Particularly of the LETTER 2ITMA. 119 



tain, that wherever they got the firft fketch of an alphabet, 

 they improved it very much, not indeed inftantly, but gradu- 

 ally, till they brought it to that ftate in which we now fee 

 it, in the twenty- four different characters whereof it is com- 

 pofed *. 



To point out completely the analogy which the Greek wri- 

 ters obferved in the ufe of each of thofe letters, would lead 

 into a very wide field. At prefent, I propofe only to enquire 

 particularly into the nature and principal ufes of one of them, 

 I mean the liiyfAcc. This, being the fign of a fingular fort of 

 found, has been ufed, in the ftructure of the Greek tongue, in 

 a manner different from every other letter ; and therefore the 

 Grammarians have generally allotted to it a fingular place in 

 their arrangement of the different component members of the 

 Greek alphabet. It will be impoffible, however, to treat of 

 the 3,7yp,u, without making mention of certain circumftances 

 incident to the other confonants. 



PART I. 



THE letter Tiypu, was commonly fo called by the inhabi- 

 tants of Greece, its iflands and colonies, except the Do- 

 rians, who, as we learn from Herodotus, gave it the name 

 of Ikv j\ Dionysius of Halicarnaffus alfo mentions this 



Doric 



* Callistratus, the Grammarian of Samos, is faid to have arranged the Greek al- 

 phabet in the order in which we now find it, when Euclides was Archon of Athens, 

 See Foster's .E^y on Accent and Quantity, p. 41. 2d Edit. 



\ &a.£iilS fi\v t« «•«» KxhiBcrt/'lwn; "hi a'typst. Lib. I. 



