ANTIOUITT OP WRITING. 3fl7 



dorus relates, that this Egyptian Hermes was the inventor of gram, 

 mar ami music, and that he added many words to the Egyptian 

 language : that he invented letters, rhythm, and harmony of 

 founds. This was the Hermes so greatly celebrated by the Greek 

 writers, who knew no older Hermes than him. 



Mr. Wise * insists, that Moses and Cadmus could not learn the 

 alphabet in Egypt ; and that the Egyptians had no alphabet in their 

 time. He adduces several reasons to prove that they had no al- 

 phabet till (hey received what is called the Coptic, which was intro- 

 duced either in the time of the Ptolomeys, or earlier, under Psam- 

 mitichus or Amasis: and these letters, which are the oldest alpha- 

 betic characters of the Egyptians that can now be produced, arc 

 plainly derived from the Greeks It seems to us, that if the Egyp- 

 tians used letters before the time mentioned by Mr. Wise, they 

 were probably the characters of their neighbours the Phenicians. 



Herodotus, the most ancient Greek historian, whose works have 

 reached us f , seems very sincere in his Egyptian history ; for he 

 ingenuously owns, that all he relates before the reign of Psammi- 

 tichus J is uncertain; and that he reports the early transactions of 

 that nation on the credit of the Egyptian priests, on which he did 

 not much depend. Diodorus Siculus is also reported to have been 

 greatly imposed upon by the priests in Egypt. 



Manetho, the oldest Egyptian historian, translated out of the 

 Egyptian info the Greek the Sacred Registers of Egypt, which are 

 said, by Syncellus, to have been written in the sacred letters, and 

 to have been laid up by the second Mercury in the Egyptian 

 temples. This work was divided into three parts. The first, con. 

 tained the history of the gods; the second, that of the demi-gods; 

 the third, the dynasties, which ended in Nectanebus, King of 

 Egypt, who was driven out by Ochus, three hundred and fifty yean 

 before Christ. This author seems to have written his dynasties 

 about two hundred and fifty years before the Christian aera, and, as 



See his Enquiries concerning the first inhabitants, language, &c. of Eu- 

 rope, p. 104109. 



+ He wrote his history of the first year of the eighty-fourth olympiad ; three 

 hundred and ten after the foundation of Rome; nd four hundred and forty- 

 four before Christ. 



| He reigned about six hundred and sixty years before the Christian era. 

 Syiicellug informs us, that the Greek* had very little commerce with the Egyp- 

 tians till the reign of this king. 



