Lo] 
and Suetonius. From their length and uncouth fhape thefe anti- 
quated letters‘:appeared more like marks than alphabetic elements, 
and hence the Greeks named them cyware and eyuae; and for the 
fame reafon the Romans, * Not, and thefe were the syuera of 
Homer, and the gowmino onuarea Kadue of Sextus Empiricus. It is 
very ¢ uncertain when Homer lived, but let it be when it may, 
Greek manners and the Greek language were advanced in their 
progrefs to refinement; he, therefore, with ftri@ propriety and 
correct attention to the ideas of his age, calls thefe obfolete letters 
not ypaypare but cmere. Nor could Pratus have ufed any other 
than the latter ; for Sifyphus, grandfather of Bellerophon, was 
coeval with Cadmus, the former beginning his reign at Argos 
forty-five years after the latter founded Thebes, fo that the hifto-- 
rical fact and the reafoning agree perfectly together. 
I nave { elfewhere fhewn, that as foon as the power of letters 
‘was known among rude people, immediately occult qualities were 
_ afcribed to them by thofe who were ignorant of the art of writing, 
and of this I have alleged fome inftances. The Egyptians had 
their epiftolographic, hieratic and hieroglyphic letters ; the Idci 
Daétyli, who were § Phoenicians, invented the magic Ephefian 
characters long after the introduction of the new Greek alphabet: 
the Romans fuppofed fome divine and occult quality to be in let- 
Vou. IV. (B) ters, 
* Nota alias fignificat fignum, ut in pecoribus, tabulis, literis, fingule litere aut bine. 
Felt. Queelibet figna feu f{eriptalia elementa. Marcellin. 
+ Eufeb. prep. Evang. lib. 10. 
{ Antiquities of Ireland, fup. p. gt. 
§ Newton, fup. p. 147. 
