co SSPOpPPRYIAUY (Oh sy 
With Wisdom’s voice to print the'page sublime, 
And mark‘invadamant thesteps of times 
—Thrée favour’d youths list softatrestion share, 
The fond disciples of the stidions:fairs 9° 
Hear her sweet ‘voiee, the golden proces ‘prove j ” a 
Gaze, asthey learn; and, as they listen, Tove. | 
The first'from Alpha'to Omega joitis’ @ | 
The'letter’d tribés-along the level'liness" : 
Weighs with’ nice ear the vowel, ‘Viquid, surdy a 
And breaks insyllablesthe volant'words 4 | 
Then forms the next ‘upon the marshal’d plain 
In deep’ning ranks his dext’rous cy pher-train; 
And counts, as wheel the decimating bands, 
The dews of Egypt, or Arabia's sands, A 
And then thethird’or'four concordant lines 
Prints the lone crotchet, and the quaver joins ; 
Marks the'gay trill; the solemn: pause inscribes, 
é _And parts'with bars the undulating tribes. 
Pleas’d, round her cane-wove throne, th’ applauding crowd 
Clapp’d their radevhanis, their swarthy foreheads bow’d ; 
With loud acclaim, a “ present God: ” they cry’d: 
“ A present/God! ”? rebellowing shores reply’d=— ~ 
Then peal’d at intervals with mingled swell! A 
The echoing harp, shrill clarion, born, and:sbell; 
While bards ecstatic, bending o’er the: lyre, 
Struck deeper chords, and wing’d the song with five, — 
Then mark’d astronomers, with’ keener eyes, ah 
The moon's refulgent journey through the skies - 
Watch’d the swift comets, urge their:blazing carsy 
And weigh’d the Sun with his revolvmg stars. 
we 
it 
may be said to have been perpetually in their infancy,asthearts of ene a or 
country generally died withtheir inventors... Whence arosethe policy, whieh still 
continues in Hindostan, of obliging tke son to practise the profession of his father. 
After the discovery of ‘letters, the facts of astronomy and chemistry became re- 
corded in written langdage, thoogh’ the ancient hieroglyphic characters for the 
planets and metals continue ‘io use atthis day. The antiquity of the invention of 
music, of astronomical observations, and the manufacture) of gold and\iron, are 
recorded in Scripture. , — Treats | 
About twenty letfers, ten cyphers, and seven crotch’ts, represent by their nume- 
rous combinations af our ideas and sensations ! the musical eliaricters are probably 
arrived at their perfection, unless emphasis, and tone, and'swell,could be xpressed, 
as well as note and time. Chanlesothe Twelfth) of Swedenj had-a design to have 
introduced a numeration by squares, instead) of by decimations which might have 
served the purposes of philosophy better tnan the presen mode; which is suid to be 
of Arabic invention, The alphabet is yet in a very imperfect state ; perhaps se- 
venteen letters could express all the simple sounds inthe European Nevers In 
China they have not yet learned to divide their Words into syHibles and arehence 
necessitated to employ many thousand characters : it ivslid above eighty thousand. 
It is to be wished, in this ingenious age, that the European nations would aceard to 
reform our alphabet, 
hel Sai - Gg3 High 
