ANTIQUITY OF WRITING. .*>7 1 



nomical observations, and naval and martial arts *. Curtius says, 

 that the Tyrian nation are related to be the first, who either taught 

 or learned letters H ; and Lucan says, the Fhenicians were the first 

 who attempted to express sounds (or words) by letters J. To these 

 authorities may be added that of Eusebius, who tells us, from 

 Porphyry, that " Sanconiatho studied with great application the 

 writings of Taaut, knowing that he was the first who inventedlt 

 ters ;" and on these he laid the foundation of his history. 



It is observable, that the Greek writers seem to have known no 

 older Hermes than the second Hermes or Mercury, who is record, 

 ed to have lived about four hundred years after the Mezrite Taaut, 

 or Hermes ; which second Hermes, Plato calls Theuth, and coun- 

 sellor and sacred scribe to king Thamus, but it is not said that h 

 ever reigned in Egypt : whereas the Mezrite Taaut, or Athothf-s, 

 as Manetho calls him, was the immediate successor of Menes, the 

 first king of Egypt. The second Mercury, if we believe Manetho, 

 composed several books of the Egyptian history, and many incredi- 

 ble things are attributed to him ; who being more known, and 

 more famous in Egypt than the Mezrite Hermes, and having im- 

 proved both their language and letters, the Egyptians attributed 

 the arts and inventions of the former, to him ||. 



The Phenician language has been generally allowed to be, at 

 least a dialect of the Hebrew; and though their alphabet doth not en. 

 tirely agree with the Samaritan, yet it will hereafter appear, that 

 there is a great similarity between them H. Arithmetic and Astro. 

 nomy were much cultivated by them, in the most early ages **. 



* Ipsa gens Phacnicutn in gloria raagna literarum inventionis et siderum, na- 

 valiumque ac bellicarutn artium. Nat. Hist. lib. v. c 12. 



+ Si famae libet credere htec (Tyriorum) gens literas-prima aut docuit, aut 

 didicit, lib. vi. c. 1. 



$ Phcenices prirai, famse si creditor, aussi^ 



Mansuram rudibus voccm signare figuris. Lib. iii. v. 220, 281. 



; , De abstinent, lib. ii. sect. 56. 



H Concerning this second Hermes, see Du Pin's Universal Historical Library 

 vol. i. p. 34 and 52 j and Jackson's Chronol. Antiq. vol. iii. p. 94. 



5 They had circumcision, as well as other customs, in common with the He- 

 brews, saith Herodotus. 



* They were from the beginning, as it were, addicted to philosophical exer- 

 cises of the mind } insomuch that a Sidonian, by name Moschus, is said to liavf 

 taught the doctrine of Atoms, before the Trojan war , and Abdomenus of Tyre, 

 challeuged Solomon, though the wisest king upon earth, by the tubtlu qnt-ui 



