Among the ancient nations, from the very earliest records of traditional history, there were customs, arbitrary in their character, common to all known nations, whose origin none of those nations appear to have known, nor have they been able to assign any plausible reason for the observance of them; customs and circumstances, observed by nations, who do not appear to have had any such intercourse with each other, as to suggest the probability, that they borrowed the practices in question from one another.

There are to this day languages entire, and fragments or remnants of languages, as perfectly constructed, as any modern tongue-exhibiting, in their formation, as much thought, as much skill, as much grammatical knowledge in theory and in practice, and implying, at least, an equal length of civilization, as any known modern language. These ancient languages and remnants, appear to be connected together, and to have had no small share in the formation of every known ancient and every known modern language. But of the people who spake them, who they were, where they lived, when they came into or went out of existence, not a trace or vestige remains. All has passed away: we must assign their time and place from the plausible conclusions of circumstantial evidence and hints and gleanings of ancient history.

The letters of the alphabet have nothing in them as phonetic representatives that should necessarily restrict the list to any particular number (nay, some nations use sounds which others do not, as the French reject the dth) more especially if that number should require every where additional letters. The great majority of ancient nations, however, have adopted an alphabet f sixteen letters. In most of them, their rank or order of succession is the same, their powers of notation are the same: so as to set at utter defiance all supposition of accidental coincidence, and to put the doctrine of chances hors de combat.But from whence the oldest of these alphabets came, or from what people they were derived, is beyond the date even of traditional history.

There are some points problematical and contested, and others incontrovertible in the history of astronomic knowledge, which appear to have given rise to practises and calculations in use for more than two thousand years, by people who know them only by rote; who know not the reasons or the ground-work of the knowledge they put in practice; who are utterly ignorant from what place and from what more profound and superior people they derive this traditionary practical knowledge. The Brahmins know and employ the rules prescribed in the Surya

siddyanta, but the theory of them is unknown in India. There' are evidences of the existence of astronomical knowledge long previously to Hipparchus and Ptolemy, far more accurate than these great men were acquainted with. Knowledge, too accurate for their adoption, and which they did not know: knowledge, approaching to modern and recent accuracy. But we know not what nation acquired it before us; or to whom it is to be ascribed; or from what region of the earth it has been traditionally delivered, and become known to the people who, comparatively within these few years only, have discovered its accuracy.

There are among the most ancient people known, the Scythians, the Orientals, the Egyptians, the Ethiopians, the Phenicians, the Pelasgi, the Etruscans, not to mention the Greeks, mythological coincidences that point to a common stock, to a common form of worship, the parent of all succeeding ones; on which, figurative, poetic, and popular personifications and superstitions have from time to time been every where engrafted, as to whose origin history is silent.

There are probable traces of chemical knowledge, particularly in metallurgy, that point beyond the earliest period of traditionary history.

There are evidences of people beyond the memory of all history, who measured a degree of the meridian approximating to the modern calculation of 57,008 toises so near as 57066 toises, implying a common measure, and an accuracy and a length of observation, that sets modern conjecture at defiance.

Finally, the traditional benefactors of the human race, the men of science who taught what was known, and who, in all parts of the world, have received the traditional homage of the people who knew them only by name-differ in name only: for, at present, no learned man entertains any doubt, but Thaut or Thoth of the Egyptians, Butta or Buddha of the Orientals, Somonocodam of Siam, Fo of the Chinese, and Hermes Trismegistus of the Greeks, are one and the same person. Among all these people, the fourth day of the week is dedicated to Mercury, the great object of worship also with the Gauls.*

And first as to the alphabets and languages. The names given to mere sounds, and the order of arrangement in which these names or letters succeed each other-and when they are used to signify numbers, the numbers to which they are applied-are all circumstances, in themselves, perfectly arbitrary.

Boch. Chanaan. L. i. c. xlii. Cæs. Com. 1. 6.

The Pelasgic, Attic, or Arcadian letters, the Ionian, Phenician, Cadmean, Eolian, those of the old Latins, of the old Germans, of the British and Irish bards, amount to sixteen. To these, in Greek, was added the Digamma, then four others by Palamedes, and four by Simonides. The Runic alphabet consists, properly, of sixteen letters, which are Phenician in their origin. The traditions and chronicles of the North attribute their introduction to Odin.*

According to Dr. Burgess, the old Irish had seventeen primary letters, which are the same with the Arabic. When the seventeenth was added we do not know.

The Welsh (Celts) have thirty-six letters, of which, sixteen only are radical.

The powers of notation of the Samaritan, Hebrew, Greek and Arabic, are the same. How all this happens, none can tell.— Accidental coincidence of circumstances so numerous, is out of the question. These coincidences can arise only from a common source that source must be the system formed by the nation or people who first adopted them. But who are they? What is known concerning them? They have left some brief memorials of their existence, but no more!

The Sanscrit language (says Sir Wm. Jones, third discourse on the Hindus) whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure, more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity both in the roots of verbs, and in the forms of grammar than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which perhaps no longer exists. There is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit. The old Persian might be added to the same family.

Lieut. Wilkins, in the Asiatic researches, has shewn that the words used at the close of the Eleusinian mysteries, were pure Sanscrit. That the Sanscrit can be traced in the Irish, and therefore in the Hebrew and Phenician, is now settled. That we find it insinuated in the German, and with the Greek, in the Welsh or Celtic, is also out of dispute. Who spake the Sanscrit language? What people constructed, arranged and employed, for their common use, this tongue, so exquisite and refined? That people whose profound knowledge and astronomic

skill, enabled the compiler of the Surya Siddyanta, to collect together that system of astronomical rules and practices, of which, excellent as they are, and different as the Hindoo is for the most part from the Greek astronomy, no Brahmin, known to history or tradition, ever understood the source, or the demonstration. Who were that people, where did they live, what is their history? We leave this puzzling question to be answered by the opponents of M. Bailly.

The ancient Zend and Pahlivi, perhaps dialects of the Sanscrit, exist as a written language in Persia; when were they spoken? who spake them? Sir Wm. Jones assumes, that they were the ancient language of Iran. Perhaps it was so; but who brought these dialects into Iran? Were they confined to Iran? When did they come into, when did they go out of use? Time has placed oblivion as a guard over these objects of curious inquiry: prohibiting approach, there he stands!

Major Vallancey has shewn, as we think conclusively, that the Ogham and Persepolitan characters relate to a language far beyond the limits of known history; the language known perhaps to the Hercules Ogmius of Lucian. This has met the fate of his Irish translation of the scene in Plautus; derided, but never refuted. It is dangerous to stride so far that the feeble powers of contemporaries cannot enable them to follow us. But Vallancey's day is coming on: Renascuntur quæ jam cecidêre.— We think our readers in this country will be obliged to us for a tabular view of Bochart's and Vallancey's explanation of that curious specimen of Carthagino-Phenician, Phenico-Samaritan, and Irish.

Secondly, as to the remnants traceable of ancient astronomic knowledge :

We have carefully perused the history of ancient astronomy, and the history of Indian astronomy by Mr. Bailly; then the papers of Mr. Davis and Mr. Bentley, in the Asiatic researches, fixing the date of the Surya Siddyanta, and shewing, as we think, with great probability, in what way the supposed ancient observations pretended to have been made by the Indian astronomers at the commencement of the Kaliyoug, might have been settled by assuming astronomical appearances, and calculating backward, in recent times. We then perused the remarks of Professor Playfair, in the Edinburgh Transactions; and then the review of the controversy, by Delambre, in his History of Ancient Astronomy (4to. 1817) from page 400 to 537, and his review of Dr. John Taylor's Translation of the Liliwati: and the observations of Delambre on the Bija Ganita. The impression left on our minds after a laborious perusal of these docu

ments, is, that Bailly is undoubtedly mistaken in many of his astronomical calculations, but that there is a manifest inclination among his critics to destroy the character of his whole system. We think no one can peruse the criticisms upon it by Sir Wm. Jones and Delambre, without being struck with this intention glaring upon the face of them. With respect to the very ingenious and plausible objections of Messrs. Davis and Bentley, we are of opinion with Professor Playfair, that the processes these gentlemen think the Hindoos have adopted, could not possibly have taken place; inasmuch as they imply a knowledge of astronomical facts, which have not long been known, and which the Hindoos could not have known. What Messrs. Davis and Bentley, with the aid of modern facts can do now, no Hindoo could have done a century ago. The results produced imply more accurate knowledge than any modern Hindoo can be presumed to possess.

It is not worth our while to enter here into a criticism of the method adopted by Mr. Bentley, to determine the dates of the Tirvalore tables and the Surya Siddyanta; we will assume the dates he has assigned, viz. the year 1281 for the Tirvalore tables, and 1060 for the Surya Siddyanta. Is there the slightest proof of the existence of the theorems on which those tables and processes are founded? Granting that Varaha lived after the Arabs and the Greeks, is there even the shadow of proof that he or any other Brahmin ever resorted to that source of knowledge, even if it were adequate? Is there the shadow of proof of any Brahmin so far forgetting the injunctions of his caste, as to travel? to travel especially into Greece? Is there the shadow of proof that Varaha, or any other Brahmin of that day, was acquainted with the theorems and these demonstrations on which the practical directions of the Surya Siddyanta are founded? we know of none. Let any one reflect on the admis sions of Delambre, in p. 478 of the chapter on Indian Astronomy, and he will be satisfied, not only that the Indian Astronomy is entirely different from that of the Greeks, and, perhaps, inferior, but that it must be referred to a very different era, and a very different people: exactly the conclusion that Bailly arrives at, although he suspects the travelling philosophers of that people to have profited by an eastern knowledge. To suppose that calculations approaching to accuracy, could be made for the year 3100 before Christ, by means of directions found in a book published in 1060 of the Christian era, is a draft on our credulity, which we are not yet disposed to honour.

Delambre, in p. 517, remarks, that from a calculation of the eclipse of Monday, November 2, 1789, made according to the