class of cuneiform inscriptions, the Persian, there is no reason to doubt that the whole of that cyclopædia will some day be read with the same ease with which we read the mountain records of Darius.

There is, however, another miserable remnant of what was once the literature of the Chaldeans or Babylonians, namely, the "Book of Adam," and similar works preserved by the Mendaïtes or Nasoreans, a curious sect settled near Bassora. Though the composition of these works is as late as the tenth century after Christ, it has been supposed that under a modern crust of wild and senseless hallucinations, they contain some grains of genuine ancient Babylonian thought. These Mendaïtes have in fact been identified with the Naba↑ teans, who are mentioned as late as the tenth century 1 of our era, as a race purely pagan, and distinct from Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans. In Arabic the name Nabatean 2 is used for Babylonians,-nay, all the people of Aramaic origin, settled in the earliest times between the Euphrates and Tigris are referred to by that name. It is supposed that the Nabateans, who are mentioned about the beginning of the Christian era as a race distinguished for their astronomical and general scientific knowledge, were the ancestors of the medieval Nabateans, and the descendants of the ancient Babylonians and Chaldeans. You may have lately seen in some literary journals an account of a work called "The Nabatean Agriculture." It exists only in an Arabic translation by Ibn-Wahshiyyah, the Chaldean, who lived about 900 years

1 Renan, p. 241.

2 Ibid. p. 237.

8 Quatremère, Mémoire sur les Nabatéens, p. 116. 4 Ibn-Wahshiyyah was a Mussulman, but his family had been converted for three generations only. He translated a collection of Nabatean books.

after Christ, but the original, which was written by Kuthami in Aramean, has lately been referred to the beginning of the thirteenth century B. C. The evidence is not yet fully before us, but from what is known it seems more likely that this work was the compilation of a Nabatean, who lived about the fourth century after Christ; and though it contains ancient traditions, which may go back to the days of the great Babylonian monarchs, these traditions can hardly be taken as a fair representation of the ancient civilization of the Aramean race.

The second branch of the Semitic family is the Hebraic, chiefly represented by the ancient language of Palestine, where Hebrew was spoken and written from the days of Moses to the times of Nehemiah and the Maccabees, though of course with considerable modifications, and with a strong admixture of Aramean forms, particularly since the Babylonian captivity, and the rise of a powerful civilization in the neighboring country of Syria. The ancient language of Phoenicia, to judge from inscriptions, was most closely allied to Hebrew, and the language of the Carthaginians too must be referred to the same branch.

Hebrew was first encroached upon by Aramaic dialects, through the political ascendency of Babylon, and

Three have been preserved, 1, the Nabatean Agriculture; 2, the book on poisons; 3, the book of Tenkelusha (Teucros) the Babylonian; besides fragments of the book of the secrets of the Sun and Moon. The Nabatean Agriculture was referred by Quatremère (Journal Asiatique, 1835) to the period between Belesis who delivered the Babylonians from their Median masters, and the taking of Babylon by Cyrus. Prof. Chwolson, of St. Petersburg, who has examined all the MSS., places Kuthami at the beginning of the thirteenth century B. C.

1 Renan, Mémoire sur l'âge du livre intitulé Agriculture Nabatéenne, D. 38. Paris, 1860.

still more of Syria; and was at last swept away by Arabic, which, since the conquest of Palestine and Syria in the year 636, has monopolized nearly the whole area formerly occupied by the two older branches of the Semitic stock, the Aramaic and Hebrew.

This third, or Arabic, branch sprang from the Arabian peninsula, where it is still spoken by a compact mass of aboriginal inhabitants. Its most ancient documents are the Himyaritic inscriptions. In very early times this Arabic branch was transplanted to Africa, where, south of Egypt and Nubia, on the coast opposite Yemen, an ancient Semitic dialect has maintained itself to the present day. This is the Ethiopic or Abyssinian, or, as it is called by the people themselves, the Gees language. Though no longer spoken in its purity by the people of Habesh, it is still preserved in their sacred writings, translations of the Bible, and similar works, which date from the third and fourth centuries. The modern language of Abyssinia is called Amharic.

The earliest literary documents of Arabic go back beyond Mohammed. They are called Moallakat, literally, suspended poems, because they are said to have been thus publicly exhibited at Mecca. They are old popular poems, descriptive of desert life. With Mohammed Arabic became the language of a victorious religion, and established its sway over Asia, Africa, and Europe.

These three branches, the Aramaic, the Hebraic, and Arabic, are so closely related to each other, that it was impossible not to recognize their common origin. Every root in these languages, as far back as we know them, must consist of three consonants, and numerous

Berber.

✦ words are derived from these roots by a simple change of vowels, leaving the consonantal skeleton as much as possible intact. It is impossible to mistake a Semitic language; and what is most important—it is impossible to imagine an Aryan language derived from a Semitic, or a Semitic from an Aryan language. The grammatical framework is totally distinct in these two families of speech. This does not exclude, however, the possibility that both are diverging streams of the same source; and the comparisons that have been instituted between the Semitic roots, reduced to their simplest form, and the roots of the Aryan languages, have made it more than probable that the material elements with which they both started were originally the

same.

Other languages which are supposed to belong to the Semitic family are the Berber dialects of Northern Africa, spoken on the coast from Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean before the invasion of the Arabs, and now pushed back towards the interior. Some other African languages, too, such as the Haussa and Galla, have been classed as Semitic; and the language of Egypt, from the earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions to the Coptic, which ceased to be spoken after the seventeenth century, has equally been referred to this class. The Semitic character of these dialects, however, is much less clearly defined, and the exact degree of relationship in which they stand to the Semitic languages, properly so-called, has still to be determined.

Strictly speaking the Aryan and Semitic are the only families of speech which fully deserve that title. They both presuppose the existence of a finished system of grammar, previous to the first divergence of

their dialects. Their history is from the beginning a history of decay rather than of growth, and hence the unmistakable family-likeness which pervades every one even of their latest descendants. The language of the Sepoy and that of the English soldier are, strictly speaking, one and the same language. They are both built up of materials which were definitely shaped before the Teutonic and Indic branches separated. No new root has been added to either since their first separation; and the grammatical forms which are of more modern growth in English or Hindustání, are, if closely examined, new combinations only of elements which existed from the beginning in all the Aryan dialects. In the termination of the English he is, and in the inaudible termination of the French il est, we recognize the result of an act performed before the first separation of the Aryan family, the combination of the predicative root as with the demonstrative root ti; an act performed once for all, and continuing to be felt to the present day.

It was the custom of Nebuchadnezzar to have his name stamped on every brick that was used during his reign in erecting his colossal palaces. Those palaces fell to ruins, but from the ruins the ancient materials were carried away for building new cities; and on examining the bricks in the walls of the modern city of Baghdad on the borders of the Tigris, Sir Henry Rawlinson discovered on each the clear traces of that royal signature. It is the same if we examine the structure of modern languages. They too were built up with the materials taken from the ruins of the ancient languages, and every word, if properly examined, displays the visible stamp impressed upon it from the