sketches of their several reigns, and although Genealogical Tables, from which chronology might be better ascertained, are prefixed to many compositions of the old Arabian Poets, yet most manuscripts are so incorrect, and fo many contradictions are found in the best of them, that we can scarce lean upon tradition with fecurity, and must have recourse to the fame media for inveftigating the history of the Arabs, that I before adopted in regard to that of the Indians; namely, their language, letters and religion, their ancient monuments, and the certain remains of their arts; on each of which heads I fhall touch very concisely, having premised, that my obfervations will in general be confined to the state of Arabia before that fingular revolution, at the beginning of the seventh century, the effects of which we feel at this day from the Pyrenean mountains and the Danube, to the fartheft parts of the Indian Empire, and even to the Eastern Islands.

I. For the knowledge, which any European, who pleases, may attain of the Arabian language, we are principally indebted to the university of Leyden; for, though several Italians have afsiduously laboured in the fame wide field, yet the fruit of their labours has been rendered almost useless by more commodious and more accurate works printed in Holland; and, though Pocock certainly accomplished much, and was able to

accomplish any thing, yet the Academical eafe, which he enjoyed, and his theological pursuits, induced him to leave unfinished the valuable work of Maidánì, which he had prepared for publication; nor, even if that rich mine of Arabian Philology had seen the light, would it have borne any comparison with the fifty differtations of Hariri, which the firft ALBERT SCHULTENS translated and explained, though he sent abroad but few of them, and has left his worthy grandfon, from whom perhaps Maidáni alfo may be expected, the honour of publishing the rest: but the palm of glory in this branch of literature is due to GOLIUS, whofe works are equally profound and elegant; fo perfpicuous in method, that they may always be confulted without fatigue, and read without languor, yet so abundant in matter, that any man, who fhall begin with his noble edition of the Grammar compiled by his master ERPENIUS, and proceed, with the help of his incomparable dictionary, to study his Hiftory of Taimùr by Ibni Arabsbáh, and fhall make himself complete mafter of that sublime work, will understand the learned Arabick better than the deepest scholar at Conftantinople or at Mecca. The Arabick language, therefore, is almost wholly in our power; and, as it is unquestionably one of the most ancient in the world, fo it yields to none ever spoken by mortals in

the number of its words and the precision of its phrases; but it is equally true and wonderful, that it bears not the leaft refemblance, either in words or the structure of them, to the Sanfcrit, or great parent of the Indian dialects; of which diffimilarity I will mention two remarkable inftances: the Sanfcrit, like the Greek, Perfian, and German, delights in compounds, but, in a much higher degree, and indeed to fuch excefs, that I could produce words of more than twenty fyllables, not formed ludicrously, like that by which the buffoon in ARISTOPHANES defcribes a feast, but with perfect seriousness, on the most folemn occafions, and in the most elegant works; while the Arabick, on the other hand, and all its fifter dialects, abhor the compofition of words, and invariably exprefs very complex ideas by circumlocution; fo that, if a compound word be found in any genuine language of the Arabian Peninfula, (zenmerdab for inftance, which occurs in the Hamáfah) it may at once be pronounced an exotick. Again; it is the genius of the Sanfcrit, and other languages of the fame ftock, that the roots of verbs be almost univerfally biliteral, fo that five and twenty hundred fuch roots might be formed by the compofition of the fifty Indian letters; but the Arabick roots are as universally triliteral, fo that the compofition of the twenty-eight Arabian letters would

give near two and twenty thousand elements of the language: and this will demonftrate the furprising extent of it; for, although great numbers of its roots are confeffedly lost, and some, perhaps, were never in use, yet, if we fuppose ten thousand of them (without rekoning quadriliterals) to exift, and each of them to admit only five variations, one with another, in forming derivative nouns, even then a perfect Arabick dictionary ought to contain fifty thousand words, each of which may receive a multitude of changes by the rules of grammar. The derivatives in Sanferit are confiderably more numerous: but a farther comparison between the two languages is here unneceffary; fince, in whatever light we view them, they seem totally distinct, and must have been invented by two different races of men; nor do I recollect a fingle word in common between them, except Suruj, the plural of Siraj, meaning both a lamp and the fun, the Sanfcrit name of which is, in Bengal, pronounced Surja; and even this resemblance may be purely accidental. We may easily believe with the Hindus, that not even INDRA himfelf and his heavenly bands, much less any mortal, ever comprehended in his mind fuch an ocean of words as their facred language contains, and with the Arabs, that no man uninspired was ever a complete mafter of Arabick: in fact no

person, I believe, now living in Europe or Afia, can read without study an hundred couplets together in any collection of ancient Arabian poems; and we are told, that the great author of the Kámùs learned by accident from the mouth of a child, in a village of Arabia, the meaning of three words which he had long fought in vain from grammarians, and from books, of the highest reputation. alone, that a knowledge of these two venerable languages can be acquired; and, with moderate attention, enough of them both may be known, to delight and instruct us in an infinite degree: I conclude this head with remarking, that the nature of the Ethiopick dialect feems to prove an early establishment of the Arabs in part of Ethiopia, from which they were afterwards expelled, and attacked even in their own country by the Abyffinians, who had been invited over as auxiliaries against the tyrant of Yemen about a century before the birth of MUHAMMED.

It is by approximation

Of the characters, in which the old compofitions of Arabia were written, we know but little; except that the Koràn originally appeared in those of Cufab, from which the modern Arabian letters, with all their elegant variations, were derived, and which unquestionably had a common origin with the Hebrew or Chaldaick; but, as to the Himyarick letters, or those which