events.

remarks will, it is hoped, show the unfitness of these means to convey any ancient tradition to future ages; and mark, at the same time, the progress of the art of writing from the imperfectly formed picture to the invention of the alphabet. We see the Patriarchs raising altars in places where the Lord had appeared to them, planting groves, setting up monuments in memory of the principal events of their lives, and giving such names to the places where they happened as might recall the remembrance of them. Festivals were instituted to perpetuate the memory of great Historical songs were composed and sung in the remotest ages and amongst all nations. Tradition then supplied the place of writing. Man enjoys the singular advantage of being able to communicate his ideas by articulate sounds: but these sounds do not reach beyond the time and place where they are pronounced. It was necessary then to find out some method of giving extent and duration to sounds, in order to diffuse and perpetuate our ideas. The only way of doing this was by inventing signs and figures to represent and preserve words. Several monuments of antiquity still existing clearly show, that the art of writing originally consisted in a clumsy representation of corporeal objects. To make their thoughts visible,

they began by drawing a representation of the objects of them. To record a murder they would draw the figure of a man stretched upon the ground, and of another standing by him with some instrument of death in his hand. The difficulty and inconvenience of this practice must be obvious. What time and

labour were necessary to write a single fact or the shortest discourse? 1. The first attempt of the Egyptians went no further than to perpetuate the knowledge of an event by forming a rude picture of it and this imperfect method of communication, continued in all countries, until a happy accident, or the visit of a more refined people, made them acquainted with the secret of alphabetical notation."b "The history of the Mexicans," says Acosta, "furnishes specimens of their first essays towards the art of writing. When the Spaniards arrived, the inhabitants of the sea-coast gave notice of the event to their Emperor Monterzuma, by sending him a large cloth on which they had carefully drawn and painted every thing which they had seen. This was the only method those people had of writing their laws and their history. There is still existing a very curious fragment of this historical painting, which a Mexican

b Dr. Russell, 176.

1. The first attempt of the Egyptians &c &c. &c when the Spaniards first landed on the Shores of America the event was announced to the

inhabitants of the interior, by rough drawings of Men, Arms, and Ships. as in Diagram No 1.

2. The inconvenience inseperable from such a method, soon suggested the practice of substituting a Sword for an armed man, a Flag for an invading host, and a curved line for a Ship, as illustrated in Diagram

No 2.