[ 120 ] 
plain it in a manner perfectly new; T /hall beg leave 
to make a few curfory remarks upon what he has 
been pleafed to advance, on this occafion. Which-, 
remarks may perhaps be deemed not altogether un- 
necedary, as part of the infcription, according to M. 
1 Abbe s ledion of it, feems at lead; fomewhat involv- 
ed, if not wholly unintelligible and confequently 
will admit, unlefs I am greatly deceived, of a farther 
illudration. Nor can M. l’Abbe be difguded at my 
prefuming to differ in a few particulars from him, as 
he is not aded by a fpirit of odentation, or a third 
after applaufe, but the love of truth ; and as he has 
taken the fame liberty with one of my didertations, 
which the Royal Society did me the honour to pub-, 
lifh a few years dnce, upon a fimilar fubjed. 
I. 
M. r Abbe obferves, that “ in ( 2 ) the beginnings 
** the Phoenician letters were not didingui/hed from 
** the Samaritan ; but that mod of them in proeefs 
4t of time admitted of fuch great variations, that the 
“ traces of their origin are very frequently loft.” 
Hence it feems to appear, that the later any Phoeni- 
cian infcriptions are, the more the forms of their 
letters mud recede from thofe of the correfpondent 
Samaritan ; and, vice veria, that the more remote the 
duds of any Phoenician elements from thofe of the 
correfpondent Samaritan are, the later fuch charaders, 
and confequently the infcriptions formed of them, 
mud be. Let this be allowed, and it will be diffi- 
dently manifed, that the Maltefe infcription (which 
(2) Ibid. p. 39. 
our 
