the sound of the voice, the quality of the sound or noise, which any external object made, and to form its name accordingly. Thus in all language we find a multitude of words that are evidently constructed upon this principle. A certain bird is termed a cuckoo, from the sound which it emits; when one sort of wind is said to whistle, and another to rour; when a serpent is said to hiss, a fly to buzz, and falling timber to crash; when a stream is said to flow, and hail to rattle; the analogy between the word, and the thing signified, is plainly discernable. ENGLISH LANGUAGE. The English language, or rather, the ancient language of Britain, says the Encyclopedist, or Circle of the Sciences, is generally allowed to have been the same with the Gaulic, or French, (this island in all probability, having been first peopled from Gallia), as both Cæsar and Tacitus affirm, and prove by many strong and conclusive arguments, as by their religion, manners, customs, and the nearness of their situation. But now we have very small remains of the ancient British tongue, except in Wales, Cornwall, the Islands and Highlands of Scotland, part of Ireland, and some provinces of France; which will not appear strange, when the following historical events, elucidating the rise and progress of the English language, are taken into consideration. Julius Cæsar, some time before the birth of our Saviour, made a descent upon Britain, though he may be said rather to have disco, vered than conquered it ;* but about the year of Christ forty-five, in the time of Claudius, Aulus Plautius was sent over with some Roman forces, by whom two kings of the Britons, Codigunus and Caractacus, were both overcome in battle; whereupon a Roman colony was planted at Malden, in Essex, and the southern parts of the island were reduced to the form of a Roman province; after that, the island was conquered as far North as the Firths of Dumbarton and Edinburgh, by Agricola, in the time of Domitian; whereupon, a great number of the Britons, in the conquered part of the island, retired to the West part, called Wales, carrying their language with them. The greatest part of Britain being thus become a Roman province, the Roman legions, who resided in Britain for above 200 years, undoubtedly disseminated the Latin tongue; and the people being afterwards governed by laws written in Latin, must necessarily make a mixture of languages. This seems to have been the first mutation the language of Britain suffered. Thus the British tongue continued, for some time, mixed with the provincial Latin, till the Roman legions being called home, the Scots and Picts took the opportunity to attack and harass England; upon which, king Vortigern, about the year 440, called the Saxons to his assistance, who came over with several of their neighbours, and having repulsed the Scots and Picts, were rewarded for their services with the Isle of Thanet, and the whole county of Kent: but growing too powerful, and not being contented with their allotment, dispossessed the inhabitants of all the country on this side of the Severn; thus the British tongue was in a great measure destroyed, * It has been lately proved by astronomical demonstration, that Cæsar arrived for the first time in front of the cliffs of Dover, on the 23d of August, B. C. 55, at ten in the morning, and finally effected his landing at 3 o'clock of the same day in the Downs, 8 miles from Dover, between the South Foreland and Deal. and the Saxon introduced in its stead. What the Saxon tongue was, long before the conquest, about the year 700, we may observe in the most ancient manuscripts of that language, which is a gloss on the Evangelists, by Bishop Edfrid, in which the three first articles on the Lord's Prayer run thus : "Uren Fader thic arth in heofnas, sic gehalgud thin noma, so cymeth thin ric. Sic thin willa sue is heofnas, and in eortho," &c. In the beginning of the ninth century, the Danes invaded England, and getting a footing in the eastern and northern parts of the country, their power gradually increased, and they became sole masters of it in 200 years. By this means, the ancient British gained a tincture of the Danish language; but their government being of no long continuance, did not make so great an alteration in the Anglo-Saxon, as the next revolution, when the whole land, A. D. 1067, was subdued by William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, in France; for the Normans, as a monument of their conquest, endeavoured to make their language as generally received as their commands, and thereby rendered the British language an entire medley. About the year 900, the Lord's Prayer in the ancient Anglo-Saxon ran thus: "Thu ure Fader the eart on heofenum, si thin nama gehalgod; cume thin rice si thin willa on eorthon swa, swa on heofenum," &c. It will now clearly be seen, that the English Language had its origin in a compound of others. "Great, verily," says Camden, "was the glory of our tongue, before the Norman Conquest, in this, that the old English could express, most aptly, all the conceptions of the mind in their own tongue, without borrowing from any." That the English language, although of an heterogenous origin, possesses more poetical capabilities, than any other, at the present day, there can be no question. Dr. Johnson says, in speaking of languages, "the Spanish for love, the French for gallantry, the Italian for music, and the English for poetry." BURLESQUE. F. Vavassor mentions, in his book De Ludicra Dictione, that burlesque was altogether unknown to the ancients; but others are of a different opinion. We even find that one Raintovious, in the time of Ptolemy Lagus, turned the serious subject of tragedy into ridicule, which is, perhaps, a better plea for the antiquity of farce than of burlesque. The Italians seem to have the justest claim to the invention of burlesque; the first of this kind was Bernio, who was followed by Lalli, Caporali, &c. From Italy it passed into France, and became there so much the mode, that in 1649, there appeared a book under the title of "The Passion of our Saviour," in burlesque verse. From thence it passed into England, where some have excelled therein. ON THE ORIGIN OF GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY. The distinction between the origin of Government and the origin of Political Society, is thus defined in Cooper's Letters on the Irish Nation, 1799: From the writings of Aristotle, we are taught to consider the origin of Government not as a work of art, or of intellect, much less as the result of contract; but as the consequence of a natural instinctive impulse towards comfort, convenience, and security. Government was not made, created, or covenanted; but arose out of human nature. Laws, indeed, which were afterwards added, are artificial aids and contrivances to prop and support Government. They thwart, control, and subject the passions of individuals, in order to prevent their injuring society. But the origin of political society is totally distinct. It was dictated by nature, and cherished by a conviction and sensation of its utility. The same principle of general convenience, which for the well-being of mankind, necessarily gave rise to government, still holds it together, and must ever continue to do so. Utility is thus the moral principle upon which the obedience of citizens and the protection of magistrates rests. It was Nature which established the subordination of servant and master, of family to father, and of wife to husband. These three branches of domestic economy are the germ of all government. Principium Urbis et quasi Seminarium Reipublicae. "The British Government," says Montesquieu, "is one of the wisest in Europe, because there is a body which examines it perpetually, and which is perpetually examining itself; and its errors are of such a nature, as never to be lasting, and are frequently useful, by rousing the attention. In a word (he adds) a free government, that is to say, one for ever in motion, cannot support itself, unless its own laws are capable of correcting the abuses of it." The benevolent Hanway says, "Government originates from the love of order. Watered by police it grows up to maturity, and, in the course of time, spreads a luxuriant comfort and security. Cut off its branches, and the mere trunk, however strong it may appear, can afford no shelter." Police being one of the means by which an improved state of society is produced and preserved, is defined by Mr. Colquhoun to be, "a new science; the properties of which, consist not in the judicial powers which lead to punishment, and which belong to magistrates alone; but in the prevention and detection of crimes, and in those other functions which relate to internal regulations for the well ordering and comfort of civil society." Again," says he, "to effect this purpose, inestimable in a national point of view, and benevolent and humane to all whose vices and enormities it tends to restrain; a police must be resorted to upon the broad scale of general prevention, mild in its operations, eflective in its results; having justice and humanity for its basis, and the general security of the state and individuals for its ultimate object." ORIGIN OF BOOKS, AND VARIOUS OTHER MATTERS Several sorts of materials were used formerly in making records; plates of lead and copper, the barks of trees, bricks, stone, and wood, were the first materials employed to engrave such things upon, as men were willing to have transmitted to posterity. Josephus speaks of two columns, the one of stone, the other of brick, on which the children of Seth wrote their inventions and astronomical discoveries. Perphyrius makes mention of some pillars, preserved in Crete, on which the ceremonies, practised by the Corybantes in their sacrifices, were recorded. Hesiod's Works were originally written upon tables of lead, and deposited in the temple of the muses, in Boetia. The Ten Commandments delivered to Moses were written upon stone; and Solon's Laws upon wooden planks. Tables of wood, box, and ivory, were common among the ancients; when of wood, they were frequently covered with wax, that people might write up on them with more ease, or blot out what they had written. The leaves of the palm tree were afterwards used instead of wooden planks, and the finest and thinnest part of the bark of such trees as the lime, the ash, the maple, and the elm; from hence comes the word liber, which signifies the inner bark of the trees; and as these barks were rolled up, in order to be removed with greater ease, these rolls were called volumen, a volume; a name afterwards given to the like rolls of paper or parchment.* Thus we find books were first written on stones, witness the Decalogue given to Moses; then on the parts of plants, as leaves chiefly of the palm tree; the rind and barks, especially the tilia, or phylleria, and the Egyptian papyrus. By degrees wax, then leather, were introduced, especially the skins of goats and sheep, of which at length parchment was prepared: then lead came into use; also linen, silk, horn, and lastly, paper itself. The first books were in the form of blocks and tables; but as flexible matter came to be wrote on, they found it more convenient to make their books in the form of rolls; these were composed of several sheets, fastened to each other, and rolled upon a stick, or umbilicus, the whole making a kind of column or cylinder, which was to be managed by the umbilicus as a handle, it being reputed a crime (as we are told) to take hold of the roll itself. The outside of the volume was called frons; the ends of the umbilicus, cornua (horns), which were usually carved, and adorned with silver, ivory, or even gold and precious stones; the title was struck on the outside, and the whole volume, when extended, might make a yard and a half wide, and fifty long. The form, or internal arrangement of books, has also undergone many varieties; at first the letters were only divided into lines, then into separate words, which, by degrees, were noted with accents, into periods, paragraphs, chapters, and other divisions. In some countries, as among the Orientals, the lines began from the right and ran leftward; in others, as the northern and western nations, from left to right; others, as the Greeks, followed both directions, alternately going in the one, and returning in the other, called Coustrophedon; in most countries the lines run from one side to the other; in some, particularly the Chinese, from top to bottom. Again, in some the page is entire and uniform; in others divided into columns; in others, distinguished into texts and notes, either marginal or at the bottom; usually it is furnished with signatures and catch words; sometimes also with a register, to discover whether the book is complete. To these are added summaries, or side-notes, and the embellishments, as in old books, of red, gold, or initial letters; they had likewise, as with the moderns, their head pieces, tail-pieces, effigies, schemes, maps, and the like. There were also certain formulas at the beginnings and endings of books; the one to exhort the reader to be courageous, and proceed to the following books; the others were conclusions, often guarded with imprecations against such as should falsify them. Of the earlier books we have nothing that is clear on that subject. The Books of Moses are doubtless the oldest books now extant; but there were books before those of Moses, since he cites several. Scipio Sgambati, and others, even talk of books before the deluge, written * The name is derived from the Latin volvo, to roll up, the ancient manner of making up books, as we find in Cicero's time the libraries consisted wholly of such rolls. by the Patriarchs Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Enoch, Methusalem, Lamech, Noah and his wife; also by Ham, Japhet and his wife; besides others by dæmons or angels; of all which some moderns have found enough to fill an antedeluvian library: but they appear all either the dreams of idle writers, or the impostures of fraudulent ones. A Book of Enoch is even cited in the Epistle of Jude, ver. 10 and 15, from which some endeavour to prove the reality of the antediluvian writings; but the book cited by that apostle is generally allowed, both by ancient and modern writers, to be spurious. Of profane books, the oldest extant are Homer's* Poems, which were so even in the time of Sextus Empiricus; though we find mention in Greek writers of seventy others prior to Homer, as Hermes, Orpheus, Daphne, Horus, Linus, Musaeus, Palamedes, Zoroaster, &c., but of the greater part of these, there is not the least fragment remaining; and of others, the pieces which go under their names are generally held by the learned to be suppositious. Hardouin goes farther, charging all the ancient books, both Greek and Latin, except Cicero, Pliny, Virgil's Georgics, Horace's Satires and Epistles, Herodotus, and Homer, to be spurious, and forged in the 13th century, by a club of persons, under the direction of one Severus Archontius. Among the Greeks it is to be observed, the oldest books were in verse, which was prior to prose. Herodotus's History is the oldest book extant of the prosaic kind. To books we are indebted, as one of the chief instruments of acquiring knowledge; they are the repositories of the law, and vehicles of learning of every kind; our religion itself is founded in books, and without them, says Bartholin, "God is silent, Justice dormant, Physic at a stand, Philosophy lame, letters dumb, and all things involved in Cimmerian darkness." The eulogia which have been bestowed upon books are infinite; they are represented as the refuge of truth, which is banished out of conversation; as standing counsellors or preachers, always at hand, and always disinterested having this advantage over all instructions, that they are ready to repeat their lesson as often as we please. Books supply the want of masters, and even, in some measure, the want of genius and invention, and can raise the dullest persons who have memory, above the level of the greatest geniuses, if destitute of their help. Perhaps their highest glory is the affection borne them by the greatest men of all ages. Cato, the elder Pliny, the Emperor Julian, and others, are on record for their great devotion to books; the last has perpetuated his passion by some Greek Epigrams in their praise. Richard Bury, Bishop of Durham, and Lord Chancellor of England, has an express treatise on the love of books. THE ALPHABET. The Greek Alphabet consisted of sixteen letters till 399 B. C., when the Ionic of twenty-four characters was introduced. DEDICATIONS TO BOOKS. Dedications to Books were first introduced in the time of Mecanas, A. D. 17; practised for the purpose of obtaining money in 1600. See Origin of " Book Printing in England." |