365 Nofices respecting Xciv Books. 



upon all the known idioms, and the Pater Noster'in fivcbiiiv* 

 dred languages or dialects. 



We shall tlieu be in possession, within a verv narrow 

 conipas.', of the materials necessary tor resolving the splen- 

 did problem in the author's contemplation : we shall know 

 the characters and difFerences of each language, in order to 

 account for the progress, followed by reason and genius, 

 among the different races of mankind, for determining with 

 more certainty, or c'onjccturino; with more probability, the 

 origin of the idioms, and in part the history of the nations 

 who speak them. 



It would seem, however, that besides vocabularies, or 

 attempts at vocabularies, in each language or dialect, three 

 kinds of auxiliaries would be still desirable, in order to create 

 or render complete the comparative science of the idioms of 

 the whole earth. 



The first would consist in faithful pictures of all the in- 

 tonations and articulations of the known languages. 



The second, in the different alphabets of these same lan- 

 guages, exactly drawn, with explanations which should an- 

 nounce and determine the value of each character. 



The third, in order to serve as a kind of control, would 

 be the knowledge of all the intonations and articulations of 

 which the human voice is susceptible. It is thus that, in 

 the different artificial arrangements employed in botany, wc 

 prefer uniting the advantages of the natural order. 



But these auxiliaries are still wanting. 



The first and second, with respect to the dead languages ; 

 because, in general these languages have several characters 

 and vowels and consonants, upon the value of which the 

 learned are not yet agreed ; and with respect to certain lan- 

 guages in the Eastern part of Asia, because the characters 

 of these languages arc the signs of ideas, and by no means 

 of sounds or articulations ; and because, when pronounced, 

 they give, in each of these idioms, words completely 

 dissimilar with respect to perfectly identical ideas and 

 written sions : lastly, with respect even to the living lan- 

 guages, and the characters, of which represent intonations 

 and articulations, because, as repeatedly confessed by the 



editors 



