366 Mr. Carmic/iael o)i the [Nov. 



guished at present by the dipthongs a and a; he would indicate 

 simply by the character e. 



It is remarkable that the analysis of the first four verses of 

 the Mneid would have furnished its author, not only with all the 

 vowels, but with 14 consonants— a number almost equal to that 

 which exists in the modern alphabet. Were the same process 

 to be exercised on the succeeding verses, the deficiency no 

 doubt would soon be supplied, and all the Latin characters 

 appear in perfect array. Those elicited by the process we have 

 just been supposing would naturally occupy the following order, 

 if taken as they appear in the last arrangement of the columns, 

 beginning with the first and terminating with the fifth. 



And a glance of the eye will convince us that even these 

 without any addition constitute an alphabet very nearly per- 

 fect : for with respect to the characters deficient, d is but the 

 softened sound of t : h but an aspiration : k has the same power 

 as c hard : w is not necessary in Latin, or the languages origi- 

 nating from it : a; is a compound of c s: y differs little in its 

 powers from i : and z is but a softened s. 



Every step the inventor advances, the easier he finds the 

 succeeding. Having travelled through the analysis of the first two 

 columns, he has already discovered three vowels and 13 conso- 

 nants ; in the remaining three columns he has only two vowels 

 and one consonant to add to his possessions, for all the other 

 sounds, whether simple or complex, to be found in those columns, 

 have already been examined and arranged in his alphabet. 



At this stage of the process, we cannot but reflect on the 

 astonishment he must have experienced on thus discovering the 

 paucity of simple sounds existing in the complicated variety of 

 a language. Sixty-one syllables, containing 48 distinct sounds, 

 are reduced and simplified into 19 ; and these 19 are found in 

 prosecuting the investigation to be nearly sufficient to represent 

 the entire of a language. He might have previously reasoned 



