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I N S 
INSCIEN'TIOUS, adj. Ignorant. Cole. 
To INSCON'CE, v. a. To fecurej to fecure as with a 
fort. Skdkefpeare. 
INSCRI'BABLE, adj. [from infcribe. ] Capable of be¬ 
ing infcribed. 
To INSCRIBE, v. a. [ infcribo , Lat. infer ire, Fr.] To 
write on any thing. It is generally applied to Tomething 
written on a monument, or on the on tilde of fomething. 
It is therefore more frequently ufed with on than in .—• 
Connatural principles are in themfelves highly reafonable, 
and deducible by a ftrong. procefs of ratiocination to be 
moll true ; and confequently the high exercife of ratioci¬ 
nation might evince tlw ir truth, though there were nofuch 
originally infcribed in the mind. Hale's Origin of Mankind. 
Ye weeping loves! the llream with myrtles hide, 
And with your golden darts, now ufelefs grown, 
Infcribe a verfe on this relenting (lone. Pope . 
To mark any thing with writing : as, I infcribed the ftone 
- with my name. To affign to a patron wdthout a formal 
dedication.—One ode which pleated me in the reading, I 
have attempted to .tranllate in Pindaric verfe; ’tis that 
which is infcribed to the prefent earl of Rochefter. D>yden. 
—To draw a figure within another.—In the circle infcribe 
a fquare. Notes to Creech’s Manikins. 
INSCRIBING, f. The all of marking with an inferip- 
tion ; tlie aft of dedicating. 
INSCRIPTION, f. [Fr. inferiptio, Lat.] Something 
written or engraved: 
This avarice of praife in time to come, 
Thofe long inferiptions crowded on the tomb. Dryden. 
Title.—Joubertus by the fame time led our expectation, 
whereby we reaped no advantage, it anfwering fcarce at 
all the promife of the infeription. Brown. —Tonfignment of 
a book to a patron without a formal dedication. 
Inscriptions, ancient. Antiquaries are very curious in 
examining ancient inferiptions exifting on Hones and 
other monuments of antiquity. Thefe are of fuch ufe to 
hiltory, that none who have excelled in it ever fuppofed it 
unneceffary to confult them. No monuments whatever 
can come in competition with them for antiquity. They 
were known even before barks of ‘trees were ufed for 
writing. Stone and metals appear to have been the only 
fubltances for writing in thofe times, when the elements 
of thefciences, or the hillory of the world, were engraved, 
by the firft learned men, on the columns mentioned by 
Jofephus. This cuftom is alfo proved by thofe in- 
icriptions faftened to columns, which, Porphyry (de Abji. 
Anim.) tells us, were preferved with Co much care by the 
Cretans; and what puts the antiquity of thefe pieces out 
of‘all doubt is, that they deferibe the facrifices of the Co¬ 
ry bahtes, and are quoted by Porphyry to prove, by the 
molt ancient monuments, that the firft facrifices confilled 
only of the fruits of the earth, w ithout any bleeding vic¬ 
tims. But, although Pliny afferts that the firft writing 
was on palm-leaves, and aftervyards on the rind of certain 
trees, that this cuftom was fubfequent to that we have 
mentioned is unqueftionable ; and, befides, the materials 
of which the firft books were compofed is all he fpeaks 
of. Euhemenes, according to Laftantius, had made ahif- 
tory of^Jupiter, and the other fictitious gods, wholly 
taken from the religious inferiptions which were to be 
found in the molt ancient temples, and chiefl)'' in that of 
Jupiter Triphylius, where an infeription on a golden pil¬ 
lar teftified, that it had been fet up by the god himfelf. 
Porphyry, as cited by Theodoret in his fecond difcowrfe 
againlt the Greeks, fays the fame thing of Sanchoniathon, 
“ He collected his ancient hiftory from the records of all the 
cities, and the monuments in temples, which from the 
ufageof thofe times could be no other than inferiptions.” 
And Pliny himlelf,' in his 9th book, relates, that the Ba¬ 
bylonian aftrologets ufed bricks to perpetuate their obler- 
vations. “ Among the Babylonians (fays he) are to be 
found planetary obfervations, made 720 years ago, cut 
INS 
out on bricks.” This was undoubtedly Owing to a diffi¬ 
culty, or rather ignorance, of writing, which made it he- 
ceflary to ufe folid bodies to keep the invention of arts 
and fciences, that they might not beeffaced by barbarifim, 
and a more enlightened pofterity deprived of their ufe. 
This cuftom appears to have been of long continuance ; 
for, in Porphyry, we find Arimnelhes, the fon of Pytha¬ 
goras, offering in the temple of Juno a brafs-plate, con¬ 
taining a fcheme of the fciences. “ Arimnelhes (fays 
Malchus), on his return home, fet up in the temple of 
Juno, a brafs table as a gift to pofterity; it was two yards 
in diameter, with this introduction: Arimnelhes, the 
fon of Pythagoras, offered me to the deity of this temple, 
as the fruits of his wakeful nights, which were well com- 
penfated by the pleafure of an acquaintance with the fci¬ 
ences.” Simus, the mufician, having Conveyed it away, 
affumed to himlelf a rule taken from it, and palled it 
upon the world as his own. The fciences exhibited were 
feven-in number; but Simus, cutting off that part which 
contained one, occafioned the lofs of all the others. 
By this it appears, how long the great men. of antiquity 
continued without any other means of acquiring thofe 
aftonilhing lights which they diffufed over the world. 
Pythagoras and Plato are fuppofed to have learned philo- 
lophy only 'from the inferiptions engraven in Egypt on 
the columns of Mercury; this was likewile their me¬ 
thod for the improvement of others. An Italian writer, 
in his Chronicles of Calabria, tells us, that M. Aure¬ 
lius kept, among his favourite curiofities,' a ftone which 
Pythagoras had placed over the door of his academy, 
on which was this fentence, engraven by the philo- 
fopher’s own hand : “ He, who knows not what he fliould 
know, is a brute among brutes; and he who knows no more 
is but a man among brutes ; but he is a god among men, 
who knows all he can know.” Even our inventive ao-e 
has not a more effectual prefervative againlt the injuries 
of time, or any furar way of rendering the names of our 
heroes the admiration of pofterity. It is what Hannibal 
did in a temple of Juno, in the province where he fpent 
the lummer, after.the battle of Cannse : “ He dedicated 
(fays Livy) an altar, with a long detail of his achieve¬ 
ments, engraven in Punic and Greek.” This inftance, 
by the way, may corroborate the opinion, that all inferip¬ 
tions, relative to the fame of great men, fliould be in the 
common language of the country where they are placed. 
This Hannibal adopted, and no man was ever more 
fond of honour and reputation. The two languages he 
employed in his eulogium were certainly the tnoft genial 
of any.. The Punic, unquellionably, had the preference 
in this infeription, as the language of thofe upon whom 
all his greatnefs depended'; and, when he added the lan¬ 
guage which was then the moll universal, he was equally 
aftuated by ambition and policy, by caufing his enemies 
to repeat his praifes, and recording to his defendants the 
fuperiority of Carthaginian valour. The inferiptions 
which are likewile to be met with in Herodotus, Diodo¬ 
rus Siculus, Poiyasnus, Krantzius, Olaus Magnus, &c. 
the manner in which they are introduced, and tiie autho¬ 
rities draw’ll from them, are fufficient .proofs that this was 
the primitive way of conveyingrinftruclion, or perpetuat¬ 
ing glorious aCtions. This is more particularly confirmed 
in a dialogue of Plato, called Hipparchus, where it is faid, 
that the lonof Pififtratus, of the fame name, ordered a fyf- 
tem of agriculture to be carved on pillars, fortheinftruftion. 
ol hulbandmen. The uni verlality of this practice likewile 
appeals from this expreffion of St. Gregory of Nazianzen, 
in his funeral orationon his brother, where, fpeaking of his 
learning, he fays, “the call and well are fo many columns 
whereby it is made public ;” fo that it is not a groundlefs 
conjecture, that the archives of cities and empires, for a 
long time, .confilled only of fuch memorials as Hones, 
marble, and brafs pillars, plates of copper, lead, and other 
metals. “Afterwards (faysPliny), public monuments 
and inferiptions on ftieets of lead came in ufe; and in the 
Maccabees we find, that the treaty of alliance of the Jews 
with 
