vocally affented to the prevalence of one primary tongue throughout the early branches of the Noachic family, referring even the fublime invention of letters, and the origin of aftronomy itself, in which science it appears extremely probable the celeftial afterifms were first designated by the letters of the alphabet, to the children of Ham in Chaldæa: and his difcuffion on this important fubject, though it fomewhat clashes with the fubfequent affertion alluded to above, is given in these words. "The Sanscreet language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful ftructure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquifitely refined than either, yet bearing to each of them a ftronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could poffibly have been produced by accident; fo strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three without be, lieving them to have fprung from fome common fource, which, perhaps, no longer exifts. There is a fimilar reason, though not quite fo forcible, for fuppofing that both the Gothic and Celtic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the fame origin

with the Sanfcreet; and the old Perfian might be added to the fame family.

"The characters, in which the languages of India were originally written, are called Nagari, from Nagar, a city, with the word Deva fometimes prefixed, because they are believed to have been taught by the Divinity himself, who prescribed the artificial order of them in a voice from heaven. Thefe letters, with no greater variation in their form, by the change of straight lines to curves, or converfely, than the Cufic alphabet has received in its way to India, are still adopted in more than twenty kingdoms and states, from the borders of Cafhgar and Khoten to Rama's Bridge, and from the Seendhu to the river of Siam; nor can I help believing, although the polished and elegant Devanagari may not be fo ancient as the monumental characters in the caverns of Jarafandha, that the fquare Chaldaic letters, in which moft Hebrew books are copied, were originally the fame, or derived from the fame prototype, both with the Indian and Arabian characters: that the Phenician, from which the Greek and Roman alphabets were formed by various changes and inverfions, had a fimilar origin, there can be little

0 4

little doubt; and the infcriptions at Canarah seem to be compounded of Nagari and Ethiopic letters, which bear a close relation to each other, both in the mode of writing from the left hand, and in the fingular manner of connecting the vowels with the confonants."*

The idea of the Indians, as detailed above, is exactly conformable to that of Plato, and of many Christians, who fuppofe the first knowledge of letters to have been the refult of divine infpiration, or Deva Nagari. We may remark, too, that, according to the' above decifion, the Cuthic, or Chaldaic, alphabet is the bafis of all others; and thus again does Indian literature, in a striking manner, corroborate the Hebrew records, the most ancient copies of which are written in fuch a fimple unadorned character, as inconteftably proves their high, if not unri* valled, antiquity; in other words, that they were written in the language spoken by the Noachida. Diodorus Siculus, in fact, actually ascribes the invention of letters to the Sy

Afiatic Researches, vol. i. p.425.

rians; that term being understood, in its more extended fenfe, as often used by the ancients, to include Chaldæa and Affyria, in particular by Pliny, who refers letters to the Affyrians; and the oldeft Syrian and Phoenician letters are allowed to have been the fame. That is the peculiar character which Mofes is thought to have used in writing the Pentateuch; and it is that in which the Samaritan, the oldeft extant copy of it, is composed.

The Phoenicians, afterwards emigrating under Cadmús, carried letters into Greece; and the ftriking resemblance, both in form, found, and arrangement, of the latter, with the former, indubitably establishes their origin. But, if they were not fufficient of themselves to demonftrate the Oriental origin of letters, an irrefragable proof is derived from the circumftance of the Greeks having retained, with very little variation, the original names of the letters thus imported into their country from Phoenicia. From Greece, the Pelafgic colonies carried the Cadmæan. letters into Italy; evidenced alfo by the fame resembling

* Diodorus Siculus, lib. v. p. 390.

circumftances

circumftances of fabrication, arrangement,

and found.

At what a remote æra, indeed, letters were used in Affyria may be deduced from the account fent to Aristotle, from Babylon, by Callifthenes, concerning the series of aftronomical obfervations preserved by the priests in the temple of Belus,* and reaching back for a period of 1903 years from the time of its conquest by Alexander. Now Alexander's invafion of Babylon happened about the year, before Chrift, 330, which makes the period, when those observations commenced, to have been little more than a century after the flood. They were written or engraved on bricks, burnt in the fun, which was probably the earliest rude tablet of the graphift, though afterwards he committed his thoughts to the more durable fubftance of marble, brass, and copper. Thus, according to Jofephus,

if

any confidence can be placed in his report, the Pillars of Seth recorded the prediction of an inundated world; the ftupendous sculptures, on what are called the written mountains of Arabia, are referred to ages of the

• Porphyr. apud Simplicium in Ariftot. de Cœlo, p. 123.

moft