Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/70

 ertions and emotions, of such of his nobler faculties, as chiefly distinguish him from the brute species; but left them also, like words, to the care and invention of man."--Ibidem. On this branch of the subject, enough has already been presented.

17. By most authors, alphabetic writing is not only considered an artificial invention, but supposed to have been wholly unknown in the early ages of the world. Its antiquity, however, is great. Of this art, in which the science of grammar originated, we are not able to trace the commencement. Different nations have claimed the honour of the invention; and it is not decided, among the learned, to whom, or to what country, it belongs. It probably originated in Egypt. For, "The Egyptians," it is said, "paid divine honours to the Inventor of Letters, whom they called Theuth: and Socrates, when he speaks of him, considers him as a god, or a god-like man."--British Gram., p. 32. Charles Bucke has it, "That the first inventor of letters is supposed to have been Memnon; who was, in consequence, fabled to be the son of Aurora, goddess of the morning."--Bucke's Classical Gram., p. 5. The ancients in general seem to have thought Phoenicia the birthplace of Letters:

"Phoenicians first, if ancient fame be true,   The sacred mystery of letters knew;    They first, by sound, in various lines design'd,    Express'd the meaning of the thinking mind;    The power of words by figures rude conveyed,    And useful science everlasting made." Rowe's Lucan, B. iii, l. 334.

18. Some, however, seem willing to think writing coeval with speech. Thus Bicknell, from Martin's Physico-Grammatical Essay: "We are told by Moses, that Adam gave names to every living creature;[23] but how those names were written, or what sort of characters he made use of, is not known to us; nor indeed whether Adam ever made use of a written language at all; since we find no mention made of any in the sacred history."--Bicknell's Gram., Part ii, p. 5. A certain late writer on English grammar, with admirable flippancy, cuts this matter short, as follows,--satisfying himself with pronouncing all speech to be natural, and all writing artificial: "Of how many primary kinds is language? It is of two kinds; natural or spoken, and artificial or written."--Oliver B. Peirce's Gram., p. 15. "Natural language is, to a limited extent, (the representation of the passions,) common to brutes as well as man; but artificial language, being the work of invention, is peculiar to man."--Ib., p. 16.[24]

19. The writings delivered to the Israelites by Moses, are more ancient than any others now known. In the thirty-first chapter of Exodus, it is said, that God "gave unto Moses, upon Mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God." And again, in the thirty-second: "The tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables." But these divine testimonies, thus miraculously written, do not appear to have been the first writing; for Moses had been previously commanded to write an account of the victory over Amalek, "for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua."--Exod., xvii, 14. This first battle of the Israelites occurred in Rephidim, a place on the east side of the western gulf of the Red Sea, at or near Horeb, but before they came to Sinai, upon the top of which, (on the fiftieth day after their departure from Egypt,) Moses received the ten commandments of the law.

20. Some authors, however, among whom is Dr. Adam Clarke, suppose that in