i820.] Invention of Alphabetic Writing. 361 



preserve them for succeeding ages. Nay, without an alphabet, 

 they would perhaps have perished during the very life of the 

 poet who produced them ; or possibly the most admired of his 

 episodes, would have continued their ephemeral existence only 

 80 long as his memory could retain them. Let us then imagine 

 a Homer, a Virgil, or a Milton, carried away by his sublime 

 conceptions and the melody by which he gave them utterance, 

 satisfied that they were worthy to excite emotions of delight and 

 wonder in the latest posterity, yet persuaded that they were 

 destined to vanish from existence, even at the moment they 

 flowed from his lips : let us imagine those circumstances, and 

 we shall have no difficulty in conceiving how an enthusiastic 

 individual impressed with these emotions would exert every 

 power of his intellect, to preserve from annihilation compositions 

 which ought to be immortal. The motive would be sufficient 

 for any labour of invention however surprising ; and it may not 

 be an uninteresting employment to discover, if possible, the 

 progressive steps by which the task might have been accom- 

 plished. 



Whether the inventor was of India, Chaldea, Phoenicia, or 

 Egypt, he has not succeeded in transmitting to our days the 

 verses which he intended to immortalize ; or even a name that 

 might justly rank, among the most illustrious of mankind, 

 beyond that of Homer himself. Yet in the place of those works, 

 for whose celebrity he perhaps alone was interested, he has 

 bestowed upon us a gift of more value and interest than an hun- 

 dred Iliads. Not that it perpetuates those divine compositions 

 which have humanised man, ameliorated his nature, and elevated 

 his character with the traits of nobleness and magnanimity ; 

 not that it has enabled him to record with unequivocal precision 

 his observations and sentiments, and to argue, discuss, and 

 ascertain, with pre-eminent accuracy, every shade of probability, 

 and limitation of truth within the cognisance of his faculties. 

 Not that it facilitates his progress in natural, moral, or intellec- 

 tual philosophy, and the discovery of those simple and admirable 

 laws by which the earth and the universe, matter and mind, are 

 so wonderfully governed ; but because this extraordinary gift, 

 which I am almost tempted to call divine, even while I am prov- 

 uig it to be human, opens at once the doors of knowledge to all 

 mankind : roots up the labyrinths of darkness that surrounded 

 every temple of science ; and admits, not the philosopher, and 

 the legislator only, but the citizen, the mechanic, the rustic, and 

 the labourer ; nay, the whole mass of society, civilized or dawning 

 into civilization, within these portals, from which, without its 

 simple but powerful assistance, it must have been helplessly and 

 hopelessly excluded. 



How little did the original inventor conceive the inherent 

 powers of his invention, destined to be one day multiplied ten 

 thousand fold, by the less profound, but.no less important, dis- 



