of years from the rest of mankind, they have developed a system of civilization utterly unlike any other, and their scriptorial system is as bizarre and unique as everything else about them. They claim to have possessed written characters so far back as the days of Fo-Hi, who lived 2950 years before Christ. It is certain that their writing has passed through many phases, representing long intervals of time. The first stage of which we possess any information was one in which every word that could be symbolized by a visible object was expressed by a silhouette or rude sketch filled in with black, not according to the artist's fancy, but following definite rules. These representative figures (plate XI, figs. 4 and 5) gradually become more and more simple, mere outline figures, and the forms more abridged. Thus "water," which at first was represented by a series of wavy lines over one another, came to be expressed by a single wavy line. Composite ideas, such as "a field labourer," were written by combining together a rude figure of an enclosure, which stood for field," with another figure, an outline of the Chinese plough. "Parent" was formed by joining together the symbols for "Father" and "Mother." The act of" singing" was expressed by a mouth, placed beside a bird, which gave the notion of warbling. "Sunshine" by a sun placed above a tree, while a sun beneath a tree stood for " darkness." The sun shedding dew was morning." An axe next a tree meant "wood-cutting." A broom, accompanied by a hand, thus denoting the supreme right to sweep the house, was the apt sign for "a married woman." They have also forward, backward, indicative and numeral signs, which are joined usually to the others. Some characters are also used phonetically, merely to express a certain sound. Thus, for such common syllables as "ki," "li,” “ya," the phonetic sign for “ki” joined with that for "bird" stands for "duck," with that of a "tree" for "willow.' And so in various ways they have built 65 up picture-group symbols, or bunch-words, to the number of more than a hundred thousand! while, with a perverted ingenuity, they have invented so many styles of writing as to disgust and deter most foreigners from studying a language so cumbrously represented. And thus we see that the Chinese, who invented the art of printing, gunpowder, and the mariners' compass, have not yet attained to the creation of an alphabet. Even before that far-off time to which the Chinese annalists attribute the earliest invention of their writing system, the ancient Egyptians-that wonderful race to whom our Western civilization owes so much-had already invented a complex system of picture-writing, in which, at length, sound was represented by visible symbols, and to them we must award the honourable distinction of having been the first to point the way towards the formation of a true phonetic alphabet. They have left behind a profusion of documents in three very distinct styles of writing. The earliest of these (plate XI, figs. 2 and 3) is doubtless the hieroglyphic, from iɛpoyλupıka “sacred "sculptures." Such was the name given by the early Greek travellers, who, like Herodotus, saw the stupendous temples covered with strange characters cut in the stone. It is picturewriting in its latest stage. As found in the earliest monuments, some of which date at least 2500 years before the Christian era, it contains several very different elements, which reveal clearly the mode by which it was gradually built up. First, there is a certain proportion of pure systematized picture characters, like early Chinese or Mexican, in which each picture is the symbol for one object or idea, and the earliest hieroglyphs contain the greatest proportion of these, as we should expect. Thus, a disc was put for "the sun," a crescent for "the moon," which, tropically, stood also for "day" and "night." An eye with tears from it signified "to weep," also "weeping," sorrow." Two legs striding signified "walking, motion." • Sir G. Wilkinson in Rawlinson's Herodotus. Vol. ii. p. 317. A leg in a trap, " deceit." The plural was marked by repeating the object thrice. The feminine gender by a half-circle after the word. Thus, an egg signified "son," with a halfcircle after it" daughter." A snake going into a hole signified "to enter," reversed it meant "to come out." Many picture symbols were used as emblems. Thus, the asp signified a goddess;" the hawk, the god " Horus;" the jackal, " Anubis.” Another class of picture characters, however, and these became at length the most numerous, were put to represent sounds only. For this purpose they drew objects whose names commenced with the sound to be written. Thus, an eagle, the Egyptians called "Akhôm." This they wrote by first drawing an eagle to represent the A; for the M they drew an owl, because it was the initial sound of "Moulag," their name for this bird; and others in like manner. Very many picture-signs were thus used phonetically, and this gave them a most extensive picture-alphabet; yet, after having written the word on this true alphabetic plan, they often added a picture of the word, if that were possible, as if to make the matter plainer. This is just the child's picture alphabet over again; the pictures were felt to be so much plainer, more direct-they spoke a universal language. We may feel assured that here we have the first step towards an arbitrary phonetic alphabet. The number of signs used varied much at different eras, but the whole number is believed to have reached nearly a thousand. The period when these, the oldest Egyptian characters, were first used is entirely unknown. They are found in the earliest of the pyramids, and had evidently been invented long before, having already assumed a cursive style for common use. This shews them to be vastly older than any other known writings. They were written usually from right to left, but also in vertical columns, like Chinese, or from left to right, according to the space to be filled; but always towards the faces of the animals. The Hieratic was an abbreviated and simplified form of the old hieroglyphic, in which much of the picture-character had already disappeared, used by the priests and sacred scribes only, for writing their liturgical formulæ and funereal rolls (generally enclosed in the coffin with the mummy.) This writing contained both phonetic and symbolic signs. The Demotic or popular style, invented about the eighth century before Christ, was a much nearer approach towards the modern alphabet. The characters are so simplified as to have lost entirely, in most cases, the pictorial character. They were also fewer in number, partly phonetic and partly arbitrary signs for words. The arrow-headed characters, invented by the Assyrians and Babylonians, appear to have been no greater advance than the Demotic towards a true alphabet, as they consisted of several hundred distinct signs, and were perhaps only invented for the facility with which they could be cut in stone or stamped in soft clay. Nor do they appear to have had any effect in the formation of our Western alphabets. The earliest of these, from which all the rest appear to have been derived, is the ancient Greek. Homer tells us, that in his time, eight hundred years before Christ, the Greeks wrote on folding wooden tablets. Their letters bore, from very ancient times, the names of Alpha, Beta, Gamma &c., words which have no meaning in Greek. Now Hebrew literature has preserved to us an alphabet, evidently derived from phonetic hieroglyphs, every letter bearing the name of an object, and these names so closely corresponding to the Greek ones, that there cannot be a doubt one alphabetic system was derived from the other. Thus the names and significations of these Phoenician letters (for the Jews simply adopted the writing system of their Phoenician neighbours) were as follows:- |