migrated at firft in three great colonies; and that those three branches grew from a common ftock, which had been miraculously preserved in a general convulfion and inundation of this globe.

Having arrived by a different path at the fame conclufion with Mr. BRYANT as to one of those families, the most ingenious and enterprising of the three, but arrogant, cruel, and idolatrous, which we both conclude to be various shoots from the Hamian or Amonian branch, I fhall add but little to my former observations on his profound and agreeable work, which I have thrice perused with increased attention and pleafure, though not with perfect acquiefcence in the other lefs important parts of his plausible fyftem. The fum of his arguiment feems reducible to three heads. Firft; "if the deluge "really happened at the time recorded by MOSES, thofe nations, whofe monuments are

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preferved or whofe writings are acceffible, "must have retained memorials of an event fo

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ftupendous and comparatively fo recent; but "in fact they have retained fuch memorials:" this reasoning feems juft, and the fact is true beyond controverfy: Secondly; "thofe memorials

were expreffed by the race of HAM, before "the use of letters, in rude fculpture or paint

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ing, and mostly in fymbolical figures of the

"ark, the eight perfons concealed in it, and the

birds, which firft were difmiffed from it: this "fact is probable, but, I think, not sufficiently "afcertained." Thirdly; "all ancient Mytho" logy (except what was purely Sabian) had "its primary fource in those various symbols "misunderstood; fo that ancient Mythology "ftands now in the place of fymbolical sculpture "or painting, and must be explained on the "fame principles, on which we should begin to

decypher the originals, if they now exifted:" this part of the fyftem is, in my opinion, carried too far; nor can I perfuade myself (to give one instance out of many) that the beautiful allegory of CUPID and PSYCHE had the remotest allusion to the deluge, or that HYMEN fignified the veil, which covered the patriarch and his family. These propofitions, however, are supported with great ingenuity and solid erudition, but, unprofitably for the argument, and unfortunately, perhaps, for the fame of the work itself, recourse is had to etymological conjecture, than which no mode of reasoning is in general weaker or more delufive. He, who profeffes to derive the words of any one language from thofe of another, must expose himself to the danger of perpetual errours, unless he be perfectly acquainted with both; yet my respectable friend, though eminently skilled in the idioms of Greece and Rome, has no fort

of acquaintance with any Afiatick dialect, except Hebrew; and he has confequently made mistakes, which every learner of Arabick and Perfian muft inftantly detect. Among fifty radical words (ma, taph, and ram being included), eighteen are purely of Arabian origin, twelve merely Indian, and feventeen both Sanfcrit and Arabick, but in fenfes totally different; while two are Greek only, and one Egyptian, or barbarous if it be urged, that thofe radicals (which ought furely to have concluded, instead of preceding, an analytical inquiry) are precious traces of the primitive language, from which all others were derived, or to which at least they were fubfequent, I can only declare my belief, that the language of NOAH is loft irretrievably, and affure you, that after a diligent fearch, I cannot find a single word used in common by the Arabian, Indian, and Tartar families, before the intermixture of dialects occafioned by Mohammedan conquefts. There are, indeed, very obvious traces of the Hamian language, and some hundreds of words might be produced, which were formerly used promifcuously by most nations of that race; but I beg leave, as a philologer, to enter my protest against conjectural etymology in historical researches, and principally against the licentiousness of etymologists in transposing and inferting letters, in fubftituting at pleasure

any confonant for another of the fame order, and in totally difregarding the vowels: for fuch permutations few radical words would be more convenient than Cus or CUSH, fince, dentals being changed for dentals, and palatials for palatials, it instantly becomes coot, goofe, and, by transpofition, duck, all water-birds, and evidently fymbolical; it next is the goat worshipped in Egypt, and, by a metathefis, the dog adored as an emblem of SIRIUS, or, more obviously, a cat, not the domestick animal, but a sort of ship, and, the Catos, or great fea-fish, of the Dorians. It will hardly be imagined, that I mean by this irony to infult an author, whom I respect and efteem; but no confideration fhould induce me to affift by my filence in the diffusion of errour; and I contend, that almost any word or nation might be derived from any other, if fuch licences, as I am oppofing, were permitted in etymological histories: when we find, indeed, the fame words, letter for letter, and in a sense precisely the fame, in different languages, we can scarce hesitate in allowing them a common origin; and, not to depart from the example before us, when we fee CUSH or Cus (for the Sanferit name also is variously pronounced) among the sons of BRAHMA, that is, among the progenitors of the Hindus, and at the head of an ancient pedigree preserved in the Rámáyan; when we meet with

his name again in the family of RA'MA; when we know, that the name is venerated in the highest degree, and given to a facred grass, described as a Pod by KOENIG, which is used with a thousand ceremonies in the oblations to fire, ordained by MENU to form the facrificial zone of the Brahmans, and folemnly declared in the Véda to have sprung up foon after the deluge, whence the Pauránicks confider it as the bristly hair of the boar which supported the globe; when we add, that one of the seven dwipas, or great peninfulas of this earth, has the fame appellation, we can hardly doubt that the CUSH of MOSES and VA'LMIC was the fame perfonage and an ancestor of the Indian race.

From the teftimonies adduced in the fix laft annual discourses, and from the additional proofs laid before you, or rather opened, on the prefent occafion, it seems to follow, that the only human family after the flood established themselves in the northern parts of Iràn; that, as they multiplied, they were divided into three diftin& branches, each retaining little at firft, and lofing the whole by degrees, of their common primary language, but agreeing severally on new expreffions for new ideas; that the branch of YAFET was enlarged in many fcattered shoots over the north of Europe and Afia, diffufing themselves as far as the western and eaftern feas, and, at