tion, in comparison of speaking. The appearance of good prose, is therefore posterior to that of good poetry; and excellence in the former, is among the latest attainments of polished nations. Good poetry is perfectly consistent with no high degree of precis ion of thought, or accuracy of expression. (Art. 20. Cor.)

Illus. The period most favourable for poetical exertions, is situated between the decline of the general influence of the powers of imagination on society, and the general cultivation of the faculty of reason, by science and philosophy: it is then that the poet has the best chance of possessing the greatest compound quantity of the powers of imagination and judgment he can ever attain. Such, it seems, were the periods which produced Homer, Virgil, and Milton. (Art. 22. Illus.)

CONCLUSION.

31. From what has been said in the preceding chapters, a foundation has been laid for many observations, both curious and useful. It appears, that language was, at first, barren in words, but descriptive by the sound of those words; and expressive in the manner of uttering them, by the aid of significant tones and gestures. Style was figurative and poetical; arrangement was fanciful and lively. In all the successive changes which language has undergone, as the world advanced, the understanding has gained ground on the fancy and imagination. The progress of language, in this respect, resembles the progress of age in man. The imagination is most vigorous and predominant in youth; with advancing years, the imagination cools, and the understanding ripens.

32. Thus language, proceeding from sterility to copiousness, hath, at the same time, proceeded from vivacity to accuracy; from the fire of poetical enthu siasm, to the coolness of philosophical precision. Those characters of early language, descriptive sound, vehement tones and gestures, figurative style, and inverted arrangement, all hang together, have

a mutual relation on each other; and have all gradually given place to arbitrary sounds, calm pronunciation, simple style, plain arrangement. Language is become, in modern times, more correct indeed, and accurate; but less striking and animated: in its ancient state, more favourable to poetry and oratory; in its present, more adapted to reason and philosophy.

CHAPTER V.

OF THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF WRITING.

33. NEXT to speech, WRITING is, beyond doubt, the most useful art which men possess. It is plainly an improvement upon spoken language, and therefore must have been posterior to it in order of time.

Illus. At first, men thought of nothing more than communicating their thoughts to one another, when present, by means of words, or sounds, which they uttered. Afterwards, they devised, by means of marks or characters, presented to the eye, and which we call writing, this further method, when absent, of mutual communication one with another,

34. Written characters are of two sorts: they are either signs for things, or signs for words. The pictures, hieroglyphics, and symbols, employed by the ancient nations, are signs, of things, and belong to the former class: the alphabetical characters, now employed by all the Europeans, are signs for words, and belong to the latter class.

Illus. Pictures were, undoubtedly, the first essay toward writing. Imitation is natural to man; children copy or trace the likeness of sensible objects, before they can signify the names of those objects by written characters. The savage, to intimate that his father had vanquished an enemy, would draw the figure of one man stretched upon the earth and of another standing over him with a deadly weapon in bis hand. When the Mexicans sent intelligence to Montezuma, their prince, of the arrival of the Spaniards in the bay of Campeachy, they

scratched pictures of the men, horses, and artillery that they had seen, and conveyed these to their monarch. The chieftain understood them, and immediately dispatched an embassy to meet the Spanish commander.

Obs. Historical pictures are, however, but extremely imperfect records of important transactions. They do, indeed, delineate eyternal events; but they cannot transmit their memory through a long succession of ages; and they fail entirely to exhibit such qualities as are most visible to the eye, or to convey, by description, any idea of the dispositions or words of men.

35. This rude attempt towards writing, was, in process of time, improved by the invention of what are called hieroglyphical characters. These may be considered as the second stage in the art of writing as they represented intellectual conceptions, or those not suggested by any external or visible objects. The analogy or resemlance which such symbols were supposed to bear to the objects, was conventional, but liable to forced and ambiguous allusions.

Illus. Thus an eye was the hieroglyhic symbol of knowlege; a circle, of eternity, which has neither beginning nor end; ingratitude was denomiated by a viper; imprudence, by a fly; wisdom,, by an ant; victory, by a hawk; a dutiful child, by a stork; and a wretch -a man universally shunned by an eel, which is not to be found in company with other fishes.

Corol. But these properties of objects were merely imaginary; and the conjunction, or compounding of the caracters, rendered them obscure, and expressed indistinctly the connections and relations of the objects which they represented. Hence, this species of writing could be no other than enigmatical, and confused in the highest degree; and must have been a very imperfect vehicle of knowledge of any kind.

Obs. There is no reason however to suppose that the priests of Egypt, among whom hieroglyphical characters were first found, and who were also the instructors of their countrymen, introduced and employed them for the purpose of concealing their knowledge from the vulgar. The latter are little troublesome about the acquisition of useful knowledge in any state of society; and the former were too enlightened not to know, that one of the principal pleasures and honours attending the possession of knowledge, is to instruct oth

ers.

36. As writing advanced, from pictures of visible objects, to hieroglyphics, or symbols of things invisible; from these latter, it advanced, among some nations, to simple arbitrary marks, which stood for ob

jects, but without any resemblance or analogy to the objects signified.

Illus. 1. Of this nature, was the method of writing practised among the Peruvians. They made use of small cords of different colours; and upon these, by means of knols of various sizes, and differently ranged, they contrived signs for giving information, and communicating their thoughts to one another; but this invention afforded less security against freqnent and gross mistakes, than the hieroglyphic architypes of abstract ideas. (Corol. Art. 35.)

2. The use of hieroglyphical characters still exists in China, where they have been brought to greater perfection than in any other quarter of the globe. But every idea is expressed by a separate character. The characters, it is said, amount to upwards of 70,000. An acquaintance with the means of communicating knowledge, is, therefore, the business of a whole life, and must greatly retard the progress of all science. In short, science in China is always in a state of infancy.

3. Our arithmetical figures, which we have derived from the Arabians, are significant marks, precisely of the same nature with the Chinese characters. They have no dependence on words; but each figure denotes an object; denotes the number for which it stands. (Illus. 5.)

4. The Japanese, the Tonquinese, and the Coræans, speak different languages from one another, and from the inhabitants of China, but use, with these last people, the same written characters; a proof that the Chinese characters are like hieroglyphics, independent of language.

5. In like manner the Italians, French, Spaniards, and English, speak different languages, but the Arabic characters 1, 2, 3, 4, &c. are, on being presented to the eye, equally understood by those four nations, as signs of things, not of words. Thus, 4 may be four ships, four men, four trees, four years; in short four things. (Illus. 3.)

37. A combination of sounds forms, in various ways, all the variety of words in spoken language. These sounds are few, and are continually recurring for repetition in discourse. They would lead to the invention of an alphabet of syllables. A sign, or mark, for each of these syllables, would form an alphabet of letters. The number of these marks, or characters, would be equal to the number of sounds or syllables. These sounds reduced to their simple elements of a few vowels and consonants, indicated by a particular sign to each, would form what we now call letters. Some happy genius taught men

how, by the combinations of these letters, to put in writing all the different words, or associations of sound, which were employed in speech.

Obs. Such seem to have been the introductory steps to the art of writing; but the darkness of remote antiquity has concealed the great inventor's name of this sublime and refined discovery, and deprived him of those honours which, were it known, would still be. paid to his memory, by all the lovers of knowledge and learning.

38. The universal tradition among the ancients is, that letters were first imported into Greece by Cadmus, the Phoenician, at least 3000 years ago; and from Greece dispersed over the western part of the world. The alphabet of Cadmus consisted only of sixteen letters, but it comprehended all the original sounds, which are said to be only thirteen. The remaining letters were afterwards added, according as signs for proper sounds were said to be wanting.

Illus. The Roman alphabet, which obtains with us, and with most of the European nations, is, with a few variations, evidently formed on that of the Greeks. And all learned men observe, that the Greek characters especially, according to the manner in which they are formed in the oldest inscriptions, have a remarkable conformity to the Hebrew or Samaritan characters, which, it is agreed, are the same with the Phoenician or alphabet of Cadmus.

39. The most ancient method of writing seems to have been in lines running from right to left. This method is still retained in the Hebrew language.

Obs. The Greeks improved upon this method, and wrote in lines alternately from the right to the left, which was called Boustrophedon; or writing after the manner in which oxen plough the ground. About the time of Solon, the Athenian legislator, the custom is said to have been introduced, and which still prevails, of writing in lines from left to right.

40. The writing of antiquity was a species of engraving. Pillars, and tables of stone, were first employed for this purpose, and afterwards, plates of the softer metals, such as lead; or tables of wax and skins of parchment. A polished point of iron called a stilus was used to scratch letters on the wax; but the writing on parchment was performed with pen and ink. (Art. 41. Illus. 1. and 2.)