i*d LANG 
In wild confufion: for they neither knew 
Ti!e-cover’d houfes (landing in the fun. 
Nor timber work ; but, like the earth-bred ant. 
They lodg’d in funlefs caves dug under ground; 
No certain fign had they of winter cold. 
Nor of the flow'ry fpring, or funimer llore. 
But blindly manag’d all; till I them taught 
What time the (tars appear, what time they fet. 
Hard to be fcann’d : then arithmetic rare, 
That queen of arts, by dint of patient thought 
Pefcry’d, I taught them ; and how vocal founds 
From letters join’d arofe. Ver. 441. & feq. 
This character, though applied to mankind in general, 
was in reality that of the moft ancient Greeks. Thefe for¬ 
bidding features had been tranfmitted to the poet by tradi¬ 
tion as thole of his anceftors: he was a Greek, and of con- 
fequence imputes them to all mankind without diltinCtion. 
Phoroneus, the fon and fuccefl'or of Inachus, is faid to 
have civilized the Argives, and to have taught them the 
ufe of fome new inventions. This circumftance raifed 
his character fo high among the favage aborigines of the 
country, that fucceeding 3 ges deemed him the firft of 
men. Pelafgus obtained the like character, becaufe he 
taught the Arcadians to live upon the fruit of the fagus , 
to build fheds to fhelter them from the cold, and to make 
garments ot the (kins of fvvine. 
But what clearly deinonftrates the unpoliflied character 
of the moft ancient Greeks is, the extravagant honours 
iavillied by them upon the inventors of ufeful and inge¬ 
nious arts. Molt of thefe were advanced to divine ho¬ 
nours, and became the objeCls of religious wol'(hip to fuc¬ 
ceeding generations. The family of the Titans alfords a 
moft linking inftance of this fpecies of adulation. Jupi¬ 
ter, Juno, Mars, Apollo, Venus, Diana, &c. fprung from 
this family. By the ufeful inventions which thefe per- 
lonages communicated to the uncultivated nations of 
Greece, they obtained fuch lading and luch extravagant 
honours, that they juftled out the (idereal divinities of the 
country, and poilefled their high rank as long as Paga- 
nifm prevailed in thofe regions. 
While matters were in this fituation with refpect to 
the primitive Ior.im, or Greeks, a new colony arrived in 
thofe parts, which in a few years confiderably changed 
the face of affairs. The people who compofed this colony 
were called Pelafgi ; concerning whofe origin, country, 
character, and adventures, much lias been written, and 
many different opinions exhibited by the learned. It is 
not our province to enter into a detail of their arguments 
and fyftems ; we (hall only inform our readers, that the 
general opinion is, that they were natives either of Egypt 
or Phcenicia. Be this as it may, nothing is more certain 
than that the Pelafgi were the firft people who in fome 
degree civilized the lavages of ancient Greece ; and, whe¬ 
ther we fuppofe them to have been the offspring of the 
Phoenicians, Egyptians, or Arabian (hepherds, it will make 
little difference as to their language; every man of learn¬ 
ing and refearch is convinced that thofe three nations, ef- 
pecially at that early period, fpoke a dialed of the He¬ 
brew. The Pelafgi, then, muft have fpoken a dialed! of 
that language when they arrived in Greece. Perhaps it 
might have undergone feveral changes, and acquired fome 
new modifications, during fo many years as had palled 
fince they began to be a leparate nation, and in the courfe 
of fo many peregrinations. Some monuments Hill extant 
prove this fad beyond all contradiction. As thefe people 
incorporated with the aborigines of Greece, the remains 
of the original language of mankind, or at leaf! fo much 
of it as had been retained by them, gradually coalefced 
with that of the new iettlers. From this, we think, it is 
obvious, that, prior to the arrival of the new colonills from 
the ealt, the language now current among the two united 
tribes mult have been a dialed of the Phoenician, Ara¬ 
bian, Hebrew, See. Be that as it may, Herodotus affirms 
that the Pelafgi in his time fpoke a barbarous language, 
«|uitc unintelligible to the modern Greeks. 
U A G E. 
The reafon of this difference between the language of 
the Hellenes, or Greeks, in the age of Herodotus, and 
that of the remains of the Pelafgi at that period, feems to 
be this: Prior to the time of that hiltorian, the Greek lan¬ 
guage had, from time to time, undergone many changes, 
and received vaft improvements ; whereas, on the con¬ 
trary, that of the remnant of the Pelafgi, who were now 
reduced to a very low ftate, had remained ftationary, and 
was then juft in the fame predicament in which it had 
been perhaps a century after their arrival in the country. 
As the Pelafgi, as was obferved above, were a people 
highly civilized and well inftxuded in the various arts at 
that time known in the eaftern world, they were fkiiled 
in agriculture, architecture, mufic, Sec. The prefumption 
then is, that they could not be unacquainted with alpha¬ 
betical writing. This moft ufeful art was well known in 
the countries from which they emigrated ; and of courfe 
it is impoffible to imagine that they did not export this 
art as well as the others above-mentioned. Diodorus Si¬ 
culus imagines that the Pelafgi knew not the ufe of alpha¬ 
betical letters, but that they received them from Cadmus 
and his Phoenician followers; that thofe letters were af¬ 
terwards called Pelafgic, becaufe the Pelafgi were the firft: 
people of Greece who adopted them. This account mult 
go to the fcore of national vanity, fince very foon after he 
acknowledges that Linus wrote the exploits of the firft: 
Bacchus and feveral other romantic fables in Pelafgic cha¬ 
racters ; and that Orpheus, and Pronapides the mafter of 
Homer, employed the fame kind of letters. Zenobius 
likewife informs us that Cadmus (lew Linus for teaching 
characters differing from liis. Thefe letters could be none 
other than the Pelafgic. 
Paufanias, in his Attics, relates, that he himfelf faw an 
infeription upon the tomb of Coraebus, who lived at the 
time when Crotopus, who was contemporary with Deuca¬ 
lion, was king of the Argives. This infeription then was 
prior to the arrival of Cadmus; and confequently letters 
were known in Greece before they were introduced by 
this chief. It likewife appears, from Herodotus himfelf, 
that the Ionians were in pofleffion of alphabetical charac¬ 
ters before the coming of the Phoenicians. “For (fays 
he) the Ionians having received letters from the Phoeni¬ 
cians, changing the figure and found of fome of them, 
ranged them with their own, and in this manner continued 
to ufe them afterwards.” Lib. i. c. 58. 
Befides thefe hiftorical proofs of the exiftence of Pelaf¬ 
gic characters, monuments bearing inferiptions in the 
lame letters have been difeovered in leveral parts of Greece 
and Italy, which place this point beyond the reach of con- 
troverfy. What characters thefe were may be eafily de¬ 
termined. As the Pelafgi emigrated from Arabia, the 
prefumption is that their letters were Phoenician. They 
are faid by Dr. Swinton to have been thirteen in number, 
whereas the Phoenician alphabet conlifts of fixteen. The 
three additional letters were probably invented by the lat¬ 
ter people after the Pelafgi had left the eaftern quarters. 
The Phoenician letters imported by the Pelafgi were, no 
doubt, of a coarfe and clumfy contexture, unfavourable 
to expedition in writing, and unpleafant to the fight. Be¬ 
fides, the Phoenician characters had not as yet received 
their names; and accordingly the Romans, who derived 
their letters from the Arcadian Pelafgi, had no names for 
theirs. The probability is, that prior to this era the Pe¬ 
lafgic letters had not been diftinguiflied by names. They 
were of courfe no other than the original letters of the 
Phoenicians in their firft uncouth and irregular form ; and 
for this reafon they eafily gave way to the Gad mean, 
which were more beautiful, more regular, and better 
adapted to expedition. 
Hitherto we have feen the Pelafgi and the Ionim incor¬ 
porated, living under the fame laws, fpeaking the fame 
language, and ufing the fame letters. But another nation, 
and one too of vaft extent and populoufnefs, had at an 
early period taken pofleffion of a conliderable part of the 
country afterwards diftinguiflied by the name of Hellas, or 
* Greece. 
