S 2t TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



knowledge in the Arabic, has quoted from the Koran many 

 hundred words, either Abyffinian, Indian, Perfian, Ethiopic, 

 Syrian, Hebrew, or Chaldaic, which he brings back to the 

 root, and afcribes them to the nation they came from. In- 

 deed it could not be otherwife ; thefe caravans, continually 

 crowding with their trade to Mecca, muft have vitiated the 

 original tongue by an introduction of new terms and new 

 idioms, into a language labouring under a penury of vocabu- 

 les. • But mail any one for this perfuade me, that a book is a 

 model of pure, elegant, chafte Ehglifh, in which there mall 

 be a thoufand words of Welfh, Irifh, Gaelic, French, 

 Spanifh, Malabar Mexican, and Laponian ? What would be 

 thought of fuch a medley ? ;or, at leaft, could it be recom- 

 mended as a pattern for writing pure Englifli I 



What I fay of the Koran may be applied to the lan- 

 guage of Arabia in general : when it is called a copious 

 language, and profeffors wifely tell you, that there are fix 

 hundred words for a fword, two hundred for honey, and 

 three hundred that fignify a lion, Hill I mull obferve, that 

 this is not a copious language, but a confufion of languages: 

 thefe, inflead of diftindl names, are only different epithets. 

 For example, a lion in Englifli may be called a young lion, a 

 white lion, a fmall lion, a big lion : I flyle him moreover the 

 fierce, the cruel, the enemy to man, the beafl of the defers 

 the king of beafts, the lover of blood. Thus it is in Ara- 

 bic ; and yet it is faid that all thefe are words for a lion. 

 Take another example in a fword ; the cutter, the divider, 

 the friend of man, the mailer of towns, the maker of widows, 

 the fharp, the flraight, the crooked ; which may be faid in 

 Englifh. as well as in Arabic. 



Ths 



