C 121 ] 
our author Teems to have had principally in view, 
when he made the preceding obfervations) is fe- 
veral year9 at lead; poderior to the days of Simon, 
prince and high-pried: of the Jews. The alphabet 
therefore deduced from this infcription, which differs 
pretty condderably from that exhibited by the fepul- 
chral dones found in the ruins of Citium, ought not 
to pafs for the true antient Phoenician alphabet, that 
prevailed over fo great a part of the Ead in the earlier 
ages. 
From the paffage here produced we may farther 
infer, that the Phoenician infcriptions either coeval 
with the Samaritan coins ftruck by Simon, prince 
and high pried: of the Jews, or older than thofe 
coins, mud: be formed of letters, for the mod part, 
extremely dmilar to the Samaritan. And this we 
find in fad to be true. Many of the elements 
therefore of thofe infcriptions may be more eafily 
difcovered by the abidance of Simon’s medals, than by 
that of any monument of antiquity feveral hundred 
years later. Nay, the powers of many letters, allowed 
to belong to the Phoenician alphabet, have been actually 
afcertained by means of the correfpondent elements 
on the Samaritan coins. We mud not therefore too 
hadily admit, or too clofely adhere to, whatM. l’Abbe 
has been (3) pleafed to lay down, in the mod unli- 
mited terms, as a certain and indubitable truth ; viz. 
that tc a Phoenician alphabet ought by no means to 
“ be founded upon the affinity of its letters with thofe 
<c of other alphabets.” The alphabets he himfelf 
has given us, incomplete as they are, will be confi- 
dered as a fufficient refutation of this aflertion. 
(3) Ibid. & Planch. I. 
R 
Vol. LIV. 
What 
