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others, the true history, nay even the personal existence of these supposed claimants, must be ascertained before the unappropriated honour can be conceded to any one of them. It may, meanwhile, be affirmed, as one of those circumstances humbling to human pride that occasionally occur in history, and which, while they strangely stir the imagination, awaken sublime but melancholy reflection in minds given to muse upon the vanity and mortality of all the things that are done under the sun,-it may be affirmed, as one of these humbling circumstances, that the man who conquered the greatest trophy ever won from fate and oblivion, lost his own name, after divulging the secret by which others might immortalise theirs. As a figure of speech, one may be allowed to wish that the first letters in which he wrote that name, whether with a pen of iron on granite, or with his finger in sand, had remained indelible. But his own invention is his monument, which, like the undated and uninscribed pyramid, will remain a wonder and a riddle to the end of the world.

It is allowed, I believe, on all hands, that the Egyptians, from time whereof the memory of man knoweth not to the contrary, possessed three kinds of writing, hieroglyphical, alphabetical, and, probably, as a link between, logographic, of which latter the Chinese is the only surviving example at this day. Indeed, in all countries where society has emerged from the stagnation of barbarism, and has made but little advance towards civilisation, there have been found evidences of attempts to create a language for the eye, either by figures of things, by arbitrary

symbols of words, or, in the most perfect manner, by the systematic combination of lines forming letters to represent the rudiments of sounds. This assertion might be copiously illustrated, but the limits of the present Essay will permit no more than a cursory mention of the fact.

It has been observed that the Egyptians were in possession of three kinds of letters, if, indeed, by letters, three kinds of learning be not typified; for Pythagoras, it is said, as a special favour rarely granted to a stranger, was initiated into these triple mysteries of writing. The hieroglyphic mode was unquestionably the first; but between it and the literal, the affinity is so remote, that the leap over the whole space could scarcely have been taken at once, especially as there is an intervening step so obviously connected with each, and connecting them with one another, that it seems almost necessary for invention to have rested, at least for a little while, upon it. When the ambiguity and imperfection of hieroglyphics were felt to be irremediable, the first practical scheme which would suggest itself to the mind, which conceived the happy idea of designating vocal sounds by strokes, in themselves without meaning would be to invent a separate mark for every word; but, as all the easy forms would soon be exhausted, it might next occur to make these elementary, and adapt them, not to individual words, but to the most common simple sounds of which words were composed. Thus monosyllables would have a single mark; dissyllables two joined together; and polysyl

lables more or less, according to their audible divisions.

But still this apparatus would be difficult and perplexing from the multitude of signs necessary; till a finer ear, trying syllables more accurately, would unravel sound as Newton's prism unravelled light, and discover its primary intonations as he discovered the primary colours. Thus the alphabet would be gradually developed, and a familiar sign being attached to each letter, a new creation of intelligible forms for embodying thought would arise, where all was silent, dark, and spiritless before. The lumbering, unwieldy logographic machinery is now confined to the unimproving and unimproveable Chinese, whose inveterate characteristic seems to be, that they obtained a certain modicum of knowledge early, which, for thousands of years, they have neither enlarged nor diminished. They have lent out their intellects at simple interest, and have been content to live upon the annual income, without ever dreaming that both capital and product might be immensely increased by being invested in the commerce of minds-the commerce of all others the most infallibly lucrative, and in which the principles of free trade are cardinal virtues.

This theory of the process by which letters were gradually invented, has been actually exemplified in our own day.-A Cherokee chief, having heard that white men could communicate their thoughts by means of certain figures impressed on soft or hard substances, set himself the task of inventing a series of strokes, straight and crooked, up, down, and across,

which should represent all the words in the Indian language. These, however, became so numerous and so refractory in their resemblances, that he must have given up the work in despair, had he not recollected that the sounds, or syllables, of which all words consisted, were comparatively few, though capable of infinite combination. To these, then, he applied his most approved symbols, which, in the course of time, he reduced to two hundred; and, latterly, it is said that he has brought them down as low as eighty; and that by these he can accurately express the whole vocabulary of his mother-tongue. It is to be observed, in abatement of this marvellous effort of a savage mind, that the primary idea of writing was suggested to it, not originally conceived by it.

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So beneficent to man has been the invention of letters, that some have ascribed it to the immediate instruction of the Almighty, communicated to Moses when the two tables of stone, containing the Decalogue, written by the finger of God, were delivered to him on the Mount. For this there appears to me no evidence that will bear the test of a moment's calm consideration. Of the Supreme Being we know nothing but what He has been pleased to manifest concerning himself in his works and in his word. To the volumes of nature and of revelation man must no more presume to add than to diminish aught. In neither of these can we find that letters were thus miraculously given; it therefore cannot be admitted, nay, it must be rejected, so long as all probability is against the supposition.

Man, in every progressive state of society, however

insulated from the rest of the world, endeavours to express his feelings and perpetuate his actions by imagery or mnemonics of some kind; now these, so long as he continues to improve in knowledge, will, in the same degree, be more and more simplified in form, yet more and more adapted to every diversity and complexity of thought. Nay, it is not too bold to assume, that, thus circumstanced, man, by the help of reasoning, reflecting, and comparing, would as naturally — yea, as necessarily—be led to the invention of alphabetical characters, as the young of animals, when they are cast off by their dams, are led by an ineffable faculty, which we call instinct, to all those functions and habits of life which are requisite both for existence and enjoyment, and which their parents never could exemplify before them during their brief connection. Birds may be imagined to teach their offspring how to eat, to fly, to sing; but no bird ever taught another how to build a nest, bird ever taught another how to brood over eggs till they were quickened into life; - yet every linnet hatched this year, will build her nest next spring as perfectly as the first of her ancestors in the bowers of Eden; and, though she never knew a mother's warmth before, so soon as her own first eggs are laid, she will sit upon them, in obedience to a kindly and mysterious law of nature, which will change her very character for the time, inspire her with courage for timidity, and patience for vivacity; imposing on her confinement instead of freedom, and self-denial in the room of self-indulgence, till her little fluttering

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