The perfection of alphabetic writing consists in having a letter to represent every simple and distinct sound spoken among that people; and the whole alphabet of any people must contain all the sounds which can be articulated in their language. The combinations of the letters into words correspond exactly with the combinations of sound which are necessary for distinction of meaning; whether to express by simple sounds and simple combinations the ordinary occurrences of life, or by more extensive and diversified combinations to record important events, and to conduct the intricate processes of reasoning and science.

The imperfect languages of half-civilized tribes consist of but few sounds, and those not very distinct, but running into each other like vowels. When such tribes require additional words, to express newly acquired ideas, they supply their want of variety in sounds by many repetitions, forming words of most appalling articulation, consisting of twelve or fourteen syllables, as among the American Indians and South-sea Islanders. The perfection of language consists in the distinct articulation of every possible sound; and these sounds being from twenty to thirty, may, by combination, produce compound sounds which are literally exhaustless and infinite, as every arithmetician knows. The perfection of alphabetic writing consists in representing by a separate letter every one of the distinct sounds in the language, and by the combination of these twenty or thirty letters producing words in such variety as to be in like manner exhaustless and infinite.

Again if the written character be a language, and not alphabetic, but having a separate character to represent each word; or if, like the Chinese, it should consist of representatives of ideas; such written characters must of necessity be both very numerous and very fluctuating-as numerous as the distinct ideas of the people, as fluctuating as the changes or advances in knowledge and civilization. In all the above cases, and in every supposable case of the employment of alphabetic characters, variety would be an inseparable characteristic-variety in the characters of any one inscription, still greater variety in the comparison of many inscriptions. Inscriptions in alphabetic characters could not consist of repetitions of the same seven words, in the same order, to the end of the inscription, as this would be only a repetition of the same seven ideas: and when by comparison it is found that all known inscriptions begin with one and the same character, and consist of the same limited series of characters, four times repeated if of seven, three times repeated if of ten, the idea of their being alphabetic becomes quite absurd. It is not possible to find alphabetic writing in which every sentence in the language shall begin with the same word, and all the words in the same order and of the same number. It is not possible to find a language in which every inscription extant, amounting

to many hundreds, and still to be found by thousands among the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, shall be thus uniform: such inscriptions, it is manifest, would, if alphabetic, convey only the same ideas.

But it may be asked, are not these inscriptions the name of the brick-maker, as Dr. Hager supposes? To which it is sufficient to reply, that, though they all begin with the same character, and are arranged in similar series and order, there are variations enough to shew that such cannot be the case, even if all the brick-makers of Babylon had the same name: and the same characters, in the same order, occur in the first two lines of the long inscription on stone at the India-house; and also as the legend round a cameo of Belus in Tassie's collection, and on several seals of agate, jasper, and hematite, found among the ruins of Babylon.

It is demonstrable, from the inscriptions which we have, both from Nineveh and from Babylon, that the Ninevite bricks of two lines contain a series of seven characters in one line, a series of five or ten characters in the other line; and that the Babylonian bricks begin with a series of seven characters, which, by means of substituted or equivalent characters, is expanded into a series of ten, without obliterating the primary series of seven; as we shall explain further on. And it will appear, in the course of our explanation, that these are two series, for reckoning solar and lunar time; and that the inscriptions are monthly sol-lunar calendars for general use; the long stone inscriptions being the solar and lunar cycles, in reference to which the monthly calendars were constructed; the smaller inscriptions commemorating the inventor of the characters, whose portrait they accompany or surround.

The earliest inscriptions known are those from Nineveh ; some of which are on stone; some on brick, both burned and sundried. The stone inscriptions are very much broken and defaced, but where the characters can be traced they are found in the same order as on the bricks; though they are not in two lines, but three or more; and some of the largest stones consist of from twenty to twenty-four lines, which we are not yet prepared to explain. Of the brick inscriptions some are in a very perfect state; and these being very simple, we will begin with them, as introductory to an explanation of the more complicated inscriptions on the bricks of Babylon. The best collection of remains of Nineveh and Babylon is that made by Mr. Rich during his many years' residence at Bagdad, and now deposited in the British Museum; specimens of every known variety of character may be found therein; and from it our illustrations shall be taken, that our readers may be able to satisfy themselves on doubtful points, by referring to the real fragments.

The characters of Nineveh, Babylon, and Persepolis are distinguished by a radical difference of form, which is at once recognised by an accurate observer. But the bricks from Nineveh have the further peculiarity of being stamped on the edge, in all the best specimens; and the characters form two lines, when so situated. Each group of characters of these two lines is obviously stamped separately; some being wider asunder than others, and some being turned out of regular line, and of unequal depth, as will always be the case in impressions made separately by the hand.

The bricks from Babylon are stamped in the middle of the smooth side, leaving all round a margin as wide as the inscription; and the impression is made at once, from a single stamp or page, on which the whole inscription has been cut; and hundreds of bricks are found in the same wall at Babylon, all of which have been evidently struck from the same die. In one specimen in the British Museum, the corner of the stamp has flown under the pressure, like one of the medals of Cromwell; and in another specimen which we have seen the stamp was shattered into many fragments, another impression being made from another stamp on the other side of the brick. It would seem as if some superstition, or some oath, prevented them from repeating an impression, however imperfect; like the well-known oath required of the Egyptian priests, not to intercalate a day, or in any way alter the principal feasts of their gods. Considering the importance of guarding the national calendar from alteration, to which the priests for private ends might often be tempted, it is not unreasonable to suppose that they were bound by oath never to change or retouch the authorized stamp: it is the only way we can think of for explaining the existence of so many imperfect impressions, which could so easily have been rendered perfect by repeating the stamp while the clay was wet; for these imperfections, we are certain, did not arise from carelessness or want of skill.

In the Ninevite inscriptions of two lines, the first line always consists of seven characters, corresponding with the primary series of seven on the bricks of Babylon; the second line consists of either five or ten characters, corresponding with the secondary series of ten on the bricks of Babylon, into which the primary series expands. In different specimens from Nineveh the forms of the characters are slightly varied, but the number and order of the characters is always as above; and the change of form is manifestly only greater condensation or expansion of the parts which form a group, according as greater distinction between the characters themselves was aimed at by condensation, or greater distinctness in the component parts of any character by expanding them. It is only the accidental variety of a different age,

and greater attention to distinguish forms which might be confounded, and no change in the signification of the characters. In the plate No. I. we have given three specimens of entire inscriptions, on which we have numbered the characters; and it will be evident, on comparison of the three, that the arrangement and purport is the same in all, though some of the corresponding characters would not have been discovered to correspond if they had stood singly, and not in order in a series. It is by such comparisons alone that we can hope to decipher these characters, for we have nothing else whatever to assist or guide us: we must discover all we can know solely from the inscriptions themselves.

The general purport of these two series, of seven and of ten, we shall now briefly explain, as introductory to a more particular explanation of the same series in the more complicated characters of Babylon.

The inscriptions found at Nineveh are all only of one class of characters; those at Persepolis are of another class, but still only one class; but in the various inscriptions from Babylon the two classes, found singly at Nineveh and Persepolis, are both employed, and other characters also occur, which are peculiar to Babylon. This is to be accounted for by considering that at Babylon, as the source and continual resort of science for so many ages, all the sciences were assiduously cultivated, and recorded there in characters appropriate to each branch of science: from whence the Ninevites took that branch which they needed, and its characters; the Persepolitans another branch, suitable to their wants and locality. And the change of form which the characters underwent in passing to Nineveh and Persepolis is no objection to their common origin, any more than the change of form in the Hebrew character of Spain, Germany, and Poland; or the use of Black letter, and Italics, for various purposes in Europe; or, what is still more to the point, the changes which have taken place both in the numerals we use and in the chemical signs.

Babylon gave beginning to science and superstition of every kind. It took the lead in astronomy, whence all the other sciences have received their greatest impulse; and it engrafted thereupon astrology and magic, from whence almost every other superstition may be derived. The Ninevites took as much of Babylonian science as sufficed to keep solar and lunar time in some tolerable approximation, so as to regulate their employments in preparation for the rise of the Tigris, though it was not so regular or so important an event as the overflowing of the Euphrates. The Ninevite bricks contain the rough calendar by which they reconciled solar and lunar time; and many of the long inscriptions on stone seem to contain the data for determining the annual

inundations; which we infer from their resemblance to Babylonian inscriptions, which we have good ground for believing to be records of the rise and fall of the Euphrates.

Europeans are guided by solar time only, except in the fixing of Easter and its dependent festivals in the church. The Jews and Mohammedans, on the other hand, reckon by lunar time only the former intercalating sometimes a whole month (Ve Adar), sometimes a few days; but guided less by principles of science than by the maturity of harvest and fruits in spring and summer, and by the inconvenience of too many concurring holy days in Tisri: while the Mohammedans have no intercalation, but suffer the commencement or any point in the year to run the whole round of the seasons within forty years.

But in the early periods, of which we are treating, solar and lunar time were both regarded, and the chief business of the learned classes was to reconcile the solar and lunar year, by bringing both into correspondence with the seasons of the year and the known constellations. Every one who understands astronomy knows the difficulties involved in this reconciliation, that it requires accurate and long-continued observation: it therefore devolved upon the priesthood, every temple becoming an observatory, and a place of safety for depositing their records. In an idolatrous priesthood we need not wonder at their making a gain of science by every method they could devise; nor at their enhancing the value by increasing the mystery of that knowledge which the people continually needed, and could obtain only from the priests.

In Babylon, where the science was most diligently cultivated, the power of the priesthood was also greatest; and to the legitimate ascendancy which science naturally conferred, they added the dread of things mysterious and unknown. They were astronomers, and they persuaded the people to believe that they were likewise astrologers and sorcerers; they knew and could predict the motions of the heavenly bodies, and they pretended to hold communion with the stars, and with the invisible powers that ruled them, and that they could propitiate either for suitablę remuneration. Nor do we hesitate to declare, that it is our belief that these pretensions to supernatural power were often answered beyond the expectation of the priests themselves, through the agency of Satan, who ever hath an interest and a will in opposition to God and truth, and who would do all he could to uphold an ascendancy so like his own, and so favourable to his wiles.

This abuse of science, this perversion of wisdom, is the continual charge against Babylon, and the ground of her punishment in Scripture. "For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness; thou hast said, None seeth me. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge