n8 ANALOGY of GREEK LETTERS; 



tongues has prevailed ever fince the early ages of the world; 

 and fuch of them as have ceafed to be fpoken would have foon, 

 perifhed, had they not been committed to writing j by which 

 means, fome of them have furvived the wreck of nations, and 

 the other viciilitudes of human affairs. Of thefe, though 

 their genuine pronunciation be now, in a great meafure, loft, 

 we are (till able, after a confiderable degree of pains, not only 

 to underftand the meaning, but even to perceive the beauties ; 

 and, among the various forts of inftruclion which they convey, 

 we derive from them many efTential advantages in improving 

 and polilhing our own language. 



To none have we been more indebted in thefe refpecls, than 

 to the language of the ancient Greeks. As this is acknow- 

 ledged, by all who have ftudied it, to be the moft perfect * ; 

 fo the analogy perceived from an attentive obfervation of its 

 ftructure, even in the moft minute parts, is of all others the 

 moft complete and beautiful. Whence the Greeks borrowed 

 their alphabet, which they ufed with fuch fuccefs, I am not 

 here to enquire. That it did not originate with themfelves, is 

 univerfally agreed among the learned f. But it is no lefs cer- 

 tain, 



* See Mr Harris's elegant encomium of the Greeks and their language, of which he 

 was the great and rational admirer. Hermes, Book III. Chap. 5. Alfo, Dr Gregory 

 Sharpe, in the Preface to his Origin and Struclure of the Greek Tongue. 



\ It is the uniform opinion of ancient authors, that the Greek alphabet at firft con- 

 fifted only of fixteen letters, which were imported out of Phoenicia into Greece by the 

 celebrated Cadmus. [See Herodot. Terpjichor. cap. 58. "Plutarch. Sympof. lib. 9. 

 Iren. lib. I. cap. 12. Lucan. Vbarf. lib. III. See alfo, Dr Wilkins's EJfay,^. 11.3 

 Thefe fixteen letters, called K«Jw,£* y^ufAenx, and fometimes e-tificnec Ka^o, were the 

 two fliort vowels with the three ancipites ; the three fmooth and the three intermediate 

 mute confonants ; and the four liquids, with the folitary Tiyua. Palamedes is faid to 

 have added the three afpirated mutes, and the double confonant St, at the time of the 

 Trojan war. And Simonides is fuppofed afterwards to have invented the two other 

 double confonants and the two long vowels. See Montfau con. Palteogr. Gr. p. 115, 

 116, 117. And fee an enumeration of the authors who have written on this fubjeft in 

 Theophili Christoph. Harles Introd. in Hi/i. Ling. Gr. Pro/eg. p. viii. feqq. Alten- 

 ■lurg. 1778. 8vo. 



