fal grammar by many learned men, who have turned their thoughts upon the fubject. If it be true that the principles of grammar, like thofe of harmony, are founded in nature, and originally the fame through all human exiftence, it is equally true, that they are fo infinitely modified as to leave few traces of their primary analogy. Indeed, grammar itself could hardly exift in the first rude elements of fpeech. It confifts in the right construction of fentences, the connexion, combina tion, and dependencies of words. But as the firft fpeech of man could only be formed of individual, appropriated founds expreffive of material objects, or of fenfible paffions and wants, these would, of course, have no obvious connexion. They would continue in their infulated ftate, till long appropriation had brought them together with greater facility; and even then, while fociety was immature, its wants few, and its words unwritten, the connexions of speech would be fimple and inconfiderable.

M. De Gebelin, however, with the fpirit of modern adventure, and with a degree of courage equal to his capacity, has failed in queft of thefe undifcovered countries. He has already made fo long a voyage, that we defpair of finding room for any thing more than an imperfect chart of his paffage, and a fmall extract from his (peech at setting out.

The origin of fpeech, fays he, is a problem on which a number of learned men have exercised themselves with different degrees of fuccefs; but which has never yet been refolved, becaufe a fufficient number of obfervations had not been collected for the purpofe; fo that every thing was loft in the wanderings of hypothefes, as it always happens when facts are to be fupplied by the force of genius or imagination.

Some of thefe have fuppofed, that fpeech or language was the pure effect of human invention. They thought that for a long time men were capable of nothing but fimple cries; that by fome happy accidents they perceived that they were capable, by this means, of expreffing not only their fenfations but their ideas, of painting material objects by certain founds, and that thefe inconfiderable beginnings, by flow and painful degrees, gave rife to languages.

Others being unable to conceive how man could invent an art for which he had no natural talent or propenfity, and defpairing of finding out the phyfical caufes of language, have referred every thing, in the end, to the omnipotence of the Deity. They fuppofe, that he communicated to men even the primary words they made ufe of, and that being themselves entirely paffive in this refpect, they received every thing from him, even to grammar itself.

Thefe

< These fyftems perfeâly oppofite to each other, taken abfolutely as they ftood, appeared equally false, though, in a limited fenfe, they were true.

Language is from the Deity, in this refpect, that he formed man with the neceffary organs of fpeech; that he gave him a capacity for fentiment and ideas, put him under a neceffity of expreffing them, and furnished him with models proper to direct him in that expreffion.

But then to difcover and unfold thefe organs, to imitate thefe models, to follow thofe combinations, of which he was naturally capable, and on that fmall number of radicals allowed him by Nature, to raife fuch an immenfe fuperftructure of words, as, to be properly known and understood, would require the labour of the longest life,-all this was the effect of human industry.

And this was not the confequence of any affociated agreement, but an effect of that imitative talent communicated to us by Nature, and of those wants of which fhe has made us fenfible; for it would have been impoffible for beings who could not speak, and who had no idea of the art, to agree about the formation of a language, and to form certain determinate words.

"Neither could it be the effect of imitation that was flow, fortuitous, and accidental, because man, from the first, was under a neceffity of ufing fpeech, was already furnished with organs and models of language; and Nature always advances to her final purposes with a fure and rapid progrefs; the natural fentiment itself fuggefted the cry or found necellary to express it, the natural idea fupplied the tone of voice proper to make it intelligible, and to give it a diftinct application.

The perfection of language, and the multiplication of words for the expreffion of factitious ideas, depended folely on the induftry of men, and on a mutual agreement and understanding amongst them; but this period is at an immenfe diftance from the birth of a language first formed by the natural genius of man, and determined by his wants.

When we fay that language arofe from imitation, we do not take the word in its moft limited fenfe, so as to confine it to the imitation of the founds and cries of natural objects, the howling of winds, the roar of thunder, the lowing of cattle, the cries of animals, even thofe of man himself, from whence refult all those words included under the general name of Onomatopoiea. We extend this name, likewife, to an imi tation founded on analogy, occafioned by the relation one perceives between the qualities of the object and those of the organs of the voice. It was impoffible to reprefent all objects by the Onomatopoiea; hence fuch tones were made ufe of as bore the greatest analogy to the idea they excited: troublesome objects

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objects were expreffed by fharp, harth tones; moving or running objects by tones of the fame kind; the fixed and the flow by heavy and fixed founds: and on all thefe occafions, thofe tones become the determined names of the objects, and the fources of immenfe families, into which all thofe beings that have qualities in common with them, are incorporated.'

Such was the origin and difcovery of language, the capacity for which was given to man by his Creator, and the resources of which he found in that variety of modulation and articulated founds which his natural fenfations impreffed upon his vocal organs.

In order to give our Readers as perfect an idea as our limits will allow, of this volume on Univerfal Grammar, we shall exhibit a short analysis of the whole.

It is divided into five books. THE FIRST confifts of general and preliminary obfervations. The etymology of the word is given; then follows a definition of that word, not metaphyfical, but hiftorical and practical, fuch as leads to the natural and neceffary laws of grammar. The word is fhewn to exift of neceffity, and that neceffity to be determined by the objects it defcribes. The objects themselves are examined; we are instructed in what manner grammar enables us to defcribe them; what qualities it ought to poffefs in order to attain this end; what advantages arife from thefe obfervations; and what it is that diftinguishes particular from univerfal grammar.

THE SECOND book contains the materials of grammar, or the words whereby ideas are painted. Here we see that the pictures of our ideas exhibited by words muft neceffarily confift of different parts, in order to make the representation diftinct. The diftinguishing characteristics, and the number of thefe parts are laid down, together with the three different departments or divifions of verbal painting, which are the enunciative, where the fubject of the painting is accompanied by its inherent qualities; the alive, where the fubject is painted with qualities relative to other objects, on which it has fome impreffion or effect; and the paffive, where the fame fubject is defcribed as receiving impreffions from another object.

The fecond part of this book is defigned as an explication of the ten divifions, into which the Author has diftributed all the words that are to be taken into his difcourfe concerning all languages. As this forms the bafis of every thing that confti. tutes grammar, the fubject is more minutely canvaffed, and takes up a confiderable part of the volume.

It is, indeed, and without a compliment, a very curious book. At the beginning the noun is confidered; its ufe and different fpecies are defcribed; its etymology, as high even as the primitive language; the manner in which it unites the dif

ferent

ferent parts that compofe the verbal picture. We are informed how Nature herself has fuggefted PROPER NAMES for beings that ftand diftinct in their fpecies; and to APPELLATIVES for beings whofe individuals are more multiplied. We are inftructed in the origin of the genders of nouns, and why fome, as those of the SUN and TIME, [the Author must refer to the Greek noun,] are mafculine, while others, fuch as the Earth, Virtue, Beauty, are feminine. The advantages that refult from this distinction of genders are explained. All words are fhewn to be defcended from nouns. The fources from whence the nouns themselves, the radicals of all languages, were drawn, are investigated. An inftance is given in the word GUR or GYR, which fignifics a turn, revolution, or circle, and the article concludes with certain obfervations on diminutive, augmentative, and figurative words.

After the noun, the Author treats of its diftinguishing and characteristic ARTICLE.

Next follow the ADJECTIVES, their origin, genders, and degrees of comparison, their influence and effect in the verbal picture.

The pronouns are then confidered in their different claffes and etymology; and the very interefting history of THOU and I makes no trifling part of this difquifition.

The participles come next under confideration, and give rife to many difficult and important difcuffions. The Author gives his reafons for diftinguishing them from the adjectives, to which they are fo nearly allied, and from the verbs with which they have been generally affociated.

This book concludes with obfervations on the four undeclined parts of speech.

The THIRD Book treats of the different forms the feveral words are to affume for the purpofe of compofition; inquires why fome are capable of this variation, while others remain in an unvaried state, and affigns the reasons of that immutability. Hence we are informed why certain words have genders, numbers, and cafes allotted to them, and why others have tenfes, moods, and conjugations. The cafes, we are told, are fupplied by nature herfelf; and that it was impoffible the active and paffive pronoun should terminate in the fame manner.

Thefe obfervations are followed by an important difcuffion concerning the preference of grammatical method, in which the different force and confequence of a word, when placed in this or that fituation, is inveftigated, and the different methods of ancient and modern grammarians are confidered.

The Author obferves that, as all verbs take their force from, the verb eft, it is no way furprifing that the infinitives of the Perfic, Gothic, Teutonic, Greek, and other languages derived

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from

from thefe, fhould end in ein, the infinitive of the verb et; and yet at the fame time that the Latin infinitives fhould end in ere, fince it was only owing to the nafal n being changed in r, a change which frequently occurs.

The FOURTH BOOK treats of the arrangement of words in general in compofition, in order to effect an intelligible fucceffion of ideas. This book is divided into three parts. The firft exhibits the rules that are to be obferved in combining words in compofition; and thefe rules are fhewn to be of two claffes, the first relating to the line of words in concordance leading to the fame object; the fecond having regard to thofe words that are dependencies of the principal, and lead to different objects, and this is what conftitutes SYNTAX.

The fecond part lays down rules for the arrangement of words in fuch a manner as to form a whole, and this is what we call conftruction. But as languages differ in this respect, fome placing on the right what others affign to the left, inquiry is made into the rules that ought to be obferved in the French and Latin languages, which in their conftruction are fo widely different; and here we are prefented with a short view of the difputes between former grammarians on this subject; after which the caufe is explained why thofe languages differ fo much in their conftruction.

The ellipfis is then confidered, that abridged kind of construction, which in compofition retrenches all words that are not abfolutely neceffary.

The THIRD PART confiits of a grammatical analysis of two fables, the one French, the other Latin.

Thefe four books which treat of grammar in general, independently of its application to any national language in particular, are followed by a fifth, the subject of which is a comparative view of grammar.

For this object, three languages, the moft different in their ftructure from the French, are felected: and these are the Chinefe, the Latin, and the Greek.

It appears from an abridgment which is given of the Chinese fyntax, that the language both in its oral and written form, differs but little from the principles of univerfal grammar, to which all its operations are perfectly analogous.

With regard to the Latin language, which is more known, the Author is more concife in his difquifitions, confining himfelf to the inveftigation and explication of fome of the more difficult rules. On the Greek he dwells ftill more briefly, on account of its affinity to the Latin.

All thefe difcuffions are accompanied with a great number of examples, felected from the Latin, French, and Italian poets : and thofe quotations are not only useful for the explication of

theoretic