FROM this discovery of Diodorus concerning Homer's master, it is easy to see his reason for bestowing great applause upon the Pelafgians. He faw his master, Pronopides, teaching him knowledge, probably in their language and letters, and his love of learning inspired him with an high veneration for a people, of whom he was one, and through whom the moft fublime literature was conveyed to him, whofe tafte was fo exquifite, and the enjoyment of his refined knowledge fo great, that he was transported to exprefs his gratitude to his glorious predeceffors, in the work which immortalized himself.

I MUST here add another reason for my opinion, that the works of Homer were tranflations from the Pelafgic: now, if we confider, by way of analogy, the state of the English language at this time, and its condition before, and at the time of, Chaucer, furely we must own it to be now in its perfection, and that it required a long time to bring it to its prefent improvement. Is not this the case of Homer's writings, as we now have them before us? The language is in its perfection, and required no less time to ripen it, than every one of the European tongues has taken up for its cultivation. Many would be apt to fay, the language of Chaucer was very barbarous; and, perhaps, he might have thought that of his ancient predeceffors was so too, compared with his own: just so the Greeks, in their day, counted the language of the Pelafgians; and it was fome centuries after Cadmus, that the Greek language appeared in the ftate in which the claffics are handed down to us.

OUR

OUR language is a mixture of several, and yet each of thefe, from which it has borrowed its parts, is perfect too: fo that the English tongue is now exactly in the fame ftate, with regard to its component parts, that the Greek was in, in the tiine of Lycurgus; and it is not unlikely that he had some hand in tranflating Homer's works; for it is more than probable tha the understood the Pelafgian, as he refided among them for several years, in forming the codex of laws he afterwards established at Sparta.

THERE is also another argument, and, in my opinion, not a trivial one, which induces me to think, that, if these old authors, mentioned by Diodorus, used the Pelafgian letters, they must have wrote in the language of the Pelafgians only; and that is, that as they had but feventeen letters, which were always fufficient, in every case, in their own language, they can hardly be faid to have wrote in Greek, which cannot be expreffed without additional letters, to the amount of twenty-four; and it is plain, from what is faid in other places of this work, that seven were added to the seventeen primary letters, as the alterations in the Pelafgic were going on; for new powers were wanting, to express the mutilations and additions that gradually were introduced into the old language, which, at length, grew into a new one. Diodorus very punctually distinguishes between the old and the new, where he mentions the poem Phrygia, of the Pelafgian poet, Thymates, on Dionyfius.

Explanation of the table of ancient alphabets.

N° 1. The ancient Irish and Welsh letters, from the Pelafgians, confifting of only feventeen characters; with which the records, genealogies, poetry and hiftory of both were anciently written: placed in their original order, which order was never altered till their converfion to Christianity by St. Patrick, in Ireland. This order is explained in the fequel.

N° 2. An alphabet taken from a manufcript of the Latin

Gofpels, wrote in Ireland, supposed to be about 800 years old (I think much older), not at all different from the former.. I faw another, of the Gofpels, not fo ancient, both in the British Museum, not in the leaft deviating from the former; and, indeed, the characters in the Irish Bible, printed by order of Bishop Bedel, of Kilmore in Ireland, in 1685; and thofe of Begly's English-Irish Dictionary, printed at Paris, anno 1732, have no effential difference from the original. This fhews, how neat and pure these letters were kept in their true form, whilst the old Greeks and Latins wrote them in a more clumsy manner. I have seen many Irish manuscripts of very different ages, all neat and exact, and all alike; with no more than seventeen letters, through all their works, in hiftory, poetry, aftronomy, &c. the reasons of this number of letters will appear in the sequel. N° 3. A Saxon alphabet (Dr. Morton's twenty-third) of

which I have only copied the feventeen primary letters; for, as they are manifeftly taken from the

Irish, which will be proved by and by, I have neglected the fecondary characters, which they in later times adopted from the Romans, as thefe did the Greek additionals to the feventeen primary letters, when parts of other languages crept into the original tongue of the old inhabitants in Italy. N° 4. Is the fourth of Chisbul's alphabets, at the bottom of Dr. Morton's table, entitled, e Græco-Latinæ ad Dextram. The four last of these five lines of characters are alike, and from the same source, beyond all doubt; the two former of these are said to be, e Phœniciis totidem Cadmeæ Græc. modo utroque fcriptæ; that is, from left to right, and from right to left: and the laft is faid to be Etrufca ad lævam verfæ. N° 5. Is the eighth alphabet of Dr. Morton's table, intitled, Alphabetum Græcum Cadmi, five Ionicum, ante Criftum ann. 1500. e Nummis Siculis (Æginenfibus), Baotis, Atticis, aliifque. Now, if we compare these with that of Simonides, (I mean the primary seventeen characters), being Dr. Morton's ninth, called Græcum Simonidis five Atticum, ante Chrift. 500, we shall find it to be the very fame; but those of more modern times, to wit, of Alexander the Great, Conftantine the Great, Juftinian, Heraclius, Leo Ifaur. Charles the Great, and of Bafil, are mixed, and changing gradually into what the modern Greek alphabet now confifts of, with the fecondary letters ; yet their affinity with the ancient characters is very apparent. And, what is very remarkable, all the Latin feventeen primary letters, in the feventeenth column,

Ccc 2

column, 714 years before CHRIST, in the eighteenth
of ann. Chr. 1, in the nineteenth of ann. Dom. 306,
in the twentieth of ann. Dom. 400, in the twenty-
first of ann. Dom. 500, and the Alphabetum Fran-
cicum of that year, are the very fame with the pri-
mary seventeen of the ancient Greek characters, or,
at least, with very little difference; and fo are those
of the Gothic, with very trifling alterations, which
is the following:

N° 6. The twenty-fourth alphabet of Dr. Morton's table,
intitled, Alphabetum Gothicum e Græco et Latino,
ann. Dom. 388, Ulfilla Authore. The letters of
this line are manifeftly from the fame fpring, that
is, the primary, and they are faid to be e Graco et
Latino. Now, it is fomething odd to suppose these
the invention of Ulfillas, which several authors have
thought; because they are like all the ancient ones,
mentioned. Inventions ought to be very different
from every thing before them; if not, they may be
justly suspected; but it will be seen, in the sequel,
whether this be fo or not.

To these are fubjoined the Welsh alphabet now in ufe (which is intirely Roman), the modern Greek, and the Hebrew alphabets, with the number of their letters, as they now ftand, to fhew how the former are increased by their fecondary letters; and that these alphabets of Europe have no manner of affinity to those of the Hebrews, ancient or modern. This increase of the letters is now in the alphabets of every nation in Europe, except in that of Ireland.

N° 7.