record of Professors without Hebraism, during the years 1603-11. Fifty years later,
Walton redeems the shame of Oxford; and yet, one hundred years later still, Kennicott
himself chronicles— “ the reader will be pleased to observe, that as the study of the
Hebrew language has only been reviving during the last one hundred years (209) to
end which sentencte logically, we ourselves consider that there could be no “ revival”
where, in 1600, there was scarcely a beginning ; and, ergo, that the Doctor’s attestation
must refer to incipient efforts, in his century commencing, to resuscitate the
Hebrew tongue after twenty centuries of burial.
6th and present p e r io d , a . d . 1750 to 1853.
Taking Eichh'orn as the grand point of departure, we find, after the lapse of a century,
how, through the operations of that “ rational method” of which he and Richard Simon
were, among Christians, the first qualified exponents, the Hebraical scholarship of bur. own
generation (proud of its hundred champions) has truly kept pace, on the European continent,
with the universal progress of knowledge.
Nevertheless, on every side, we still see and hear the crocodile whimper how “ nobody
undertakes a new translation (into English) of Holy Scripture” commensurate with the
imperious demands of all the sciences at present advancing— news of the onward steps
made by each being actually transmitted through magnetic telegraphs (210) — and yet,
withal, few men in America so blind as not to perceive that, even in evangelized England,
such pecuniary superfluities as those said to have been realized through a “ World’s
Exhibition,” are expended (God alone knows how or why) upon anything, or everything,
rather than in behalf of a conscientious révisai of our English BIBLE.
G. R. G.
E S SAY II.
PALEOGRAPHIC EXCURSUS ON THE 'ART OF WRITING.
The same imperious necessity that has constrained us to suppress the continuation of
Part I I I ., Essay I. (supra, p. 626), renders it obligatory to curtail our History o'f the “Art
of Writing, from the earliest antiquity to the present day.”" This subject, perhaps the
most vital in any researches into the antiquity of the Hebrew Pentateuch, has never yet
publicly received adequate attention from modern scholarship. With ourselves it has been
a favorite pursuit ever since 1844; (211) nor, did space permit the insertion of what we
had prepared in manuscript for the present volume, should we not have taken some pride
in the presentation of a series of facts and arguments that would entirely justify every
point set forth in the accompanying TabUau [infra, pp. 630, 631].
(209) 1st Dissert.; 1753; p. 307.
(210) Rev, J o h n B a chm a n , D . D .’s Doctrine o f the TJnity of the Human Race; Charleston, S. C., 1850; p.. 288 —
“ And even telegraphing to America, through the convenient wires of Mr. Gliddon, the yet unpublished'discoveries
of Lepsius.” These discoveries have since been published, and much J o h n B a chm a n knows about
them! M o r to n ’s refutations,-in the Charleston Medical Journal, 1850-’51, render it quite unnecessary for me
to waste more ink upon the extinguished author of the aboveDoctrine.” — G. R. G.
(211) Vide G led d on , in L u k e B u r k e ’s Ethnological Journal, No. ix.; London, Feb. 1849; pp. 400-416: — republished
in Otia Mgyptiaca; London, Madden, 1849; pp. 99-115 :i|a n d , without text, but with some improvement
of the “ Table,” in Handjjoolcto the Panorama of the Nile; London, Madden, 1849; pp- 41—45; under the
heading of “ Philology.” Of this pamphlet, rather more than 3000 copies have been distributed in the Dinted
States, from Maine to Louisiana, and, accompanied by my Oral Lectures, have somewhat familiarized American
auditors with themes but little known in Europe beyond collegiate precincts.
As it is, we can merely recommend the reader, after viewing the three distinct geographical
origins and independent developments of the art of writing, to study weU the place
which palaeography now assigns to the modern squaw-lelter (AS/iURI) Hebrew alphabet of
“ 22 letters while we discuss a few general principles, to be amply corroborated in detail
on some future occasion.
D ig r e s s io n a l R e m a r k s on t h e e n s u in g T a b l e .
I- The principle followed (probably for the first time in palseographical disquisition) and
exhibited through the annexed table, is a consequence of the work which it accompanies. As
“ Types of Mankind” tabulates the various species of the “ genus homo” according to their
several relations to the Flora and the Fauna of their respective centres of creation, the
harmonious unison of all sciences, (112) when directed to the elucidation of a given fact,
cannot be better exemplified than by cleaving into dree well-ascertained masses the grand
enigma of graphical origines.
We hold, without mental reservations, that history does not justify, archaeology permit,
or ethnology warrant, any, the slightest, intercourse, between Egypt and China prior to the
days of Ctkds (as an extreme point) ; nor between either of these two primordial nations,
and the Aborigines of that continent which, pronounced by Agassiz to be the oldest land,
was unknown (from us trans-atlantically) to inhabitants of the Oriental hemisphere before
CoimuBtrs. Some of the physical reasons are set forth in the present volume: and it is
pleasing to find thatpaloeography entirely corroborates results deduced from other investigations.
To chivalrous opponents, “ blanched under the harness” of scientific pursuits,
we respectfully throw down pur gauntlet upon three propositions : —
A — Prior to b . o. 500, Egypt had no intercourse with America or China.
® “ “ America had no intercourse with China or Egypt.
— “ “ China had no intercourse with Egypt or America.
Until some student, qualified through knowledge of the archæological actualities inherent
in this triad• of problemata (knowledge to be evinced by the weight in science of his
demurrer), overthrows tin principle upon which our table is erected, we shall not fear for its
stability : nay, we offer to his use the weapons of our armory, by indicating the shortest
path to verification of bibliothical accuracy.
II— The researches of Gesenius (213) and, of Champollion-Figeac (214) have been our
points of departure in the construction of the Table. We have remodelled them by the
lights which, in the former case fifteen, in the latter twelve, years of discovery demand ;
fusing the results of both authorities into one ; and then separating the whole into three
grand stems ; 1st, HAMITIC, with its Semitish branches—2d, MONGOLIAN, with its offshoots—
3d, AMERICAN, whose slender twigs were cut short, for ever, by P i z a r r o and by
C o r t e z .
1st. The HAMITIC ORIGIN start with Champollion le Jeune, (215) continue with Lep
sms,(216) and close with Bunsen,(217).Birch,(218)'.Burgsch,(219) and De Saulcy.(220)
The Semitic streams have been followed in the subjoined order.
Aside from personal verification of the “ old travellers” — Pietro della Valle, Chardin
Corneille le Brun, Kaempfer, Niebuhr, &c. ; and of the later,. Rich, Ouseley, Ker Porter’
Kinmer, Morier, and Malcolm ; the perusal of De Sacy, Tychsen, Münter, Grotefend, Saint
(212) Humboldt: Cosmos; Introduction to French edition.; 1846; i. pp. 36 18.
(218) Scrip. Ling. Phcen. Mon. '; 1837; pp. 62, 63, and Table of Alphabets, p 64
214) g éographie ünioerselie; 1841; i. p. 40-«T a b lea u général pour servir à l’histoire de l’feriture»
Grammaire Egyptienne; 1886; — Dictionnaire Égyptienne; 1841.
(210) Lettre à Bosetlini — Annali dell’ Institute dl Corrispond. Ârcheol. ; Koma, 1837 • Tol. ix.
(217) Ægyptens S'idle in der WeUgeschichte ; 1845; vol. i. part 2d.
Î219Ï 1S4S; 1 PP-ns-eoo; - and in Gudios: Otia Ægypttaca ; 1849; pp. 113-115. 1
(419) Burgsoh Scnptura Ægyptwrum. demotica ex papyris et inscriptionibus explanata; Berlin, 1848 • - and
Mumerorum apud veteres Ægyptios demoticorum doctrina ; Berlin, 1849
paris’ 1843:-and 8 8 smM“ ! ** 1 1 1 1 S