not but fee, when he met them together, that each of them stood in the compound Word, for a Sound, and not for a Thing; for the two Sounds, one of which each Character was to exprefs, were, when put together, to fignify a very different Thing from those, which each of them fingle would have offered. If Language therefore was altered as I have hinted, which looks very probable from confidering the Nature of the Hebrew Diffyllables; and if this Alteration of Language led to fuch a Duplication of Character as I have imagined, which is a Method very easy and natural for Men to fall into, we may fee that they would be engaged in making Characters ftand for Sounds before they were aware of it, and they could hardly do fo long, before they must confider it, and if they came once to confider it, they would go on apace from one thing to another; they would obferve how many Sounds the Words they had in use might be compounded of, and be hereby led to make as many Characters as they could frame fingle Sounds, into which all others might be refolved, and this would lead them directly to an Alphabet. It is pretty certain, that various Nations, from a difference of Pronunciation, or from the different Turn of Imagination that is always found in different Men, would would hardly, tho' agreeing in a general Scheme for the framing their Letters, yet happen to frame an Alphabet exactly the fame, in either Shape or Number of Letters; and this we find true in fact: The Arabian and Perfian Alphabet have fuch a Similitude, that they were probably derived one from the other. And the old Hebrew and Arabian (and perhaps the old Egyptian) Characters agree in fo many Refpects, as to give Reason to imagine that they were formed from one common Plan; tho' they certainly fo differ in others, that we can't but think that the Authors of them fat down and formed, tho' upon a common Scheme, yet in their own way, in the Countries which they planted. It is very probable, that there may have been in the World feveral other Alphabets very different from thefe. I think I have read of a Country in India, where they use an Alphabet of fixty five Letters; and Diodorus Siculus (a) informs us, that in the Island of Taprobane, which we now call Ceylon, they anciently used but seven; but perhaps the Reader may be better informed in this Matter, if he confults fome Books which Bishop Walton (b) directs to, and which I have not had opportunity of feeing, viz. Poftellus de 12 Linguis, Du (a) Lib. 2. (6) Prolegom. retus retus de Linguis & Characteribus omnium Linguarum; the Alphabetical Tables of various Characters, publifhed at Francfort 1596; and Ja. Bonav. Hepburn's Seventy Alphabets, published at Rome 1616. The Characters which are now commonly used in Europe being,as I have said, derived from the ancient Latin; the ancient Latin from the old Greek Letters; the Greek Letters from the Phenician; and the Phenician, Syrian, ancient Hebrew, and Affyrian having been much the fame, I could willingly, before I close this Effay, add a few Obfervations upon each of these in their Order. And 1. The ancient Hebrew Alphabet was not wrote in the prefent Hebrew Character, but in a Letter pretty much the fame as the prefent Samaritan. Buxtorf and Lightfoot were not of this Opinion; but it has been abundantly proved by Scaliger, Cafaubon, Grotius, Voffius, Bochart, Father Morin, Breerwood, Capellus, and Walton. Bishop Walton has proved it beyond Contradiction, from fome ancientJerufalem Coins, called Shekels (a). The Rabbins, Talmudifts, Chriftian Fathers, Origen and St. Jerom, all believed that (a) De Siclorum Formis, in Prolegom. 3. §. 29, 30. See Prideaux's Connect. Vol. I. Book 5. p. 496. there there had been a Change of the Hebrew Letters. St. Jerom afferts it very expref ly (a). Spanheim and Dr. Allix took the other fide of the Queftion, but they have answered only a fmall Part of the Arguments against them. This Change of the Hebrew Letters was made by Ezra, after the rebuilding the Temple, when he wrote out a new Copy of the Law. The old Hebrew Letters were wrote in this (b) manner. RUESHEGHEREGTEN NWIPMTO Like to these were the Syrian, and Phanician; the best Copy we can take of the old Phænician, must be had from Scaliger, and are wrote thus: MyLYMO DEFEATIN NWAYM035 From the Phenician were derived the ancient Greek Letters, which, according (a) In Præfat. ad Lib. Regum. (b) There is no Reafon to think the firft and most ancient Hebrew Alphabet bad thus many Letters. Irenæus fays exprefly, Ipfæ antiquæ & prima Hebræorum Litteræ, & Sacerdotales nuncupata, decem quidem funt Numero. to to the most ancient Specimen we have of them, were thus written: AB♪A EHI K L M NOMAST α буде b ικλμνο πρστ These were probably the first Letters of the Greek Alphabet, which originally were no more than fixteen (a). Some time after, these following Letters were added; FIOYO+ for we find all these in the ancient Sigean The Greek Letters were not anciently wrote from the Left Hand to the Right, as we now write them, but from the Right Hand to the Left, as the Hebrew and Phænicians wrote; and then the Letters being inverted, had a nearer Refemblance to the Phenician Character, from whence they were taken, being wrote thus (b): 7297043XTH Ada (a) Eufeb. in Chron. Num. 1617. (b) We have Infiances of this way of Writing in the Etrufcan Monuments, and apon fome Æolic Coins. In |