amuse children, in which the pronoun 1 is expressed by the figure of an eye; you, by a yew tree; the relative which, by a witch riding on a broomstick; the verb tear, by the figure of a tear; and the noun love, by that of Cupid? If the ancient Egyptians were in possession of an alphabet at an early period, as I believe they were, it is hardly possible that they should have perfected a system of real characters or signs of things, as they could have had no adequate motive to do so. If the whole thousand hieroglyphics are letters, there must be at least forty forms of each letter, a number which no human eye can discriminate, and no human memory retain; and if they are sometimes letters and sometimes signs, sometimes an alphabetical and sometimes a real character, without any notice to inform us when they are one and when the other, nothing short of an immediate inspiration could enable the most gifted of the human race to make out six consecutive characters with the smallest approximation to truth, or even to probability. 281 CHAP. XXV. ON ALPHABETICAL CHARACTERS. "Th' invention all admired, and each how he To be th' inventor miss'd; so easy 't seem'd Once found, which yet unfound, most would have thought 1. THE origin of letters, like that of many other arts and inventions, is lost in the darkness of antiquity. We possess but little information on the subject, and of that little, the value is very much impaired by the ambiguity of the terms in which it is conveyed. The Egyptians ascribed the invention of writing, as well as of all the other arts, both ornamental and useful, to their god Thoth, or Hermes, while the Greeks attributed it to Orpheus. The first Hermes of the Egyptians appears to have been merely another name of Osiris, or the sun, the earliest god of almost all the nations of mankind, and accordingly commemorated under one denomination or another, as the founder of civil society, and the inventor of agriculture and all the necessary arts. In many instances, the Egyptian Hermes appears to me merely a personification of the hand, in their own language Tot, which, as the principal instrument in executing all mechanical contrivances, is said, by a slight metonomy, to have been the inventor of them. The Greeks, treading in the steps of the Egyptians, personified both the hand and fingers, and ascribed to the Cheirogasteres and Dactyli, mentioned by Strabo and Pausanias, nearly the same exploits as the latter referred to their Thoth, or Tot. If we do not regard Orpheus as the sole inventor of letters, it appears to me that it would be equally ungrateful and untrue to deny that he had anything to do with it, as his name is formed from the Arabic word Harf, a letter of the alphabet with a Greek termination, Orpheus. Herodotus, among other strange circumstances, con nected with Abaris, the civiliser of Scythia, informs us that he made the grand tour of the earth without eating or drinking, and that his vehicle, or mode of conveyance, was an arrow. Part of the story has my entire assent; the other part I must demur to, and my faith, as to his not eating, is quite equal to my scepticism as to his not drinking; as, if I am not much mistaken, he was of an extremely thirsty nature; as I take Abaris to be merely the Latin word Jubar, a sun-beam, written in the Oriental mode Aibar, Abaris; as Iran, the name of ancient Persia, is written Airan. Both Orpheus and Abaris are merely the creatures of etymology, the shadow of a shade, like almost the whole body of the Greek mythology; and I venture confidently to predict that, in proportion to our real progress in philology, almost all that portion of Greek history which is prior to the age of Herodotus will disappear, and leave hardly a trace of its having existed. 11. But whatever may have been the period of the origin of alphabetical writing, it appears at any rate to have been prior to that in which the Pentateuch was written. In Exodus, xxviii. 9. Moses is directed to write the names of the children of Israel on two onyx stones. The Hebrew word Phathach, which is rendered in the Septuagint by Glupho, and very properly translated in the English version by Grave, is ambiguous, as such writing was not necessarily alphabetical. The names of the children of Israel might have been and perhaps were written precisely in the same way as those of Ptolemy and Berenice in the Rosetta Inscription. Again, in the 36th verse of the same chapter, he is directed to write "holiness to the Lord" upon a plate of pure gold. The same Hebrew word occurs, which is rendered in the Septuagint by Ektupoo, effingo, and by the English translators Grave; and the writing might still have been hieroglyphical; but in the account of the tables of stone, Exodus, xxxii. 15, 16. the Hebrew word Chathab is made use of in the original, Grapho in the Septuagint, and Write in the English version. In Deuteronomy, xxviii. 58. we read, "If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name of the Lord thy God;" -in the Hebrew Chathab and Saipher, in the Greek Grapho and Biblios,-in both languages the most literal words that could have been used for writing and a book; and though books may have been and probably were written by the Egyptians in the hieroglyphical or at any rate in the enchorial character, in which they may have been imitated by the Israelites, the meaning intended to be conveyed in the above passages clearly is, that the characters or letters employed were alphabetical, and that the writing was essentially the same as that which we should now denominate such. III. We have seen that the progress of the modes of writing which were not alphabetic consisted in 1. Simple picture writing, or an attempt to preserve the memory of events by representing them just as they happened.-2. As this was applicable solely to visible and external objects, there were still no means of depicting the operations of the spiritual part of man, of conveying an idea of the thoughts of the mind and the feelings of the heart, of denoting that which was unseen and impalpable, as well as that which was gross and material. As the information was still addressed to the eye, an attempt was made to convey some idea of qualities and moral relations, by depicting some objects in which the quality intended to be described was supposed to be peculiarly inherent, or to exist in a very strong degree. Ingratitude was denoted by a viper, imprudence by a fly, wisdom by an ant, victory by a hawk; and it is probable that the spectator was warned by some sign, quite as intelligible as the Cartouche, within which we find proper names inscribed, that the literal system of picture writing was departed from, and that a metaphorical and mystic meaning only was to be sought after. 3. As the drawing or representing material objects, however rudely, was found to occupy too much time, and to be altogether inapplicable to the common purposes of life, it was gradually abridged or simplified, and various combinations of strokes supplied the place of figures. As this mode of writing was both more easy, and applicable to a greater variety of purposes, than the hierogly phical or sacred, it appears to have been distinguished by the name of demotic or popular. IV. The Mexicans do not seem to have advanced beyond mere picture writing, in which they attempted, but very unsuccessfully, to transmit to future times the annals of their country. To this historical painting, of which we find many specimens in Egypt, that ingenious people superadded hieroglyphics strictly speaking, or a system in which they attempted to convey a knowledge of the mysteries of religion, the doctrines of philosophy, the laws of nature, and the principles of government, by certain combinations of visible, material objects, which, proceeding on principles of which we are now totally ignorant, and which I believe have never been understood by any person not an Egyptian, became the types of the invisible and the unknown. The system which had its origin in Egypt, was perfected in China, where picture writing has entirely disappeared; the figures of animals, plants, and all other external objects being in every instance represented by combinations of lines more or less complex. All these combinations are susceptible of being analysed or resolved into two hundred and fourteen keys, and the system of the Chinese has so little of mystery, and proceeds on principles so clear and intelligible, that many Englishmen have made themselves perfectly masters of the language, and been able to read it with certainty, facility, and dispatch. I have stated my reasons in the preceding chapter for believing that the hieroglyphical system was never perfected in Egypt, because they were in possession of an alphabet from a very early period; but whether that was the case or not,, most certainly the specimens of Egyptian hieroglyphical wisdom, whether transmitted to us by the Greeks, or brought to light within the last few years, ought to remind us of a truth, which we are perpetually disposed to forget, that we live in the old age of the world, and that the further back we travel the nearer we approach to its infancy; and in proportion as we find grounds for believing that the great body of Egyptian knowledge is lost to us for ever, the worthless quality of that which has been |