purely historical and philosophical view of the subject, by furnishing us with positive monuments, illustrative not only of the first stages of the art, but of every subsequent phase of its progress.

Modern erudition has enabled us to make the fullest use of such monuments in this curious investigation, and by explaining and deciphering at last those strange characters in which some of the earliest human records were made, the meaning of which had been so long concealed by the veil of hoar antiquity, has supplied us with the missing links in the chain of progress of this greatest of human inventions: Champollion's and Young's recent interpretations of the hieroglyphics of Egypt, and Grotefend, Rawlinson and Hincks's deciphering of the cuneatic character of Persepolis and Nineveh, furnishing the last aids to the elucidation of this interesting subject in the earlier and most instructive periods of its progress. With this, and other assistance of recent acquisition, we are now enabled to trace the manner and course of man's primeval attempts to achieve a system of writing: first, by the use of simple pictures, the meaning of which we are now enabled to interpret; secondly, by the subsequent adoption of pictorial characters which take the form of ideographs, by means of which more complex ideas, or even sentiments, in addition to mere objects, were also expressed; and thirdly, by the representation of a sound, instead of an object, and the means by which it was first accomplished. Finally, we may witness the gradual creation of a complete set of signs representing the sounds of language, instead of the forms of objects, a principle which we shall see gradually encroaching upon that of the pictorial characters of the carlier periods; till at last, on the transferring of such a combined system of writing from one language to another, we shall find all the pictorial signs abandoned by the new adopters of the system, and the sound-expressing characters alone retained—an event through which the triumph of a pure phonetic alphabet was at length accomplished.

We shall not be able to witness all these stages in one country, or in the progress of one system, as in every case many intermediate monuments have perished. But as there can be little doubt that the art of writing grew up independently in many countries having no communication with each other, when they respectively arrived at that period of civilisation at which such an art became desirable, we shall be able to supply the missing links, from distinct sources, in the manner about to be described.

In every country where the art of writing arose, as one of those social necessities sure to develop themselves in the march of progress, every link of advance in the art had, of course, its successive existence; but in no special country, as I have stated, have monuments of every phase of development been preserved; and we shall therefore have to examine those of widely different regions, in order to obtain specimens of each important epoch of the gradual creation of a system of writing. Thus, in the following pages, I shall have to seek, first, an example, of the rude primeval origin of the art in the coarse

hieroglyphic, or rather simply pictorial records of Mexico, beyond which stage that nation never advanced, the Spanish invaders having destroyed the civilisation of the native population while their system of writing was still in this early period of its development.

The next step, however, we shall be able to examine among the Chinese; where we shall find interesting examples of the first transition from mere pictorial characters to that of their abridgment into forms more easily and rapidly executed, but still preserving their original import as direct pictographs. We shall accompany the Chinese system beyond this phase, to that of such excessive departure from the original forms of the objects, that the pictographs become in appearance, but in appearance only, more like the arbitrary signs of a phonetic alphabet. We shall also witness the advance of the Chinese so far in the direction of sound-expressing, instead of object or idea-expressing characters, as to make use of these signs occasionally to express the spoken sound of the object depicted; and by combining one or two such objects, to express successfully the sound of some foreign name, or other abstract denomination, for which no accepted pictorial sign was in existence. But in these attempts in the direction of a phonetic system of writing, they never, even to the present day, advanced beyond a kind of partially adopted and imperfect syllabic system, that is to say, one in which signs were sometimes used to express the sound of entire syllables, but never adapted to the functions of separate letters. To meet with the earliest examples of a literal system, or one in which characters similar in value to the separate letters of modern alphabets was adopted, we shall have to turn to the (so-called) hieroglyphics of the Egyptians. We have not been able, by means of any existing monuments, to surprise the Egyptians in the practice of the earliest stages of their system, but find them, at the epoch of the erection of the most ancient known monuments, prior to the time of Abraham, in the possession of a system of writing, in which the iconograph, the ideograph, and a certain number of soundexpressing characters, exactly similar to those of modern alphabets, were all combined; the new and progressive elements having been grafted upon the old, and made to form a part of the apparently uncongenial original elements of the system. Beyond this system, so early achieved, and so complete after its peculiar manner, the Egyptians never advanced; and for the next step in the art we must look to the Assyrians, who, borrowed their system of writing from the Egyptians, and in course of adapting it to their own dialect, threw out a large portion of the iconographic and ideographic elements, and probably increased the number of those of a purely phonetic capacity. The cuneiform, or wedge-shaped, character, in which this Assyrian system is expressed, was perhaps founded upon the Egyptian demotic, or more cursive manner of writing, but influenced in form by the nature of the material— stone upon which most of their public documents were inscribed; and perhaps,

*

* The possible existence of an early Indian alphabet will be alluded to hereafter.

also, by a natural attempt to regularise the forms, the Assyrian scribes not having, like the Egyptians, the feeling of their original pictorial meaning before them, to influence them in the preservation of apparently mere objectless irregularities. The Chinese at a particular period reduced their pictorial characters in an analogous manner to regular forms, all comprised of right angles or straight lines.

We shall find the Persians, in adopting the cuneiform system of the Babylonians and Assyrians, reducing the system still more nearly to a purely alphabetic one. But it is to the Phoenicians that we shall look for the first example of a pure phonetic alphabet, as we now understand that term. Their letters were evidently derived from some system founded upon the original and universal pictorial elements, being formed most probably by a selection of a limited number of the phonetic signs of the Egyptian system; whether directly, or through the Assyrian modification, will be matter for future discussion. The closely-allied Samaritan, or ancient Hebrew characters, the names of which are all founded upon those of the natural objects they once portrayed, form not only a sufficient general proof of their own pictorial source, but also of that of the Phoenician alphabet.

The names of the Phoenician letters, which have unfortunately been lost, were doubtless similar to those of the Samaritans, and became the immediate parents of those of the Greek letters, the names of which, as will be seen, closely resemble those of the Samaritan and Hebrew alphabets.

The ancient Roman alphabet, we shall find, was originally the same as the Greek, and evidently derived from the same source; its departure from which, and all the successive modifications of its ancient forms, being plainly traceable, in their different stages, through the means of inscriptions on funereal urns, buildings, coins, and other monuments.

Our own alphabet is but a slight modification of the Roman, so that we have now at our command, as I have shewn, the means of tracing the history of the wonderful art of writing from its earliest dawn to its common use in the present day.

The modifications which have taken place in our modern system of writing since the expiring empire of Rome bequeathed to us that valuable art in the fifth century will not form the least interesting portion of the subject; for in the comparative darkness which followed the crash of Roman civilisation, and when there was but little demand for books, except of the Gospels and the rest of the sacred Scriptures, so elaborately did scribes decorate their writing, that these illuminations, as they have been termed, form a most attractive series of examples of the modern progress of the art, increasing, as they do, in splendour up to the epoch of the invention of printing in the fifteenth century.

In the transition, about the eleventh and twelfth centuries, from the rounded forms of the debased Roman characters to the angularities of the

Gothic style, we shall find interesting matter for investigation, as also in the similarly gradual return to the Roman forms about the fifteenth century. Some of these medieval illustrations of the progress of the art of writing will form brilliant subjects for illustrative examples; but though the illuminated chronicles of the middle ages, all glittering with burnished gold and a profusion of richly-coloured ornaments, seem to defy the calligraphic efforts of any former period to approach them in brilliancy, yet the earlier stages of the art sometimes present examples equally elaborate; for the mighty story of Egypt, graven and painted upon the walls of her temples and palaces, forming, in fact, a series of" illuminated chronicles" of that "dark time of eld," is still more wonderful. Those inscriptions indeed, like those of the disinterred palaces of Assyria, are existing examples of that "handwriting upon the WALL," interpreted by the youthful Daniel; and they are still as sharp in their sculptured forms, and as brilliant in their decorative colouring, as when first executed by the glyphographic scribes of the Pharaohs.

In tracing the progress of the art of writing, through all its different phases, up to the period of the invention of printing, we shall find it almost entirely in the hands of scribes by profession, either calligraphers (that is decorative writers), or tachyographers (rapid writers). But by the great modern invention of printing the vocation of the public scribe was extinguished; for books being no longer multiplied by written copies, calligraphy, properly speaking, perished. The acquirement of the art of common cursive writing, however, increased among private individuals in proportion as the aid of the fast-decreasing race of scribes became no longer available.

In the modern history of writing, it is not till the fifteenth century that letters in the authentic handwriting of individuals first occur in any plenty, though a few earlier examples exist, but of doubtful authenticity as to the personal handwriting, which does not, however, interfere with their genuineness in other respects, as they were most probably the work of a confidential secretary or a professional scribe. It is from the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, therefore, to the present time, that examples of the handwriting of private individuals will be given in this volume, as illustrations of the last stages of the progress of the art.

8

ON THE

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CHAPTER II.

CLAIMS OF DIFFERENT NATIONS OF ANTIQUITY TO THE INVENTION OF WRITING-OF ITS PROBABLE INVENTION IN SEVERAL COUNTRIES SIMULTANEOUSLY -AND OF THE NECESSARY CHARACTER OF THE PRIMEVAL STAGES OF THE ART.

LL hypotheses respecting the original centre from which civilisation first emanated, point to India as the cradle of the human race and of its arts. But we cannot there discover traces of the origin of writing. On its earliest existing monuments we only find the art in its alphabetic state, and never in its first or iconographic form. Whether from this it may be inferred that India must have received the art of writing in a perfected state from some more advanced nation-the Egyptians, for example—or whether we may more fairly infer that its first steps in India are lost, is, however, immaterial to our general purpose; in either case, India does not afford the means of tracing the progress of the art from its origin. Indeed, all Indian monuments of the art of writing are, comparatively speaking, modern, notwithstanding the traditions respecting the high antiquity of the art of writing among them, the Hindoos having a legend that letters were communicated to them by the Supreme Being; which might seem to prove, at all events, that the original introduction or invention of writing in India dates beyond any existing record.

Many Oriental traditions make all existing modes of writing derived from the Sanscrit; and some even consider that the Latin word scribo (to write), like the German schrieben, was given to a mode of writing founded on an ancient Sanscrite or Samscribe alphabet, and that the Pelasgians, and IndoGermanic races in general, brought those terms along with the art from India; but, as before observed, no traces of the primitive stages of the art of writing have as yet been discovered there. However this may be, the Sanscrit has long been a dead language, only preserved by the priestly castes of the East; and all existing monuments in that language are written in characters analogous to those of comparatively recent Indian alphabets—the great number of ligatures having the appearance of complicated characters of a semi-pictorial period, being merely permanent combinations of single letters used to express certain syllables by way of abbreviation, like similar combinations in the modern Greek alphabet, only infinitely more numerous. The oldest of these Sanscrit records is not more ancient than the time of Alexander the Great, scarcely three centuries before the Christian era-no antique rock inscriptions or other monuments being in existence to show us the character in which the ancient Sanscrit language may have been originally written.

Nevertheless, in the absence of all authentic monuments, the theory that