generations, if they be active and inquifitive, will poffefs the fame advantage over the prefent; and the advancement of language will continue to be proportionate to the progrefs of the arts and fciences.

By tracing the variety of alphabets and languages to one fource, we fimplify fubjects of curious inquiry; and we extricate ourselves from that perplexity, in which we should be involved, if we rejected an opinion fo conformable to reason, and which the more accurate is our examination into ancient hiftory, the more grounds we find to adopt. And it is a pleafing circumftance to obferve, that while we maintain a fyftem, fupported by the most respectable profane authorities, we strengthen the arguments in favour of the high antiquity of the Jewish language, and confirm its claims to be confidered as the parent language of the world.

Our preceding and fubfequent remarks on languages, both ancient and modern, and their com parative merits and defects, may lead to many ufeful inquiries and reflections, as the progrefs of human knowledge is clofely connected with the fubject. The art of writing has been the great means by which the understanding of mankind has been enlightened, their manners improved, their inventions perpetuated, and the comforts and pleafures of focial life increafed. As it would open an almoft boundless field of obfervation, if

we

we were to attempt to furvey all the advantages which the improvements of language and of litearture have produced, we muft confine our attention to fubjects of more immediate utility, and confider in detail those languages only, which arè particularly interefting, on account of the people to whom they belong, and the information which they conwey to us.

CHAPTER II.

The English Language.

THE impreffions made by the conquerors who have fettled in any particular nation are in few refpects more clearly to be traced, than by the change they have produced in the language of the natives. This obfervation may be applied with peculiar propriety to our own country: for after the Saxons had fubdued the Britons, they introduced into England their own language, which was a dialect of the Teutonic or Gothic. From the fragments of the Saxon laws, hiftory, and poetry ftill extant, we have many proofs to convince us, that it was capable of expreffing with a great degree of copioufnefs and energy the fentiments of a civilized people. For a period of fix hundred years no confiderable variation took place. William the Conqueror promoted another change of language, which had been begun by Edward the Confeffor, and caused the Norman French to be used, both in his own palace, and in the courts of juftice; and it became in a fhort time current among the higher orders of his fubjects. The conftant intercourfe, which fubfifted between France and England for feveral centuries, introduced a very confiderable addition of words, and they were adopted with very flight deviation from their original, as is evident from the works of our early writers,

writers, particularly Chaucer, Gower, and Wickliffe, and many other authors quoted by Warton in his curious and entertaining History of English Poetry. Such were the grand fources of the English tongue; but the ftream has been from time to time augmented by the copious influx of the Latin and other languages, with which the pursuits of commerce, the cultivation of learning, and the progrefs of the arts, have made our ancestors and ourselves acquainted.

The fame countries, which have fupplied the English with improvements, have furnished the various terms by which they are denoted. Music, fculpture, and painting, borrowed their expreffions from Italy; the words ufed in navigation are taken from the inhabitants of Flanders and Holland; the French have fupplied the expreffions ufed in fortification and military affairs. The terms of mathematics and philofophy are borrowed from Latin and Greek. In the Saxon may be found all our words in general ufe, as well as thofe which belong to agriculture, and the common mechanical arts.

But notwithstanding the English language can boaft of fo little fimplicity as to its origin, yet in its grammatical conftruction it bears a clofe refemblance to Hebrew, the moft fimple language of antiquity. Its words depart lefs from the original form, than thofe of any other modern tongues. The article poffeffes a ftriking peculiarity, differing from that in moft other languages, for it is indeclinable, and common to all genders. In the fubftantives

H 4

ftantives there is but one variation of cafe; and it is only by the different degrees of comparison, that changes are made in the adjectives, for they have no diftinction of genders. There is no variety of cons jugations, and there are no gerunds or fupines. The verbs preserve in many inftances very nearly, and in fome exactly, their radical form in the different tenfes, Almoft all the modifications of time, paft, prefent, and future, are expreffed by auxiliary verbs. This fimplicity of structure renders our language much eafier to a learner than Italian or French, in which the variations of the verbs in particular are very numerous, complex, and difficult to be retained.

The Abbe Sicard, well known as the humane and intelligent teacher of the deaf and dumb at Paris, took occafion to remark to fome travellers, that of all languages the English was the moft fimple, the most rational, and the most natural in its conftruction. As a proof of the truth of this affertion the obferved, that his pupils, as they began to learn the means of conveying their thoughts by writing, conftantly made ufe of Anglicifms *.

The English language is uniform in its compofition, and its irregularities are far from being numerous. The order of conftruction is more leafy and fimple, than that of Latin and Greek, Thefe peculiarities give it a philofophical character; and as its terms are ftrong, expreffive, and