Parlicularly of the LEfTER SITMA. 119 



tain, that wherever they got the firfl fketch of an alphabet, 

 they improved it very much, not indeed inftantly, but gradu- 

 ally, till they brought it to that ftate in vvrhich we now fee 

 it, in the twenty-four different characflers whereof it is com- 

 pofed *. 



To point out completely the analogy which the Greek wri- 

 ters obferved in the ufe of each of thofe letters, would lead 

 into a very wide field. At prefent, I propofe only to enquire 

 particularly into the nature and principal ufes of one of them, 

 I mean the llyyM. This, being the fign of a Angular fort of 

 found, has been ufed, in the fl:ru61;ure of the Greek tongue, in 

 a manner different from every other letter ; and therefore the 

 Grammarians have generally allotted to it a fingular place in 

 their arrangement of the different component members of the 

 Greek alphabet. It will be impoffible, however, to treat of 

 the Ttyi^ot., without making mention of certain circumftances 

 incident to the other confonants. 



PART I. 



THE letter S^yjU-w was commonly fo called by the inhabi- 

 tants of Greece, its iflands and colonies, except the Do- 

 rians, who, as we learn from Herodotus, gave it the name 

 of 2av t. DiONYSius of Halicarnaffus alfo mentions this 



Doric 



* Callistratus, the Grammarian of Samos, is faid to have arranged the Greek al- 

 phabet in the order in which we now find it, when Eoclides was Archon of Athens, 

 See Vostzk's EJ/ay on Accent and ^lanlitj, p. 41. 2d Edit. 



•f: AxgiEi; fth T« a-cet x«(>isai7t, "lain; JtV/yfue. Lib. L 



