180 • 



is no longer a difficulty. It has already been analysed ; and 

 the sounds of which it is composed, arranged in the incipi- 

 ent alphabet under the characters r, a, m, 



The same simple procedure would unravel the^ mysteries 

 of the remaining four columns. To every sound he would affix 

 its appropriate mark; and to &\Qvy mark he would assign but 

 the power of representing one sound. No dipthongs would 

 enter into his system. — They appear it is true in the verses 

 selected from Virgil. But the Romans did not invent their 

 own alphabet; the}' borrowed it from the Greeks, as the 

 Greeks borrowed theirs from the Phoenicians ; who, it may 

 be said, are indebted for their alphabet to the Hebrews, as 

 the old Hebrew or Samaritan characters are nearly the same 

 as the Pha3nician. It may still, however, be considered a 

 disputable point, whether these people did not communicate 

 their alphabet to the Hebrews, as well as to the Greeks. 

 But the original inventor of the alphabet, whatever was his 

 country, would naturally mark every sound in his language 

 by a single character ; and those which are distinguished at 

 present by the dipthongs ae and oe he would indicate sim- 

 ply by the character e. 



.,i It is remarkable that the analysis of the four first verses 

 of the ^neid would have furnished its author, not only with 

 all the vowels, but with fourteen consonants; a number al- 

 most equal to that which exists in the modern alphabet. 

 Were the same process to be exercised on the succeeding 

 -verses, the deficiency no doubt would soon be supplied, aad 



