gamma, was one of them. It has been said, that this letter was invented by Claudius, the emperor; but how loose an affertion this is, may be feen in Tully's epiftle to Atticus, and innumerable ancient authors and infcriptions, before Claudius was born.

LET us now fee from whom Cadmus received thefe letters, and why he did not rather bring over the Hebrew alphabet. For my own part, I cannot help being of opinion, that he brought the complete set of letters with him, which were in use in, and sufficient for, the language they belonged to; whereas, if he had them from an Hebrew origin, furely he would have taken the intire twenty-two letters, which the Hebrew aleph-beth always confifted of, and not have left fix behind him unobserved, which would induce the learned world to believe he did not understand their use, as the number he is faid to have brought, was deficient ; and yet, I cannot think he was illiterate. Surely this, as well as the utter diffimilarity of them, is fufficient to fhew, that thefe feventeen letters are not of Hebrew extraction. The queftion then will naturally be :: how the Phoenicians came by them? This cannot be an

fwered any other way, than by giving credit to the hiftory of Fenius, the grandfon of Magog, the Scythian king, who left his government to the care of his eldest son, and went into Shinar, where he founded schools, and carried: his language and letters with him, as I have given it at large, in a former chapter of this work. And as Phanicia lies contiguous to the Egyptians, and many other nations thereabouts, it was no wonder there fhould be great changes. of language among them, where there was fo vaft a concourfe

courfe of people trading to Phoenicia from every country round them. This was the mixture that afterwards flowed in among the Pelafgians, and, in time, was the cause of the formation of the Greek language out of theirs, and the Pelafgian or Gomerian tongues.

THUS it was that the Scythian lettters were introduced into Shinar, and thence through all Phoenicia; which could not be known from any other authors than the Irish records. Forchernus, a very ancient filid, or philofopher, afferts that Fenius composed these letters in Scythia, and carried them into Phoenicia, as well as many others of good authority; which gave occafion to O Flaherty, an eminent hiftorian and chronologer in the ancient Irish history, to say, " unde percipias antiquiorem Cadmo apud "Græcos extitiffe literarum inventorem, cujus tamen no

men ipfis excidit e memoria. Quid fi dicerem Fenifium "noftrum iftum fuiffe Phonicem literarum authorem, qui "Græcas eas vetuftas depingeret, quas Latini referunt?

a Latinis Hibernice non omnino abhorrent; Phonicis, "et Fenifii, vel Phænii nomen non abludit, et inventio "fuffragatur; tempus, et patria in hujufmodi antiquiori"bus fæpiffime confunduntur." To this opinion I cannot avoid fubfcribing, fince fuch a number of facts, delivered by those ancient, and many modern, authors, coincide in the most persuasive manner, with the ancient Irish records, relative to this, and feveral other matters of the greatest confequence in antiquity; as does alfo the most facred and authentic of all, the Old Testament, with these records.

CHAP. XII FROM the additional letters, by Palamèdes and others, to the ancient Pelafgian characters, the Greek alphabet is increased to twenty-four; and from the incurfions of the Greeks, in after-ages, upon the ancient inhabitants of Italy, the Latins have borrowed thofe very fecondary letters, and added them to the Pelafgian; for, in proportion to the alterations made in the original language in this country, the Latins also stood in need of the fame powers which the Greeks used, in the pronunciation of their language. And thus it was with the French and Spaniards; the Roman number of letters was adopted, as their influence and language prevailed, in later times, over the Scythian remains in Spain, and the Gomerian in France.

THE German Northern kingdoms had their letters from the Scythians, through the Goths; but the Saxons had their learning and letters, afterwards, from Ireland. Indeed, these are the only Northern people who retain the Irish alphabet but very little altered; and for all above seventeen, they have taken in the secondary letters of the Romans and Greeks, from the fame cause, the alteration of the dialect: and thus it may be faid of all the other nations of Europe; for they have all increased their letters to about the fame number.

BUT to be more particular, with regard to these Northern Germans and Goths: it is the opinion of fome, that the Goths had their letters from the Greek and Latin; but this notion can arife only from their fimilarity to each other, by thofe who had not confidered the fource from which all three fprung. Now, there are authorities, which, with me, are fufficient evidence, that the Goths had

I

their

their letters before the Greeks, or Latins, had added the fecondary letters to the original feventeen; and had no additional characters themselves for many ages after: for the iffue of Magog, Mefbech and Tubal, had planted colonies in, and taken poffeffion of, large tracts of country in Scandinavia, long before the Hellenean language was formed in Greece, which is fufficiently proved before ; and will be rendered more certain, when we hear what Olaus Magnus, and his brother Johannes, fay of this

matter:

Johannes Magnus, in the first book of his Septentrional History, in the chapter of Gothic letters, says: “We must

not believe these Northern people wanted writers of "their transactions, which were so magnificently carried on; for, long before there were any Latin letters, and long before Carmenta came into Italy with Evander, "the Goths had their letters: in proof of which, there

are ftones of a prodigious fize fixed to the fepulchres "and caves of the ancients, among the Goths, which had "letters ingraved upon them, and plainly fhewed that "they were erected before the univerfal deluge, or a little "after. Upon these ftones they recorded their exploits,: "and handed them down to pofterity. And although. "there was no Roman language formed before the build

ing of Rome, yet these people were inspired with such a "defire for the study of eloquence, to qualify them for "writing poetry, that not only their youth were enjoined "to fing their ancient verses, in praise of their ancestors, "but also their grave men chanted forth the virtues of "their great heroes with inftruments of mufic, as is the

"custom

:

"custom at this time; and they had fuch honour and re"wards for eminence in learning, that they conferred upon "their wife men, not only fcepters and kingdoms, but many had divine honours paid them also.”

Or this fame opinion, Olaus Magnus, the brother of John, declares himself, repeating even his brother's words, upon this occafion; and further adds: that, “as people now write to one another upon paper, these Northern people, in ancient times, wrote upon pieces of wood, in “their correspondence: and even now, fays he, when paper cannot be had, they write upon thin lamina, pre"pared from the wood and bark of trees, especially in "their military camps and fieges; and this with more fecurity than with paper, as these materials are not so "fubject to injury from rain or fnow." He fays also, in the fecond chapter of his eighth book, that the Goths have a book written in their language, intitled, Billagines, compofed by Diceneus, one of their kings, who was the firft that taught them the religion and philosophy of Pythagoras; and fays, that the word billagines fignifics, in the Gothic tongue, what juxta leges does in Latin. He alfo writes, in the thirty-fourth chapter of his first book, that they have certain sticks, with letters engraved on them, which they use in astronomical matters, and by which they foretell and declare events of times and seasons, and regulate the moveable feafts and dominical letters for future years.

THERE are alfo old Spanish authors, who fay, that the Gothic language was exactly like that of the Celts; and, for many ages, whenever the Scythians came fouthward among

the