five] 
their number and arrangement. This was changing the Pheenician 
letters to the Greek enunciation, and giving to each a name and 
peculiar chara€ter, as Diodorus Siculus expreffes it. Such feems to 
have been the formation of the firft Greek alphabet, free from the 
learned and tedious difquifitions of Scaliger, Salmafius and Mont-- 
faucon. 
SURVIVING coins, infcriptions and literary memorials, authen-- 
ticate this detail. Pure Phoenician letters are feen on the * coins: 
of A’gina, Beeotia and Sicily.. It is true, + Le Clerc doubts their 
exiftence ; but this is putting fcepticifm in the balance againft the 
credit of refpeftable men and {fcholars. Baron Spanheim lived: 
five years after Le Clerc publifhed his remarks, and yet took no» 
notice of his objections, though very material. Fortunately the- 
matter does not depend on this fingle proof. Plutarch t records. 
fingular Barbaric chara@ters, refembling the Egyptian, on the tomb: 
of Alcmena in Beeotia, long preceding the Trojan war. The fimi-- 
litude of thefe elements to the Egyptian is well conceived, for 
many of the firft fettlers in Greece were from Egypt, particularly 
Cecrops, who being § earlier than Cadmus might have communi-- 
cated a knowledge of his alphabet to the Greeks. 
Tuis may be called the Pelafgic epoch of letters ; the Cadmean: 
prefents us with a mixture of old Phoenician and new Greek let-- 
ters, 
* Spanheim de preft. & ufu Numifm. Bernard. Orb. erudit. Literat. & alios. 
+ Biblioth. Choifie. Tom. xi. p. 50. 
$ Whos wig 0 rvm0g BapCupmos trav yopantypwy suMepesaros Avpuarriog, De.Gen. Socrate: 
§ Spagn. de ideis literar. p. 64. Rom. 1788, 
