IV PREFACE. 



far beyond the earliest records of the Bible 

 and other known sources of information, it 

 has ever since been treated, when not passed 

 over in utter oblivion, more as one of the 

 curiosities of literature than as a valuable 

 record of the past ; and though slightly 

 referred to by Salmasius, about two cen- 

 turies ago, in a way which might have 

 opened up a controversy as to the authen- 

 ticity and date of its supposed antiquity 

 and authorship, the matter seems to have 

 been allowed to fall still-born from the 

 press. This may in some way be accounted 

 for by the ignorance of scholars before our 

 day of the principles of Comparative Gram- 

 mar, that ingenious art of criticism which 

 becomes the key by which modern philology 

 is enabled to enter the deep recesses of the 

 past, and expose to view records which, for 

 want of it, were inaccessible to the ancient 



