grammar without either vowel-points or accents.

These signs, by too strictly regulating the phonetic reading of the Hebrew words, might, in fact, occasionally detach them from their real etymology. It is known, moreover, that the respect paid to the Hebrew text of the Bible, and the desire to possess faithful transcripts of it, has led pious critics to ascertain how many times each of the twenty-two letters of the alphabet ought to be found in a copy of the Bible, to render it authentic.

The Plates illustrating these remarks exhibit various specimens of Hebrew writing.

The specimen given in Plate XXII. is copied from the large Hebrew Bible, written upon vellum, belonging to the Abbey of St. Salvatore, at Bologna. The capitals and minuscules are equally remarkable, the former being ornamented with figures of animals or foliage within the thick strokes. This fine example of capital and minuscule Hebrew writing, with vowel-points and accents, is attributed to the tenth century*.

The Plate XXIII. contains seven fac-similes taken from various manuscripts written at different periods.

The specimen No. 1 is from a vellum Bible in fine square letters, dated in the year 1208; the vowel-points are added by a more recent hand.

No. 2 is from a complete Bible written in the year 1061; the character has the Italian type, which closely approaches to the Spanish. This manuscript was preserved at Bologna in the year 1399.

No. 3 is from another vellum manuscript (marked No. 3), containing the entire Bible, enriched with beautiful ornaments.

*

The authors of the Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique, tom. i., pl. xvi., refer this manuscript to the end of the twelfth century, and the Abbate Trombelli says of it "sæculi fortasse xiii., aut in fine xii.," ap Blanchini, Evangeliar. Quadruplex, pt. ii., vol. ii., p. Devi. This is probably the true date.-ED.

It is attributed to the fourteenth century, and has the arms of Henry IV. King of France, on the binding.

No. 4 is from a vellum Pentateuch, anterior to the fif teenth century, having been sold in the year 1425. It is in the German Hebrew character, characterized by very acute tail-strokes.

No. 5 is copied from a Hebrew manuscript, (marked No. 4,) containing the Bible in two volumes folio, upon vellum, assigned to the fourteenth century. The tops of the letters ending in forms like the clapper of a bell, indicate the Hebrew type of Spain.

Under No. 6 is placed a short extract from the Commentaries of Rabbi Solomon Rashi*, taken from a vellum manuscript, (Sorbonne, No. 225,) the character of which is rather rounded.

The last specimen, No. 7, is that of modern Hebrew, called cursive Rabbinical, the principal character of which consists in the practice of rounding and sloping the greater part of the strokes. It is copied from a vellum manuscript, (No. 317,) containing the translation of several treatises of Aristotle into the Arabic language in Rabbinical writing. All these seven manuscripts belong to the Bibliothèque Royale at Paris.

The text of Plate XXIV. is copied from a manuscript belonging to the Duc d'Aumale; a magnificent roll of the reddish morocco of the Levant, containing the Hebrew text of the Pentateuch. This copy of the Books of Moses, in fine large and massive minuscule letters, some of which are orna

*This is altogether an error. The fac-simile in question forms no part of Rashi's Commentary on the Pentateuch, but is taken from the text of Deuteronomy, chap. xi., vv. 26-30, and written in the Rashi character. It is erroneous also to cite the celebrated Rabbi Solomon Jarchi, as Solomon Rashi, since the name of Rashi bestowed on him, is itself only a compendium of the initials of Kabbi, Solomon, and Jarchi, as every Hebraist knows.-ED.

mented with superfluous strokes or tufts, without vowel-points or accents, was taken in the synagogue of Medeah during the first campaign of His Royal Highness in Algeria.

Plate XXV., intitled "Alphabet Hebreu," exhibits the different letters of this alphabet, five of which have two forms, -the ordinary form, and that which they assume when written at the end of a word. We here see all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet perfectly developed. The scribe has, however, in endeavouring to render them elegant, introduced too many rounded strokes.

PLATE XXVI.

ETHIOPIC WRITING.

FROM THE XIITH TO THE XVIIITH CENTURY.

VARIOUS FRAGMENTS.

IN regard to the use of writing in Ethiopia, as well as in every other region of the East, whose social existence and history reach back to the first pages of the human annals, it is impossible to form exact ideas, except as to its actual state, or at least as to the effects which the latest political revolutions to which these regions have been subject, have produced in reference to this art. Thus, with respect to Ethiopia, the specimens in the accompanying Plate are copied from the writing used at the present time, the last which it has adopted; the most modern, in short, of those which it has at different times employed. Of these latter, it is true, there remain but very few original examples; but the testimony of history in part supplies their absence, and with an authority, which the written monuments still preserved, and success

fully studied by European criticism, have rendered irrefragable.

It cannot, in fact, be doubted, from the unanimous consent of classical antiquity, that there existed in the most ancient epochs of the history of Ethiopia and Egypt, a complete community of political organization, religious belief and worship, language and writing, between the two kingdoms. According to the same authorities, Egypt was but the offspring of Ethiopia; and the magnificence of Meroe, the capital of the latter kingdom, must have preceded that of Thebes and Memphis, the capitals of Egypt.

It is true, that there exist in Ethiopia, about the region of the Nile, more than 200 leagues to the south of the confines of Egypt, monuments entirely Egyptian in their architecture, language, and writing; but they were erected by the kings of Egypt, who were conquerors of this country. Moreover, when the kings of Ethiopia conquered Egypt in their turn, they only employed, for the monuments of their reign. erected there, the language and writing of the country; and, lastly, when the Ethiopian kings, having shaken off the Egyptian yoke, erected in Ethiopia the monuments which still exist, they alike made use of the Egyptian language and writing.

From these facts the evident conclusion may be drawn, that the institutions of Ethiopia and Egypt were identical; and that the Egyptian writing is the oldest of those employed in Ethiopia.

An irruption of the Hamyarite Arabs into Ethiopia is referred to a very early period; numerous invasions of the Arab kings of Mareb on the western shores of the Red Sea, which they had crossed, are stated also to have been made; and it is to these circumstances that the earliest Arab influences, and the introduction of an Arabic dialect into Ethiopia, are to be assigned; for such is the real nature of the actual language of

northern Ethiopia.

It is unknown, however, what sort of

writing was in use among the Arabs at that period.

But to appreciate clearly this singular fact, of the early prevalence of an Asiatic language in an African country, we must also take into account the introduction of Hebrew books into Ethiopia. It is asserted, that at a period anterior to the Christian era, the Hebrews of Palestine had penetrated into Ethiopia, and there had propagated their language, analogous to that which the Arab tribes had already introduced. The Samaritan or primitive Hebrew writing must have entered into Ethiopia with the Hebrew books, and Christianity has preserved it there up to our own times.

The Ethiopic language, according to the most learned ecclesiastical critics, is a mixture of Hebrew, Chaldaic, Syriac, and Arabic, which means, that Ethiopia is also a branch of the great Arab stock, and it is to the Samaritan alphabet that the origin of the alphabet of Ethiopia is referred.

There is, in fact, an evident resemblance of form between the letters of the two alphabets, but there are also strongly marked differences, the most striking of which is, that the Ethiopic writing is read from left to right, like the Indian and European; while the Samaritan is, like the other ArabicoSemitic writings, read from right to left.

Moreover, the Ethiopic alphabet is a real syllabic system; each of its consonants, twenty-six in number (the twenty-two primitive Samaritan letters, and four other subsequently added, to express sounds peculiar to the Ethiopic language), being adherent to one out of seven vowels, and thus forming a syllable. A regular punctuation facilitates much the reading of the Ethiopic texts.

The specimen No. 1, exhibits an ancient form of these characters, attributed to the twelfth century; the figure of the Evangelist added, has no other merit, than that of being an effort of Ethiopian art.