which by means of certain characters, significant of the sound of language, enables us to transfer our ideas from the eye to the ear, and vice versa.

From the general prevalence of hieroglyphic or picture-writing, not only in antient times, but also among the inhabitants of America, China, and the Friendly Islands, when they were respectively first discovered, it has been inferred by most of the literati, who have investigated the origin of letters, that hieroglyphic writing is the most antient; and that the writing of sounds has flowed from the latter. Much of the difficulty attending this question has arisen from the supposed necessary connexion between these two modes of representing ideas ;—a connexión, however, of which the author of these hints does not perceive the strict necessity: indeed (as he hopes will be satisfactorily evinced) it is equally probable that, when mankind diverged to a remote distance from the spot where they were settled after the Flood, they did in the lapse of time lose the use and knowledge of letters, which had been transmitted to them by their ancestors.

Among the different alphabetic writings, the Chaldean, Egyptian, and Samaritan or Phenician, are the only ones that dispute the honour

of antiquity; but which of these was the pri mordial language, is a point that has greatly exercised the ingenuity of learned men. Buxtorf, Conringius, Spanheim, Meier, Marinus, and Bourguet, consider the Chaldean to be the parent language, whence all the rest have proceeded. Cicero, Jamblichus, Tertullian, and Plutarch ascribe the honour of inventing letters to the celebrated Thoth, the son and secretary of Misraim and their opinion is espoused by Kircher, who has been strenuously opposed by Renaudot. By Pliny and Diodorus Siculus, the Phenicians are regarded as the authors of writing; and with them agree Genebrard, Bellarmin, Huet, Montfaucon, Calmet, Renaudot, Joseph Scaliger, Grotius, Casaubon, Bishop Walton, Bochart, Vossius, Capellus, Father Simon, the late Mr. Astle, Mr. J. M. Good, and many others. By Phenicia, are understood not only the towns on the seacoast of Palestine, but also Judea and the country inhabited by the Canaanites and Israelites by Phenician writing is intended the Samaritan or antient Hebrew, differing from the square or Chaldean Hebrew, which is comparatively of modern date; and which, according to the opinions of St. Jerome, St. Irenæus, and Clement of Alexandria, has been adopted by the Jews since their return from the Babylonish

Captivity'. An additional proof in favour of the antiquity of the Phenician letters is, the very great resemblance of the Samaritan characters to those of the Greeks; whose language is confessedly the most antient in the world, having subsisted upwards of three thousand five hundred years, while few other languages have continued living and intelligible more than five hundred years. The most generally received opinion is, that Cadmus the Phenician, who settled in Bocotia B. c. 1500, first communicated letters to the Greeks: and this sentiment is supported on the authorities of Herodotus, Diogenes Laertius, Pliny, Plutarch, and others among the antients, and on those of Scaliger, Salmasius, Vossius, Bochart, and other moderns.

The Greek characters originally bore a perfect resemblance to those of the Phenicians; but, although in the course of time they varied from their primitive form, yet they still present numerous similar features, which indicate their origin; and the oldest Greek monuments, when compared with the most antient Samaritan coins and medals, present characters exactly similar. The most antient writing of Europe therefore proceeded from the Samaritan, and not from the Chaldee, to which it has not a single trait

1 De Vaines, Dict. de Diplomatique, tom. i. pp. 416, 417.

of conformity, nor from the Egyptian with which it has no connexion whatever'.

The Pelasgi were the first people of Greece, who either by means of navigation or by the colonies which they planted, communicated their method of writing to the Etruscans: and from the light which has been thrown on Etruscan literature, we learn that of the eighteen letters, which compose the alphabet of the latter people, eight are precisely similar to the same number of Samaritan characters, and six others exhibit some traits of resemblance to as many Samaritan letters. Ten of the Etruscan letters are evidently the same as those now in use; and the remaining eight strongly approach them. Consequently our letters have been transmitted to us, through the intervention of the Greeks and Latins, from the Samaritans*.

The antiquity of the Phenician characters being thus demonstrated, the question now presents itself:-From whom did the Phenicians themselves receive them?-Were these letters of human invention? Or, was the knowledge of letters immediately communicated to man by the Supreme Being? Almost every writer, Mr. Astle particularly, has advocated the former

I

Renaudot, Mem. de l'Academ. des Inscriptions, tom. ii. p. 249. De Vaines, tom. i. p. 418. 2 De Vaines, tom. i. p. 418.

opinion, and has urged it with much ingenuity'; but when the subsequent hints are attentively considered, the author conceives that the latter sentiment will be found most consistent with reason and with probability'.

Mr. Astle, (who has investigated this topic with minute attention,) and the other advocates for the human invention of letters, suppose men to have been placed in a state of absolute barbarism and ignorance, and left to work out every thing for themselves as necessity and experiment should lead them. But, when were mankind in this state of barbarism? We know from the inspired volume, that the Creator, on beholding the various works which he had commanded into being, pronounced them very good; and that the first man gave names to the different animals which presented themselves before him, which he surely could not have done, had he not been taught a language of some kind or other by his Maker. And, notwithstanding his faculties would be greatly weakened by the Fall, yet he may reasonably be presumed to have continued in as good a capacity for making any kind of improvement, as any of his posterity have been in the

For the remarks on the Divine Origin of Letters, the author is principally indebted to the very able critique on the first edition of Mr. Astle's work on writing, in the Monthly Review (Old Series,) vol. Ixxi. p. 273, et seq.