as poffible; I, on the contrary, do every thing to enable them to enrich themselves, and would rather inspire them with the manly boldness of the poor in your country, than keep them in the flavery of ours. We have a great power over them, and they are bound to perform fo many fervices to their lord, in perfon, and with their cattle and teams, if they have any, fo that they [that they] have very little time to themfelves, it they are fo unfortunate as to be subject to an unpitying fuperior. People in fuch a fituation are by no means fit to affift me in my general plan of improvement, hence, therefore, all that hire land of me, or have rights of commonage or cattle, pay me given, rents, exclufive of all fervices, without a particular bargain; as I make it a rule never to call on them for any thing, and the fweets of being left to themselves are fo great, that they are induced to pay me better rents, and make up the furplus by a greater degree of induftry; as they find that whatever they make, is to be for the advantage of themselves and [their], families. I find every day the advantage of this conduct: my peasants grow into wealthy farmers, or, at least, are all in eafy and happy circumftances; they marry, and beget numerous pofterities; the population of my estate increafes, and with the people the general markets for products, which I have all along aimed at, and which is just so much clear gain into my pocket. I have not a `man upon my eftate, that is not profitable to me in fome way or other; and it is incredible how quick they increase. There is not fuch a thing as a marriageable man or woman upon it that are [is] unmarried; every man and woman that apply to me for a house, are fure of having one built for them, if I know them to be of good characters, and industrious; and they have all a finall piece of land, and [there are] none but what are chearful and contented. In fuch a fituation, marriages cannot but abound and the people increase, in a manner which none of the countries of Europe have any idea of. Among all my people, there is not one that is burthenfome to the reft; no old peafant or labourer but what has faved encugh, before he was in years, to live happily in his latter days; very few but what become little farmers before they are old, and in a flate in which their 'relations would think it fhameful to let them want their afttance.'

How much is it to be wished that the great landholders in England were all actuated by a like fpirit with this worthy' nobleman.

In their diverfions the Danes follow the fashions of the French and English; cards, chefs, billiards, and tennis, are very common amongst them. There is both a French and

Da

Danish theatre at Copenhagen, and an attempt, though unfuccessfully, has been made for an Italian opera.

From Denmark our traveller returned for a few months to London, as it was too cold in winter for him to tr travel thro' Sweden. We here take our leave of him till next month, when we fhall attend him through the reft of his journey.

[To be continued. ]

VII. An Effay towards an Investigation of the Origin and Elements of Language and Letters; that is, Sounds and Symbols. By

A

L. D. Neline. 4to. 6s. Sewed. Leacroft.

THIS learned etymologift may be compared to a laborious naturalift, who, in order to difcover the fource of a riyer, is not fatisfied with tracing it upwards to its fountain, but attempts to pursue it through its interior channels, to inves tigate and analyfe all is drops and particles, before they form themselves into á rill.

The difcoveries which he now communicates to the public, have been the fruits of thirty years contemplation. For fpeaking of his hypothefis, or, if we may be allowed the phrase, his hobby-horfe, he fays:

Letters being fymbols expreffive of ideas, and not arbitrary capricious marks, fortuitoufly ftruck the writer's mind when a youth; nor could he ever get rid of the idea of afcertaining their power. Thirty years are paffed fince he puriued the thought, amidst the various fcenes of viciffitude to to humanity is expofed under affliction he hath found a confolatory amusement in the purfuit of TRUTH; nor had the amiable EXISTENCE ever been caught, embraced, or made known, but from an early disappointment, of no confequence to the public.

:

What this disappointment was, the world, it feems, is not to be informed. Probably it was love. The author's expreffions lead us to form this conjecture. For what can he posibly have in his head but love, when he talks of catching and embracing an amiable exiftence ?-Yet, by the bye, he seems to have treated this amiable existence very cruelly, in thus throwing her upon the public after thirty years cohabitation!

But leaving the lover, let us proceed to the author.

Thafe, who in fearching for inveftigations of words have attended to their origin, have acknowledged the neceffity of recurring to the primitive roots of language; which includes the primordial ideas of the first people, and alfo the sounds and fymbols whereby they reprefented thofe ideas. By founds, we mean words; by Symbols, letters, --

4

• Though

Though letters, or fymbols, (abftractedly confidered) are the reprefentation of things, yet lexicographers have been infenfibly led afide by cuftom, to feek the meaning of words, or letters combined, without attending to the ideas represented by thofe letters, or fymbols, in an uncombined state; or once reflecting, that the way to attain the knowledge of any science, is by a regular initiation into the first principles or elements

thereof.'

He proceeds to tell us, that to the ignorance of the analogy and power of founds and fymbols may be attributed the uncertainty of orthography, and the dialectical variations therein, in the different counties or districts of the feveral nations of Europe; that to the fame caufe may be attributed the flow progrefs which our youth make in learning and knowledge at our public schools; and that futile, languid, unanimated method of expreffion, to which our divines and lawyers are fo much addicted; together with a vicious, undetermined pronunciation of the fymbol itfelf.”

Each Symbol, or letter, he fays, primarily had a precife idea pertaining to it; hence the expreffion in Ælfric's EnglishSaxon Grammar, All and every letter bath three properties; name, fape, and POWER. The English Sac-fons attributed but one power to one fymbol: for example, the power they attributed to the Symbol C was perfect, determined, and unalterable; its form is the fymbol of a receptacle, or a capacious body: thence cat, an open mouthed creature, analogous to the Hebrew Nkat, which fignifies a pelican, a bird with a ca-pacious"

bill.

The Moft High, or as our Sac-son ancestors called the Deity, called THRIGHTEN, The-Right-one, is uniform in all His works all His creation, and every minutest part thereof, participates of two moft fimple, moft perfect, and most effential forms; the line the symbol of altitude, and the circle the fymbol of the horizon..

Thefe fymbols contain in them the first elements, the forms of all created nature. There doth not exift in thei whole creation any BEING, OF THING, that doth not partake of thefe first principles; nor can the human mind conceived of any existence, without ideas that include these first elements; which are not only forms effential to all matter, but also to every idea of matter that arifes in the human mind they contain in them the elements of every art, and of every sci ence known to man; and they are the radix of letters falfo, which we have already confidered as Symbols expreffive of ideas.'

• The

The LINE and CIRCLE being symbols of the ideas of extent and circumference; and the propriety of those symbols to reprefent thofe ideas, being fuch as all the human race cannot but acquiefce in; it is moft probable, that from the beginning they were received precifely in the fame manner as we now receive them; and that all men, from Adam to Noah, that is from the creation to the deluge, ufed bath fymbols to describe their different migrations. to, and their different settlements upon the earth: for all mankind acquiefce at this day in ufing thofe fymbols, viz. lines to reprefent 1-in-es or Kan-es, that I ca-d from one place, refidence, or community, to another; and circles for the places of refidence, poffeffion, or inheritance of different communities, nations, tribes, and families. The Chinese appropriate thofe fymbols to this purpofe, and the North American Indians adopt the fame symbols to exprefs the fame ideas."

The author having in this manner difplayed the nature, ufe, and importance of his theory, briefly confiders the origin, form, and properties of what he calls our radical fymbols, viz.: ···1, 0, s, Å‚ ̈ b, c, d, n, u, 1, E, m, 1.'

་

The following fhort quotations will be a fufficient fpecimen of our author's etymological difcoveries.

The idea of dividing the earth into three parts, is confirined by the writing of Plato and Pindar, who affirm that the Gods divided the whole earth among them by lot. The word Lor expreffes the fact: 1-o-t, is by our table reducible to 1o-d; 1, ́d line; o, a circle; d or ed a final action: so that dividing the circle of the earth by lot, was to divide or cut off part of that circle by the line; and that the earth was thus divided into three parts, is confirmed by many writers, particularly the Hebrew doctors, who affert," that all whatsoever the holy and bleffed GOD hath created in this HIS world, is. parted into three parts." Herodotus alfo mentions those three parts of the earth in our order of dividing it; Afia, Lybia," Europe. The radical inveftigation of these names perfealy. coincides with, and corroborates the general fyftem.'—

In order to perfect the circle or ring from the line or ftrait bough, it was neceflary to tie or twift the ends thereof toge ther, whereby the ring became complete: bence our word beauty; the bow or bea, being tied, reprefented the most. beau-ti-ful figure upon earth, a figure that cannot but please the eye, and will be ay, or endure to the end of time. -conjunction of the two ends of the bough, whereby the circle or ring became complete, appears to be thoughtlessly comme-, morated by the precious ftones commonly placed in the rings now worn; and on the high or upper part thereof, where, origi

The

nally

nally, was the TIE or completion of the ring: the circumstance gives us the radix of our termination tie or ty; which word ever bears in it the idea of completion.

• Elements fignifies a line, and a circle united el, a line; em, a circle; en, one; ts, existence.

The word fymbol inveftigated, is a delineation of the idea pertaining to it: s, is; im, a circle; b, to be; ol, all. S-imb-ol is the circle, or reprefentation, that be-eth, or continueth

to all.

Limit: 7, a line; im, a circle; it, it: 1-im-it.

The word Paleg or Palec, (the h being redundant), when reduced by our table to radical characters, doth exprefs, perfectly, the idea of a divifion; for example,

The radical to p, is b, which fignifies to be; al, all; ec, eke, or each; be-all-each, or each ed; divided: all what? but the Ol or wh-o-le circle of the earth, according to the text.'

In this manner the learned and induftrious Mr. Nelme has made a variety of notable difcoveries; and given a meaning to words, of which no body before him had the leaft fufpicion. Every fyllable, and almost every letter, according to his hypothefis, is pregnant with occult truths, and mysterious meanings.

Some people may think, that all this is 'fancy, whim, and learned legerdemain. And, perhaps, there may be fome reafon for this opinion. Let us try what fecrets we can deduce from the analysis of a common word, the name of a place at the weft end of the town.

A Symbolical Investigation of the Word TIBURN.

• Tiburne, fays Minthew, is a place of bournes and springs where men are tied up.' But we are perfuaded, that it rather denotes a place where men are tied up and burnt; hanging and burning being common forms of execution.

But let us invefligate the fymbols; for each fymbol or letter, as Mr. Nelme informs us, primarily had a precife idea pertaining to it:' only permit us to write the word Tiburn in Hebrew characters.

חיבורן.

, tau, the first letter is a terminus, or crofs. In the first fenfe it terminates the life of the malefactor, and is the patibulum, or gallows, in its proper form. The figure of a cross is more perfectly preferved in the Samaritan †, and from thence in the Greek and Roman alphabets.

The , yod, fignifies a hand, and in the Samaritan alphabet the form is not ill preferved. But in the Hebrew, the leaft of of its members, or a fmall part is used for the whole, cr, perVOL. XXXIII. April, 1772. haps,

Y