30 



the parent Hebrew, from which their language is but a barbarous de- 

 flexion.* The very learned Ludolfus, in his Ethiopic hiflory, L. 4. cap. 

 2., has obferved of the Ethiopians, "inter artes Hberales poefim maxime 

 *' amant, fed facram duntaxat ; ethnicam merito deteftantes. Carmina 

 " vero Ethiopum in meris confillunt rythmis ; fi rhythmos vocare licet coft- 

 " fonantes ejufdem ordinis verfum fliiientes, quamvis vocalibus diffonantes. 

 " Prceter eos vix uUum obfervari poteft metrura. Genera varia habent, 

 " prout in profodia novse grammaticas noftra? adjefta, fufius docebimus." 

 But unfortunately I am unable to prefent the academy with the promifed 

 fpecimen ; for, on a careful examination, I could find no profody attached 

 to that edition, which I confulted. One thing, indeed, candor obliges me 

 to confefs, becaufe it is at war with the principle I lay down, neither 

 have I any thing to offer againfl: it : but this learned writer has noticed 

 in his grammar, " nominibus, forma, ordine, et maxime ratione legend! 

 ab orientalibus differunt ; fcribuntur enim et leguntur dextrorfum more 

 latinorum, ut mireris in tanta hujus linguce cum reliquis orientalibus con- 

 venientia, tantam fcripturce diverfitatem ineffe." 



From iEgypt the tranfition is natural to China ; and fome, perhaps, 

 would give the peopling of this country the priority in point of time. 

 Like the Egyptians, the fettlers mull have brought with them the lan- 

 guage their fathers fpoke at Sennaar, together with fuch of its poetry 

 as was then in ufe. Now, we have feen the parent language refined 

 its verfe; and the firft laws of moft nations being delivered in poetry, 

 the venerable father of Chinefe philofophy borrows his political and 

 moral maxims from the poets of his country. Over thefe laws and 

 maxims time has fpread a facred ruft, and Itamped their rhirae with 



the 



* Ludolfus, however, fays that the jEdiiopic is the old Abyflinian language, that 

 originated in Saba, the country of the Homerites, who fettled in thofe parts, {JEth. Hift. 

 Cap. I.) But if the prefent jEthiopic be the old AbylTinian, then muft the language be as 

 ancient as its firft deflexion from the Hebrew, the very fame now that it was feveral 

 Ahoufand years ago ; probably no other than the old Egyptian, Abyflinia having never 

 teen civilized as -(Egypt was. The inference is, that the Abyffinian or jEthiopic language 

 having continued unaltered to the prefent day, when the jEthiopians rhme their poetry, they 

 but do as their progenitors had always done. 



