175 



earlier period, an. 1837- Dionys. Halicar. Lib. I. §. 11. 

 However that may be, it is plain, the Pelasgic and Ionic 

 were nearly the same. 



Dionysius expressly says, the colony, conducted by Evan* 

 der, brought letters into Italy, Lib. I. §. 31, 33; and this 

 I think the most probable opinion. 



The Pelasgi occupying, in the earliest ages, the greatest 

 part of Greece, the letters they used, though the same as 

 the lonians also used, were more generally known under 

 the name of Pelasgic. Hence it is, that Orpheus and 

 Linus are said, by Diodorus, Lib. III. §. 66, p. 236, to 

 have written their poems in Pelasgic letters. But he coa-r 

 founds the first Orpheus, who, according to Solinus, p. 718 

 and 719, lived eleven generations before the Trojan war; 

 and, consequently, in the year before Chrifit 1j633, with 

 Orpheus, the Argonaut. 



The elder Orpheus then wrote long before the arrival of 

 Cadmus in Greece: for the proof of this I refer to Mr. 

 Jackson, who, in the third volume of his Chronological 

 Antiquities, p. 138, has treated this subject very fully. 



Mr. I'Archer, also, in the fourth volume, p. 256, of his 

 translation of Herodotus, has shewn, that the Pelasgic, 

 and ancient Attic letters, were the same; though he ac- 

 knowledges, that he is at a loss to account for their iden- 

 tity, or how they were introduced into Attica; not no- 

 ticing the Ionic descent of the Athenians. Herodotus, 

 Lib. V. §. 58, expressly tells us, that the lonians of old 

 had books, written on parchment, called Dipththerce. 



Lastly, 



