1^8 



nishment, was, anciently, the most: usual :* and, in thoscf 

 early ages, such crimes were very frequent.-f Each new 

 criminal, with his famil}^ resorting to those of a similar 

 description, soon forgot his native language, and adopted 

 that df the tribe with which his family had been iricorpoJ 

 i^ated. How soon a language, spoken by comparatively 

 few families, is lost in that of the society to Avhich they 

 aire aggregated, appears, in many instances. The Jews lost 

 theirs, at Babylon, in about seventy years; dnd BarroW, 

 in his highly entertaining and instructive account of Chi- 

 na,!, tells us, the French refugees, at the Cape of Good 

 Hope, lost theirs in less than seventy years: and so it 

 must ever happen, Avlien communication with the parent 

 stock is not frequent and easy. Even at present, the 

 English language has undergone some variation in America. 

 But the great and sudden transition, from the prime\'al 

 language to a multitude of heterogeneous languages, hap- 

 pened, as Moses relates, several centuries after the Flood, 

 in the plains of Shinaar. Immediately after that catas- 

 trophe, the children of Noah were ordered to people the 

 earth: for' this purpose, it was necessary they should se- 

 parate. But, having antecedently associated the idea of 

 separation with' tha.t of exile, tliey long persisted in rc- 

 ' ■ ---. ' mammg 



* See Le Clerc, in Genes. iV.' 2. Diodorus, Lib. III. cap. iv. 2 Goguet, 

 2 56. Grotius, in Matth. V. p. 6S. 

 t Thucyd. Lib. L c. r. 

 X Page 42ji. 



