ANTIQUITY OF WRITING. o?5 



merce of the Euphrates ; whilst the Phenicians traded to the most 

 distant countries. 



Notwithstanding the above circumstances, which may seem to fa- 

 vour the claim of the Syrians, the oldest characters or letters of that 

 nation that are at present known, arebut aboutihree centuries before 

 the birth of Christ. Their letters are of two sorts : the Estrangt-lo, 

 which is the more ancient ; and that called the Fshito, the simple 

 or common character, which is more expeditious and beautiful *. 



INDIANS. 



THE period of time is happily arrived, when the study of oriental 

 literature is not only become useful, but fashionable. The learned 

 Sir William Jones greatly facilitated the attainment of the know, 

 ledge of the Persian language ; Mr. Richardson that of the Arabic ; 

 and Doctor Woide, the Egyptian and the Coptic ; by the publica. 

 tion of their respective grammars. Mr. Halhed, the editor of a 

 work intitled the Gentoo Laws, hath written a grammar of the 

 Shanscrit language t, which he informs us, is not only the grand 

 source of Indian literature, but the parent of almost every dialect 

 from the Persian gulph to the Chinese seas, and is a language of 

 the most venerable antiquity ; and, although at present shut up in 

 the libraries of Bramins, and appropriated solely to the records of 

 their religion, appears to have been once current over most of the 

 oriental world, as traces of its original extent may still be dis- 

 covered, in almost every district of Asia. 



" There is,'' says Mr. Halhed, " a great similarity between the 

 Shanscrit words and those of the Persian and Arabick, and even of 

 Latin and Greek ; and these, not in technical and metaphorical 

 terms, which the mutation of refined arts and improved manners 

 might have occasionally introduced, but in the main ground. works 

 of language; in monosyllables, in the names of numbers, and the 

 appellations of such things as would be first discriminated, on the 

 immediate dawn of civilization. The resemblance which may be 

 observed in the characters upon the medals and signets of various 

 districts of Asia, the light which they reciprocally reflect upon each 



* See these characters in the Univ. Hist. vol. ii. p. 994. 



f This ingenious gentleman, assisted by Mr. Wilkins, a descendant of the 

 learned bishop of that name, not only formed ihe ij pes of the (ienioo alp Irabel , 

 tout printed this grammar, at lloogly in Bengal, 4to. 177*. 



24 



