in its alphabetical or secondary state, which leaves us still in ignorance whether Assyria invented a system of writing, and if so, what were its principles. A single truth alone remains, that the Chaldæan language, Arabian in its origin, was written during a known period of history, with an alphabet of Iranian or Persian origin. This fact is more certain than the tradition relative to the confusion of tongues, which took place in the temple of Baal, (or Lord,) the ruins of which still exist in the eastern part of Babylon. Thus, the written monuments contemporary with Queen Semiramis, (who only succeeded to the throne after many royal Assyrian conquerors,) and anterior by more than two thousand years to the commencement of the Christian era, are contemporary also with the monuments of Persepolis, and with those ancient astronomical observations which mount back 2300 years before our era, the list of which was sent from Babylon by Callisthenes to Aristotle; and these remarkable circumstances enable us to recognize, in the unavoidable result of the friendly or inimical relations, mediate or indirect, between the three great contiguous nations of the East,-India, Persia, and Assyria,—the simultaneous existence of the same system of writing, namely, a secondary system, brought to perfection,—that is, the alphabetical system; without any tradition of an anterior system, or of primitive invention.

Syria was entirely Arabian, and although divided into isolated populations or states, it still retained the general characters of its own civilization, as well as that of the Arabian peninsula. Compressed, as it were, between Assyria and Egypt, it was often traversed by those conquerors who started from the most opposite points, and who, influenced by reciprocal feelings of revenge, bent their steps from east to west, or from west to east, between the Nile and the Indus. The commercial activity of the Phoenicians introduced into Syria, by means of the Persian Gulf, the novel productions of Egypt and Asia Minor, of the Red Sea and the Euxine, of the Euphrates and Tigris, and of Persia and India. In their perpetual voyages, both by sea and land, how is it possible that the Phoenician industry of Tyre and Sidon would not learn, or rather divine, the invention of writing, as soon as it made its appearance in any of the coasts habitually resorted to? Indefatigable agents of civilization, although wholly occupied with the lucre of their traffic, the Phoenicians might well pass for the inventors of writing in those countries where they first made it known. Their own written monuments are executed with alphabetical signs, which manifestly proves that they only knew a

system of writing in its secondary state; nor did they communicate it in any other form. The Hebrews, another branch of the great Arabian family, also employed writing; and their annals attribute the knowledge of this art to Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, who lived in the nineteenth century before the Christian era; but these annals were written by Moses three centuries later, himself brought up in the colleges of Egypt, where the usage of writing had then existed from time immemorial. The Hebrews, like the Phoenicians, and like the other tribes scattered over Syria, can only, therefore, obtain a place in the history of writing in its secondary state, in which the signs of sounds have become substituted for figurative or symbolical expressions. The most ancient original monuments of the Hebrews, moreover, do not reach earlier, in regard to date, than the first ages of Christianity.

In Egypt the evidences of an historical period meet us at every step, and original monuments of incontestible authenticity cover both banks of the Nile. The works there of the kings of the eighteenth national dynasty, the first of which occupied the throne 1822 years before the Christian era, are numerous, magnificent, and covered with historical or religious inscriptions. Those of the earlier kings rarely occur; a dynasty of foreign barbarians, the shepherd-kings, Jews or Scythians, having ravaged Egypt during the preceding 260 years. But the active researches of modern times frequently exhume fresh historical documents, which stand forth like luminous points in the series of centuries anterior to the epoch of the shepherd-kings. In the demolished edifices of the eighteenth dynasty, materials are often found used for building which are the remains of those of the twelfth, with the names of some of their kings. Moreover, the soil of Memphis has not yet been explored, but the recent excavation of the pyramids-the marvels of the Old World-has brought to light and extended to unexpected limits the historical monumental facts upon which the annals of Egypt will firmly rest. In the year 1837, the third pyramid (the smallest of the three) was penetrated,* and in the central hall was discovered a sarcophagus, which had been violated in ancient times, its lid broken, and the mummy which it contained unrolled, and lying in morsels upon the floor, mingled with pieces of a sycamore coffin, portions of which were preserved, carried to England, and deposited in the British Museum. On this coffin is to be read, in hieroglyphic characters skilfully engraved, the name of the personage for whom the pyramid was

* By Colonel Howard Vyse. See his account of Operations carried on at the Pyramids of Gizeh in 1837, vol. ii. pp. 83-86, 8vo. 1840.-ED.

the place of sepulture, and the name is that of the king Mencheres, mentioned by Manetho and Eratosthenes as one of the kings of the fourth dynasty. Other facts, not less certain, may be added to this. In the largest pyramid have been found, painted in large, rude, hieroglyphic characters, the often repeated name of another king, Suphis, the predecessor of Mencheres. These documents extend back more than 4000 years before the vulgar era; they are written in a perfect system of signs, in which the three kinds of forms, figurative, symbolic, and phonetic, are regularly combined, in the same manner as they are found in the Egyptian inscriptions of the times of Sesostris, Psammetichus, Alexander the Great, Augustus, and the Antonines; constituting the perfected graphic system of Egypt, and exhibiting no trace of the long and laborious attempts which must have preceded this state of perfection. No other monument in the world, among any people, exists to show the public usage of writing at so remote a period.

The question relative to the invention of this art appears to receive from the preceding summary of the traditions and monuments of the most celebrated of the primitive Eastern nations, various facts which tend to its satisfactory solution.

It is to the uninterrupted researches and perseverance of the moderns that we must look for such a result, if it be ever realized, since the ancients do not appear to have occupied themselves with this problem, notwithstanding its great importance. The European nations which were the immediate inheritors of the customs of the East, did not trouble themselves with its history or antiquities. They stripped it of its riches, without caring to learn by what prodigious efforts of time and genius it was raised from its native barbarism to the splendor of a social state, founded upon morality and the arts. Hence the infinite and vague diversity of the conjectures current among the learned Greeks and Romans, relative to the invention of writing, is not surprising.

If we consult the most trustworthy of these writers, those who to some positive knowledge of things added a spirit of research and criticism, (and such are but few in number,) they leave us in a complete state of doubt in reference to this remarkable point of social history, which can only be cleared up by an attentive examination, in the spirit of modern science, and by facts accumulated in the course of ages; an examination which will, at least, contribute to free the inquiry from a mass of vague and idle suppositions.

This profound question, which now occupies so much of the attention of the scholars of Europe, thanks to the researches of modern travellers in the sepulchres of ancient nations, does not

appear to have entered into the imagination of the historians, philosophers, and critics of classical antiquity; nor did they suspect the existence of the genealogy and descent of nations, in the community or affiliation of languages and writing. The Greeks after the time of Alexander, and the Romans subsequent to the time of M. Æmilius Lepidus, but more especially after the time of Cæsar and Octavius, had conquered Egypt, and reduced it to a province; but, if we except Herodotus, what have they imparted to us of the spirit and origin of the national institutions of that country, or of India, Persia, Assyria, and the neighbouring regions? -institutions, nevertheless, so full of interest, so remarkable in comparison with those of Greece and the Empire, and so capable, as it would seem, of attracting attention by their antique novelty. All that they tell us in regard to the invention of writing, amounts merely to this, that such or such a nation asserted that they were the inventors of letters; and without the deep studies of modern philosophy, and a knowledge of the original monuments of ancient nations, the inquiry into this important historical question would not have advanced a single step since the discourse of Plato was written.

This illustrious philosopher, gifted with a rich and productive genius, and an indefatigable observer of man and society, who had himself visited Egypt, thus speaks, in his Phædrus, by the mouth of Socrates:-"I have heard, that about Naucratis, in Egypt, there was one of their ancient gods, to whom a bird was sacred, which they call Ibis; but the name of the dæmon himself was Theuth. According to tradition, this god first discovered numbers, and the arts of reckoning, geometry, and astronomy, the games of chess and hazard*, and likewise LETTERS. But Thamus was at that time king of all Egypt, and resided in that great city of Upper Egypt, which the Greeks call Egyptian Thebes, but the god himself they denominate Ammon. Theuth, therefore, departing to Thamus, shewed him his arts, and told him that he ought to distribute them amongst the other Egyptians. But Thamus asked him concerning the utility of each; and upon his informing him, he approved what appeared to him to be well said, but blamed that which had a contrary aspect. But Theuth is reported to have fully unfolded to Thamus many particulars respecting each art, which it would be too prolix to mention. But when they came to discourse upon LETTERS,This discipline, O king,' says Theuth, will render the Egyptians wiser, and even increase their powers of memory; for this invention is the medicine of

* CTI dÈ TETTEÍAS te kaì kubeías—better if translated "draughts and dice.”—ED.

memory and wisdom.' To this Thamus replied, O, most artificial Theuth! One person is more adapted to artificial operations, but another to judging what detriment or advantage will arise from the use of these productions of art; and now you, who are the father of letters, through the benevolence of your disposition, have affirmed just the contrary of what letters are able to effect. For these, through the negligence of recollection, will produce oblivion in the soul of the learner; because, through trusting to the external and foreign marks of writing, they will not exercise the internal powers of recollection. So that you have not discovered the medicine of memory, but of admonition. You will likewise deliver to your disciples an opinion of wisdom, and not truth. For in consequence of having many readers without the instruction of a master, the multitude will appear to be knowing in many things of which they are at the same time ignorant, and will become troublesome associates in consequence of possessing an opinion of wisdom, instead of wisdom itself.*"

It is to the same Egyptian divinity that the same Greek writer attributes an improvement in writing, which nearly approaches to its invention.-" Whoever it was," he adds, "whether some god, or some divine man, (the Egyptian reports say that his name was Theuth,) who first contemplated the infinite nature of the human voice, he observed, that amongst the infinity of the sounds it uttered, the vowel sounds were more than onethey were many. Again, other utterances he observed, which were not indeed vowels, but partook, however, of some kind of vocal sound; and that of those also there was a certain number. A third sort of letters also he set apart, those which are now called mutes by us. After this, he distinguished every one of these letters which are without any vocal sound, whether perfect or imperfect; the vowels also, and those of middle sort, every one of them he distinguished in the same manner; and when he had discovered how many letters there were of each sort, to every one, and to all of them together, he gave the name of element. But perceiving that none of us could understand any of them by itself alone, without learning them all, he considered that this connection or common bond between them, was one, and that all these letters made in a manner but one thing; and as he perceived that there was one art in all these, he called it, from its subject matter, the art of letters.t"

• Platonis Opera, Marsilio Ficino interprete. Francof. 1602, fol., p. 1240 [Taylor's translation, vol. iii. p. 364.-ED.]

+ Ibid. Philebus, p. 374. [Taylor's translation, vol. iv. p 484.-ED.]