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while Diodorus afcribes a cruel and ferocious barbarifm to tlie more 

 northern or European Scythne, infomuch, fays he, that Pontus acquired 

 the epithet, a|£iro?, {Lib. 4.) and while the excurfions of thefe people 

 have given them a kind of hiftoric notoriety, fo little fliould be known 

 concerning the Afiatic Scythx. Yet to their origin we are no ftrangers, 

 and are not at a lofs to find the fource of their poetry. The northern 

 Scythse, we find in the corre<fV and judicious Strabo, were the hordes 

 of Elam, or the old Perfse, whom he calls emphatically, xvrfmt oui^i;, 

 robbers ; yM ofnn, tfnypa. mmiSoTs?, men "who trujied to their difficult ??wun- 

 tains ; that is, thofe who inhabited the kingdom of Chederlaomer, one 

 of the four kings that caufed the five to ferve him, accoiding to the 

 hiftory of Mofes. (Gen. cap. 14. J Now, Strabo, and other ancient- 

 geographers fliew Elam to be the country lying between Media and 

 Mefopotamia. (Strab. Lib. \i.J Thefe Elamites therefore muft have 

 fpoken either the Hebrew, or an Hebraic Dialeft ; but after their de- 

 feat by Abraham, forming themfelves into a band or mafs, coUefted in 

 thofe flagitious and barbarous times, from the various kingdoms that 

 fcrved Chederlaomer, and fpreadlng north, (the fertile and more in- 

 viting plains of Greece having been preoccupied,) they fpeedily barba- 

 rized the tongne, their very wickednefs precipitating its downfall. But 

 independent of ancient authorities, and the fimilar habits of life ftill 

 common to the Scythse and ancient Elamites, we have certain Scythic 

 words that are evidently Eiymcean, or the old Perfic. The earlieft 

 orientals, we have feen, rhimed their poetry, and thefe men, various 

 and violent as they were, muft have brought with them fuch language 

 as they knew, or, properly fpeaking, had then an exiftence. And thus 

 we have the origin of our European rhimes, that had taken a fepten- 

 trional direftion fo early as the time of Abraham ; for in whatever 

 ihape the rhime may now come to us, or however mixed and varied, 

 it may be, ftill it will be found Scythic, and the Scythse at laft the 

 Jiirps of us all." " Hinc" " (fcil. Scythis) fays Vitringa, " Hinc Galli, 

 " Germani, Gothi, Sali, Celtx omnes orti funt, et Belgae noftrates, 

 jQcquid Anglos mcmorem, quod Galli et Britanni vetcres eodem ante 



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