2"* S. V. 122., May 1. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



355 



Cox was celebrated for his vanity, of which an amusing 

 illustration is given on the reverse of the autograph : — 



" ' Vainest of mortals, hadst thou sense or grace, 

 Thou hadst not left this ostentatious space ; 

 And given your numerous foes such ample room, 

 To tell posterity upon thy tomb. 

 This well-known truth, by every tongue confessed, 

 That by this blank thy life is best expressed.' 



— The sale contains many curious lots." 



Now the paragraph commencing "We have 

 also," &c. plainly attributes the epigram with 

 which it concludes to Dean Swift, The use of the 

 dash ( — ) all through the cutting from The Athe- 

 ncBum can lead to no other conclusion ; especially 

 as the epigram itself would not disgrace the 

 Dean's pen. But the Catalogue issued by Messrs. 

 Sotheby and Wilkinson expressly states that its 

 author was " Sir Frederick Flood, statesman and 

 orator," — a relative, I may add, of Harry Flood, 



Numerals. 



Hebrew Letters 

 and Numerals. 



2 = 



Greek Letters 

 and Numerals. 



■= A or a' = 



= B or j8' = 



the still more famous "statesman and orator." 

 As the high authority of The Athenceum may be 

 quoted to prove that the epigram was Swift's, 

 the sooner a "Note" to the contrary is placed 

 on record the better. James Gkaves. 



Kilkenny. 



IDENTIFICATION OF THE ARITHMETICAL NUMERALS 

 WITH THE EGYPTIAN ALPHABET. 



An inspection of Biittner's "Comparative Tables 

 of Alphabets," copied at the end of Eichhorn's first 

 volume on the Old Testament, shows that the first 

 ten alphabetic characters in use by the Egyptians 

 as epistolographic, and preserved on the mummy 

 bandages, are nearly identical with the nume- 

 ral characters in use amongst the European 

 nations. 



Egyptian 

 Letters, 



Arabic 

 Numerals. 



Arabic 

 letters. 



Sanscrit 

 Numerals. 



I = 







10 



= 1 or j' = 



The numerals 1, 2, 3, 4, G, 7, 9, and o are iden- 

 tical in form with the old Egyptian letters, ex- 

 pressed in Hebrew as aleph, beth, gimel, daleth, 

 vaut zain, 'teth, and yod respectively ; the only 

 variation in form being in the numerals 5 and 8, 

 the former, he, being an inverted 5 without the 

 dash at the top, and the latter, cheth, instead of 

 consisting of two ovals one above the other, has 

 the upper oval open at the top, and in Jieu of the 

 lower oval it has a figure attached similar to the 

 " Queen's mark " seen on many stone walls cut 

 thereon by the corps of Royal Engineers in their 

 recent survey, and not very different, altogether, 

 from the astronomical symbol for Venus, ^ . The 

 above identification, now I believe for the first 

 time pointed out, leads the way to an explanation 



O = = ^ ^ o 



of the similarity in the Phoenician, Arabic, and 

 Indian numerals and alphabetic characters. The 

 Egyptians first borrowed their alphabetic system 

 directly from the Phoenicians in a very remote 

 age, and subsequently adopted the Greek in the 

 present Coptic form ; the Greek having, like the 

 old Egyptians, also borrowed his letters and their 

 names from the Phoenicians. T. J. Buckton. 



Lichfield. 



MATTHEW PRIOR. 



In default of a complete Biographia Britan- 

 nica, a biographical index on the plan of Sazii 

 Onomasticon would be a valuable aid to histo- 



