CHAP. XXIV.

ON HIEROGLYPHICS.

"Quinetiam notissimum fieri jam cœpit, quod in China, et Provinciis ultimi Orientis, in usu hodie sint Characteres quidam Reales, non Nominales; qui scilicet nec literas, nec verba, sed res et notiones exprimunt. Adeo ut Gentes complures, linguis prorsus discrepantes, sed hujusmodi Characteribus (qui apud illos latius recepti sunt) consentientes, scriptis communicent: eousque, ut librum aliquem hujusmodi characteribus conscriptum, quæque Gens, patria lingua legere et reddere possit."- BACON de Augmentis Scientiarum, liber vi.

I. IN the whole circle of human knowledge there are few subjects of greater interest and curiosity than to trace the history of the origin and progress of the art of writing. If it be second in importance to any thing, it is only to the formation of language itself, and with this it is intimately connected, borrows light from it, and reflects it back also in no inconsiderable degree.

As language appears to have owed its origin to the physical necessities, and its extension to the intellectual powers of the human race, so in the invention and progress of writing man seems to have been stimulated and prompted at every step by his sympathetic affections and social propensities. One of the strongest passions of the human breast is the love of fame, or the desire of being remembered and talked of beyond the transitory and evanescent period of the duration of life, and in proportion to the strength of this desire is its opposite aversion, that of being forgotten. From the operation of this feeling no age or condition is entirely exempt, and those who cannot hope "to command the applause of listening senates," or "to read their history in a nation's eyes," are still anxious to record that they have existed, though the frail memorial which covers their mouldering remains may not have a single sentence to communicate as to what they have performed.

II. As a nation is merely a collection of individuals, we cannot be surprised at finding the mass actuated by the same feelings as had distinguished the component parts, and accordingly we discover in every age and country of the world, an extreme anxiety to transmit a record of their proceedings to the latest posterity in imperishable annals. The means resorted to for this purpose have had no limit but the inventive faculties of the human mind, all the powers of which have been in succession excited and exhausted. The rude mound of earth (like those which credulity still believes to have covered the remains of Ajax and Achilles in the Troade), the rugged stone which commemorated the parting of Jacob and Laban, the sculptured pillar, the stupendous pyramid, the triumphal arch, the storied urn, the animated bust, the breathing statue and the glowing picture, attest the strong interest man has always taken in futurity, and the immense importance he has always attached to that semblance of life which consists in others' breath.

III. Previously to the invention of alphabetical writing, – so simple when known that we wonder it was not always practised, so complex while in progress that we are equally surprised it was ever perfected, various modes of picture writing prevailed, which, though mixed in different degrees and running into each other by insensible gradations, may all be comprised under three great heads or classes.

1. Literal hieroglyphics, or simple picture writing. Of this kind almost all the Mexican paintings appear to have been; and reasoning from analogy it is hardly possible to doubt that this was the first stage of the art, both in Egypt and China. Whether any of the remaining monuments of Egypt are precisely similar to those of Mexico, and to be interpreted merely as pictures, it is extremely difficult to say; but if they are, the difficulty, already sufficiently formidable, is obviously greatly enhanced, of eliciting any intelligible meaning from them. Perhaps in many instances we have been endeavouring to extract a mysterious and recondite meaning from what is merely a picture, and to be interpreted

one.

as such; and on the other hand I believe a great deal of the extravagant mythology of India, Greece, and Italy, to have had no other origin than reading hieroglyphics as pictures; that is, in resting satisfied with a literal and obvious meaning, while the writer intended to convey a figurative and occult The description of Berosus of the pictures painted on the walls of the temple of Belus is evidently that of hieroglyphics, which require to be interpreted on the principle of those of Egypt, as conveying a hidden meaning, and by receiving them literally as pictures, without seeking for such a hidden meaning, we have at once many of the personages of the Greek mythology whose characters are so unintelligible, and whose actions are so extravagant. (Cory's Ancient Fragments, p. 23.)

2. Figurative hieroglyphics, which resembled a picture only in form, while its spirit was entirely different, as its object was not so much to represent visible objects as to describe intellectual and moral qualities, express relations, convey the mysteries of religion, inculcate political maxims, and enforce ethical precepts. How perfectly or imperfectly they answered this end among the ancient Egyptians, we are not informed, but we know too well that they have conveyed very little information of any sort to any other people. The greater part of the Chinese writing is precisely similar to that of ancient Egypt, and is merely a simplified hieroglyphic, in which different combinations of straight and curved lines are substituted for the rude delineation of visible objects. But the principle is exactly the same, both being real characters or the signs of things directly, without the slightest reference to the words or sounds by which those things are expressed in conversation; so that the writings of the Chinese are as intelligible to the Japanese, the Tonquinese, and the Coreans as to themselves, though they speak different languages; in the same manner as the ciphers said to have been borrowed from the Arabians are intelligible to all the nations of Europe, as long as they continue to look at them, and

become the reverse the moment they begin to talk about them.

3. Phonetic Hieroglyphics, or figures of visible objects, which in some instances discharge the office, and approximate to the nature and character of letters or alphabetical characters. It had been long known that something of this sort existed among the Chinese, and was had recourse to when they wished to convey an idea of the names of persons or places; but its existence among the Egyptians was hardly suspected prior to the arrival of the Rosetta Inscription in this country, which being written in three modes, Hieroglyphic, Enchorial, and Greek, enabled Dr. Young by a rare display of learning, sagacity, and perseverance, not only to read the words Ptolemy and Berenice, but to make considerable progress in a Hieroglyphic or Enchorial alphabet. I shall now make a few observations on each of these three sorts of Hieroglyphical writing, beginning with Picture Writing.

1. Picture Writing.

IV. After the art of painting, or that of representing the form and colour of visible objects on a flat surface, had become generally known and practised, the most obvious idea of preserving and transmitting the memory of any great exploit, was to delineate or paint it; and this was done by the ancient Greeks, who employed Polygnotus, one of their greatest artists, to represent the battle of Marathon, in one of their porticoes, which from this circumstance obtained the name of Pacile, or painted. The Greeks did not do this from necessity, as they then were and probably had long been in possession of the art of alphabetical writing; but from being fully aware that painting, though as an art it is incomparably less comprehensive, various, and exact than writing, so far as it goes has many material advantages over it. In the painting in question, for instance, the portrait of Miltiades, as delineated by Polygnotus, conveyed a much more lively idea of him to posterity than any written description could do; while Herodotus's account of the battle,

on the other hand, makes us acquainted with innumerable circumstances, the knowledge of which could never have been conveyed by painting, and is as perfect now as at the moment it was first written; while Athens and all its monuments of architecture, sculpture, and painting is a heap of ruins. To the Greeks, painting was one of the fine arts, the growth of luxury. Among other nations we find it existing as one of the necessary arts, the produce of convenience, and such were the Mexicans at the period of the arrival of the Spaniards among them. Being entirely destitute of the art of alphabetical writing, they had no other means of informing their Emperor Montezuma of the great event which had taken place, than by making pictures of the Spaniards, their ships, horses, arms, clothing, accoutrements, and all the other objects, which struck them as new and singular. In this case, however, the want of alphabetical writing could not have been severely felt, as the messengers who were the bearers of the pictured despatches were no doubt able to supply the omissions, aid the imperfections, and elucidate the obscurities incident to this contrivance, from their own ocular experience. It is only when we form an idea in our minds of these painted annals some centuries after the events they record, of the pictures without the commentators, or any other extraneous sources of elucidation, that we become fully impressed with a sense of their great, numerous, and necessary imperfections. One of the most elaborate of these paintings was published by Purchas in thirty-six plates, and is divided into three parts. The first contains the history of the Mexican empire under its ten monarchs; the second is a tribute roll representing what each conquered town paid into the royal treasury, and the third is a code of their institutions, domestic, political, and military. Another specimen of Mexican painting has been published in thirty-two plates by the Archbishop of Toledo, and to both is annexed a full explanation of what the figures were intended to represent, which was obtained by the Spaniards from Indians well acquainted with their

own arts.