lical Hebrew was the language of Paradise, and continued to be spoken by all men down to, and at the time of Moses writing the Pentateuch, and long after. Abraham, though bred in Chaldea, could converse freely with the Egyptians, the Sodomites, and the King of Gerar; nor do we find that any variety of speech interrupted the commerce of his son Isaac with the several nations around, or that it ever stopped Jacob in his travels. Nay, the Israelites, in their journey through the desarts of Arabia, after they had been some hundred years in Egypt, though joined by a mixed multitude, and meeting with divers kinds of people, had not corrupted their language, and were easily understood, because it was then the universal one. The simplicity and distinctness of the Hebrew tongue preserved its purity so long and so universally. It could not well be degenerate till the knowledge of nature was lost, as its words consist but of two or three letters, and are perfectly well suited to convey sensible and strong ideas. It was at the captivity, in the space

*

The captivity here spoken of began at Nebuzaradan's taking and burning the city and temple of Jerusalem, and sending Zedekiah, the last king, in chains, to Nebuchadnezzar, who ordered his children to be butchered before his face, his eyes to be put out, and then thrown into a dungeon, where he died. This happened

of seventy years, that the Jews by temporising with the ignorant victors, so far neglected the usage of their own tongue, that none but the scribes or learned men could understand Moses's books."

"This, I confess," said Miss NOEL," is a plausible account of the primævity and pre-eminence of the sacred Hebrew, but I think it is not necessary the account should be allowed as fact. As to its being the language in Paradise, this is not very probable, as a compass of eighteen hundred years must have changed the first language very greatly by an increase of words, and new inflections, applications, and constructions of them. The first few inhabitants of the earth were occupied in few things, and wanted not a variety of words; but when their descendants invented arts and improved sciences, they were obliged to coin new words and technical terms, and by extending and transferring their words to new subjects, and using them figuratively, were forced to multiply the senses of those already in use. The language was thus gradually cultivated, and every age improved it. All living languages are liable to such change. I therefore conclude, that the language which served the first pair would not do for succeeding generations. It became

before our Lord, 588 years; after the flood, 1766; of the world, 3416.

vastly more copious and extensive, when the numbers of mankind were great, and their language must serve conversation and the ends of life, and answer all the purposes of intelligence and correspondence. New words and new terms of speech, from time to time, were necessary, to give true ideas of the things, actions, offices, places, and times peculiar to the Hebrews. Even Hutchinson allows there was some coinage, some new words framed. We find in the latter prophets words not to be met with in the Pentateuch: and from thence we may suppose, that Moses used words unknown to Nimrod and Heber: and that the men at Shinaar* had words which the people before the flood were strangers to. Even in the seventeenth century, there must have been a great alteration in the language of Adam; and when the venerable Patriarch and his family came into a new world, that was

Shinaar comprehends the plains of Chaldea or Babylonia in Asia; and the men of Shinaar' were the first colony that Noah sent out from Ararat, the mountains of Armenia, where the Ark rested after the flood, to settle in the grand plains of Babylonia, twelve-hundred miles from Ararat. This was in the days of Peleg, two hundred and forty years after the flood, when the eight had encreased to sixty thousand; which made a remove of part of them necessary.

in a different state from the earth before the deluge, and saw a vast variety of things without precedent in the old world, the alterations in nature and diet, must introduce a multitude of new terms in things of common experience and usage; as, after that amazing revolution in the natural world, not only the clouds and meteors were different, and the souls that were saved had a new and astonishing view of the ruin and repair of the system; but Noah did then begin to be an husbandman; he planted a vineyard; he invented wine; and to him the first grant was given of eating flesh. All these things required as it were a new language, and the terms with mankind encreased. The Noahical language must be quite another thing after the great events of the flood. Had Methuselah, who conversed many years with Adam; who received from his mouth the history of the creation and fall, and who lived six hundred years with Noah, to communicate to him all the knowledge he got from Adam; had this ante'diluvian wise man been raised from the dead to converse with the post-diluvian fathers, or even with Noah, the year he died, that is three hundred and fifty years after the flood; is it not credible from what I have said, that he would have heard a language very different from that tongue he used in his conversations with Adam, even in the nine hundred

and thirtieth year of the first man ? I imagine, Methuselah would not have been able to have talked

• The extraordinary longevity of the ante-diluvians is accounted utterly incredible by many moderns; but it did not appear so unnatural to the early ages of Paganism. Let no one, says Josephus, upon comparing the lives of the antients with our lives, and with the few years which we now live, think that what we have said of them is false. I have for witness to what I have said, all those who have written antiquities, both among the Greeks and Barbarians. For even Manetho, who wrote the Egyptian History; and Berosus, who collected the Chaldean Monuments; and Mochus and Hostiæus ; and besides these, Hieronymus the Egyptian, and those who composed the Phænician history, agree to what I here say. Hesiod also, and Hecutæus, and Hallanicus, and Acusilaus; and besides these, Ephorus and Nicolaus of Damascus, relate that the ancients lived a thousand years.

The antient Latin authors likewise confirm the sacred history in this branch: and Varro, in particular, made an enquiry, What the reason was that the antients lived a thousand years?

[The author had here promised a continuation of this note in the Appendix," but it may be proper to notice, that the first volume of this work was printed in 1756, and the second, to which the Appendix was to have been added, did not make its appearance till 1766, and then without the promised addition. What the Ap