or occult doctrine, and ordered the same to be deposited in the tomb of Alexander, in order that, for the future, the perusing of them might be accessible to none. The other circumstance, was a consequence of the vengeance directed by Diocletian towards the Egyptians. He issued an edict, it is said, ordaining that all those works which had been composed by the antient Egyptians, treating of chemistry, should be sought after with care, and committed to the flames, under the jealous apprehension, that by the practising this art, the inhabitants of Egypt might accumulate wealth, and so be enabled to attempt a fresh struggle for the vindication of their dignity as a nation. I repeat here the assertion that I made a moment since, speaking of the influence of the Macedonian sway, with regard to the literature of Egypt; neither the subjugation of the inhabitants to the Roman power, nor the introduction and propagation of Christianity in Egypt, could ever annihilate the Egyptian tongue. And in justification of my assertion, numerous facts congregate in evidence. For it is particularly from the ecclesiastical writers we obtain a multiplicity of testimony, establishing, in a manner the most evident, that the Egyptian was retained as a common and vulgar tongue, up to the period of the Arabian conquest, and that a great number of those pious anchorites, who peopled the deserts of Thebais, and many bishops of upper and lower Egypt, were only acquainted with this language, to the ignorance of all others. It was moreover preserved during seven or eight centuries, under the Arabs; and although it has at length succumbed, and ceded place to the Arabesque, we have no cause for astonishment; every species of oppression, persecution, massacre, fire, sword, and banishment, having, since the conclusion of the second century of the Hegira, laboured incessantly for the destruction of the race of the antient inhabitants of Egypt, which was replaced from century to century, by new tribes of Arabs from Asia and Africa, either invited over by the government, in order to supply the place of the original proprietors, exterminated or expatriated, or rather attracted thither of their own accord, in the hope of plunder, and in consequence of the desertion of the primitive cultivators of the soil.

But some persons, perhaps, will say they do not dispute the existence of a language peculiar to Egypt, known under the appellation of the Coptic tongue, which might have been formed in the first ages of the Christian era. The subject of their argument, and for which they require proofs, is the identity of the Coptic with the ancient Egyptian. For it cannot be denied, (they contend,) but the Coptic contains a great number of Greek words, and, in all probability, is nothing more than a jargon composed of words borrowed from the Greek, and divers other idioms.

Such an objection, I do not fear to assert it, could be brought forward only by persons possessing but a very slender knowledge of the Coptic tongue; and notwithstanding that certain individuals of great erudition have believed, and observed some analogy between the Coptic and Hebrew, they have never been able to adduce, in proof of their opinion, only an inconsiderable number of words, of which the similitude may be attributed to chance. Again, I allege that in certain instances even, this resemblance proceeds from expressions borrowed by the Hebrew from

the ancient Egyptian language, and becomes, consequently, a fresh proof of the identity of the Coptic with the ancient Egyptian. For example, if the Hebrews call the acacia ww, or ww, the byssus ww, a cubit nos, expressions which are cognate with the Egyptian denominations, schonti, schens, ammahi, this affinity proceeds from their having acquired, in Egypt, the knowledge of the acacia and the byssus, (h) and because they were instructed by the Egyptians in the art of measuring. But to return, the introduction of Greek phrases into the Egyptian language, received its origin from various causes.

1. On the establishment of a new form of government in Egypt, at first under the Ptolemies, and afterwards under the Romans, it was absolutely imperative on the inhabitants to borrow from the language of their conquerors, the names for titles and dignities, and all those terms employed in affairs of the administration.

2. The Christian religion, introduced at an early age into Egypt, conveyed in its train a multitude of new ideas, entirely unknown to the inhabitants of this country, which consequently could not be expressed by any fixed terms of their language. Moreover, many expressions had been rendered sacred, in consequence of being solely appropriated to religious functions, and they were fearful of diminishing their signification by translation into an other idiom; under such circumstances, it was incumbent on them to have recourse to the Greek tongue, which was the language of the first preachers of the Gospel.

The translations of the books of the Old and New Testament, the Liturgies, and works of the Holy Fathers, from the Greek into the Egyptian, very much contributed to introduce Greek words into the Egyptian language. We might add, that many of those terms were only, perhaps, employed in books and composition, without being adopted or used in common conversation. Thus it is, that the modern Persian and Turkish compositions contain many Arabic words that are not observable in the same languages used in oral discourse.

3. Many of those who undertook to translate Greek works into the Egyptian language, when a word became unintelligible, or its equivalent not to be easily found in the other language, found it, doubtless, more convenient to transcribe it as in the original. Others again, in order to display their knowledge of the two languages, indifferently adopted Greek or Egyptian terms.

Besides, we must not imagine that all the Coptic works, which we possess, contain an equal number of expressions, corresponding to the Greek. Again, among the Greek terms to be met with in these works,

(h) The Byssus, called by the Greeks and Romans lana xulina or lignea, and sometimes uλov, and by the Hebrews bytz, appears to have been derived from the Egyptian Bws (boos lignum. Bw and Bo still mean Evλov in Coptic, (Woide, lex. 13.)

It appears from the Holy Scriptures, that it was chiefly from Egypt that cloth, made of this fine flax, was brought. Fine linen, with embroidered work from Egypt. Pliny says that the dress and ornaments of the ladies were made of itproximus Byssino mulierum maxime deliciis genito.

we should with difficulty find any that have not their equivalent in the Egyptian.

A strong argument might be deduced from the Coptic even in favor of its identity with the antient Egyptian. In the first place, I would ask the advocates for the contrary opinion, to which of the known languages do they attribute the production of the Coptic, and I challenge them to find in the dictionary of LaCroze, according to the edition published by Woide, one hundred words which they could refer to the Hebrew, Arabesque, Ethiopian, or even to the Greek or Latin, at the same time granting them all those privileges that etymologists so frequently assume. But the grammar of the Coptic language, and its system of synthesis, shall form the principal feature of my discussion. For it is on that principle we can clearly ascertain, whether a plurality of languages have or have not one common origin. If any person were to acquaint me with the synthetical system of a people in communion with Egypt, from the time of Alexander until the reign of Omar, whose language could have given birth to the grammatical system of the Copts, and should he bring the least shadow of probability in support of his doctrine, then I shall concur with him, in believing the Coptic language to be totally dif ferent from the ancient Egyptian.

I not only consider it impossible to furnish the proof that I solicit; I shall go farther, and I do not hesitate to say, that the Coptic yet preserves in its grammatical system, many features of the physiognomy peculiar to an idiom which has been a long time written in hieroglyphic characters (i). This assertion demands a short explication.

It is more than probable, that in the origin of language, every word was a simple monosyllable, and every monosyllable expressive of a simple idea. The monosyllables being invariable, did not admit of this aggregation of ideas, which were represented in process of time by a single word. When we use the Latin expression amamus, this word

(i) There are four kinds of hieroglyphical characters. 1. The cyriologic or proper hieroglyphic: And is where the idea to be expressed is of something visible and capable of being represented picturally, and for that reason so represented. For instance the ideas of being born; dying can be represented by the figures of an infant and an old man. 2. The three remaining kinds are symbolic; a symbol being the representation of one thing by the figure of another, or by a figure that is not its own, exclusively. This second kind of hieroglyphics is called proper symbolic, and differs from the cyriologic only in this, that it falls short of perfect and exclusive imitation. Thus the Egyptians, when they would express the idea of the sun, drew the figure of a circle; of the Moon a crescent: where it is plain that the expression is incorrect; the circle being as correct a representation of the Full Moon as of the sun, and the Crescent no representation at all of the Moon when Full.

3. The next of the symbolic hieroglyphics is the tropic; and hieroglyphics of this nature are the most common. Thus fire was represented by smoke; the field of battle, by two hands, one equipped with a shield, the other with a bow; agricul ture by an ox: where Melonymy, Synecdoche, and metaphor are respectively em ployed.

4. The remaining symbolic hieroglyphic is called the enigmatic, and is distin guishable from the tropic only in this; that the allusions are more implicated,and the tropes, by consequence, less obvious. Thus the sun was represented by a Beetle; the number five by a Star; the Mouth by a serpent.

primarily and principally conveys the idea of love, as being the attribute of an individual. Independently of that, it expresses three accessary ideas: 1st that this attribute is common to many individuals; 2nd that those individuals themselves speak; 3rd that it is at the present moment this attribute appertains to such individuals. Amamus implies all that, because it is the first person plural, present tense of the verb amare.

But if the invariable monosyllable am, originally expressed the idea of love, it was necessary to add other monosyllables, in order to indicate the person, number, and tense. We may surmise, that the syllables, nos, nunc, am, or me, plus, nunc, am, were employed, as the Chinese actually say ngo muen kin ngai (I many now love(j)). Again, let us imagine two nations, which at the period when their languages were monosyllabic, employed at the same time a character, and let us suppose that one of these people,-the Latins for example, possessed an alphabet; whereas, the Chinese, if we will, used only an hieroglyphic form. The former, from a tendency natural to man, who is desirous of abbreviating his expression, have by degrees, and by a system of which it is frequently impossible to discover the traces, reunited the monosyllables which were expressive of the accessary ideas of gender, number, and tense, to those which represented the principal ideas. In this reunion, each of the accessary monsyllables will have suffered suppressions, alterations, and permutations to such a degree, as to appear no longer discernible; and a single polysyllabic word, formed after this manner, shall have become as a mould into which shall have been cast all those terms which should affix the same accessary ideas to a distinct monosyllable. Thus, after the same mode, that an equivalent of me, plus, nunc, am, shall have been obtained in the single expression amamus, in like manner will have been formed from the monosyllables, dic, doc, duc, ed fac, the words dicimus, docemus, ducimus, edimus, facimus.

With the Latins, in whose language we suppose an alphabetic character, this character having only to represent sounds, will have become subservient to all the variations through which these four syllables me, plus, nunc, am, shall have passed, before they have attained the form of the compound polysyllable amamus.

The Chinese, on their part, will have been also induced to abridge the form of expression; but the character will have presented to them an invincible obstacle to the infusion of monosyllables into a single polysyllabic word, for their characters not representing sounds but ideas; should it have been necessary to combine characters like monosyllables, their number would be so augmented, they would be so encumbered with a multiplicity of lines and lineaments, that it would have been impossible to commit them to memory; even the Chinese have preserved their system of monosyllables invariable, and have not been able to purchase brevity but at the expense of perspicuity, by suppressing certain monosyllables, which should express certain accessary ideas. For

The original has it, Je plusieurs maintenant amour; so the expression love is here employed as a noun.

instance, in the expression, ngo muen, ngai, (I more love,) they have omitted the monosyllable kin, which is the sign of the present tense? (k) What I have observed with respect to a people, who might have had an alphabet at the epoch, when their language was yet monosyllabic, equally applies, and perhaps with more force, to nations whose language was formed, and rendered polysyllabic, before they possessed an alphabetical character.

The Coptic does not discover so clearly as the Chinese the effect which I attribute to hieroglyphics, with regard to language; the reason of which is very perceptible, since all the testimonials of the former, which we have any knowledge of, are posterior to the period wherein the application of hieroglyphics had entirely ceased, and as the language consequently had been already divested of much of this character. Moreover, as I have already observed, the Egyptians, from a very remote antiquity, had been in possession of an alphabetic character concurrently with the hieroglyphic (2). All these circumstances, however, prevent us not from discovering, even now, in the system of the Coptic tongue, very visible traces of this character, which is so glaring in the Chinese.

Thus, in the major part of the Coptic nouns, the plural differs not from the singular, the prefixsion of a monosyllable being the distinguishing characteristic of the two numbers.

The same may be observed with respect to the formation of the genders. They are rarely indicated by a variation in the termination. They are usually specified by annexing the article, or by addition of the words male or female.

The nouns have no cases. Certain particles being prefixed, supply these grammatical forms so essential, in order to indicate the relation of the noun with the verb.

Do abstract nouns produce concrete nouns, or the contrary? Do substantives form verbs, or verbs substantives? All such formations are effected by the addition of divers monosyllables, such as, μɛt, μvt, geo, aа,ат,аμ‚аv.εμ, EQ, Og, etc. It is true that these prefixed monosyllables are now united, in composition, to the word expressive of the principal idea; but they admit not of contraction, or promiscuous arrangement; for example, μETOEDE? TETOV, malice, is composed of μer, which indicates a quality, pep, which designates the attribution of a quality to an individual; g signifying to do; TET, compounded of the article, and of the conjunctive or relative ε7, meaning that which, and finally

μετ,

(k) According to the best authorities, there are considerably more than eighty thousand characters in use among the Chinese, although they have scarcely fifteen hundred distinct sounds or words, which gives, at an average, full fifty characters or senses to a single word. It is, in fact, to acquire a systematic knowledge of things and not of words; and it constitutes nearly the whole education of the learned in China. To write Chinese character, therefore, is a task of much greater difficulty than to acquire the Chinese language.

(1) L'ecriture consistait d'abord en hieroglyphies, e' est à dire, en un grand nombre de figures, qui representaient confusement les objets. Quaud on connut les caractères alphabetiques, une de plus belles inventions de l'esprit humain, les pretres conserverent l'usage des hiéroglyphies, afinde cacher leur science au vulgaire.