: 
402 
the privity of the direétory, is organizing, 
not a committee only, but a colony of im- 
furreétion, which he intends to direct, 
en moffe, againit the Englifh Weft India 
iflands. It is for this purpofe he has 
armed and regenerated the recently 
emancipaied blacks, and erected a guil- 
lotine to terrify the planters. After ap- 
pearing in fuch a number of different 
chara‘ters, this fingular man, whatever 
may be tie final cataftrophe, has enfured 
to himfelf a mcbe in the temple of 
hiftory ! ia\s 
[To be continued. } 
a Eee 
LETTERS FROM Dr. SYKES. 
( Now. jr ft publifoed from the Originals.) 
To Dr. GREGORY SHARPE. 
DEAR Re 
NCE s of the 13th inftant I received 
i nicht, andI could not but fit down 
to ete you for it this morning as foon 
as I could get a moment. Mr. Morris, 
happy Mr. Morris, this moment is gone 
from me to get inftituuon to Milbrook 
rectorv, a parfonage ac ie to his own, 
of 2001. per annum, as itis faid. "Tis hardly 
fo much, I welieee: but not much fhort, 
His wares ready to lie in, fo that the 
child 1s to be looked on as an appendage. 
It is a fine provifion, and I hope the lucky 
man will enjoy it, J thank you for your 
kind thoughts of us, and onmany accounts 
with you cut of that ill ftate of attendance 
and dependance. But it gives you time 
for a thoufand things which you would 
{carce find time or leifure for, were you 
engaged as I wifh and hope you will be: 
but as it is, I hope to reap the benefit of 
your hours, for Lam fure they will net be 
mifemployed. I have the afves 
not a poem, but a joco-ferious difcourfe upon 
what its title holds forth. It will certain- 
ly entertain, and I make no queftion teil 
you fome things which you perhaps ay 
not have obferved ; and indeed it is a ridi- 
cule upon laborious q quorations, or rather it 
was defizned to fhow with what eafe a man 
may acquire the reputation of learnednefs, 
without much ‘ftudy*. I hear the fame 
noisivogs 

* In a letter to Dr. ee from J. William, 
Efg. enc. dated about the fame time, the 
wrtcr fays, “© A pleafant man, Archdeacon 
——, has publith: G Oivo Kash oc, Rot more 2 
ch brake the antiquity and excellency of t 
liquor, than to abufe the labortous oftentation of 
karning im commentators upon 
> 
trifes ; it is-a 
Original Letters.of Dr. Sykes. 
{ June 
author has another differtation upon the 
antiquity of boghoufes, which he will — 
oblige the world with in the fame tafte. 
You revive in my mind a melancholy 
thought, when you mention tome Arabic. 
1 couid once—but other things havedi- 
verted me fo much, that I have almoft, [ 
will fay quite, forgot it. Dr. Hunt ts the 
only confiderable proficient that way that 
I know: his Egyptian author [ fubferibed 
for two or three years ago; and _I rejoice 
to hear it goes forward. It is true that 
the prefent Arabie vowels. were not in- 
vented till long after the Coran; but as it 
is a living lanzuage, {pread far ‘and wice, 
I fuppofe | there may not be the fame liber- 
ties taken with it as with a dead language. 
You know there are Arabic books printed 
without vowels, as there are Hebrew. But 
then there are right founding vowels in a 
living language, I mean expreffive ones of 
the true found which living people make, 
which are not in the ere tongues. If 
you were, inftead of alcoran, to found the 
word alciran or leciron, it would not be 
Arabic, but fomething elie, and (if a word) 
it would not exprefs the book celled in 
Arabic the Coran. In dead languages it 
fignifies no great matter how the pronun- 
Clation is, provided we read it, but I ap- 
prehend there is a manifeft difference in 
the cafes, betwixt living and dead lan- 
guages; and I dcubt whether the powers 
cf the confonants will always teil us right 
what Ufus, which is the Norma loquendi, 
was. ButI do not confider that I aa 
writing to a mafter in thefe things. ‘The 
analogy of letters will certainly thow a great 
fimilitude in the found of feme Lenguages 
but who can argve ‘© pronunciation. or 
found, even in neighbouring nations, 
where the fame letter is ufed? If a Ger- 
man or a Dutchman have the fame letter, 
and in the fame order as a French or En- 
glifhman in their alphabets, it would be a 
faife inference to argue thence that they 
gave the fame or cven a like found to it. 
Nay, in our tongue we give as different 
founds to the fame letters a3 if it were qu uite 
a differentone. I am fenfible that a great 
may curious obfervations may be made 
upon the origin, derivation, and reiation 
of languages to one another, and i dowbe 
not but you have made many upon this oc- 
cafion, which I thall have great pleafure 
in feeing. WhatI have feen of this fere 
by one and another, in my little reading, 




toof about 4c pages, and it 
ae hee 
laugh when you are at leifure.’ 
from }. W, Bjg Ponts me. C. 
will make you 
Second Lecter 
hes 
cw 
