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GENERAL LITERATURE, &c. 



Letters. 



The servile letters are the vowels A, E, I, O, U ; 

 the digamma, V or B ; the liquid, M, N, R ; the 

 aspirate, S ; and the mute, T. All the additions and 

 variations to any primitive or radical word, serving 

 to distinguish the different circumstances of time, 

 number, sex, manner, c., are made by them. 



Printing. 



The first book printed in the English language 

 was Wyllyam Caxton's Recuyel of the Historyes of 

 Troy, by Raoul le Feure, folio. Colen, 1471. A 

 copy of this work, which formerly belonged to Eli- 

 zabeth Gray, Edward the 4th's Queen, was bought 

 from the Roxburgh collection by the Duke of De- 

 vonshire, for 1060. 185. 



The annals of Typography begin with the Codex 

 of 1457; but the secular feast in memory of the 

 invention of printing, in the 40th year of the century 

 (1440). If this tradition be right, the art, in 1457, 

 had been already exercised seventeen years. 



The Digamma. 



The Greek Digamma is oriental in its form and 

 power. It is the Phoenician, or rather the Hebrew 

 ) or V, which turned from the left to the right, ac- 

 cording to the European manner of writing and read- 

 ing, resembles the F (g) or gamma of the Greeks ; 

 and therefore placing one on the top of the other 



