bets; as, for inftance, that in the Aleph, which fignifies an ox in Phoenician, is reprefented the head of the ox; the Beth, which, in the Hebrew, imports a house, the figure of such houses as are to this day used in Palestine-Syria, the foundation, the wall, and the flat roof; Gimel, the camel, whofe tall figure, and long and curved neck, the form of that letter appears to represent; and, in the letters of the Arabian alphabet, the arms and implements of the tent of the ancient Arab-fhepherd, as his drinking-cup, his hunting-horn, his battle-axe, &c. all which fuggeftions, though probably not entirely without fome foundation in truth, afford but a weak bafis for the hypothefis intended to be erected upon it.

With respect to the Chinese themselves, once fo proudly vaunted as the mafters of Afiatic science, were it not for the high respect, in every acceptation of the word, due from me to the decifion of fo diftinguished a character, to whom the history and literature of Afia were fo familiarly known, I fhould be inclined, on this fubject, still to adhere to the fyftem of M. DE PAUW, who ftrenuously contends that the Chinese P 3

are

are the lineal offspring of the ancient Tartar race, who defcended, in wild clans, from the fteeps of Imaus, into the fertile plains of this benigner region, and confider the great resemblance inftanced by himself, in the thin beards, small eyes, and flat nofes, of the two nations, as evidence nearly incontrovertible. Another important objection feems to offer itself in the total difference of the structure of the two languages of China and India the former confifting principally of monofyllables, and that of the Brahmins abounding with words of many fyllables, and delighting in compound epithets that often run through half a page.

To the preceding general remarks on Afiatic languages, I fhall now fubjoin fuch particulars, concerning the Sanfcreet alphabet and language, as may be fufficient to afford the reader a proper conception of them without entering into the wearifome and difgufting minutenefs of a grammatical difquifition. The term Sanfcreet, according to Mr. Wilkins, is compounded of the prepofition fan, fignifying completion, and fkrita, finished. It means, therefore, a language exquifitely refined and polished: but

this must have been the effect of the unwearied diligence, and predilection for their native tongue, of the Brahmins; for, it could not have been fo in the first instance, when it bore a near resemblance to the fquare unadorned Chaldaic character. It is alfo, we have obferved, a very compound language, and delights in polyfyllables.

The most ancient Phoenician letters, introduced into Greece by Cadmus, were but fixteen in number; about the period of the Trojan war, four more letters were added by Palamedes; and, many years after, Simonides, by adding four others, completed the Greek alphabet. The amount of the Egyptian alphabet, according to Plutarch, was twenty-five; and that of the Hebrew is twenty-two. But the Sanfcreet alphabet apparently exceeds, in the number of its letters, all that ever were formed, confifting of no less than fifty. Of these, thirty-four are confonants, and the remaining fixteen are vowels. The Brahmins glory in this uncommon copioufnefs of the Sanfcreet alphabet; but, after all, there is no folid reason for this triumph of their numerous confonants nearly one half are faid to carry combined founds,

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founds, and fix of their vowels are merely the correfpondent long ones to as many that are fhort; which reduces it nearly to a level with the other alphabets of the ancient world. Copious and nervous as the Sanscreet is allowed to be, the ftyle of the best authors is ftill extremely concife, fometimes even to obfcurity; hence the innumerable faftras and commentaries on all their facred and fcientific books; and hence, it may justly be added, the unbounded influence of the Brahmins, who explain them as they please to their ignorant, but devoted, followers.

The four VEDAS, it is well known, are the great ftore-houfe of Sanfcreet learning. They are faid originally to have been but three in number, the fourth being fuppofed to have been compofed in a period many centuries later than the other three. The argument advanced on this fubject, in the Afiatic Researches, is two-fold. The firft arifes from the very fingular circumftance of only three Vedas having been mentioned in the most ancient and venerable of the Hindoo writers; and the names of thofe three Vedas occur in their proper order in the compound-word Rigyajushama, that is to say, the

Reig Veda, the Yajub Veda, and the Saman Veda. The fecond argument is drawn from the manifeft difference in the style between the fourth, or Atharvan Veda, and the three before named. That of the latter is now grown so obsolete as hardly to be intelligible to the Brahmins of Benares, and to appear almoft a different dialect of the Sanfcreet, while that of the former is comparatively modern, and may be eafily read, even by a learner of that facred language, without the aid of a dictionary.*

The date of these venerable books goes fo far back into antiquity, and that date is fo well authenticated, that, with every respectful deference to the opinions of those worthy and pious writers who contend that ALPHABETIC LETTERS originated with Mofes, when he received from God the Table of the Decalogue, I am unable to subscribe to that opinion, though I most readily admit the language, in which that decalogue was written, to have been the oldest in the world, and probably imparted to man by inspiration, but at a much earlier period. I am bound faithfully to reprefent,

*Afiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 346, 347.

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