through the gloom, the objects which surround him, he perceives a line of light streaking the eastern horizon, waxing brighter and brighter, till in a moment, that luminary, whose appearance now occasions no surprise, the glorious sun, rises in full splendor above the distant hill. Nature flinging off her dark mantle, is clothed in light and beauty at his coming; from wooded hill and verdant vale, swell the glad matins of creation. Suppose this, and how strange the sensations which would throng in at the eye and ear of the new resident, and how tumultuous the tide of emotions which would heave his bosom! And do you think that he would gaze silently upon the scene? By no means. A loud, wild, extatic cry would burst from his lips, expressive of commingled delight and wonder and fear. And when he wandered forth over the fair earth, and scenes beautiful as a God could make them, riveted his gaze, and awakened his admiration, at every step-do you not think that the fast-peopling world within his heart, would find vent? That exclamations of wonder or terror or delight would not escape him, as one or another of these emotions was excited? These exclamations, would be his only language the unwritten language of the heart! The day has closed in, and the full-orb'd moon rides in majesty up the the lofty pathway of Heaven, and the stars gleam forth one by one. These objects are strange and beautiful, and similar exclamations may express the feelings of his agitated and expanding mind. Thus day succeeds night, and night follows day, and finds man ever wondering, ever learning. Time passes on; and now he stands by the cataract-the dash of the tumbling waters falls upon his ear,`is communicated to his mind, and is remembered. The thunder of Nature's artillery shakes the cloudy vault; the bird whistles from the bough; the bee hums from flower to flower; the

serpent hisses from the grass; the stream murmurs and flows; these, too, are heard and remembered. What then? Man is a social being; his eloquent eye, his speaking countenance, his expressive gesture, all proclaim him such. He meets a companion, Nature's pupil as he is; they have admired the same scenes, beheld the same objects and heard the same sounds. All may be gloom and silence, but the mind's eye still sees, and those sounds still ring in the mental ear. Memory, true to her trust, retains them all. The waterfall, is suggested to him, and a sound involuntarily escapes his lips; it may be dash or roar, but whatever it is, it is an imitation, and by the assistance of gesture, is understood by his com panion; the image of the cascade glows anew upon his mental tablet, and thus mind communes with mind, and thought awakens thought. Soon, other objects attract his attention; perhaps the qualities, perhaps the movements of bodies. Is it agitation? sway, swing, swerve, sweep, express it. Is it a gentle descent? then slide, slip, sling, or other words of similar sound, escape his lips. Is the forest tree prostrated by the blast, or rived by the lightning-stroke? crash and flash may express them both. If it acts more dully, the more obtuse sounds crush, brush, gush, are natural imitations. The · liquid L, flows like the objects to which it is applied. The guttural C, is hollow as the cave it designates, or the croak and the caw that it imitates. The sound st, is strong, stable, and stubborn, as the objects to which it is applied. Thus man continues learning and multiplying terms, until as now, in the language of Blair, "the invisible sentiments of the mind are described by comparisons, and the most abstract notions are rendered intelligible; all the ideas which science can discover, or imagination create, are known by their proper names. Not only is it a medium whose employment, ne

cessity imposes upon us, but an instrument of the most refined luxury." Such is the present state of language, and such has it been for a long period of time. Great and wonderful though it is, yet like the starlit Heavens, and the unfathomed ocean, it is familiar to our minds, and excites neither astonishment nor admiration. That such is the manner in which artificial language had its origin, in a rude and unenlightened age of the world, cannot be a matter of reasonable doubt. Too many traces of this principle of imitation are still found in all languages, with which we are acquainted, though modified by time, mingled with the accessions of all nations, the subtilties of philosophy, and the conventional and arbitrary usages of men. Whether language was at first the miraculous gift of God to man, is a question which has been much agitated by philologists, but their investigations have led to results, which, while they disprove the affirmative of this question, confirm decisively the truth of the position here taken. The Supreme Being endowed man with the faculty of language, but left him to exercise and develope it himself; and it is not more strange that an infant should thus acquire a language by imitation, than that a man should actually invent a medium of communication, which, as Wachter beautifully terms it, is only an "echo of Nature.”

We have no time to indulge in idle speculation, like the Egyptian and Phoenician kings, relative to the original language, or like them, to institute any foolish experiment for determining to what existing language, the honor belongs. Whether our first parents spoke Dutch, or Scotch, or Cherokee, is of no great importance; but certain I am, that whatever it was, it was an expression of mental images, of which nature around them furnished the originals, or of emotions which these originals had themselves awakened. It may be

proper to remark, that the Sanscrit, which was once spoken from the Gulf of Bengal to the Arabian Sea, and from the southern extremity of the country to the Himalaya Mountains, bears a greater resemblance than any other living language, to the primitive tongue; for it is a language complete in itself, composed of elements peculiarly its own, and containing no foreign terms. Though of "one lip and of like words" at first, the confusion of Babel, the changes in scene, and the diversity of habits and pursuits, sufficiently account for the three thousand tongues now spoken among men. Indeed, if you will take arbitrary words in common use; for example, numerals, you will discover a resemblance among them, which is susceptible of solution, only in an implicit belief in the scriptural account.

Welsh. Irish. Greek.

Latin. Anglo-Saxon, Dutch,

Een.

Un. Aen. Eis, Mia, En. Unus. An.
Danish, Icelandic, Moeso-Gothic,* Old High German, English.

The American languages also, may be reduced to a few great divisions, which seem to centre near Bhering's Straits, over which, it is supposed, that the so-called Aborigines of this continent, crossed.

A slight examination will convince you, that these imitations of nature, enter largely into the formation of all artificial language. Though arbitrary terms have swelled its vocabulary; though time has wrought its "perfect work" thereon; though fancy has ornamented it and common consent modified it, yet this, the frame-work, is distinctly seen, * A language of ancient Germany.

throughout the whole structure. In the selection of words, and the collocation of syllables, the best poets invariably avail themselves of the principle of imitation. From the days when Virgil urged his line into a regular Canterbury gallop, to the latest effusion of our own bards, much of the beauty of their productions may be attributed to this. Witness Dryden in Alexander's Feast:

"Break his bands of sleep asunder,

And rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder,"

or the well known passage in Gray's elegy: "the beetle wheels its drony flight,

And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds."

When Milton was describing the opening of Hell's gates, he says, "and on their hinges grate harsh thunder;" but the gates of Heaven-how striking the contrast "on golden hinges turning." I am unable to pursue this interesting subject farther, and I'can only commend it to you as every way worthy of your attention.

I remarked a short time since, that it was of little moment, in what language, our parents of the Garden were wont to converse. Indeed, (to employ an expression, which, though involving an absurdity, expresses my idea,) it might have puzzled a German linguist to have determined what nation claimed them, if we may take the dialects of their degenerate posterity as tests. For example, the Greek, the Roman, the Italian, the Dutchman and the Saxon, hear the bleating of a sheep, and then all, one after another, set up an echo: blechaomai, balare, belare, bleeten, blætan. The wolf prolongs his dismal howl, and Greek, Roman, German and Spaniard answer back: ololuzo, ululare, heulen, aullar. The matronly hen, calls her straying brood; kakkazein, says the