Oct. 7. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



291 



for the excellent and masterly translation which he has 

 given of it. Mr. Walsingham was Secretary to the 

 famous Lord Digby in Charles I.'s time ; whose father, 

 the Earl of Bristol, succeeding the Duke of Bucking- 

 ham in his embassy in Spain, in all probability pur- 

 chased this incomparable piece in manuscript ; from whose 

 study Mr. Walsingham is thought to have obliged the 

 publick with it ; and it deservedly wears his name (for it 

 never as yet has had any other), all the foreign transla- 

 tions, in Latin, French, and Italian, being extreara im- 

 perfect, obscure, and faulty."] 



ANCIENT ALPHABETS. 

 (Vol. X., p. 184.) 



Will Dr. Giles have the kindness to state his 

 authority for saying that the Hebrews had at the 

 first only ten letters ? He states this, not as a 

 conjecture, but as a fact. As to his other asser- 

 tion, that the Greeks and Latins had at first only 

 sixteen letters, this is founded, as all scholars 

 know, upon very ancient authority. Still this 

 old tradition has always appeared to me beset 

 with difficulties, especially if we^take it in con- 

 nexion with the tradition which accompanies it, 

 that the Greek alphabet was introduced into 

 Greece by Cadmus from Phoenicia. It is quite 

 obvious that the Greek letters resemble in their 

 form the old Samaritan and Phoenician characters, 

 a resemblance brought out very closely by a re- 

 ference to the old Pova-Tp6<p-n5oi/ and other inscrip- 

 tions. And the order of the letters, including the 

 iiria-riixa. (or I3av, KSmra, and ffawri), is, with the 

 exception of the last, the same as that of the 

 Hebrew : the very names of the iTtlffrjixa closely 

 resembling those of the Hebrew characters, which 

 stand in the same relative positions. It seems 

 tolerably clear that these numerical iiricrriixa were 

 originally used as letters ; the Pav being evidently 

 the old digamma, the F" of the Latins, which oc- 

 cupies the same place in the alphabet. The Komra 

 was another form of K, occurring in this shape ^ 

 upon some ancient Greek documents, and evi- 

 dently the same letter as the Roman Q. 



The ffdvTTi possibly soon became obsolete, but 

 might have been replaced (as a letter) by the ^. 

 We have thus the whole Hebrew alphabet adopted, 

 at least for numerical purposes, by the Greeks. 

 Indeed, we have the evidence of very ancient 

 monuments that there were at least twenty cha- 

 racters in use ; for I am not at present clear about 

 the I, which yet, be it observed, holds a relative 

 place to another sibilant letter in the Hebrew al- 

 phabet, the Satnech. Now, the analogy between 

 the Latin and the Greek alphabet is very close. 

 The C was probably at first the hard G. The 

 position of the G reminds one of the soft Oriental 

 G,_ which has a semi-sibilant sound. Somewhat 

 allied to the Z (whose place it usurps), the is 

 found in the ancient Italian alphabets. The X, 



perhaps, is absent, but the Q prevails ; so that we 

 have in the old Latin systems at least eighteeix 

 letters, even if we exclude K, 0, and E, and pre- 

 sume that U and O are either interchangeable, or 

 not found in the same alphabet. It is clear that 

 the branching off of the Latin from the Greek 

 must have occurred at a very early period ; and 

 it would therefore appear that there were more 

 than sixteen letters, both in Greek and Latin, at 

 that time ; unless we adopt the very improbable 

 supposition that nations who had apparently be- 

 come very distinct, afterwards borrowed their 

 wanting characters one from another. If, how- 

 ever, the Greek alphabet had received Its incre- 

 ment before it migrated to Italy, how was this 

 addition effected ? It could not be by mere acci- 

 dent that the characters supposed to be subse- 

 quently added, viz. the tj, 0, |, and the iiriff-niia, 

 should resemble, both In name and position, the 

 Hebrew originals; and it does not appear very 

 probable, or consistent with the known facts of 

 philology or history, that the Greeks sent to Phoe- 

 nicia at a later period than Cadmus to make up 

 the deficiencies which he could have at the first 

 supplied. In the absence of any direct evidence, 

 does It not appear probable that Cadmus actually 

 Introduced the whole Hebrew alphabet, and 

 adapted the whole twenty-two letters, as far as 

 practicable, to the Greek ? I may add, that tha 

 subsequent additions, the v, (p, x> 'I'j ««> seem rather 

 modifications than new creations. As has been 

 often observed, the v probably grew out of the 

 ^au, the ^ out of the tt, the x oiit of the k, the w 

 out of the 0, and the tj/ was a substitute for the 

 tzaddi, or ts, a character not required in Greek, 

 though suggesting another double letter, of which 

 s was an element, of frequent use in that language. 



John Jebb. 



BOSTON : BURDELTERS : WILKYNS, ETC. 

 (Vol. X., p. 182.) 



The following conjectures may help Mr. P. 

 Thompson In his farther Investigation of the sub- 

 jects above referred to. 



" Altar cloth of red silk powthered with flowres 

 called Boston.'' I think from some provincialism 

 or orthographical error Boston may have been 

 used Instead of the French word bouton, and which 

 was probably the original. There is the phrase 

 ^eurs de boutons, meaning those button-shaped 

 flowers, as in daisies, bachelors' buttons, or similar, 

 which might have been the character of the pattern 

 figured .on the fabric, and " powthered " or dif- 

 fused over It. Assuming the date of the " altar 

 cloth " as 1608, It would certainly be of French 

 manufacture. Many "gilds" and corporations 

 which flourished at that period were but " poor 

 scholars," and might be bewildered with the word 



