124 ANALOGY of GREEK LETTERS; 



the natural order of the elemental founds, and the affinity fub- 

 fifting among certain clafTes of fuch founds. All fuch as are 

 labial, for inflance, might be clafled together, whether mutes 

 or femivowels, as /S, ,«-, t, <p. 4' 5 «^" fuch as are dental, to 

 wit, 1^, f , (T ; all fuch as are lingual, to wit, I, 6, >., v, r ; and all 

 fuch as are palatine, to wit, y, x, j^, |. And accordingly this 

 has been done by Hulewicz, one of the beft modern writers 

 on Greek grammar *. But this he has propofed, without re- 

 jecting the ufual arrangement, which he knew to be fo im- 

 portant in examining or explaining the ftrucRure of the Greek 

 tongue. For though a divifion and arrangement of that fort 

 might anfwer the purpofe of a minute anatomical or phyfiolo- 

 gical inquiry concerning the organs of fpeech, yet as this was 

 not the circumftance chiefly attended to by the Greeks in the 

 progrefs of their language, though they did not by any means 

 negledl it, we muft adhere to that other diftribution by the 

 grammarians, if we would wifli to comprehend clearly the real 

 life of the Greek letters. There is, for inftance, no doubt 

 that jM, is a labial confonant, as well as it, /3, or <p' and in fadl 

 the Greeks in fome meafure attended to this, as will be after- 

 wards {hewn ; but the ufe of ^ as a liquid, and its partaking 

 in this refpedt of the fame analogy with X, v, ^ , was a connedlion 

 much more ftriking, and much more attended to in the prac- 

 tical application of the Greek alphabet f. In the cafe of the 

 nine mutes, it is of very great confequence to confider how,, 



in, 



* Hee Alex. Gabr. Woiutyn HuLEwic-i, nobilis Poloni, llijlilutiones Ling. Gracte, 

 p. 14. Lugd.Bat. 1746. 4/0. M. Beauzee, an ingenious French Grammarian, has al(b 

 propofed a very minute arrangement of the letters, according to an idea of this kind. 

 See Grammaire Generate, ou Expofttion raifonnee des Elemens necejjaires du Langage., 

 2 tomes Paris, 1767. 8^0. See alfo 5;/%o/> Wilkins's EJJhy, &c. p. 557. 



f " Appellantur Liquid*, quod port mutam pofitee quafi liquefcentes ac evanef- 



" centes, vim confonantes interdum amittant, neque vocalem praicedentem longam efR- 

 " ciunt, ut alise confonantes." Antesignajjtis apitd Cienakdum, p. 3. Hanovia, 

 1617. 4/0. 



