&c. were omitted, as in many of the Roman inscriptions, and as in our ancient records and monastic MSS., and that possibly the marks of abbreviation, either in the modifications of the letters themselves, or in the interpunctuation, may yet be discovered. On the other hand, we think the supposition far more probable, that the Hamyaritic was one of those simpler dialects in which the construction is to be often made out rather by inference, and by the general bearing of the context, than by signs of inflection or connecting particles. That in the earlier parts of the inspired writings there is a want of particles and an elliptical method of writing, is evident from the book of Job, even to the unlearned reader, who must be struck by the number of words in italics in our version, marking ellipses that are filled up in the translation. The same is observable in some of the Psalms, probably of more ancient date, the 49th for instance. The elliptical inscription, Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin,' may possibly represent (though as a divine oracle) the more archaic system of writing. In the written language of the Chinese, which of course can admit of no inflection, the inferential method of interpretation is largely adopted; and the same prevails to a great degree in their speech. A like character is observable in the spoken dialects of the great Polynesian language, which are utterly uninflected, and in which, when inference is insufficient, awkward periphrases or repetitions must be employed. This deficiency in some languages, spoken by nations comparatively civilized (as the Malays), and the apparent redundancy in others belonging to the most rude and simple tribes, are among the unexplained phenomena of philology. Possibly, Divine Providence, at the confusion of tongues, might have effected his purpose of disturbing verbal intercommunication by the use of this means among others; namely, by the cutting off the inflections in some instances, and by multiplying them in others. However this may be, we have strong indications among many of those nations which have an undeclinable language, of the infancy of their dialects, in the strictest sense of the word. Thus, among many tribes of the South Sea Islanders, we are forcibly reminded of the speech of children, in the absence of the harsher consonants, and (as in Chinese) in the impracticability of joining two consonants together. Captains Clarke and Cook were at one place called by the chiefs in council Tattee and Toottee, just as a child a twelvemonth old would attempt to pronounce their names.

The multiplied inflections (as they are improperly considered) of the Americans and Esquimaux are plainly the contrivances of rude nations, who, instead of using the simple and beautiful

method

As

method of the Oriental nations, modified the relations of verbs and nouns by the addition, in each instance, of whole words, which, at length, came to be statedly added in each change of mood, or tense, or case, but always unabbreviated; which is one reason why their words present such an uncouth and polysyllabic appearance to the eye; their supposed terminations being, in fact, no more part of the word which they modify, than the auxiliary particles are in English. Now the Oriental method in the inflection of their verbs is simply to affix or prefix the pronouns, but in a contracted form; and to employ brief affixes (the fraginents probably of proper particles) as the signs of cases for the nouns. It is probable that this characteristic of the languages, commonly, but improperly, called Shemitic, had not yet been confirmed in this most ancient dialect of the Arabic-the inscription before us being, in all likelihood, the most ancient specimen of alphabetic writing now in existence. The phenomenon affords food for the most curious speculation; and it is probable that through the opening afforded by Mr. Forster's researches, we may gain an interesting link, hitherto wanting, in the history of philology, that is, in the history of the human mind and of human nature. for the alphabet, five of the letters, m, s, k, l, and z, are like the same characters in the Ethiopic; three, the r, i, and u are like the Hebrew, or rather Chaldee; one, the h (in one of its forms) like the ancient Samaritan, or proper Hebrew. The forms of the other letters were made out from regularly deduced inference; and six of the characters (including four, which bear no analogy to the above-named alphabets) have the power assigned to them by Von Hammer in his work on Ancient Alphabets-whose collection, though acknowledged by Mr. Forster to be a literary fraud, yet contains elements that are genuine; and the sounds assigned to the Hamyaritic characters were probably traditional. At all events, their coincidence with Mr. Forster's conjecture, formed independently, is striking. Roediger has been misled, in seeking analogies in some instances with the Greek (the later Greek, too, as in the E) and the Samaritan. But in fact à priori reasoning on this subject is not to be trusted. It may fairly authorize experiment, but can justify no conclusions. The power of the same character frequently changes among the same nation in the course of time, as we see in the Roman and Greek alphabets. And the analogies between those most nearly allied are very fallacious. For instance: an ancient Roman, acquainted with his own language only, and without any guide to assist him, would, on meeting with an inscription in Greek, naturally identify the sound of four of the Greek characters with those assigned to

similar

similar forms in Latin (viz. the H, P, X, and C, the ancient E), and and a fifth,, he would probably conjecture to be the same with a character in his own language nearly resembling it, the Q, and would justify his conclusion by the coincidence both in shape and sounds of eleven characters. In like manner, on the first view of the Ethiopic, it would be natural to identify the Z of that language with the Roman or Grecian H, the form being the same. The fact is, in the study of alphabets, as in the pursuit of every branch of inductive knowledge, we must have a double or threefold application of the experimentum crucis before any conclusion can be safely formed.

The use of the letter L is very rare, but one instance occurring in the Hassan Ghorab inscription: though it appears to be of more frequent use in the later inscriptions at Nakab-al-Hajar. The lipo-grammatism of several nations in this respect, and the interchange of the cognate liquids 7 and r, is very remarkable. Then appears the usual Oriental confusion of the s and t, and of sh and th. A dot seems to distinguish the d lene and the d blæsum, as in Arabic. Mr. Forster acknowledges that the distinction between the s and the t has not yet been clearly determined to his satisfaction; the difficulty being increased by their well-known dialectical interchange. He makes some very curious observations as to marks and circlets which discriminate the different forms of the same letter, the s especially. We agree with him in thinking these to be analogous to the diacritic points which are detached from the letters of the Arabic, the Masoretic Hebrew (and, we will add, the Syrian) alphabets, of which we have a trace in the cedilla (y) of the Spanish and Portuguese.* But we will venture to ask whether these may not also be in some instances the germ of the vowels, included in each character of the Ethiopic syllabary, the variations there being made by marks of somewhat the same kind. The diacritical marks of the s, t, sh, and z, in particular, are so numerous as to induce a surmise that some variations of vowel sounds were intended by them. Or can it be, that they are in some way indicatory of contraction or inflection?

Speculations of this kind, however, would require a volume, not an essay. Mr. Forster's suggestions of making further investigation on the coast of Southern Arabia-suggestions which we were glad to find enforced by Mr. Murchison in his recent

The c has now disappeared from Spanish orthography, as well as the guttural r and g, which are represented by j. It is to be regretted that the landmarks of etymology should be obscured by such wanton changes; and we hope that some future decision of a Spanish Academy will restore their characteristic orthography.

Address

Address from the chair of the Geographical Society-will, no doubt, be followed up, in that enlightened zeal for science which has been already so successfully shown by the British government in India. The advancement of real science, since it promotes truth, must therefore promote the cause of religion, and afford new evidence for Revelation; and the deeper the history of the human race is investigated, the more clearly will be seen the infallibility of those imperishable records, which, for the instruction of later ages, tell of the primitive colonization of the world.

Since the foregoing pages were placed in the printer's hands intelligence has reached us confirmatory, to an unexpected degree, of the anticipations expressed in our concluding paragraph. The author, since the publication of the work now reviewed, has had fresh inscriptions communicated to him from other quarters, the whole of which, together with those brought from Sanaa by Mr. Cruttenden and the late Dr. Hutton, have been decyphered. We understand also that he is now engaged in decyphering the celebrated Sinaitic inscriptions, which appear to realize all that was anticipated in the sixth and in the eighteenth centuries. We have no doubt that the results will be before long given to the world.

ART. III.-Passages in the Life of a Radical. By Samuel Bamford. Third Edition. Printed for the Author. 2 vols. 12mo. Heywood. 1843.

MR. SAMUEL BAMFORD-bred, it seems, among the

was

Methodists, and for a short time in very early life a sailorone of those Lancashire weavers whom the eloquence of Cobbett and the impudence of Hunt seduced into premature Radicalism shortly after the close of our protracted warfare against revolutionary France. He was twenty-nine years of age when his name began to attract notice among the patriotic clubs of his district; but had he been only nineteen we should be at a loss to account for a gross misstatement with which he opens his Narrative. He alleges that all was quiet among the northern operatives until the Corn Laws were altered in 1815. Is it possible that he can have forgotten the whole series of tumults and trials -and alas! executions- that occurred in the manufacturing districts between 1810 and 1815? He is a poet—has he forgotten what was the subject of Lord Byron's maiden speech in the House of Peers? Has he forgotten the memorable Rejected Addresses'

·

Addresses' of that same year-one thousand eight hundred and twelve'

'What made the baker's loaf and Luddites rise,

And filled the butchers' shops with large blue flies?' &c.

But if Mr. Bamford had used a very little reflection, he must have perceived the inconsistency between his own statement of the cause of the turmoil, and his own enumeration of its leaders? Were Hunt and Cobbett first heard of at the time of the Liverpool Corn Bill? Is it not notorious to all the world that these persons had been indefatigable in the excitement of political disaffection for many years before the downfall of Buonaparte?-that they had acquired, long before there was any thought of a new Corn Bill, that influence over multitudes of their fellow-citizens which happened to pull Bamford into its vortex when the Corn Bill was the favourite cry, but which would have been the same, except as to some of its pretences and symbols, although the war had proceeded, and the Corn Laws remained as they were in the days of Tilsit?

But we are not about to enter on a controversy, either historical or political, with Mr. Bamford. On all the questions connected with the years 1816-1820, which he treats of, or alludes to, this Journal long ago expressed opinions from which we have never seen the least reason to depart. We have the fortune, or misfortune, to hold that the maintenance of the agriculture of this country is the very first duty of the government and the legislature; and among all the dangers which we foresaw from Parliamentary Reform,' not one appeared to us at the time, or appears now, more serious than the increase of strength which such a changé in the constitution must give to the domestic enemies of our primary domestic industry-that which is the basis and safeguard of all the rest. On the last of these great questions Mr. Bamford thought, and thinks, diametrically otherwise. As to Parliamentary Reform, his opinions seem to have undergone a considerable change since 1820. He is still, indeed, a Reformer, and would fain be a sweeping one; but the lessons of experience have not been entirely thrown away upon a man of great natural shrewdness, and many upright and amiable feelings. Whatever Mr. Bamford's theoretical notions of political perfection may be, he has had motives and means for watching sedulously the doings of his own time, and arrived at the conviction that no real good can ever be achieved through such men and such arts as he has seen prominently connected, in every successive stage hitherto, with the political disturbances of England. We shall quote by-and-bye some striking passages on this head: but our principal object is to make our

readers