can discover, or imagination create, are known by their proper names. Nay, language has been carried fo far, as to be made an inftrument of the moft refined luxury. Not refting in mere perfpicuity, we require ornament alfo; not fatised with having the conceptions of others made known to us, we make a farther demand, to have them fo decked and adorned, as to entertain our fancy; and this demand, it is found very poilible to gratify. In this ftate we now find language. In this ftate, it has been found among many nations for fome thousand years. The object is become familiar; and, like the expanse of the firmament, and other great objects, which we are accustomed to behold, we behold it without wonder.

But carry your thoughts back to the first dawn of language among men. Reflect upon the feeble beginnings from which it must have arifen, and upon the many and great obftacles which it must have encountered in its progrefs; and you will find reafon for the highest astonifhment, on viewing the height which it has now attained. We admire feveral of the inventions of art; we plume ourfelves on fome difcoveries which have been made in latter ages, ferving to advance knowledge, and to render life comfortable; ve peak of them as the boast of human reafon. But certainly no invention is entitled to any fuch degree of admiration as that of language; which, too, must have been the product of the firft and rudeft. ages, if indeed it can be confidered as a human invention at all.

Think of the circumstances of mankind when languages began to be formed. They were a wandering, fcattered race; no fociety among them except families; and the family fociety, too, very imperfect, as their method of living by hunting or pafturage must have feparated them frequently Vol. I. N

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from one another. In this fituation, when fo much divided, and their intercourse fo rare, how could any one fet of founds, or words, be generally agreed on as the figns of their ideas? Suppofing that a few, whom chance or neceffity threw together, agreed by fome means upon certain figns, yet by what authority could thefe be propagated among other tribes or families, fo as to fpread and grow up into a language? One would think, that, in order to any language fixing and extending itself, men must have been previously gathered together in confiderable numbers; fociety must have been already far advanced; and yet, on the other hand, there feems to have been an abfolute neceffity for speech, previous to the formation of fociety. For, by what bond could any multitude of men be kept together, or be made to join in the profecution of any common intereft, until once, by the intervention of speech, they could communicate their wants and intentions to one another? So that, either how fociety could form itself, previously to language, or how words could rife into a language previously to fociety formed, feem to be points attended with equal difficulty. And when we confider farther, that curious analogy which prevails in the construction of almost all languages, and that deep and fubtile logic on which they are founded, difficulties increafe fo much upon us, on all hands, that there feems to be no finall reafon for referring the first origin of all language to divine teaching or infpiration.

But fuppofing language to have a divine original, we cannot, however, fuppofe, that a perfect fyftem of it was all at once given to man. It is much more natural to think, that God taught our first parents only fuch language as fuited their prefent occafions; leaving them, as he did in other things, to enlarge and improve it as their future neceffities fhould require. Confequently, thofe first

rudiments of fpeech must have been poor and nar row; and we are at full liberty to enquire in what manner, and by what fteps, language advanced to the state in which we now find it. The history which I am to give of this progress, will fuggeft feveral things, both curious in themfelves, and ufeful in our future difquifitions.

If we should fuppofe a period before any words were invented or known, it is clear, that men could have no other method of communicating to others what they felt, than by the cries of paffion, accompanied with fuch motions and geftures as were farther expreffive of paffion. For thefe are the only figns which nature teaches all men, and which are understood by all. One who faw another going into fome place where he himself had been frightened, or expofed to danger, and whofought to warn his neighbour of the danger, could contrive no other way of doing fo, than by uttering thofe cries, and making those geftures, which are the figns of fear: juft as t men, at this day, would endeavour to make their felves be understood by each other, who should be thrown together on a defolate island, ignorant of each other's language. Those exclamations, therefore, which by grammarians are called interjections, uttered in a ftrong and paffionate manner, were, beyond doubt, the first elements or beginnings of speech.

When more enlarged communication became neceffary, and names began to be affigned to objects, in what manner can we fuppofe men to have proceeded in this affignation of names, or invention of words? Undoubtedly, by imitating, as much as they could, the nature of the object which they named, by the found of the name which they gave to it. As a painter, who would reprefent grafs, muft employ a green colour; fo, in the beginnings of language, one giving a name to any

thing harsh or boisterous, would of courfe employ a harsh or boisterous found. He could not do otherwise, if he meant to excite in the hearer the idea of that thing which he fought to name. To fuppofe words invented, or names given, to things, in a manner purely arbitrary, without any ground or reafon, is to fuppofe an effect without a caufe, There must have always been fome motive which led to the affignation of one name rather than another; and we can conceive no motive which would more generally operate upon men in their firit efforts towards language, than a defire to paint, by fpeech, the objects which they named, in a manner more or less complete, according as the vocal organs had it in their power to effect this imitation.

Wherever objects were to be named, in which found, noife, or motion were concerned, the imitation by words was abundantly obvious. Nothing was more natural, than to imitate, by the found of the voice, the quality of the found or noise which any external object made; and to form its name accordingly. Thus, in all languages, we find a multitude of words that are evidently conftructed upon this principle. A certain bird is termed the cuckoo, from the found which it emits. When one fort of wind is faid to whifile, and another to roar; when a ferpent is faid to hifs; a fly to buz, and falling timber to crash; when a ftream is faid to flow, and hail to rattle; the analogy between the word and the thing fignified is plainly difcernible.

In the names of objects which addrefs the fight only, where neither noife nor motion are concerned, and ftill more in the terms appropriated to moral ideas, this analogy appears to fail. Many learned men, however, have been of opinion, that though, in fuch cafes, it becomes more obfcure,

yet it is not altogether loft; but that throughout the radical words of all languages, there may be traced fome degree of correfpondence with the object fignified. With regard to moral and intellectual ideas, they remark, that, in every language, the terms fignificant of them, are derived from the names of fenfible objects to which they are conceived to be analogous; and with regard to fenfible objects, pertaining merely to fight, they remark, that their most diftinguishing qualities have certain radical founds appropriated to the expreffion of them, in a great variety of languages. Stability, for inftance, fluidity, hollownefs, fmooth-+ nefs, gentleness, violence, &c. they imagine to be painted by the found of certain letters or fyllables, which have fome relation to thofe different ftates of visible objects, on account of an obfcure refemblance which the organs of voice are capable of affuming to fuch external qualities. By this natural mechanifm, they imagine all languages to have been at first constructed, and the roots of their capital words formed*.

The author, who has carried his fpeculations on this fubject the fartheft, is the prefident Des Brolles, in his "Traité de la formation mechanique des Langues.' Some of the radical letters or fyllables which he fuppofes to carry this expreffive power in most known languages, are, St, to fignify ftability or reft; Fl, to denote fluency; Cl a gentle defcent; R, what relates to rapid motion; C, to cavity or hollowness, &c. A century before his time, Dr. Wallis, in his Grammar of the English Language, had taken notice of these fignificant roots, and reprefented it as a peculiar excellency of our tongue, that, beyond all others, it expreffed the nature of the objects which it names, by employing founds fharper, fofter, weaker, ftronger, more obfcure, or more ftridulous, according as the idea which is to be fuggefted requires. He gives various examples. Thus; words formed upon St, always denote firmness and ftrength, analogous to the Latin fto; as, ftand, ftay, staff, fop, ftour, steady, ftake, ftamp, ftallion, ftately, &c. Words beginning with Str, intimate violent force, and energy, analogous to the Greek, stęovuμi ;