49 



I fliall only add, that Le Clerc in the BMoth. choifie, Tom. ii. 

 Art, 2. has given us impreflions of twelve Phoenician medals, with their 

 infcriptions, found by his friend Mr. Bary in j^i^^lufia, the letters on 

 which are evidently Hebrew. The learned author "bvTers no conjefture 

 as to their age, or how they might have come there, but I think it 

 extremely probable, they may be as old as Plautus's Hanno, who it is 

 certain, took the rout of Spain, and voyaged via Gibel-Tarack. 



While it is now univerfally agreed that the Greeks were defcended 

 either from the Phcenicians, or ^gytians, or perhaps from both, we na- 

 turally enquire, how it happens, that in the form and conftruftion of 

 her language, Greece fliould differ fo materially from the oriental? 

 The anfwer is not difficult. So early as the time of Abraham, Greece 

 began to be peopled from the eaft. Their oriental origin is fatisfaftorily 

 made out in the two Chronica of Eufebius and Marflaam, Herod. L. 

 II. Strab. L. 6, Meurftus de Reg. Athen. Voffius de Orig. et Progr. 

 Idol, and other authors. The language of the fcttlers would not have 

 materially differed from the pure oriental. Vitringa and Father Kircher 

 fliew at large its rife and progrefs ; the latter proving the ancient Greek 

 to have as nearly refembled the ^Egyptian, as the prefent Italian re- 

 fembles the Latin: and indeed Paufauias has noticed a ftatue of Aga- 

 memnon, extant in his time, the infcription, on which was written Iccv- 

 orfum, fjTi TO. >^M EX. J^iav How then, it will be alked, came their lan- 

 guage to defleft in a manner fo extraordinary ? Their commerce, un- 

 doubtedly, was a principal caufe, the numerous and commodious ports 

 of Greece receiving into her bofom an influx of Grangers, whofe 

 various dialefts compofed in no long time a language diltinft from what 

 the colony had brought with it. Their pride too, which induced them 

 to afcribe their origin rather to the earth as grafshoppers, or even to 

 aboriginal robbers, and piratical adventurers, than to barbarians, as they 

 affefted to call the Orientals, had a large fliare in this change, and 

 might prompt them, more even from choice than from neceffity, to 

 flrike out a language for themfelves. Their great talents, favoured by 



Vol. IX. G a propitious 



