feven hundred years before the Chriftian sera, 
 feem to be written in the moft fimple literal charac- 
 ters (if they are to be confidered as fuch) of any we 
 are acquainted with ; from which it appears alfo, 
 that the Perfians fometimes wrote in perpendicular 
 columns, after the manner of the Chinefe and an- 
 tient ^Egyptians (the latter of whom might borrow 
 it from the ^Ethiopians, as Diodorus, in his fecond 
 book, fays they did their letters) ; and it is moft pro- 
 bable that they began, like them, from the right 
 
so OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 To afk why the Almighty did not 
 communicate the whole art of written 
 language, with all its fubfequent im- 
 provements at once, or why communi- 
 cate thus much of it no fooner, are en- 
 quiries with which we have nothing to 
 do. In this cafe, as in all the other fci- 
 ences, only the lirft principles are given 
 or implanted in the mind, which are left 
 for their improvement to our own induf- 
 try and attention ; and whether we con- 
 fider the powers of the human mind 
 theirfelves, which are gradually ftrength- 
 
 ened 
 
 hanti. Writing in perpendicular columns, was ori- 
 ginally taken from memorials upon the ftems of trees, 
 or pillars, or obelifks ; and the infcriptions. of this 
 kind at Perfepolis, which fome have even fuppofed to 
 be antediluvian from their fingularity, and our learned 
 Dr. Hyde to have been mere whimfical ornaments, 
 may perhaps at laft be found no other than fomc 
 fragments of -/Egyptian antiquity, taken by Cam- 
 byfes from the fpoils of Thebes. See Webb's En- 
 
 quiry concerning the Primitive Language, p. 149, 
 190. Hyde’s Rcl. of the Ant. Perf. Appendijc, 
 Diod. Sic. b. ii. fc 61 :. 57. b. iii. fe6l. 3. & 4. 
 
alphabetic writing, 51 
 
 ened and delighted with purfuit; or whe-^ 
 ther we look back to thofe particular- 
 periods, which jnight call for fuch pro- 
 greffive advances as were fuited to diffe- 
 rent ftates and circamftances of the world; 
 it would not be difficult to affign a fuffi- 
 cient number of final caufes for this pro- 
 ceeding, highly worthy of the wifdom 
 and the goodnefs of God* 
 
 Symbolic writing, amongff the iEgyp- 
 tians, may reafonably be prefumed to 
 have been one fource of their idola- 
 trous worffiip, with which the Ifraelites 
 were infefted at the coming out from 
 .^gypt ; the eftablifhment, therefore, of 
 an alphabetic charafter, at this period, 
 was intended probably to put a flop to 
 the progrefs of the contagion : and this 
 was farther guarded againft by the com- 
 mand of God, to make to tbemfehes no 
 images whatever, to bow down* be-» 
 fore them as the fymbols of his per^ 
 E fon. 
 
 ^ Abba Pluche’s Hiftory of the Heavens» 
 
52 OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 fon This is afterwards explained as 
 follows : 
 
 IVhen 
 
 * It IS mortifying to reflect upon the abufe of 
 Images or PicSburcs, when they have been any way 
 conne6bed with Religion ; how foon they palTed from 
 emblems or memorials only, to real obje£ls of refpe^l: 
 and reverence ; and I ftiould not be forry to fee them 
 utterly baniflicd from the churches of Proteftants. 
 Men of fenfe, who are unprejudiced, confider them 
 as what they are ^ but in every country, the bulk of 
 mankind are liable to the very fame miftakes with th» 
 ^Egyptians, and Churchmen fometimes are difpofed 
 to wink at what appears at firft a harmlefs zeal, till 
 it gradually leads them into abfolute idolatry. Atleaft, 
 no reprefentatigms of the Supreme Being, of Saints 
 or Angels, fhould be allowed ; all Madonas, and Sa- 
 lutations, and Crucifixes, and Holy Families, fhould 
 be forbidden ; nor any other figures introduced, than' 
 fuch imaginary chara£bers as the parables of the Old 
 or Nevv Teflament prefent us with \ and even thefe 
 not without a written explanation annexed. Strype, 
 in his Annals, has given us a very remarkable con- 
 verfation upon this fubje 61 :, between Queen Eliza- 
 beth and the Dean of her Majefty’s Chapel, which 
 deferves more attention than hath fince been ufually 
 
 paid to it. See ch. 23.- 1 fhall take the liberty of 
 
 quoting here a paflage from an account of the cata- 
 ftrophe of Lifbon, in the year 1755, written by a 
 
 Father 
 
 
alphabetic writing. 53 
 
 When the Lord fpake unto you out of the 
 midjl of the fire^ faith Mofes, ye heard 
 the voice of his words ^ but ye faw no f mi- 
 lit ude [or lymbol], only ye heard a voice ; 
 
 E 3 take 
 
 Father of the Oratory, and infcribed to his Hlghnefs 
 the Duke of Lafoens, coufin- german to the prefent 
 King of Portugal, and fhall leave the reader to his 
 own remarks upon it. After defcribing the effefis of 
 the firft Ihock of the earthquake, which filled the 
 flreets and alleys with the dying and the dead, our 
 Author adds the following obfervations ; “ Nufquani 
 tamen major, nufquam fedior ftrages fult, quam in 
 templis ; utpote quo ob diei celebritatem, maxima 
 virorum faeminarumque multitudo convenerat : alibi 
 igitur quinquaginta, alibi centum, alibi plures, alibi 
 pauciores intericre, proqualitate fcilicet aidificiorum, 
 locorum, et ruinarum. In qua calamitate pios ac reli^ 
 giofos animos maxim E percellebat facrarum imaginum 
 acerbus cafus ; quarum ali^e penitus conjcijj'a & laceraia 
 funt^ alice ruinis obruta^ alia Jiainmis abfumpta. Ex 
 his mzmorandum imprimis eji^ nobile fmulacrum Chrijli 
 Domini crucem ferentis^ apud beatam Virginem Marimn a 
 gratia Eremitarum Santii Augujlini^ eximia Lufttano^ 
 rum Regum^ Procerum^ ioiiufque popuU veneratione 
 percelebre \ oh idque quotannis per urbem circwnferri foil’- 
 turn facro tonporey &c. Antonij Pereriae de Terra 
 Motu & Incendio Olifiponenfi Commentarius, p. 6. 
 Londini, typis G. Hawkins, 1756. 
 
54 OSSEkVATlONS ui*on 
 
 take therefore good heed to yourfelvesy fof 
 ye Jaw no manner of fimtlitudcy tejl ye cor- 
 rupt yourfelvesy and make you a graven 
 imagCi the likenefs of male or female. And 
 the following detail feems, in the moil 
 particular manner, to point at thofe hie- 
 roglyphic figures which the children of 
 Ifraelatefuppofed^ to have made ufe of, in 
 common with the ^Egyptians, before the 
 Exodus : Tdhe likenefs of any beaji t^at is 
 on the earth ; the likenefs of any ringed 
 fowl that fiieth in the air 5 the likenefs of 
 any thing that creepeth oft the ground \ 
 the likenefs of any fjh that is in the waters ^ 
 and lef thou lift up thine eyes to heaveuy 
 and when thou feeft the fuuy and the moony 
 and the fiarsy even all the bojl of heaven,, 
 thou fouldf be driven to worfjip tbemy and 
 to ferve them which the Lord thy God hath 
 imparted to ferve all the nations under the 
 whole heaven : for the Lord hath taken 
 yoUy and brought you forth out of the iron 
 
 * Webb’s Eday on the Primitive Language, p» 149, 
 ^nd Hearnius quoted by Purchas, b. i. ch, jj, 
 
 furnace 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 55 
 
 furnace^ out of Mgypty to be unto Him a 
 people of inheritance as fro7n that day 
 
 His all-feeing Providence, ever watch- 
 ful for our good, hath appointed a precife 
 time for every. event. What is ufually 
 denominated Chance, which feems alone 
 to have operated in a number of the moll 
 plain and obvious inventions, is but an 
 unfeen diredtion ; and nothing can be 
 found out, till God himfelf lliall place 
 it in a proper point of view, and open 
 mens' eyes to fee it in this new light. 
 But if this be true, as it relpedls the com- 
 mon arts of life, it is by no means incon- 
 fillent with the ^ dignity of the Divine 
 Nature, to fuppofehis more extraordinary 
 influence concerned in a difcovery of fuch 
 infinite importance. 
 
 One objedlion Hill remains to be confi- 
 dered ; namely, that If this be the cafe, 
 we Ihould certainly have had fome ac- 
 E 4 count 
 
 * Comp, Exod, ch. xx. with Deut, ch. ir. 
 
56 OBSERVATIONS upoi^ 
 
 count of fo extraordinary an affair deli- 
 vered to us in the Scriptures. To which 
 we have only to fay. That Providence 
 hath not thought proper to fix the date 
 of many things as extraordinary, or to 
 give us the reafons of his determinations 
 in others. The command to facrijiccy for 
 inftance, is not mentioned till many years 
 after the pradlice was eftablifhed. The 
 fame may be faid with regard to the dif- 
 tindlion of clean and unclean beafts ; and 
 wdth refpeft to language, which is nearer 
 to the prefent cafe, it is the opinion of 
 the moft judicious writers, that it was 
 originally infpired^'; and yet this is no 
 
 w^here 
 
 * It was the philofophy of Epicurus, that the hrft 
 men crawled out of the ground in no better condition 
 than other animals, without fpeech or reafon 5 and 
 that the earlieft ufe they made of their underftanding 
 was, to gratify the malignity of the felfifh palHons by 
 inventing weapons of mifchief ; 
 
 Mutum & turpe pecus, glandem atqj cubilia propter 
 Unguibus & pugnis, dcin fuftibus, atque ita porro 
 Pugnabanl armis, quae poft fabricaverat ufus ; 
 
 2 Donee 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 57 
 
 where tcld us in exprefs terms, though 
 the fa-dt may be deduced from the fecond 
 
 chapter 
 
 Donee verba quibus voces fenfufque notarent, 
 Nominaque invenere ; dehinc abfiftere bello 
 Oppida moliri, leges incidere, See, 
 
 Without having recourfe to Revelation, whoever 
 confiders how much the exertion of our rational and 
 focial powers depends upon the influence of language, 
 may difeover the propriety of its having been origin 
 nally^ infpiredy fince otherwife the pifturc here drawn 
 might have been too like. But the cafe, I think, 
 appears to have been different from what the Poet 
 fancied. We are told, in the fecond chapter of the 
 book of Genefis, that the Lord God having formed 
 out of the ground every beaft of the held, and every 
 fowl of the air, brought them unto Adam, to fee 
 what he would call them ; where the word 
 tranflated to fee^ fignifiies to make trial of or to acquire 
 knowledge by experiment^ in like manner as when Noah 
 fent a dove out of the ark, it was to try whether the 
 waters were abated ; where the facred hiftorian makes 
 ufe of the fame term. And the meaning of it in 
 this place feems to be, that God brought the animals 
 into the prefence of the firji man^ and caufed them to 
 continue about him, either that Adam by himfelf 
 might try or make experiment of his proficiency in 
 Language, imparted to him, by the exercife of 
 
 his 
 
^8 observations t?pGN 
 
 chapter of the book of Genefis. The 
 abolition of fymbolic writing, hy .an 
 
 exprefs 
 
 his vocal powers ; or elfe in order to aflifl his firft 
 trials in the beginnings and rudiments of Language; 
 that is, to diredl his underflanding in the application 
 of fuch founds, to denote the feveral creatures, as 
 were in fomc degree fignificant of their refpedivc 
 movements or voiusy and which might afterwards 
 become the ground-work of difFufivc fpeech, the 
 greateft part of which muft necelTarily be metapho- 
 rical. The firji words of meriy like ihelr firjl ideaSy 
 faith the learned author of Hermes *, had em imme- 
 diate reference to fenjible objeifs ; and men took thoje wovds 
 which they found already made, and transferred them by 
 metaphor to intelleblual conceptions-. Thus nny [tfper], 
 exprelTive of the chirping of fmall birds, fignihes any 
 fmall bird, the fparrow, day-break, to depart early> 
 &c. n'jn [tur], the voice of the turtle, the bird 
 itfelf, to fly round, to explore, a merchant, &c. 
 nu [gur], expreflive of the growling of a beafl: of 
 prey, fignifies a favage whelp, a ftranger, and to be 
 afraid ; [quera], the call of the partridge, fig- 
 nifies the bird herfelf, and to invoke; [derr], 
 the fwallow, a name taken from the found of its 
 wings in hovering, fignifies liberty ; jnjr [org], the 
 voice of the flag in groining, fignifies the animal 
 itfelf, and to be hoarfe with thirft, It is abfurd 
 
 to 
 
 • HermeSj b. ii. p. 269, 
 
alphabetic writing. 59 
 
 cxprefs command of God in the Deca- 
 logue, was fufficiently llriking to the 
 
 IfraeliteSi 
 
 to fay, becaufe names are arbitrary, that therefore 
 there is no congrulty between founds and things; 
 I 'argwTof ra OIA ijytiTo uvai ra 'S^^ay^ccTay 
 
 TOiiCYTA iTtSfiTo xai rh, ovofMcrUf W2S the opinion of 
 Platoi, who is faid to have made the f rft attempt * 
 amongft the Greeks to trace back words to their 
 original caufes, and who hath fupported the opinion, 
 that they were imitations of fome qualities and alFec-^ 
 tions of things, by an entertaining analyfis in the 
 Dialogue named Cratylus, The fac^, indeed, might 
 be evinced by numberlefs examples in every language, 
 where words are radically imitative either of founds 
 or motions. But ftill the inhabitants of the world 
 mult have long continued in a wretched ftateof aL 
 molt brutal converfe, notwithftanding this imitative 
 connection of vocal founds, had not God himfelf 
 been gracioufly pleafed to afiift the firft pair in the 
 cftablifhment of Language ; and we may therefore 
 reafonably conclude that he did fo. Whether it will 
 be thought to ftrengthen the opinion, muft be left to 
 the reader 5 but we may remark, that the author 
 of the Arabic Verfion hath rendered the word nwnV, 
 %Q try,, in the fecond chapter of Genefis, by a word 
 which fignifies to point out or inftru< 5 f, as it is tranf- 
 lated in Bp. Walton*s Polyglott, ut ofenderet ei quid 
 
 vocaret 
 
 • Pionyfi on the Gomp. of Words, fe^t. :?vi, 
 
6o OBSERVATIONS ^pon 
 
 Ifraelites, at the time it was given, t© 
 perpetuate the xra of letters amongft 
 ; and with regard to future ages, 
 and other nations, the narration of the 
 fa£t, as it ftands recorded in all its cir- 
 cumftances, renders what hath been 
 advanced exceedingly probable. If this 
 anfwer be not thought fufiicient, let the 
 objedlion have its full force. 
 
 We now proceed to enquire how literal 
 writing, which muft foon have gotten the 
 better of fymbolical, made its way into 
 Europe. The firft people who availed 
 themfelves of this difeovery were the 
 Syrians that lived in the neighbourhood 
 of the Ifraelites, who were often con- 
 founded* with them, as indeed all the in- 
 habitants 
 
 vocaret ea. Men are ftrangejy cautious of allowing 
 the Divine Being to have given a vocal language to 
 mankind, though he hath undoubtedly imparted to 
 us another, which is common to all the nations of 
 the world, and intelligible evA to infants. 
 
 * Gale’s Court of the Gentiles, b. i. ch. 3 and 4. 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 
 
 habitants of the Eaftern coaft of the Me- 
 diterranean have been with each other. 
 
 From the Syrians ^ it was communi- 
 cated to the Phoenicians, who changed 
 the Hebrew characters into what, we 
 may prefume, were afterwards called 
 the Samaritan ; but whether they did 
 this for the purpofes of vanity altogether, 
 or for what other end, is not clear. Be it 
 as it may, their having introduced letters 
 to the Greeks hath given them the ge- 
 neral credit of the invention, notwith- 
 ftanding a prevailing opinion, that writ- 
 ing was originally pradlifed in iFgypt; 
 for the Phoenicians are faid to have been 
 the firft who inftituted characters for the 
 elements of fpeech, which gave a perpe-^ 
 tiiity to founds^ and which differed from 
 
 the 
 
 * ev^ircu ruv y^cci^fjiaruy hen, tstwv 
 
 TOK E,\A>5o-f <tuce.^cx,^e^u>y.c/.(Tiv' b’Tot ^ hcriy ot Ka^- 
 
 'SfhzlcrmTtti rm EvgwTryjt'. ktA. Diod. b. V. fe£l. 74, 
 and a fimilar account is given us by Herodotus in 
 Terpfichore. 
 
62 OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 the Egyptian pidlure-writing, not only 
 in refpe£t of their objects, but in the 
 rudenefc-of the figures. Thus much is 
 to be underftood from Lucan % whofe 
 cxprefiion is remarkable ; 
 
 Phoeniccs primi, famse fi credttur, aufi 
 Ji^anfuram rudibiis vocem fignare figuris, 
 "^Srondum flumineas Memphis contexere biblos 
 Novcrat; et faxis tantum volucrefquc feraequc, 
 Sculptaque fervabant magicas animalia linguas . 
 
 Et fi famae libet credere,” faith Cur- 
 tius after having related the fiege of 
 Tyre, ^^haec gens literas prima aut docuit, 
 ** aut didicit.” 
 
 k)r 
 
 Ariftotle (according to Pliny J) hath 
 afiferted, that eighteen letters were brought 
 by Cadmus from Phoenicia into Greece; 
 whilft Plutarch § and fome others tell us,, 
 that he introduced no more than fixteen ; 
 
 yet 
 
 * Pharf. 1 . iii# t L. ir. c. 4. 
 
 X Nat. Hift. I. vii; c. 56. § Sympof. b. ix. 
 
 prob. 2, 3* 
 
 i 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 65 
 
 yet who this Cadmus was, at what time 
 he lived, or whether any particular per- 
 fon is to be underftood by this name, 
 which implies an Afiatic, or man from 
 the Eaft, remains a doubt amongft the 
 learned. Moft of the Greek and Roman 
 authors agree in this. That Greece was 
 not the region that gave birth to alpha- 
 betic writing ; whilft others affert the 
 Greeks to have invented the very letters 
 which thefe attributed to Cadmus ; af- 
 figning them to Cecrops, or to Linus 
 or to Palamedes, as their prejudices ope- 
 rated in favour of Argos, or Thebes, or 
 Athens. Quidam Cecropem Atheni- 
 enhum, vel Linum Thebanum,'’ faith 
 Tacitus, et temporibus Trojanis Pala- 
 medem Argivum memorant, fexdecim 
 literarum formas ; mox alios, ac praeci- 
 puum Simonidem, reperiffe-f*/* 
 
 The general opinion upon this appa- 
 rent contradidlion is, that it arofe from 
 
 the 
 
 * Diodorus Siculus, b. iii, fe£l:, 66. f Tacitus 
 I. xi. c. 14. / 
 
64 OfeSERVATIONS upon 
 
 the national vanity of the Greeks, who 
 were always ready to claim fome lhare of 
 merit, at leaft, in every thing that did 
 honour to human nature, and (as the 
 laft cited author obferves of the Phoeni- 
 cians)- were ambitious to be thought in- 
 ventors of what they had acquired only 
 from the information of others. But 
 here we ought to make a diftinaion be- 
 tween their pretences to the original in- 
 vention of literal writing, in oppofition 
 to the fymbolicaly and the invention only 
 of new characters ; and it is to be ob- 
 ferved, that Tacitus is not fpeaking of 
 ’ the elemental founds of letters, but 
 merely of the forms by which they were 
 called up and made prefen t to the mind ^ 
 which may very juftly be faid to be in- 
 vented by the Greeks, notwithftanding 
 their having been inftruCled in alphabetic 
 writing by the Phoenicians before. It is 
 aftonifhihg to obferve, how much Ingeni- 
 ous men are difpofed to follow one ano- 
 ther in the fame track, without making 
 obfervatioos for themfelves. Nothing is 
 
 morc^ 
 
, , 1 ^ i' . ■ 
 
 - '^, " ’ 
 I 
 
 “ • - ^ ^ 
 
 .’. 1 !:'’ 
 
 . 1 , /' 
 
 •' 
 
mw 
 
■ Plate JII. 
 
 ^X\YA f-11 
 
 ' , , ,, *M:u<.fJ|2.vhii| 
 
 ),EK iL^^:^,ii,()54. 
 
 ' ^ ^ n KK <=> ^( ^ /|£^ f I -3-1/ * JO Li Ji- 
 1 i • ^i^<)f<j)'£^x\ /ir^4 
 
 ?JU.,-.I. 3^. le"-i*'rK 
 
 • ■ Tit r^jf /u, Kb>' f)»o*<.<t.M^ CaJf' nJ^nt^ o <>^ Xa. ^<yji ^ 
 
 i'J’W >*vj w<^A kv.’ 
 
 W—nj A.’/.. r,« ^ 
 
 k<rvot. tAlvc^tt'e ^‘L.Ztnt ^ ,i,^. 
 
 J 1« » . 4/ -ivri'4 . •»». i V 
 
 iTI OLH •f* I 
 
 ' VUkk.'k n LlWTA . * \«XyVtfi^V4 
 
 i\XQ 
 

 
 ^4 
 
 
 OrXf r artrC Pcnrerj 
 
 f/Ae 
 
 
 Order and-Fon^e/r-i ofGu 
 
 
 PfrjwXetUro c<rin/?areX nnf^ 
 
 BrtGoeXf/eenj coynemrednoGi' 
 
 
 ' t/u'.n<Xre-/v . 
 
 
 tAme/ of f/te EeZrene . 
 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 
 i 1 
 1-1 
 
 1 1 
 
 S; 1 . 
 
 s|l 
 
 ili^ 
 
 § 
 
 OruRr^ 
 0/ Or({<yr 
 oftAoez 
 Helfrfn/ 
 ZMer.i 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 III 
 
 c; «sN 
 
 Hr 
 
 s:§s 
 ts> 1 
 
 ili ' 
 
 lil • 
 
 1 
 
 E/i/:.. 
 
 ..s... 
 
 ..^... 
 
 ...1 ... 
 
 
 1 
 
 E ///:... 
 
 ..s... 
 
 ..A 
 
 
 2 
 
 Be 
 
 
 . B . 
 
 .-2 
 
 n 
 
 2 
 
 Be. 
 
 ..n... 
 
 B 
 
 ..2... 
 
 
 Fer... 
 
 
 ...F... 
 
 
 :i 
 
 3 
 
 Te 
 
 ..n... 
 
 ..T..... 
 
 400.. 
 
 
 Te. 
 
 . n 
 
 T 
 
 400 . 
 
 3oo< 
 
 '7 
 
 4 
 
 TAoe: . 
 
 
 TAo.. . 
 
 5 
 
 Se. 
 
 
 ../:... 
 
 n 
 
 5 
 
 Gfm. . 
 
 ...n.. 
 
 G t 4 /d/h. : 
 
 ..3.... 
 
 6 
 
 
 ..ti.. 
 
 G.toJi 
 
 CX.jo/\ 
 
 Hh. 
 
 
 1 
 
 ' 6 
 
 Hha/ 
 
 .H/f .1 
 
 ...8.. . 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 Cho/... 
 
 CA.rruS^ 
 
 
 H/ia^ 
 
 n. 
 
 8... 
 
 n 
 
 Dad^ . 
 
 
 . D .. 
 
 ...4... 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 
 1- 
 
 X) 
 
 Q 
 
 BoAad 
 
 ..Bo. . 
 
 
 . .1. 
 
 ■. I) 
 
 
 s 
 
 10 
 
 Re... 
 
 
 . R... 
 
 2 0 0. 
 
 
 
 
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 r) 
 
 11 
 
 Ze... 
 
 ...T.. 
 
 Z 
 
 .. .7. . . 
 
 
 Re 
 
 
 . R. 
 
 
 V 
 
 12 
 
 Sony... 
 
 
 .. s.. 
 
 300 
 
 60.; 
 
 13 
 
 14 
 
 15 
 
 Ze.. 
 
 ...‘i 
 
 Z.X, 
 
 7 
 
 u 
 
 13 
 
 14 
 
 15 
 
 16 
 
 Sc/ie/n-. 
 
 ..D.. 
 
 ScAyOCy . 
 
 Z/ie^.. 
 
 
 Zh 
 
 .!) 
 
 Toady . 
 
 
 To 
 
 90,. 
 
 Si/tV. . . . 
 
 
 f. . 
 
 
 D 
 
 Dad/. . 
 
 
 D. 
 
 16 
 
 ScAeri' 
 
 ...0... 
 
 Sc/uor 
 
 ...60.-- 
 
 
 Thay.. 
 
 .X).. 
 
 ..Th... 
 
 ...9... 
 
 17 
 
 18 
 
 
 
 F, 
 
 0 0 
 
 
 17 
 
 18 
 
 Dery. . - 
 
 
 . B 
 
 
 Za-eZ. . . 
 
 z 
 
 •y ^ 
 
 
 Ome. . 
 
 ..:o... 
 
 ...O... 
 
 ..70... 
 
 19 
 
 To...... 
 
 
 T/t 
 
 -9 - 
 
 i> 
 
 19 
 
 Gouyro. 
 
 
 GAard 
 
 / ^ 
 
 20 
 
 Zrz /. . . 
 
 
 Z./co 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 Ph/ey. . . 
 
 ..D.. 
 
 . Ph.. 
 
 . 80 
 
 21 
 
 Oi^... 
 
 
 .0.. 
 
 70 
 
 U) 
 
 21 
 
 Kaf... 
 
 
 K.Q. 
 
 .100. 
 
 22 
 
 ' 
 
 (raZn/ 
 
 
 G/uz/rd 
 
 
 
 % 
 
 m-, 
 
 ..D. 
 
 CAharo 
 
 ..20. . 
 
 23 
 
 <4 * 
 
 Fh^r.. 
 
 K^. 
 
 ?!D.. 
 
 ..FA.. 
 
 .80.. 
 
 ‘'r-. 
 
 23 
 
 Ui 4 | 
 
 
 
 ..L.. 
 
 1”-.; 
 
 .^40..: 
 
 25 
 
 Kef... 
 
 ,..D.. 
 
 CAharo 
 
 .20.. 
 
 ' 1 1 
 
 23 
 
 nS 3 
 
 
 ..A.. 
 
 
 2*6 
 
 »*• , 
 
 (r%Maf. 
 
 
 GE 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 27 
 
 'Wow. . 
 
 .:v. 
 
 -W'Y. 
 
 ...6^.. 
 
 
 J^pgrn/.: 
 
 ...K. 
 
 ^.e: 
 
 30.. 
 
 r^' 
 
 HP 
 
 
 1 
 
 ,....,5.. 5 
 
 *28 
 
 
 ..r).. 
 
 ..Ji 
 
 .40.. 
 
 
 28 
 
 Je... 
 
 
 ,/• If/ 
 
 . ..10... 
 
 
 
 
 \ < If 
 
 ..K.). 
 
 .iso.. 
 
 r^’ 
 
 , ; * 
 
 
 ^ 'V‘ 
 
 ,tt » 
 
 
 ,30 
 
 
 
 E 
 
 
 'i. 
 
 / 
 
 # ! 
 
 f 1- 
 
 
 ' i » 
 
 31 
 
 
 aH.. 
 
 
 
 
 
 % 
 
 
 
 »2 
 
 P-J 
 
 
 
 *1^ 
 
 
 
 M •• 
 
 . •» 
 
 < 
 
 
 
 or, 
 
 Le}tf 9\) . 
 
 lir 
 
 s' ^ S 
 
 I'l'l 
 ^l-l' 1 
 
 § ^ i 
 
 ' 
 
 S'l' ti 
 
 S}5s 
 
 At/diay 
 
 Tk 
 
 A 
 
 V/da... 
 
 B 
 
 V 
 
 Ga/mma 
 
 T 
 
 G 
 
 Da/da/ 
 
 2^ 
 
 D 
 
 Eo.... 
 
 e 
 
 Eo 
 
 So. 
 
 T 
 
 SA 
 
 Zida/. . 
 
 
 Z 
 
 Hcdez/.. 
 
 H 
 
 H 
 
 TAda/.. 
 
 0 
 
 Th 
 
 Jaezda/. 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 Kaf/ia 
 
 K 
 
 K 
 
 Eaeeda 
 
 
 L 
 
 Mo... 
 
 U 
 
 M 
 
 m..... 
 
 N 
 
 N 
 
 Xf..... 
 
 
 X. 
 
 0. 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 B7 
 
 n 
 
 r 
 
 Ro 
 
 P 
 
 R 
 
 Som.a/. 
 
 C 
 
 s 
 
 DaM/. . 
 
 T 
 
 T 
 
 Eu / — 
 
 ']£ 
 
 U 
 
 . PAe '. . .. 
 
 
 Fh 
 
 CAu'y.... 
 
 X 
 
 CA 
 
 i Qd\. 
 
 UJ 
 
 Ofl 
 
 ,»eo.. 
 
 
 i'J 
 
 Fed . . . . 
 
 
 rg;- 
 
 
 T; 
 
 KA 
 
 S 
 
 Mari'. . 
 
 
 HA 
 
 *' Gi&nfii 
 
 I'M 
 
 MGo 
 
 ;■ Scorns. 
 
 
 • r,^CA 
 
 ^ Bed .^ ., 
 
 
 , Dr. 
 
 B.T/ 
 
 •gr 
 
 jT.y 
 

 N. 
 
 N.p.86 
 
 
 ^P-78 
 
 N.p.86 
 
 ■ 5 >l 
 
 ijit 
 
 ivi 't 
 
 !>/' 
 
 f/if ( 7 ref A- 
 
 L cffer .) . 
 
 (>n/rr 
 
 of'tA,e 
 
 Lt'ffi'f'.). 
 
 /Wer 
 
 of(/,r 
 
 hW;rw 
 
 Le/fer.,. 
 
 I'Die.i 0 / ' 
 /iteHe/’irfiJ 
 ■ f/mittri/ii/i 
 
 a //if Si/rthc 
 Zeffm. 
 
 On/er 0/ the 
 Samarila n Z't ter.' 
 
 /TS /'iN r - 
 
 t'rdcr ' 
 
 S'/iiur 
 
 Letter.!. 
 
 I't'a/i and 'na//>e - i v 
 'af /ii'faeri of the 
 Hebre/i!, , f,! atari ^ 
 tan art,/,l'i/riar ^ 
 Zetfer.! . ^ 
 
 1 
 
 a\(pcx ... 
 
 Axx. 
 
 -S.. 
 
 
 . N.A 
 
 1 
 
 ....A 
 
 1 'V! 
 
 1 ^ 
 
 ll)UTCC .. 
 
 3 ./S 
 
 
 
 
 ..0..!. 
 
 B 
 
 2 /tt 
 
 1 3 
 
 yocui^ia 
 
 T.y: 
 
 ■' 
 
 S 
 
 bxip. 
 
 Ti.-t 
 
 
 G 
 
 3 4 '^- 
 
 4 
 
 (hXra 
 
 A c' 
 
 
 
 A. 3 .^ - 
 
 
 ‘...B..... 
 
 4 ft 4 
 
 5 
 
 \S-'^i'iX(n' 
 
 E.e. 
 
 
 -....sn 
 
 *3 . 4 , 
 
 
 ... E 
 
 5 
 
 -' 6 
 - — 
 
 6 a 17 ..... 
 
 r£ 
 
 A.. 
 
 A, 
 
 
 .0... 
 
 v;u.iw 
 
 6 L 
 
 ? 7 
 
 (rdiira 
 
 z<. 
 
 
 . .rn. 
 
 3 . ^ ^ 
 
 1 
 
 Ds 
 
 7 4 
 
 8 
 
 lira..... 
 
 H.n 
 
 .n. 
 
 .A"n 
 
 H . « . 
 
 -cO.. 
 
 H. 
 
 8 et 
 
 9 
 
 9 nra .. 
 
 0.9 
 
 
 .n'£>. 
 
 . 
 
 
 .. .Th . 
 
 9 
 
 lO 
 
 ILOTOC... 
 
 I. 1 
 
 
 .1^^.. 
 
 A fK.svl... 
 JC..X. vu.. 
 
 '^. 24 . 
 
 
 J8ci.. 
 
 K^rCh 
 
 L 
 
 10 It 
 
 20 
 
 30 
 
 KaTTTva. 
 
 \aj.iJoc 
 
 K.k 
 
 A.X 
 
 s 
 
 . 7 .. 
 
 ...n^ 
 
 .Td^.. 
 
 .2>... 
 
 20 / 
 
 30 A 
 
 40 
 
 
 
 M.p. 
 
 ^D.. 
 
 ,.D D.. 
 
 •u ■ 'jy-siy 
 
 Ao 
 
 ...M.... 
 
 40 A 
 
 50 
 
 vu. 
 
 N.k. 
 
 .,:d.. 
 
 ■ T 
 
 y . oj . b. .. 
 
 5 0.4 
 
 - J... 
 
 N 
 
 50 L 
 
 . 60 ^ 
 
 - 60 
 
 it 
 
 
 ..D.. 
 
 1 
 
 .■JDD. 
 
 GC^. 
 
 Ks^/X 
 
 i 70 
 
 O-fllK^Ol 
 
 O.O.. 
 
 
 ..4 
 
 .0 . F.V.... 
 
 MV 
 
 
 0 
 
 . 70 4. 
 
 80 
 
 Al 
 
 U.'nr.. 
 
 .D.. 
 
 ....nsi- 
 
 - 
 
 ..a.. 
 
 P 
 
 80 i 
 
 900 
 
 davTK/.. 
 
 
 .2?,. 
 
 
 . -5 .'nr... 
 
 -J... 
 
 TsL 
 
 90 , 
 
 . 9 « 
 
 100 
 
 KOKK(X 
 
 ...s.. 
 
 .P. 
 
 
 P . P.P 
 
 -Q.. 
 
 Qu 
 
 . 100 , 
 
 QO) 
 
 F.P.. 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 • 
 
 ..r... 
 
 R 
 
 . 200 < 
 
 200 
 
 6\y^a 
 
 V 
 
 E.d. 
 
 
 .4 '•TP 
 
 . 7 Uh . W. AO- 
 
 . -il- 
 
 S 
 
 -300. 
 
 300 
 
 Tau. 
 
 T.r., 
 
 n 
 
 125 ' 
 
 nt .T .X 
 
 ...l... 
 
 T 
 
 400 
 
 400 
 
 500 
 
 600 
 
 700 
 
 800 
 
 u-'i^iXov 
 
 
 
 XI 
 
 -V^/ 
 
 0-fj.iya 
 
 r.u 
 
 ^.(p 
 
 x.x 
 
 qr.ir 
 
 Cl.a> 
 
 Umoc 
 
 Ph. 
 
 Ch. 
 
 Ps. 
 
 00. 
 
 ItLf evident from inspection, that the ermi/sion ofdte troo letters 
 Tfade and Qiip inthe GreekAlphabet, oecasiemed the di/ference we 
 ohserve in the numeral powers ofthefillonriny Letters P. 2 .T. fi-oni 
 the rtumeralpowers ofdu ceTrespondinpEastemZettrrs : and that 
 sanpi as the Greeks euUedthe cheerac^ ^ in all probability was rwt 
 adeledto their numerals, till etfier the inventiem of the double 0, or 
 o-piyoe : notwithstanding which, as itsfrmi was botrowedirerm 
 that of the JdmarilanTiAAe , vtei/sumed its ordinal place amorist 
 theZetters.andprcecededdu numeral Kottnoc . 
 
 JeeJtfartini^ Cadmtts 
 yrtrco - phomir . 
 
 $ “s 
 
 -1 i ^ 
 
 fOU'f/' I 
 
 W/ca// 
 
 /ct^u^rA 
 
 ‘ . 11 
 '>^unil 
 
 It^K^ual 
 
 T 
 
 /intfuaJ 
 
 oc. .t.n.t.o.OJ c . /3,^i .-Ji -p . L, .(5 . cT.z.O.'K.v.q.'T . y.K.jc 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 65 
 
 more common than to derive the Latin 
 charafters, as well as the Greek, from 
 thofe of the Samaritan or Hebrew alpha- 
 bets, without diftinguifhing between the 
 elemental types and the elemental founds ; 
 and it is pleafant enough to remark after 
 what manner the refemblance of the 
 figures is made out, and how mens eyes 
 are liable to become the dupes of a pre- 
 judiced imagination. 
 
 The lixteen letters brought into Greece 
 by Cadmus were undoubtedly no other 
 than what he had been acquainted with 
 in Phoenicia, that is, the common He- 
 brew or Samaritan ; fome few of which, 
 after being reverfed for the fake of writ- 
 , ing from left to right, as the more agree- 
 able and expeditious movement of the 
 hand or arm from the body outward,, 
 were ftill retained by the Greeks ; though 
 their writing or in return- 
 
 ing lines, as ploughmen drive their oxen 
 a different way at each end of the fur- 
 F row. 
 
66 OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 row, continued at leaft to the time of 
 Solon, whofe laws were written after 
 this manner. 
 
 In an affignment of charadlers to the 
 elemental founds by Mofes, it was natu- 
 ral for him to take contrafted figures of 
 the mod: familiar objects for this purpofe, 
 whofe names refpeftively began with the 
 founds to be pointed out by them 5 and a 
 very flight refemblance of fuch figures to 
 their objedts would excite and call up an 
 idea of their vocal powers : but it is evi- 
 dent that this would not continue to be 
 the ' cafe with the fame charadlers in a 
 different language. The Oriental names 
 of the letters, taken from thofe of the 
 objedls they refembled, which names the 
 Greeks retained with very little alteration, 
 could of courfe have no connexion with 
 their powers amongfl them. Though 
 the figure of ^?, /. e, aleph or alpha, ac- 
 cording to the Syriac or Chaldaic termi- 
 nation, for inftance, gave an idea of the 
 
 ox 
 
 2 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 67 
 
 cx^ to the inhabitants of the Eaftern 
 coafts of the Mediterranean, the Grecian 
 name of this creature would not have 
 had the power of calling up the found 
 of A, but that of B, the primary ele- 
 ment of ftsc. [Bit or Bita], the tent, 
 or houfe, in like manner, whatever re- 
 fcmblance of fuch a ftrufture it might 
 carry with it, would doubtlefs have ex- 
 cited an idea of the primary found of 
 ouiixoov or (TLyfj.cc to the Greeks ; that is, 
 the primary found of ol7c(^ or of cyc-mu 
 rather than that of B. ;i [Gemel], or 
 the Camel, was an anim.al, in all proba- 
 bility, unknown in Greece ; and fuppo- 
 ling the fhape of this letter to have origi- 
 nally refembled the form, as its name 
 does the voice of the animal, it could 
 F 2 Hill 
 
 It appears likely, from the fecond problem of 
 the ninth book of Plutarch’s Sympofiacs, that al- 
 though the Greeks were not unacquainted with the 
 fignification of the word they were ftrangers to 
 
 the true reafon of its name being afTigned to this 
 letter at the time he wrote, whatever was the cafe 
 with their antient Grammarians. 
 
68 OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 ftill have no fort of relation to any found 
 whatever, with a people who were ftran- 
 gers to them both. What is faid of 
 thefe three letters may juftly be applied to 
 others. It therefore became neceffary 
 for the Greeks, if they chofe to retain 
 the original names of the Cadmean let- 
 ters, to alter their forms in fuch a man- 
 ner, as to give them fome new affociated 
 connexion with the' elemental founds 
 they flood for, grounded either upon rea- 
 fons refpedling their own tongue in parti- 
 cular, or upon fome general principle 
 common to all languages whatever. 
 
 / 
 
 It is very obvious to remark in this 
 place, upon the Greeks having retained 
 the oriental names of the letters, that as 
 this circumftance points out the country 
 from whence they received them, fo it 
 contributed in fome degree to the propa- 
 gation of knowledge, by connedling their 
 own with the oriental alphabets ; hereby 
 rendering it lefs difficult to communicate 
 their improvements in morality and Sci- 
 ence, 
 
 I 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 69 
 
 cnce, and return the obligation back 
 again to their teachers. 
 
 But befides this agreement in the 
 names of the letters, which were ackriow^ 
 ledged as foreign words, by not being 
 inflefted in Greek, it appears a conclu- 
 live argument, which hath only juft been 
 hinted, for the feveral alphabets men- 
 tioned in the fecond and third pages of 
 this Diflertation having been copied from 
 one original, that the fame letters, with- 
 out any regard to the organs upon which 
 the formation of their refpeftive founds 
 depends, follow each other in the fame 
 order in them all;., which undoubtedly 
 would not have been the cafe, had thofe 
 different nations which difpute the ho- 
 nour of having invented letters, been 
 the inventors of any thing beyond the 
 mere charadlers of their refpedlive al- 
 
 Nature, it is true, is delighted with 
 variety, and is uniform in the production 
 F 3 of 
 
70 OBSERVATIONS upon * 
 
 of it ; but fuch unanimous confujion 
 could never have proceeded from any fixt 
 principle of her eftablifhing. That let- 
 ters were feparately invented at different 
 times, in the order we now find them, 
 is a fuppofition neither fupported by any 
 evidence, nor is very probable ^ and every 
 C7^igmal inventor, to whofe mind the 
 whole number of elemental founds was 
 prefent, if we fuppofe alphabetic writing 
 to have been invented at diftant periods, 
 and in different countries, and com- 
 pleated ia^each ; every original inventor, 
 we may prefume, after diftributing the 
 characters of the elemental founds, ac- 
 cording to their feveral orders, firft into 
 vowels and confonants, and thefe again 
 into dentals, labials, and palatines, &c. 
 would have arranged them feparately in 
 their different claffes ; and we fhould 
 have found precedence given to the labials 
 or dentals in one country, which was 
 given to the palatines in another. The 
 vowels, moft probably, would have fol- 
 lowed each other without any intervening ' 
 
 confonants. 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 71 
 
 eonfonants, and have been fet at the 
 head of the alphabet by one perfon 
 whilft another would have placed them 
 after the eonfonants : but a general agree- 
 ment in the pofition of thefe claffes, and 
 much lefs in the pofition of the whole 
 feries of letters, without any regard to 
 their fpecific differences, could never 
 have proceeded from any thing but imi- 
 tation ‘f'. 
 
 Why the Mofaic letters were arranged 
 in this confufed, disjointed feries at firff, 
 would be difficult to fay. Perhaps it 
 may be fufficient to obferve, that fuppo- 
 fing their difeovery had been folely owing 
 to the natural powers of the human 
 rnind, thefe divifions of the elemental 
 founds, according to their different or- 
 gans, would have preceded the invention 
 of the whole alphabet ; whereas this cir- 
 cumftance might not at all be attended 
 
 F 4 
 
 ^ Plut. Symp. b. ix. prob. 2. 
 t See p, 2, 3, note, and plate II. 
 
7a OBSERVATIONS upo^r 
 
 to, taking the knowledge of them to 
 have been inilantaheoufly infpired and 
 in this cafe we might expedt to find fuch 
 diftindtions overlooked, in affigning the 
 order of the firjl charadleriftic figures to 
 the founds of alphabet. 
 
 But although the diflindlion of letters- 
 into dalles, according to their difference 
 of pronunciation, was moft probably ( 
 overlooked at this time, yet the facility 
 with which the names of the Hebrew 
 charadlers fucceed eaeh other in the feries 
 (where we find the doling found of each 
 preceding name to prepare the organs 
 for the utterance of that which is to fol- 
 low) feems to fliew, that this was not a 
 matter wholly difregarded ; and which 
 alone might poflibly determine their fuc- 
 ceffion with the infpired author. Thus, 
 for inftance, Alep clofes the lips, and Bit 
 opens them ; the pofition of the tongue, 
 in uttering the / in Bit, prepares it with 
 die fame aperture of the lips to pro- 
 nounce the ^g-, which begins the name 
 
 of 
 
ALf'HABETIC WRITING. 73 
 
 of the third letter ; /, in Geinely doth 
 the fame with refpeft to Delet \ and the 
 ohferration^ holds in general throughout 
 the feries. And as this is not the cafe 
 with the letters pf the other Eaftern al- 
 phabets, whofe terminations varied from 
 the Hebrew, though they ftill follow in 
 the fame order without any fuch reafon 
 for it (or any other reafon that we know 
 of), this iingle circumftance is an argu- 
 ment for the priorify of the Hebrew al- 
 phabet, above all othets we are ac- 
 quainted with, though it doth not abfo- 
 liitely prove its originality. 
 
 That the Greeks v/ere under fome ne- 
 ceffity of altering the forms of the ori- 
 ental letters, fo^long as they retained 
 their naines^ is clear from what hath 
 been already faid. Let us now enquire 
 what method they purfued, to give thefe 
 new bharadlers a natural relation to what 
 may ftrid-ly be called the matres orationis^ 
 the elemental founds of fpeech for which 
 they flood. 
 
 Dionyfius 
 
74 OBSERVATIONS uPOi» 
 
 Dionyfius of Halicarnaflus hath, de- 
 fcribed the Grecian manner of pronounc- 
 ing all the letters of the alphabet, in his 
 Treatife on the Compofition of Words 
 with the utmofi: clearnefs ; and his ac- 
 count of the pofitions of the organs in 
 their utterance anfwers, in moft inftances, 
 fo nearly to the outlines of the letters 
 theirfelves, that whoever is but mode- 
 rately /killed in drawing can have very 
 little doubt of their being delineated 
 from them, and defigned for their repre- 
 fen tations. Thefe refemblances, it is 
 true, were lefs and left regarded, and 
 gradually grew fainter, as the neceffity 
 of attending to them diminifhed, by the 
 knowledge of alphabetic writing becom- 
 ing common, and from the little care 
 which men of genius, in all ages after 
 the general intrcdudtion of letters, have 
 beftowed upon this mechanic part of 
 Science. Yet ftill enough of likeneft 
 
 is 
 
 ^ Sect, xiv’# 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 75 
 
 is to be traced out at prefent in the forms 
 of fifteen letters of the twenty-four ; 
 jiamely. Alpha, Beta, E-pJilon, Dfeta, 
 iPheta, ■ lota. Mu, Nu, KJi, 0-mikron, 
 Pi, Sigma, V-pfilon, Phi, and 0-mega, 
 to eftablifh the conjedture upon a tolerable 
 foundation of probability with refpedt to’ 
 thefe. Two of the remaining nine, 
 namely, Chi * and PJi, are but arbitrary 
 
 • marks 
 
 * The* powers of Chi and Kcippa are fo nearly 
 related, that the figure of each might poffibly bes. 
 taken from the Samaritan letter which anfwered 
 to the Hebrew 3, whofe power, according to Bp. 
 Walton, was either that of a firnple or an afpirated 
 
 K. lam neverthelefs of opinion, that this re- 
 
 femblance of the Grecian Kappa to the Samaritan 
 Kep, fhould rather be confidered as accidental ; and 
 that the ftraight and bending lines, which conftituted 
 the moft antient form of the Greek [(^ (at leaf!: of 
 the Etrufcan), were defigned to fliew the curvature 
 of the tongue, which is elevated into an arch, and 
 pfefTed againft the roof of the mouth thus in 
 order to produce the power of this letter, the upper 
 Jine denoting the fituation of the palate. The 
 whole figure’s being either fupine, or created, or re- 
 verfed, or found in any other aukward fituation, in- 
 ftead of being proftrate, is no fufhcient objection t© 
 tire likelihood of the conjedure. 
 
76 OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 marks of much later Greek extraftion, 
 invented purely for the fake of expedi- 
 tious writings and for the reft, which 
 carried only Jimple founds, pronun- 
 ciation not being fo eafy to be pointed 
 out by any reprefentation of the organs 
 of fpeech, the characters affigned to 
 them were taken from the characters of 
 the Eaftern alphabet, wdth very little 
 variation. 
 
 Without giving ourfelves the trouble 
 to confider the weight of different autho- 
 rities for the precife number of letters 
 introduced at firft by Cadmus ; or at- 
 tempting to account for the tranfpofition 
 of U-pfilon in the modern Greek “alpha- 
 bets ; or at what time the Digamma of 
 the ^olians affumed the original place of 
 the Hebrew Vau, with the power of the 
 confonant V,. or the Roman F*; we fhall 
 take it for granted, that the Greek alpha- 
 bet at firft ended at T, and that it con- 
 fifted of twenty letters only, correfpond- 
 ing in their powers to thofe of the He- 
 
 brewi 
 
r 
 
 ALPiHABETIC WRITING. 77 
 
 brew, the Samaritan, and the Syriac let- 
 ters placed befide them, in the firfl; 
 Plate. It is reafonable to believe, that 
 the afpirated Pi and Kappa (that is, ^ 
 and x), were next added to this num- 
 ber, after the invention of the vovv^el T, 
 or which now fupplies the ufe 
 
 of the Vau, or confonant V likewife ; 
 and laftly, that the double letters, T and 
 XI, compleated the eftablifhed feries. 
 
 The firft and fecond columns of Sama- 
 ritan letters in this Plate are taken chiefly 
 from the learned Dr. Gregory Sharp’s 
 DifTertation on the Origin of Languages, 
 to which the writer is indebted for feve- 
 ral of the foregoing obfervations, and the 
 third from Bifhop W alton : which of 
 the three was the mofl: antient, is fjb- 
 mitted to the reader ; but it is evident the 
 Greeks copied the chief traces of the 
 few Cadmean letters they retained, from 
 the column on the left hand. That the 
 
 Plebrew 
 
 * See Note, page 5. 
 
78 OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 Hebrew letters, K, and % whofe 
 
 vocal powers are moil likeJy to be contro- 
 verted, were vowels, and not confonants, 
 might be fliown from the general fuffrage 
 of the bell writers upon the Hebrew lan- 
 guage ; and however the learned may 
 fometimes differ with regard to the pre- 
 cife vocal powers of thefe letters in parti- 
 cular, or thofe of fome confonants, yet 
 the abfurd opinion was not entertained, 
 that the only letters truly vocal, in the 
 Hebrew alphabet, were abfolutely mate, 
 without the addition of other charadlers, 
 till refinement, and myflery, and diffi- 
 culties of every kind were confidered as 
 infeparable from an infpired writing. 
 And we may obferve, concerning the 
 wio/e Jerks of the Hebrew letters, that 
 as the correfpondence in their numeral 
 powers with the Greek letters, fhews the 
 Greek alphabet to have been borrowed 
 from the Hebrews (for no one can be fo 
 abfurd as to fuppofe the Hebrew alpha- 
 bet was borrowed from the Greek), fo it 
 is highly probable, that the vocal powers 
 
 of 
 
alphabetic writing. 79 
 
 of the Greek letters differed very little 
 from the ^ocal pow'ers of the Hebrew 
 letters at the time of their traduclion : 
 and we may fairly prefume, in a matter 
 of fo little importance as the true pro- 
 nunciation of a dead language, without 
 having recourfe to the authority of Jofe- 
 phus, or Origen, or Jerom (however 
 refpedlable thefe names may be thought), 
 that if we know the vocal powers of the 
 Greek letters, of which there can be no 
 reafonable doubt, we are at the fame time 
 fufficiently acquainted with the original 
 vocal powers of the Hebrew, as they 
 were pronounced before the changes they 
 may have undergone fmce the deftrudiou 
 of the Jewifh ftate 
 
 Of thefe four-and-twenty charaders 
 then, as hath been faid, it is conceived, 
 that only feven were copied from the 
 
 alphabet 
 
 * See Bp. Walton’s Three Preliminary DilTcrt. 
 feci. 38 and 49 ; and Dr. Sharp’s on the Original 
 Powers of Letters. ^ 
 
So Observations upon 
 
 alphabet of Cadmus, which ftill retain 
 fome ftrokes of their original forms ; and 
 that fifteen *of the reft were intended to 
 facilitate the ftudy of letters, properly fo 
 called, in oppofition to fymbols, by ex- 
 hibiting a kind of images (if we may be 
 allowed the expreffion) of their vocal 
 powers, and rendering theft in fome 
 meafure the objects of our light as well 
 as hearing. 
 
 The ftven letters whoft original figures 
 were retained by the Greeks with very 
 little variation, are theft which fol- 
 low : 
 
 Gaimnay Delta^ Eta^ Kappa^ La?nday Ro, and Tm, 
 
 r A H K A P T 
 
 Gamma is undoubtedly the Samaritan 7 
 Gemel or Gemla reverfed. 
 
 Delta is the Samaritan ^ Delet or 
 Delta, 
 
 Eta 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 8i 
 
 Eta^ which was originally ho more 
 than an afpirate^ amongfl: the Greeks, is 
 G evidently 
 
 * E-pfilon, which fucceeded in the place of the 
 Hebrew n, was for fome ages ufed to exprefs both 
 the long and fhort found of the letter e amongft the 
 Greeks ; and whilfl it contitiued to hold this doubid 
 power, their Eta preferved its original found, which 
 was only an afpiration, like that of n in Hebrew, or 
 the Samaritan H. But when in after-times they 
 thought proper to give the power of the long e to the 
 letter H (which later Grammarians might conceive 
 to have been its original found, from the refemblancc 
 it bears to two E's turned towards each other, (£3[)v 
 the fhort E was then called in oppofition ta 
 
 it, and it became necelTary to add a mw charadler for 
 the afpirate, the form of which was borrowed fronnt'' 
 that of the Hebrew Cheph reverfed. Bentley's Difr 
 fert. upon Phalaris, p. 241. 
 
 In the Roman alphabet H reafiumed its primitive 
 power of an afpirate enfy^ and E with them ftands 
 indifferently for the long or fhort found of this letter, 
 as it did at firfl: with the Greeks. 
 
 The reader is here referred to thetdferiptions upon 
 the Thebaic Tripods, mentioned in the fifth book of 
 Herodotus, and to the Sigean infeription originally 
 
 publifhed 
 
8z OBSERVATIONS upom 
 
 evidently the Samaritan H Hit, as the 
 lelTer is the Hebrew afpirate n* 
 
 Kappa 
 
 publifhed by Dr. Chifhul In his Afiatic Antiquities ; 
 copies of all which may be feen in the Firfl: Volume 
 of Dr. Shuckforth’s Connexion. 
 
 The Sigean Infcription, fo often quoted to afccr- 
 tain the forms of the antient Greek letters, is cut 
 upon a block of marble nine feet long, and two feet 
 fquare, which was the pillar of an Hermean ftatue, 
 and at prefent is made ufe of for a feat before the door 
 of a Greek church not far from the Sigean promon- 
 tory. It is fuppofed to be confide rably above two 
 thoufand years old, for which, and its being a com- 
 pleat fpecimen of writing it is chiefly valu- 
 
 able; fince all it acquaints us with is, that one Pha- 
 riodicus, to whom the ftatue was eredled, had pre- 
 fented a bowl and ftand, with a ftrainer, to the 
 Public Hall of • the city Sigeum, whofe fite was that 
 of the village in which the ftone now lies. 
 
 ' Thofe who are the leaft acquainted with the 
 heathen rites of facrifice, are not to be informed, 
 that the bowl and ftand here intended were a kind of 
 tripod, ferving as a moveable altar, the legs of which 
 were fo contrived, as to approach nearer, or to fepa- 
 rate'farther from each other, for the more conveni- 
 ently receiving vefTels of different fizes. The reader 
 
 may 
 
alphabetic writing. 
 
 Kappa is no very diftant refemblan.ce 
 of the Samaritan X Kep. 
 
 Lamda is the Samaritan < Lemed 
 eredted. 
 
 Ro is their reverfed.q Ris. And 
 
 "Tau borrows both its name and fhapc 
 from ^ brand or hammer (which is 
 the Samaritan form of it), and whofe 
 diftant found very aptly expreffes the 
 power of the letter. 
 
 Let us now confider the forms of the 
 remaining fifteen letters, which we fup- 
 pofe to have been a new kind of pidlure- 
 writing (fy in the ftridl- 
 
 eft fenfe), that ferved to point out founds 
 inftead of things. 
 
 G 2 Thefe 
 
 ; 
 
 may acquire a perfect idea of their confirud^ion, frotn 
 a draught in Scacchi’s Myrothecium, which thews 
 their form to have been extremely elegant ; and we 
 know that they were often made of the moft valuable 
 materials. 
 
54 OBSERVATIONS cpoti 
 
 Thefe fifteen letters conlift of. 
 
 Six vowels^ a, g, /, o, w, v. 
 
 ‘ Four labials, P, ^r, ip. 
 
 Three linguals, 0, v. 
 
 And two dentals, 2 and (r. 
 
 To begin with the vowels. Thefe, 
 according to Dionyfius are all pro- 
 nounced by the difpolition of the lips 'f 
 only, without any movement of the 
 tongue in utterance, the air colledled in 
 the trachgea being gently forced outward. 
 
 Alpha was pronounced with a confi- 
 derable aperture of the mouth 
 Tou $roiJ(.a.To<; lin, 7rXnrov)y and the air di- 
 rected againft the palate. Now nothing 
 
 could 
 
 * Se£l. xlv.’ 
 
 f It appears from hence, that all the vowels, as 
 well as T, might very properly have been termed 
 labials, although this being morediftinguifliably fuch, 
 is the only one of them that is ufually ranked in 
 this clafs. S'e r»vTix Traym, rvi avfv}- 
 
 to 'arnv(jc,x, t 3 ro/AaT0^ awAS? T?f 
 
 « 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING, ^ 
 
 jeould more exaftly repreferft the opening 
 of the lips in profile for the purpofe, 
 than the charafter of this letter reclined, 
 in which the crofs bar delineated ot 
 pointed out the fituation of the teeth ; 
 though this letter, as well as feveral 
 others, was afterwards eredled for the 
 fake of taking up lefs room, 
 
 < < A A 
 
 "Epfilon Is pronounced by a moderate 
 aperture of the lips, the tongue being 
 placed ftraight out, fo as to give the air, 
 forced from the tracha^a, a diredl pafTage, 
 neither throwing it upwards or down- 
 wards ; and this polition of the tongue, 
 nearly at an equal diftance from the roof 
 and bottom of the mouth, was pointed 
 out by the middle ftroke in the center of 
 the curved line, or between the parallel 
 lines in the fquare letter. 
 
 € ^ € E 
 
 : G 3 
 
 lota 
 
3 ^ OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 lofa was reckoned the meaneft of all 
 the vowels, as it received no advantage or 
 increafe of found from the lips, which 
 were but juft opened in the pronouncing 
 of it, and were therefore charadlcred by 
 a fimple, ftraight, horizontal line, which 
 ^■as afterwards eredledfor the reafon above 
 given. ’Eo-^aroy tti^vtoo'j to I, faith Diony-; 
 bus, o^voiyo^iwj ra 
 
 I — ! I 
 
 Omiiron is fo generally allowed to 
 have borrowed its form from the pofition 
 of the lips in uttering it, as to need no 
 explanation 
 
 o o o 
 
 0-mega 
 
 * Quintilian obferves, that Qrnikron flood for the 
 long and fhort o, and it appears from the Sigean 
 infcription, that it was ufed both for a and w, a? well 
 Tts its own fimple fgund : all which fhews' the cha- 
 radler of w to have bpen of later invention.-r-rQuint. 
 de Inftitut. Orat. 1 . i. c. 7. Shuckf. Conn, voi, I. 
 p. 256, 265. 
 
alphabetic writing. 87 
 
 O-mega exhibited the hollow of the 
 mouth in profile, with the lips thruft 
 forward as in fpeaking : rpovyvxxiTai n yaf 
 
 h avrea to TrfptrfAAfi ra 
 
 a a 
 
 TJ-pfilon was . efteemed one of the 
 meaner vowels, though fuperior to iota. 
 Its found was produced by a remarkable 
 contradlion of the lips, which choak- 
 ed the voice, and rendered it weak and 
 thin: TT^pt J/ap avroi Toi (TvfoXrig yivoy.ivzg 
 
 d^loXoyHf TTViySTCCl^ g~£TfOg fXTTiTTTfl 0 Tl^og* 
 
 The form of tMs letter, therefore, was 
 evidently a delineation of the lips in its 
 utterance, which it was hardly poffible 
 to miftake in its proper fituation. It hath 
 been obferved before, that this letter ' is 
 reckoned in the number of the labials^ 
 which come next under our confideration ; 
 and its original fhape has undergone little 
 alteration, 
 
 H T 
 
 G 4 
 
 The 
 
S8 OBSERVATIONS upofj 
 
 The remaining confonant labials are 
 four ; namely, Befa, Mu, P/, and PAi ; 
 all which require the lips to be com- 
 prcfled and thruft forward in their utter- 
 ance ; and their refpedlive charafters are 
 as fimilar to each other, as it was con- 
 fiftent with a neceflary diftinftion to per- 
 mit : which would hardly have been the 
 cafe, had not the pofition of the organs 
 in their pronunciation given the outlines 
 of their forms. For thefe the llighteft 
 fketches will be hints fufiicient* 
 
 Beta was a delineation of the lips in 
 profile, in the natural fituation of the 
 head. 
 
 B B Bp 
 
 Mu exhibited them turned upwards. 
 
 , Pi was their inverted profile. * 
 
 w uj n - 
 
 And 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 89 
 
 And Fhi was 'a drawing of the lips as 
 they appear in front, which was erected 
 for the fake of taking up. lefs room. 
 
 Zeta and Nu be confidered both 
 as palatines and Unguais. 
 
 Z N 
 
 Zeta (the found of which feems to be 
 compounded of the founds of ^ and o* is 
 pronounced by raifing the tip of ihd 
 
 tongue 
 
 * Dionyrms faith, the power of Z was com- 
 pounded of the powers of a- and but the diffi- 
 culty of founding o- before and <r, according to 
 the fame author, being founded after x., in the dou- 
 ble found of I, and after tt, in the double found of 
 ftiould incline us rather to fufpedf an error in the 
 Text, and that ^ ought to be firft heard in the pro- 
 nunciation of this letter. The corruption of 
 into and of into mentioned by 
 
 Plato in his Cratylus, feems to confirm this opinion. 
 As the Greeks changed the Delta into Zeta, or ky f® 
 the Romans, in many words derived from the Greeks 
 changed Zeta into y, which is a double letter, com- 
 pounded 
 
 I 
 
90 OBSERVATIONS vpon 
 
 tongue towards the roof of the mouth, 
 near the bottom of the gum, and after a 
 fhort confinement of the air, letting it pafs 
 down through the teeth. The charadler 
 of this letter, therefore, was defigned to 
 point out the pofition of the tongue in 
 uttering it, the upper and lower ftrokes 
 delineating the roof and bottom of the 
 mouth, and the oblique ftroke, the fitua- 
 tion of the tongue ; and that this was 
 really intended, appears highly probable 
 from the fimilar charadler given to the 
 palatine or lingual 
 
 N 
 
 the found of which is produced by a 
 fimilar application of the tongue to the 
 roof of the mouth, the air in this cafe 
 
 being 
 
 pounded of d and g foft. The affinity between d 
 ^ and j appears from the pronunciation of y for and 
 
 d for which arc not uncommon corruptions in 
 fome modern languages ; as in juty for duiy^ juce for 
 deiix^ duice for juice ^ and, if Mr, Sharp is not mif- 
 taken, Diudice for Gludice, and DuHo for Giullo^ at 
 Venice. Sec his Eighth Letter from Italy. 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 
 
 being driven up through the noftrils, in- 
 ftead of paffing down through the teeth j 
 and thus the fame figure, erefted for 
 diftindlion-fake, was truly charadleriftic 
 of both letters, according to the old line, 
 
 jaccns fi furgat, erit nota quae dicitur N, 
 
 Suppoling what is here advanced to be 
 true, we may conclude, that if the Znnx, 
 hath been fometimes found engraved, in 
 antient infcriptions, like an titx TrXxyiov of 
 the mulicians, it muft originally have 
 been owing to miftake, fince it can have 
 no natural connexion with it 
 
 * The only certain Inftance of Dfeta^s being writ- 
 ten with the middle ftroke perpendicular to the other 
 two, which the editor hath taken notice of, thougk 
 it may be familiar to thofe who are better verfed in 
 antient infcriptions, is upon a medal ftruck, as he 
 apprehends, upon the Relief of Cyzicum by Timo- 
 theus. The letters are, SHTY KTffilKHNN [Mont- 
 faucon’s Antiq. vol. I.], in which the miftake of 
 the laft letter of each word (hews a want of accu- 
 « t«icy that favours \yhat is obferved above. But as 
 
 ignorance 
 
OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 and Sigma are the two next letters 
 to be conlidered ; the former of which 
 fucceeded in the place of the Hebrew 
 JCftmek, and the latter in the place of 
 Sin. 
 
 Now the Hebrew form of Kfemek * 
 was that of the /erfent [t], and that of 
 
 Sin 
 
 ignorance In the Infancy of letters was a fource of 
 many graphical miftakes at firft, fo caprice or care- 
 leffnefs would afterwards have much the fame effe<Sl:, 
 and Zvircc might abufively acquire the form of 
 yiov ; by which name notwithftanding, ^ and not by 
 that of Znrocf the imperfe6i: character of is always 
 diftinguilhed as a mufical note. 
 
 Alypius et Gaudent, in genere diatono, 
 
 * It is not eafy to reconcile the name of this letter 
 with the form of it. fignifies, fulcrum continuum^ 
 a prop or fHpport, any thing upon which to reft or 
 lean, and is not ufed for the ferpent in any pafTage 
 that we know of; but, at the fame time, it might 
 not improperly be applied to theScytalc, common in 
 Africa and the Levant, fo called from hacu- 
 
 lus, its head and tail being nearly of the fame bignefa ; 
 fr^nuiKjience Dr. Shaw fuppofes that it was, in all 
 
 probability. 
 
alphabetic writing. 93 
 
 Sin [t2?], ^ tooth. The fliape of the one 
 called up the voice of the animal, which, 
 in all probability, moft nearly refembled 
 the original manner of pronouncing this 
 letter j and the name and Jlmpe of Sin 
 were equivalent to calling it the tootb* 
 letter y which denoted and charafterifed: 
 its po\ver. The Greeks, on the con- 
 trary, gave a delineation of the organs to 
 KJiy and the figure of the ferpent to Sigma. 
 The original form of Kli, which is very 
 little altered, we take to have been thi^, 
 fomething like it : 
 
 in which the horizontal lines denote the 
 lips, which are drawn afunder v/ithout 
 opening the jaw, and difcover the teeth, 
 marked out by the Ihorter line indented. 
 
 Th^ 
 
 probability, the Amphlfbcena of Lucan, I. is:. 
 Martini tells us, that the Athenians fometimes ufed 
 the 5 [whofe fmaller figure is that of a ferpent raifed 
 upon its tail, injiead of Sigma. 
 
 Grseco-Phoenix ad Literam S. 
 
94 OBSERVATIONS tjfou 
 
 The leffer figma [<3-] very nearly re- 
 fembles the Hebrew Semech [D] re- 
 verfed and the greater, which was 
 fometimes written in the manner of the 
 Roman C, was the ferpent in its folds< 
 It hath been affirmed by Tacitus and 
 Pliny, that the Roman letters were the 
 antient Greek ones. Now there can be 
 little doubt that S ^ was taken from the 
 figure of the ferpent ; and if what is 
 faid of the connection which the prefent 
 Greek characters have with the difpofi- 
 tion of their refpective organs in pronun- 
 ciation be allowed, it will be found at 
 
 leajl 
 
 ^ Sigma, in the' Infcilptions given us by Dr. ; 
 Shuckforth in the place above quoted, hath thefe 
 three feveral forms, Z, 5 i 
 Sigean, and the lafl: in thofe of the Thebaic Tripods, 
 and the pillars of the Attic Herod, eredled by that 
 celebrated fcholar to perpetuate what he fuppofed to 
 have been the forms of the antient Ionic chara^Slers. 
 A very exafl draught of thefe characters is given us 
 in a collection of letters by a young Painter in 
 Italy, from the fragments of the pillars themfelves, 
 which remained in the Farncfe Palace at Rome, in 
 the year 
 
alphabetic writing, 95 
 
 leajl as ftriking, with regard to moft of 
 the Roman charaders, which are faid to 
 have been thofe of the firft Greek alpha- 
 bet ^ communicated to the Etrurians by 
 the Pelafgi, upon their being driven out 
 of Greece by the Hellens -f. 
 
 The 
 
 * Pliny, 1 . vii. c. 56 and 58, Tacit. Ann. 1 . xi. 
 
 f The Etrufean alphabet feems to have been rudely 
 copied from the Greek ; but in what aera it was car- 
 ried into Italy, it is prefumed, can no way be deter- 
 mined with certainty. There are who fuppofe it to 
 have been prior to the Pelafgic, and that letters v/ere 
 originally communicated from Hetruria to the Gre- 
 cians. Without engaging in a fubjedt which requirea 
 the moft extenfive knowledge of inferiptions and 
 chronology, let it only be obferved of the Molk Di~ 
 gamma ^ which was one of the old Etrufean cha- 
 radlers, that whether we fuppofe its powder to have 
 been the power of the Roman F (which differed little 
 from our Englljh Ve), or the power of the Roman 
 V, it fhews the ufe of a confonant Y not to have 
 been unknown to the antient Greeks, as hath been 
 before obferved. But its form being that of a double 
 Van* (or, as the Greeks called it, /Stjy), which it 
 
 might 
 
 See Plate I. and ^Tote, p, 3, 
 
96 O B S E R V ATI O S tJP6i^ 
 
 The only remaining, letter to be takert 
 notice of is- T’heta^ or the afpirated 
 which wa^ one of the later invehtiofi y 
 and the form' of this mbft evidently fhews 
 the fituation of the tongue,- which ii^ 
 thruft beyond the teeth in its ptonuUci- 
 ation, the circle marking the difclofure 
 of the lips, 
 
 It is ealy to forefee, that thefe refem- 
 blances will not appear through the 
 medium of fcholaftic prejudice^ whilft 
 others may afcribe them to the ingenuity 
 of chance ; and, of courfe, that what 
 hath been advanced concerning the prin- 
 ciple upon which the Grecian letters are 
 
 fuppofed 
 
 might better have been termed than a Digamma, 
 feems to determine its power to have been that of the 
 Roman V, rather than F the former of which was 
 certainly pronounced, in general, like our Englifh 
 W, if we may judge by the Grecian manner of 
 tranfpofing it from the Roman characters into their 
 own. 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 97 
 
 fuppofed to have been formed, will in 
 either cafe be looked upon as an imaginary- 
 whim. The Editor will not undertake 
 to defend it : as z,>whtmjical conjefture, it 
 may ftill afford fome entertainment. 
 Better reafons might perhaps be offered 
 in its favour than what appear at prefent : 
 but thofe that are acquainted with the 
 conjedlures of the learned Baxter ^ upon 
 this fubjedt, who hath found the figure 
 of a fheep in the Samaritan and of 
 Ifis and her fon Horus in vAth fome 
 other refemblances nearly as wild, will 
 not be difpofed to think it altogether fo 
 extravagant. Be this as it may, extrava- 
 gance (which is a term applied to any 
 deviation from what is ufual) is no crite- 
 rion of falfhood, nor is that alw’^ays the 
 right road that is the moft beaten. In 
 the Editor's opinion, it was this very 
 change of the charadlers, in conformity 
 H to 
 
 ^Letter on the Antient Method of Writing ia 
 Charaders. 
 
9^ OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 to the pofitlon of the organs in utterance 
 (fo far as it was capable of being pointed 
 out), which enabled die Greeks to pro- 
 pagate the art of literal knowledge, with 
 more facility than other nations, amongft 
 themfelves. They who have never at- 
 tempted to inftrud: others in this art, 
 who were utterly unacquainted with let- 
 ters in their younger days, can have no 
 juft idea of the difficulties that attend 
 the talk : and whoever would fucceed in 
 it, muft make ufe of fome method to 
 point out the very firjl beginnings of the 
 elemental founds, and teach his pupils to 
 prepare their organs, and fix them ready 
 for utterance, before the founds be per- 
 mitted to burfi; from their lips. This 
 end was to be attained among the Greeks 
 by the ftudy of the letters • theirfelves, 
 and muft of courfe have very much con- 
 tributed to promote an accuracy of pro- 
 nunciation, as well as to facilitate the 
 progrefs of alphabetic writing. 
 
 The 
 
alphabetic writing. 99 
 
 The acutenefs of this people in the 
 advancement of the arts in general is uni- 
 verfally allowed : but the ardour with 
 which they applied themfelves to theftudy 
 of literal writing, and the improvement 
 of their language, appears from hence, 
 that it feems to have been brought nearly 
 to perfection in the age of Homer ; 
 namely, within a fpace not much exceed- 
 ing a hundred-and-lixty years from the 
 firft introduction of letters into Greece. 
 
 That Homer (whofe name In Celtic is 
 faid to mean the Bard or Man of Song) at 
 leaft took the idea of his works from for- 
 mer traditional poems, is more than pro- 
 blematical'^; and it is thought from fome 
 internal proofs, that thefe were likewife 
 H 2 Celtic 
 
 * Helene, the daughter of Mufaeus, wrote a Poem 
 of the Trojan War ; and one Syagrus, mentioned 
 by iTlian as the next Poet after Orpheus and 
 f£us, is faid to have exercifed his Mufc upon ths 
 fume fubje£l. 
 
100 OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 Celtic, But in whatever language thefe 
 memorial poems were compofed, which 
 Homer ftyles the language of the Gods, 
 and which we conceive to have been more 
 fuitable to the fimplicity of manners in 
 the, Iliad and the Odyfley, than the arti- 
 ficial language of the Grecian bard (fet- 
 tered as it is, moreover, with the chains 
 of a returning meafure); it fhould feem 
 that alphabetic writing was unknown at 
 the time of the Trojan war, forafmuch 
 as no certain traces of it are to be met 
 with either in the Iliad or Odyffey 
 
 Now 
 
 ^ The only pafTage where alphabetic writing may 
 be thought to have been intended, is in the jftory ©f 
 Bellerophon, who is defcribed as carrying a fealed 
 tablet to Jobates containing an order for his own 
 death. But it does not follow from the exprelfion of 
 the Poet ufed upon this occafion, that letters, pro- 
 perly fo called, were written in it ; fince the term 
 tr/j[xara. is at leaft as applicable to fome private marks or 
 tokens, or to any kind of fymbolic characters, as 
 letters; and Cicero fiems to have ufed the' fynonimous 
 word aYifjiiiov for v/hat we now call Cypher^ in the 
 32 d Epiftle of the xiiith Book to Atticus : Et quod 
 
 ad “ 
 
 / 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. loi 
 
 Now the conclufion of the expedition 
 againft Troy, according to the heft con- 
 jeftures of chronologers (for nothing cer- 
 tain can be had), was about 300 years 
 before the age of Homer ; but it was not 
 till the fixteenth year of the reign of 
 David, that is, about 135 years after the 
 deftrudlion of Ti*oy (according to Le 
 Clerc, who follows Petavius), that Cad- 
 mus, at the head of a colony of , Phoeni- 
 cians who fled from the vidtorious arms 
 H 3 of 
 
 ad te de decern legatis fcrtpft^ parum intellexti^ credo, quia 
 a-nixstojv fcripferam. But ruppofing alphabetic letters 
 to have been intended by the a-liy.a,ra, of Homer, 
 the ftory might be nothing more than a poetic fable, 
 the incidents of which were taken from the real hif- 
 tories of Jofeph and Uriah, the gallantry of David, 
 his marriage with Michal, his banifliment, See. con- 
 fufed accounts of which might have been brought into 
 Greece by the Phoenicians with the Hebrew letters. 
 And what may incline us rather to fufpcct this fable of 
 Bellerophon was compofed from feme particulars of 
 Jewifli hiftory, is his conqueft of the Solymi, a peo- 
 ple who never exifled but in imagination, unlefs we 
 fiippofe them the inhabitants of Jerufalem, See 
 Mr. Pope’s Note, Iliad, b, vi. 
 
100 OBSERVATIONS upon 
 
 of this monarch, carried alphabetic writ- 
 ing into Greece. Newt. Chron. p. 12, 
 
 It muft be allovvxd, that this is taking 
 a difputed point for granted, fince it is 
 not certain who the Cadmus was that in- 
 troduced it. Thus much may at leaft be 
 faid, however, for the conjedture; That 
 it is, pe;*haps, as well founded as many 
 others upon this fubjedt which have met 
 with approbation from the learned 
 
 But 
 
 ^ Sir Ifaac Newton, whole opinion is here fol- 
 lowed with refpedl; to the different ages of Cadmus 
 ,and of Homer, from what are fixt by other chrono- 
 logers, makes the Trojan v/ar to have commenced 
 long after the migration of the Phoenicians under 
 Cadmus, and the introdudlion of letters into Greece; 
 whereas it feems moil: probably to have been carried 
 on during the time of the Judges over Ifiael, whilfl 
 the knowledge of an alphabetic characSIer was con- 
 fined within the prccindls of Judjea. 
 
 Homer and Hefiod are in general fuppofed to have 
 teen contemporaries ; they are even faid to have fung 
 
 together 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 103 
 
 But whatever progrefs had been made 
 by the Greeks in polifhing their language 
 H 4 ill 
 
 together in Delos ; and Herodotus in Euterpe tells 
 us, that they lived only 400 years before his time : 
 now Herodotus fiourifhed about 456 years before the 
 Chrilfian aera, which brings the age of Homer to 
 about 856 years before Chrift. But we have a more 
 authentic proof of the age of Hefiod from his Second 
 Book of Works and Days, in which he dire(?fs the 
 pruning of their vines in Bototia to be begun upon 
 the rifing of Ar(Si:urus at fun-fet, fixty days after the 
 winter folftice ; and again, all the grapes to be ga- 
 thered, and their fecond vintage ended, when the 
 fame ftar rofe at day-break : from which account of 
 the heliacal rifing of this ftar it follows, that Homer 
 and Hefiod fiourifhed about 100 years after the death 
 of Solomon, that is, 875 years before the Chriftian 
 aera ; 164 years after the introdu 61 ;ion of letters into 
 Greece by Cadmus ; and about 309 years from the 
 conclufion of the war againft I'roy, as that event 
 is .fettled by Petavius, who places it in the time of 
 the government of Jair, the Galeaditc, over Ifracl. 
 
 The rcafon of Sir Ifaac Newton’s fixing the sera 
 of the deftriuftion of Troy after the age of Cadmus, 
 was a full perfuafion, that the expedition of the 
 
 Argo- 
 
10 % OBSERVATLONS upon 
 
 in the days of Homer, the cultivation of 
 the polite arts in after-times, and efpeci- 
 
 ally 
 
 Argonauts was not undertaken till upwards of 4® 
 years after the death of Solomon ; whereas it was 
 certain, that many of the fons of the Argonauts 
 were captains at the fiege of Troy. 
 
 ’ But the authority upon which Sir Ifaac Newton 
 chiefiy grounds his opinion of the aera of the Argo- 
 nautic expedition, hath been fhewn by many writers 
 to be unfatisfadfory, not only from the uncertainty of 
 the author he hath quoted to eftablilh his jirji prin- 
 ciple^ but from the well-known ignorance of the 
 Grecian aflronomers even in after-iim^Sy whofe fkill 
 went little farther than to fix the heliacal rifing orfet- 
 ting of a few ftars, to ferve the purpofes of agricul- 
 ture. Befides this, it is not at all clear fromHefiod’s 
 account of the four ages of the world, denominated 
 from the value of different metals, and his concern 
 for being born in that of iron, as he defcribes them 
 from the 109th line to the i8cth of the firff book, 
 that this Poet lived only one* age of about 30 or 4Q 
 years after the Trojan war. This interpretation, 
 with all due fubmifiion to fo great an authority, 
 feems ftrangely forced, and by no means to be argued 
 from as an indifputable fadf. 
 
 * Ntwten’i Chron. p. 32, 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 105 
 
 ally their ftrong attachment to the ftudy 
 of Philofophy, which applied the art of * 
 
 writing 
 
 The following T able hath the appearance of coming 
 nearer the Chronological Truth, which yet, perhaps, 
 the more judicious reader maydifcern fufficient rea- 
 fons to rejedl. 
 
 Argonautic Expedition, 
 
 Bef Cbr. 
 
 1214 Petav, 
 
 Conclufion of the Trojan war. 
 
 ,1184 Petav, 
 
 David fucceeds Saul, — 
 
 1055 
 
 Phoenicians carry letters into 1 
 
 (Newtons ChroH' 
 
 Greece under Cadmus, j 
 
 p. 106. 
 
 Solomon afeends the throne. 
 
 1015 Petav, 
 
 Solomon dies, 
 
 975 Petav, 
 
 Homer and Hefiod flourifh. 
 
 875 Newt.Chr.'p,C)^, 
 
 We may obferve from Hefiod’s account of linilh- 
 ing the vintage when ArcSturus rofe at day-break, 
 which fhews the grapes in Greece to have been ripe 
 while the fun was palling through the conftellation 
 called Erigone, that this imaginary daughter of Ica' 
 rius was nothing more than a Hebrew term for the 
 bufinefs of the feafon, from jnrr, to cut off, and U]?, 
 the grapes ; /. e. Erigoneb, only leaving out the 
 letter to give the name a Grecian termination. 
 The myftery of Bacchus under the canifter of grapes 
 needs no clearer explanation, and was undoubtedly a 
 fable of the later Greeks, whether the more Eailern 
 people gave this name to the conflellation Virgo 
 or not. 
 
ic6 OBSERVATIONS vpo^ 
 
 writing more particularly to the improve-^ 
 ment of the underftanding, ftill enriched 
 it more, and opened all the treafures of 
 the Sciences. The victories they obtained 
 over the reft of mankind in this refped: 
 kept pace with all their other conquefts, 
 and prepared the way for true Religion by 
 holding up the light of Reafon, and dart- 
 ing through that cloud of Ignorance 
 which long had overfpread the Eaftern 
 regions. The Grecian language gained 
 the univerfal admiration of the learned; 
 it fubdued their haughty conquerors at 
 laft, 
 
 — & artes 
 
 Intulit agrefti Latio. 
 
 From hence, as from' another center, 
 the rays of Science ftiot into the Weftern 
 world ; and the barbarous nations who 
 penetrated into Italy towards the clofe of 
 the Roman empire, carried arts and learn- 
 ing back into the North 
 
 Thus 
 
 * The Runic Alphabet is thought by fome to 
 have been original, from the order and paucity of its 
 
 letters j 
 
alphabetic writing. 107 
 
 Thus the virtues and the vices of men, 
 their profperity and adverfity, alike con- 
 tributed to bring about the purpofes of 
 God ; and he feems in a peculiar manner 
 
 to 
 
 letters ; but the forms of the following charadlers : 
 F> I> H, 't, B, that is Fel, Oys, 
 
 R'ldhur, yis, Sol, Tyr, Biarkan, and Lagur, feem 
 to evince this to be a miftake. The firft of thefe 
 is a rude imitation of the Roman F, with the fame 
 vocal power ; the fecond is an inverted Digamma, 
 (as it was propofed by the emperor Claudius) with 
 the power of the Roman V, that is, of ou or W ; 
 the third is evidently the Roman R, with the fame 
 vocal power ; as ^is precifely is the Roman 1 \ Sol 
 is a refemblance of the Sio:ean Siorma, with the fame 
 power ; Tyr is certainly an imitation of the Grecian 
 iauy or Roman T, which was borrowed from the 
 Samaritan form of this letter. Biarkan is evidently 
 leta^ or the Roman B ; and Lagur appears to have 
 been taken from the Grecian larnda^ as we fometimes 
 fee it, which was borrowed likewife from the Sama- 
 ritan If thefe letters were not introduced into 
 
 the North by fome of thofe v/ho invaded the Roman 
 Empire ; however uncertain we are with refpedf to 
 the time of their introdudlion there j we may reafon- 
 ably conclude, that they were carried by that favage 
 people from the borders of Afia, in an earlier age ; 
 but thefe refemblances fufficiently evidence that they 
 were copies. 
 
io8 OBSERVATIONS upom 
 
 , to have raifed up this extraordinary peo- 
 ple, to have infpired them with a love of 
 Freedom, and maintained their independ- 
 ance for a time, in order to form a lan- 
 guage fit for the conveyance of Divine 
 Truths which continues by its fweet- 
 nefs to allure men to the ftudy of it, and, 
 as it is no longer in danger of being cor-- 
 
 rupted 
 
 * The Grecian common- wealths, faith the learned 
 author of Hermes, whilft they maintained their 
 liberty, were the moft heroic confederacy that ever 
 exifted ; they were the politeft, the braveft, and the 
 wifeft of men. In the fliort fpace of little more 
 than a century they became fuch ftatefmen, warrigrs, 
 orators, hiftorians, poets, critics, painters, fculp- 
 tors, architects, and, laft of all, philofophers, that 
 one can hardly help conhdering that golden period as 
 a providential event, in honour of human nature, 
 to fhew to v/hat perfection the fpecies might afeend. 
 Now the language of the Greeks was truly like 
 themfelves j it was conformable to their tranfeendent 
 genius : where matter fo abounded, words followed 
 of courfe, and thofe exquifite in every kind as the 
 ideas for which they ftood : and hence it follows, 
 there was not a fubjeCt to be found, which could not 
 with propriety be exprelTed in Greek.— -Hermes, 
 p. 416. 
 
ALPHABETIC WRITING. 109 
 
 rupfed in itfelf -f*, will prefcrve them like- 
 wife uncorrupted to the confummation 
 of all things. 
 
 In this view we may confider the dif- 
 covery of alphabetic writing, not only as 
 intended to fweeten life by an enlargement 
 of its focial pleafures ; to foften the rigours 
 of abfence, and connedl the inhabitants 
 of diftant countries ; or, Vv^hat is ftill a 
 nobler idea, to defeat the malice of Time 
 by uniting the wifdbm and difcoveries of 
 
 which 
 
 t The wirdom of Divine Prov.idence is not lefs 
 eonfpicuous in that wretched ftate of fubjeftion to 
 which the Greeks are now reduced, than in their 
 former exaltation ; fince by this event the language 
 of their anceftors, after continuing a'iiving language, 
 with little variation, near two thoufand years (a 
 circumftance not far fhort of miraculous), is now fo 
 abfolutely dead, that the vulgar dialedi of modern 
 Greece is faid to be as diilant from it as the Rulilan. 
 It was thus the Hebrew ceafed to be a living: lano-ua^^-e 
 
 O £d £3 
 
 about four hundred years before our Saviour, when 
 God thought proper to clofe the facred canon of the 
 Old Teftament, and to feal up the Vifion and Pro- 
 phecy with the preaching of Malachi. 
 
no O B S E R V A T I O N S, 
 
 dillant ages, and giving us a familiai* 
 converfe with the dead ; but principally 
 to carry on the grand fcheme of Provi- 
 dence in condufting the whole race of 
 linful man from the darknefs of Error 
 into the light of Truth, and to bring him 
 into a union with God. 
 
{ HI ) 
 
 If we may be allowed to guefs at the fubje£i of the 
 Infcrlption in this Third Plate from the figures thus 
 rudely Iketched upon the fame Table, without the 
 imputation of giving an unwarrantable indulgence to 
 Imagination, there is reafon to fuppofe it one of the 
 facred Hymns of Ifis, who was worfhipped as the 
 plaftic mother of the univerfe. To her bounty in 
 the diredlion of the feafons the jTgyptians thought 
 the earth indebted for its fertility, and Man, with 
 all the animals upon its furface, and the fowls of 
 heaven, to be nourifhed and fupported. Thus much 
 might be pointed out by the three fymbolic figures ; that 
 equality which is obferved in the length of the ap- 
 , parent lines here divided into columns (which 
 would have been unneccflary in profe), feems to im- 
 ply fome kind of a poetic ineafure ; and we know 
 that the .Egyptian Priefts pretended to have preferved 
 many compofitions of this fort, which the Goddefs 
 had delivered for the ritual of her own worfhip. 
 Thefe were called. The Songs or Poems ofi Ifits ; and 
 this may probably be the only one of them remain- 
 ing : but we almoft defpair of feeing this fpecimen 
 r of the poetic genius of iTgypt (if it be fuch ) ever 
 explained, fince it is moft likely written with a mix- 
 ture of the hierogrammatic charadters*; which being 
 
 invented 
 
( II2 ) 
 
 invented to conceal^ were farther removed from com- 
 mon apprehenfion, than their ordinary me'taphoricai 
 hieroglyphics, and, perhaps, are only arbitrary marks 
 to denote the fymbols even of fy777bols. The Figures were 
 a leflbn to the vulgar ; they could in fome degree read 
 and underftand ; whilft the other part of the infcrip- 
 tion was intelligible to the Priefts alone; a memo- 
 rial of fome particular fervice in the worfliip of their 
 imaginary Deity. Other ideas of the religious 
 Faith of the ^Egyptians, than thofe abovementioned, 
 were probably intended by the common hieroglyphic 
 figures, with the feafon when thefe rites were to be 
 celebrated ; and it may be fuppofed that an enlarge- 
 ment upon fuch ideas thus hinted in general, had no 
 inconfiderable (hare in the folemnities of the bene- 
 volent Goddefs,' 
 
 POST- 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 I T hath been objedted to the Divine 
 Infpiration of Alphabetic Writing at 
 the delivery of the Law, that Mofes 
 himfelf appeals to an antient book of 
 the Wars of the Lord What this 
 book was, hath been matter of debate 
 amongft the commentators 5 but fmce 
 we know no wars to whigh this title 
 could fo juftly be attributed, as thofe in 
 which the Ifraelites were engaged to- 
 expel the ufurpers of the rights of others, 
 and extirpate the enemies of his reli- 
 
 - I ' . gioHi 
 
 Niimb. xxi. 14, • 
 
II4 postscript. 
 
 gion ^ ; and have, moreover, the autho- 
 rity of Sacred Scriptures, that the war 
 with the Amalekites in particular, was 
 exprefsly called the war of God againjl 
 Amalek ; we might juftly doubt of its pri- 
 ority to the age of Mofes, were there no 
 ftronger feafons to be brought^ againft it. 
 But the .following circumftances feem to 
 evince it to have been no other than a 
 general account of the Ifraelitifh expe- 
 ditions againft the inhabitants of Canaan, 
 which was begun by Mofes, and corn- 
 pleated afterwards by Joihua, in the 
 book that bears his name at prefent. 
 
 Firft, becaufe the book of the Wars of 
 the Lord is not mentioned by Mofes as 
 
 then 
 
 . * The greateft part of the inhabitants of PaleftinCj 
 at the time of the Ifraelite invafion, were not de* 
 fcended from its .hrft poirefibrs, but a favage race of 
 Tyrants, who had driven outer extirpated the ori- 
 ginal owners, in oppofition to an appointment of 
 God ; and having thus far adted as the rninilters of 
 his vengeance, and filled up the meafure of their 
 own iniquities, were juftly doomed to fufFer w'hat 
 they had inflicted upon others. 
 
P O S T S C R I P T, IIS 
 
 then adtually written, but as one defigned 
 to be compiled hereafter y forafmuch as 
 the word IQR’’ which we tranflate in 
 the paft time, it is /aid in the .book of 
 the Wars of the Lord,’' &c. ought to 
 have been rendered in the future time, 
 it Jhall be faid.'' 
 
 And Secondly, becaufc the adlions to 
 be recorded in this book were, the mira- 
 culous paffage through the Red Sea (in 
 which Jehovah was particularly ftyled 
 the Champion of the Ifraelites), and the 
 paflage of Arnon ; but the record of 
 thefe adtions could not have preceded the 
 adtions theirfelves. 
 
 - A fimilar objedlion is taken from the 
 thirteenth verfe of the tenth chapter of 
 the book of Jofliua, in which there is an 
 appeal to the Book of Jajfher. And here, 
 to pafs by what is evident, that the adtion 
 likewife faid to be recorded in this book, 
 was the relief of the Gibeonites fome 
 1 2 time 
 
 * Numb. xxi. 15. 
 
n6 P O S T S C R I ^ t. 
 
 time after the death of Mofes ; it is 
 mitted to the learned in the Hebrew 
 language, whether nSD may not 
 
 fignify any true, authentic memorial 
 ' whatever, and may therefore very reafoh- 
 ably be underftood of the original copy 
 of the book of Jolhua, or of the Sacred 
 Scriptures in general. This opinion is 
 fupported by the Septuagint Tranflation, 
 in the eighteenth verfe of the firft chap-n 
 ter of the fecond book of Samuel, where 
 is rendered by the adjedive cuOovr, 
 £7rt T» pi^Ais T8 suGouf, in the uncorrupted 
 Record ; and the Chaldee ^ Paraphraft 
 exprefsly calls the book of Jaflier, fhe 
 book of the Law. 
 
 It may yet perhaps be urged, that the 
 conclufion of the thirteenth verfe of the 
 
 tenth 
 
 ^ jofliua, X. 13. 
 
 K. B, The book of Jafher is not mentioned in the 
 Septuagint tranflation of the tenth chapter of the 
 book of Jofhua, though the palFage occurs in all 
 the other verfions of it. 
 
POSTSCRIPT. Iijr 
 
 tenth chapter of Jofliua, So the fun food 
 fill in the midf of heaven, appears 
 to be a quotation from the book of 
 Jafher. The conftruftion of the period, 
 however, doth not neceflarily require 
 thefe words to be taken as fuch i but 
 granting them to have been a quotation, 
 we might very fairly underftand the book 
 pf Jafher, which the Syriac verfion in 
 this place ftyles the book of Canticles 
 to have been a colledlion of memorial 
 odes, continued from their firft fong of 
 triumph over the ^Egyptians, in a re- 
 I 3 gular 
 
 * In the parallel pafTage of the fecond book of 
 Samuel, chap. i. ver. i8th, the Syriac verfion is 
 kexeper ajhir, w^hich is literally, in the book of fong. It 
 feems therefore highly probable that the author of it 
 read J both thefe places of the Hebrew copy, 
 inftead of and this may poffibly hereafter appear 
 to be the reading of the beft MSS.— The repetition 
 of memorial fongs, which were written ‘in a noble 
 ftrain of piety, tended greatly to eftablifh the mora- 
 lity, as well as faith of the Ifraelites ; and moft 
 likely made a part of their public fervice, as well as 
 of their domeftic education and amufement. 
 
ii8 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 gular fucceffion, to the death of Jofhua; 
 and moft probably to that of David ; 
 and that this line of a memorial 
 ode upon their viftory over the Amo- 
 rites at Gibeon, was added by the 
 tranfcriber of the facred writings, with 
 his remark from whence it was taken. 
 Jofephus, in his account of this 
 vidtory when he mentions the 
 fun’s {landing Hill, appeals for the 
 truth of his relation to certain records 
 that were preferved in the Temple : 
 
 ^yjXovroct Siac. rcoy h tu hpu 
 
 But if by the writings faid to have 
 been thus preferved in the Temple, he 
 did not mean the facred books their- 
 felves (and his veracity could be de- 
 pended on), it is not improbable, that 
 he refers to a collection of fuch hif- 
 torical fongs, as we prefume the book 
 of Jafher to have cpnfifted of. The ode 
 
 of 
 
 X Antiq. lib. v. c, 2. 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 119 
 
 of lamentation over Saul and Jonathan, 
 which was called "The Bow, is faid to 
 have been v/ritten in the book of Jafher, 
 and appointed for the ufe of the children 
 of Judah J • and there is fome reafon to 
 believe, that part of our colleftion of the 
 Pfahns might be copied from this very 
 book. 
 
 The Reader will determine for hfm- 
 felfj but upon any of the fuppofitions 
 above given, the mention of T'be book of 
 the wars of the Lord, and "The book oj 
 fajher, is ho fufficient objedlion to the 
 conjedure, that Alphabetic Writing was 
 unknown in the world, till it pleafed 
 God to infpire the idea, at the coming- 
 out of iEgypt, to put a flop to the in- 
 creafe of that fpecies of idolatry, which 
 arofe from an abufe of their fymbolic 
 char afters. 
 
 1 4 One 
 
 4 n Sam. chap. i. verfe 18, 
 
ffo POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 One obfervatlon more may be adde3, 
 ■which fhould have been inferted in ano- 
 ther place, had it occurred fooner. It 
 hath been aflumed upon the authority 
 of Dionylius the Grammarian, that the 
 juft number of elemental founds was 
 not to be afcertained, even fo long after 
 the invention of Letters as the Auguf- 
 tan age ; from whence the alrnoft abfo- 
 lute impoffibility of the difcovery of 
 ^ Alphabetic Writing, by the unaffifted 
 . powers of human wit, is argued a pri^ 
 ori: but it ought to have been men- 
 tioned, that fince we know the Hebrew 
 language v/as compleat before the time 
 of Mofesy (in fo far as accidental vari- 
 ations or infledlions were concerned;) fo, 
 many of the elemental founds might often 
 have occurred to the obfervation of g. 
 genius 'fo tranfcendent as his. Thofe 
 elements I mean, are what we call the 
 fervile letters^ as oppofed to radical ; 
 
 all 
 
 Page 12. 
 
\ 
 
 p a ^ T s c ii I p t: i2i 
 
 lall which, are to be met with, 
 added to original terms. Thus to IDG (he 
 delivered ), the elemental found of k 
 was prefixed, to denote the firit perfon 
 ■future in its paffive fignification, / JhMi 
 be delivered \ D prefixed to an original 
 word, was the prepofition /;?, withy by, 
 &c. and in like manner he might fepa- 
 rate the powers of n, % % D, V, D, 
 
 VJy and* n> from the radical words, to 
 which they are occafionally joined, in 
 the conftrudtiom of this language j and 
 if Alphabetic Writing was the effort of 
 the Prophefs own mind, his obferva- 
 tion of the feparate powers of thefe 
 additionah founds, was, in all likelihood, 
 the firft ftep upon which he raifed 
 himfelf to difcover the other elemental 
 powers for the framing of an Alphabet. 
 
 A critical acquaintance with the ori- 
 ental languages in general, is requifite 
 to determine whether thefe diftinftions 
 of the fervile letters, are pecidiarly ob- 
 
 fervable.^ 
 
121 P O S T S c R I P T, 
 
 fe'rvable in the Hebrew language above 
 others ; and how far the fimplicity of 
 fuch diftindlions tend to fhow the pro^ 
 bability of its being the Primaeval Lan- 
 guage of mankind, is a fubjedl not un^ 
 worthy an enquiry. 
 
 The Editor fufpedls that this remark 
 may afterwards be brought tq favour 
 the opinion of an earlier Origin of Let- 
 ters than hath been fuppofed. Nothing 
 is affirmed with certainty. It would be 
 a pleafure to him to receive any new 
 lights upon the fubjedl, which thofe of 
 better Learning may think proper to af- 
 ford ; and to acknowledge his miftakes, 
 fhould this little Effay merit their at- 
 tention. 
 
 THE END, 
 
’( 123 ) 
 
 the Converfatien between ^een Elizabeth and 
 Dr. Symfon, Dean of her Majefifs Chapely 
 on the Subject of Pidlures of the Supreme 
 Being, Saints, Angels, &c. being allowed 
 in Churches or Chapels. — Referred to in 
 Page 52 this Work. 
 
 H E Dean,* h^ing ^ten from a foreigner fe* 
 veral fine Cuta^d ri€lure§^ 'reprefenting the ftories 
 and pafiions of the Saints and Martyrs, had placed 
 them againft^e epiftles and gofpels o'if^jheir feftivals 
 in a Comm^.J^ray^r Book. And this hook he had 
 caufe^lP^ belfcHl;)^bound, and laid on the cuihion 
 for the (^een’s ufe,'in the place where fhe common- 
 ly fat ; intending it for a new-year’s gift to her 
 jefty, and thinking to have pleafed her fancy there- 
 with. But it had not that efFe61:, but the contrary. 
 For fhe confidered how this varied from her late open 
 injuntSlions and proclamations againft the fuperftiti- 
 ous ufe of Images in Churches, and for the taking 
 
 away 
 
( f 
 
 away all fuch Reliques of Popery, When (he cam«^ 
 to her place flie opened the book, and perufed it, and 
 faw the Pictures; but frowned and bluftied; and 
 then fhut it, (of which feveral took notice) and 
 calling the verger, bad him bring her the old book, 
 wherein the was formerly wont to read. After fer- 
 inon, whereas the was wont to get immediately on 
 horfcback, qr into her chariot, the went ftrait to 
 the veftry, and applying herfelf to the Dean, thus 
 ihe fpoke to him : 
 
 ^ Mr, Dean, How came it .to pafs that a new 
 Service-Book was placed on my cufhion ? 
 
 To which the Dean anfwered. 
 
 D, May it pleafe yo\jr Majefty, I caufed it to bq 
 placed there, ' ^ 
 
 Then laid thS" Queen. 
 
 Wherclore did you fo ? 
 
 D. To prefent your Majelly with^ new-year’s, 
 gift. , • 
 
 You could never prefent me with a worTe. 
 
 D, Why fo, madam ? 
 
 You know I have an averlion to Idolatry ; to 
 Images and Pictures of this kind. 
 
 D. Wherein is the idolatry, may it pleafe your 
 Majcily.?. *’ 
 
 In 
 
t ) 
 
 In the Cuts refembling Angels and Saints j 
 jiay grolTer abfurdities, Pidtufes refembling the Ble^* 
 fed Trinity. 
 
 D, I meant no harm : nor did I think it would 
 offend your Majeftyj when I intended it for a new- 
 year’s gift, 
 
 ^ You muff: needs be Ignorant then. Have you 
 forgot dur proclamation againft Images, Pidlures and 
 Romiffi Reliques in the churches ? Was it not read 
 in your deanry ? 
 
 jD. It v/as read. But be your Majeffy aflured, I 
 meant no harm, when I caufed the cuts to be bound 
 Vvith the Service-book. 
 
 ^ You muff needs be very ignorant to do this 
 after oiir prohibition of them. 
 
 ' D\ It being my ignorance, your Majefty may the 
 better pardon me. 
 
 ^ I am ffhry for it ; yet glad to hear it was your 
 ignoraj^e, rather than yoiir' opinion. 
 
 D. Be your Majefty aflured, it was my ignorance. 
 
 ^ If fo, Mr. Dean, God grant you his fpirit, 
 and more wifdom for the future, . 
 
 D. Amen, I pray God. 
 
 I pray, Mr. Dean, how came you by thefe 
 Pictures ? Who engraved them ? 
 
 D, I 
 
D. I know not who engraved them, I bought 
 them: 
 
 ^ From whom bought you them 1 
 
 D, From a German. 
 
 ^ It is well it was from a Granger. Had it been 
 any of our fubjedts, we fliould have queftioned the 
 matter. Pray let no more of thefe miftakes, or of 
 this kind, be committed within the churches of our 
 realm for the future. 
 
 D, There fhall not. 
 
 This matter occafioned all the clergy in and about 
 London, and the church-wardens of each parifli, to 
 fearch their churches and chapels j and caufed them 
 to wafh out of the walls all paintings that feemed 
 to be Romilh and idolatrous; and in lieu thereof 
 fuitable texts taken out of the Holy Scriptures to be 
 written. 
 
HYMN TO ISIS. 
 
 T^ETl our fong be of the benevolent Ifis> 
 
 Who giveth fodder to the cattle^ 
 
 And nourijheth the fowls of heavent 
 By her command the North-wind blowethy 
 The clouds pour down rain 
 Upon the mountains of Mthiopia^ 
 
 They feat ter plenty thro' the land of AEgypt, 
 What time the hawk flieth toward the Souths 
 Her vejfel pall be filled^ it pall overflow^ 
 
 The Banana and the Lotus pall bloffom. 
 
 Let our fong be of the benevolent Ifis! 
 
 The earth is full of her goodnefs^ 
 
 And all the elements rejoice. 
 
 She condefeended to abide with men ; 
 
 She flieth our fouls with wifdom ; 
 
 Though connected with a mortal body^ 
 
 They pall he exalted in her prefence^ 
 
 If their contemplations rife above the World. 
 
 Let our fong be of the benevolent Ifis ! 
 
 Her bounty covers the earthy 
 Her goodnefs is in the clouds. 
 
« " 
 
 Jt