tions of this important fubject, Language claims a fuperior degree of attention: in many points it will be found a moft unerring guide; and, when viewed on philofophic ground, may be confidered as one great barometer of the barbarity or civilization of a people. A poverty of dialect is generally accompanied by favagenefs and ignorance: refinement is only advanced by a general diffusion of knowledge; and knowledge muft neceffarily be confined within narrow limits, till written language has conveyed it through every order of men. No authority can, at the fame time, fo decifively fix the peculiar habits and pursuits of a nation as the founds by which they articulate their ideas. The vanity of a traveller may heighten a plain story into the marvellous; and the credulity of a historian may give a currency to the fiction: but, when radical words, in any tongue, are expreffive of certain customs, objects, and modes of thinking; our reafon cannot, for a moment, entertain a doubt of their existence.

INTO this train of thought I have been led, by that minute attention to the analysis of the Perfian and Arabic idioms, which the construction of my work unavoidably required: and I was willing to foften the extreme painfulness of inceffant labour, on a fubject naturally dry, by occafionally tracing, together

with Eastern language, the opposition and coincidence of Afiatic and European customs. Some points will of confequence be touched, which, at first view, may have no apparent tendency to advance the acquifition of those tongues: yet the mere science of words is, after all, but the outline of language; whilst the colouring and expreffion are only to be found in the virtues and the genius, in the vices and the follies of a people. In the course of this enquiry I fhall have occafion, at the fame time, to doubt of many received opinions; and to question the positions of fome fuperior men: whose want of knowledge in the languages of the Eaft has produced much false reasoning; whilst their attachment to fyftem has heaped error upon error, and raised fplendid fabricks upon pillars of ice.

THE origin of Ancient Tongues, like all research into high antiquity, is naturally involved in perplexity and darkness; and every difquifition, however ingenious, must rest at laft on the uncertain basis of fancy and conjecture. Yet, on this visionary field, learned and pious men have disputed with much want of temper. The original language of man has been confidered as an interesting pursuit; and advocates have been found for the fuperior claim of every ancient tongue: Adam has

been taught dialects he never knew; and the language even of Omnipotence they have not blushed to determine with precifion. To pierce through the obscurity of those distant periods, feems however above the powers of man; and to have no other tendency, than unprofitably to bewilder the human understanding. I shall avoid therefore thofe unknown regions, through which there appears no guide; and confine myself to the simple information of reafon and probability.

THE fource of the Arabic language lies far beyond hiftoric proof. Grammarians carry the older dialect to the family of Heber, the fourth in defcent from Noah: and the more modern to Ifhmael, the fon of Abraham. These are Arabian tales: yet they apparently furnish this ftrong conclufion; That when 'nations have recourfe to fable and tradition for the epoch of an invention, no period, within the demonstration of record, can poffibly be found to fix its more exact commencement. Though rude perhaps in its origin, and gradual in its progress to improvement, the richnefs of the Arabic has been long proverbial; and many circumftances have concurred to render it not only the moft copious of any known tongue; but to preserve it uncorrupted

amidst all the political and literary revolutions of furrounding states.

THE Arabians were never conquered. The Romans, the Perfians, and the Ethiopians, made indeed, at different times, impreffions upon particular districts: but they were all too flight, and of too fhort duration, to introduce any material alteration into their government, their language, or their manners. From very early times, this immenfe peninfula was divided into many ftates; fome independent, and others tributary to the Tobbas or Hemyaret fovereigns of Arabia Felix. In those states many different dialects prevailed; the principal of which were the Hemyaret and the Koreifh. The firft, though the language of the most powerful of the Arabian princes, appears however to have been little cultivated by the independent tribes; or even by those who paid them a feudal obedience : a remarkable inftance of which is related by Mohammedan writers. An envoy from a feudatory ftate having been fent to the Tobba, that prince, when he was introduced, pronounced the word T'heb; which in the Hemyaret implied Be feated: unhappily it fignified, Precipitate yourself in the native dialect of the Ambaffador; who, with a fingular deference for the orders of his fovereign, without hesi

tation or enquiry, threw himself instantly from the castle wall, and perished.

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THE Koreish tribe were the nobleft and the most learned of all the Western Arabs: they were also the greatest merchants, and carried on an extensive commerce with every adjacent state whilft the Kaaba, or Square Temple of Mecca, which, before the era of Mohammed, was folely under their guardianship, drew annually a great concourfe of pilgrims from every Arabian tribe, and from every country where the Sabian religion prevailed. Where many ftrangers are accustomed to affemble at stated times, politeness and refinement are a natural confequence. Numbers of the pilgrims were people of the first rank, and poffeffed of all the science peculiar to their country or their age. Great fairs were held during their residence; and a variety of gay amufements filled up the intervals of their religious duties. Of those entertainments, literary compofitions held the most distinguished rank; every man of genius confidering not his own reputation alone, but even that of his nation or his tribe, as interested in his fuccefs. Poetry and rhetoric were chiefly cultivated and admired: the firft being looked upon as highly ornamental; and the other, as a neceffary accomplishent in the education of every leading man. An affem