IMITATIVE AND SYMBOLICAL. 275 



But an exception is made by many learned and excellent men in favour of 

 one species of writing; namely, that of alphabetic characters, which is con- 

 ceived to be so far superior to every other method, as to have demanded and 

 justified a special interposition of the Deit}' at some period of the creation; 

 and, by turning to the Pentateuch, a few texts, we are told, are to be met with, 

 \vhich seem to intimate that the knowledge of letters was first communicated 

 to Moses by God himself, and that the Decalogue was the earliest specimen 

 of alphabetic writing. 



Such was the opinion^of many of the fathers of the Christian church, and 

 such continues to be the opinion of many able scholars of modern times : as, 

 among the former, St. Cyril, Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, Isidore; and 

 among the latter, Mr. Bryant, Mr. Costard, Mr. Windar.* And it is hence 

 necessary to remark, in addition to what has already been observed, that, so 

 far from arrogating any such invention or communication to himself, Moses 

 uniformly refers to writing, and even to alphabetic writing, as an art as com- 

 mon and as well known in his own day as at present. He expressly appeals 

 to the existence of written records, such as tablets or volumes, and to the 

 more durable art of engraving, as applied to alphabetic characters. Thus, in 

 the passage in which writing is first mentioned in the Scriptures, " And the 

 Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book or ta6/e."f And 

 shortly afterward, " And thou shalt make a. plate of pure gold, and grave upon 

 it, like the engravings of a signet, HOLINESS TO THE LoRD."J The public seals 

 or signets of oriental princes are well known to be of the same description 

 even in the present day, and to be ornamented with sentences instead of with 

 figures or mere ciphers. In the State-Paper Office, at Whitehall, there are 

 still to be seen a number of letters from Eastern monarchs to the kings of 

 England, with seals of this very kind, the inscriptions of several of which are 

 copied by Mr. Astle into his valuable work upon the present subject.^ 



In that sublime and unrivalled poem, the book of Job, which carries intrin- 

 sic and, in the present individual's judgment, incontrovertible evidence of its 

 being the work of Moses, we meet with a similar proof of the existence and 

 general cultivation of both these arts, at the period before us ; for it is thus 

 the afflicted patriarch exclaims, under a dignified consciousness of his in- 

 nocence : 



O ! that my words were even now written down : 



O ! that they were engraven on a table : 



With a pen of iron upon lead: 



That they were sculptured in a rock for ever!|| 



Nor do the Hebrews alone appear to have been possessed of written cna 

 racters at this era. Admitting Moses to be the author of this very ancient 

 poem, we find him ascribing a familiar knowledge of writing, and not only 

 of writing but of engraving and sculpture, to the Arabians; for of this 

 country were Job and his companions. And if, as appears from the preceding 

 passages, the Hebrews were generally acquainted with at least two of these 

 arts at the time of their quitting Egypt, it would be reasonable to suppose, 

 even though we had no other ground for such a supposition, that the Egyp- 

 tians themselves were equally acquainted with them. 



We have also some reason for believing that alphabetic writing was at this 

 vtery period common to India ; and either picture-writing or emblematic wri- 

 ting to China. The Hindoo Scriptures, if the term may be allowed, consist 

 of four distinct books, called Baids or Beids, Bedas or Vedas, which are con- 

 ceived to have issued successively from each of the four mouths of Brahma ; 

 and of these, Sir William Jones calculates that the second, or Yajur Beda, 

 may have been in existence fifteen hundred and eighty years before the birth 

 of our Saviour, and, consequently, in the century before the birth of Moses 

 whence, if there be any approach towards correctness in the calculation, the 



Compare Astle's Origin of Writing, &c. p. 11, 4to. f Exod. xvii. 14. 1 Ib. xxriii. 30 



$ Origin and Progress of Writing, p. 14, 4to. 1803. |} Job, xix. 23, 24 



S3 



