able scholars approached their task with an industry and sagacity almost unparalleled; and having ascertained the true power of a number of the Phoenician letters, they may be said to be indeed the first founders of all Phoenician Palæography. It is to be lamented, that like their predecessors in another species of foundation, Romulus and Remus, a quarrel ensued. A sharp and angry discussion arose between them, both as to the priority of discovery, and likewise as to the interpretation of several monuments. The truth with respect to the first point of dispute seems to be, that to Swinton is due the earliest interpretation; and for the second, that to Barthelemy must be awarded the credit of being the more accurate. Swinton, indeed, seems to have been much more successful in decyphering than in interpreting the inscriptions. After them came Dutens and Bayer, one of whose treatises forms the second heading of our present article, and Pellerin, who collected no less than 33,000 ancient medals and coins. They were followed with equal ardour by Kopp, Tychsen, Akerblad, Sir W. Drummond, Bellermann, Gesenius, and Peyron: monuments and inscriptions multiplied, and new forces were brought to bear upon the matter; still, however, it appears that like their predecessors, most of the writers on the subject seem to have found it a much easier matter to make out each individual letter, than to discover the signification of the mysterious writings which they had so far at least stripped of somewhat of their obscurity. We shall not, however, incumber our pages with a catalogue of all the ingenious authors who have written upon this matter, but must refer our readers to the work of Dr. Gesenius which heads our article. Still the names of Kopp, Eckhel, Quatremère, cannot be passed without mention. The first certainly is one whose writings, though of but trivial extent, form quite an epoch in this most interesting branch of study; the second is, if anything, rather too fastidious, and inclined to be hypercritical.

One of the first subjects of inquiry is, in what regions did the Phoenician language prevail as the idiom of the inhabitants; and was the method of writing, that is, the alphabet used, identical in all? The latter part of the question may be shortly answered; for wherever one language was spoken it is most likely that one alphabet was in use: and with respect to the first we may assume

A Dissertation upon the Phoenician Numeral Characters anciently used at Sidon. Philos. Transact. vol. 50, p. 791.

An attempt to explain a Punic Inscription lately discovered in the Island of Malta. Ibid. vol. 53. p. 274.

Some remarks on the first part of M. l'Abbé Barthelemy's Memoir on the Phonician Letters, &c. Ibid. vol. 54, p. 119.

Further remarks, &c. Ibid. p. 393. 438.

that wherever a monument or monuments containing Phoenician inscriptions have been found, it is probable that the Phoenician language was spoken in that region, or at least that those who spoke it occasionally resided there or visited it. But then it may be objected, that if the Phoenician be identical with the Hebrew, how comes it that the latter language is written in an entirely different character? It is undoubtedly true that at a certain epoch the Jews ceased making use of their ancient alphabet, and adopted the square Aramæan character. This is supposed to have occurred after their return from the Babylonian captivity.

The most ancient document containing Phoenician characters that has hitherto been found is a Cilico-Phoenician medal, struck apparently in celebration of the naval victory of the Persians at Cnidus, in the third year of the ninety-sixth Olympiad, or 394 A.C.; and the most modern is an inscription on a triumphal arch erected at Tripoli in the reign of the Emperor Septimius Severus, A.D. 203. This is embracing a period of nearly six hundred years, during which we are quite certain that the Phoenician language prevailed; and there is every reason to believe that it was spoken and written at a much earlier as well as much later date.

As we before remarked, the enterprising mercantile genius of the Tyrians, and their descendants the Carthaginians, carried their language, manners, and habits, throughout a range of territory comprising a very large portion of the then known habitable part of the world. Starting from their island city on the western coast of Syria, they in succession visited and colonized almost every island and shore of the Mediterranean, and, boldly venturing beyond the pillars of Hercules, founded Cadiz, the ancient Gadir or Gades ; it is also believed that trusting themselves to the winds and waves of the Atlantic they even visited our own islands. With Dr. Gesenius however for our guide, we shall proceed to take a survey of the several localities in which it is absolutely certain that the use of that dialect of the great Syrian idiom, called Phoenician, at one time or other obtained. Our own opinion is, that instead of its being a language of itself, properly so called, it was only a branch of that spoken in the wide territory stretching from very far beyond the western boundaries of Persia at least, to the Mediterranean, and once as nearly related to, if not identical with Hebrew, as the English of Middlesex is to that of Surrey.

"That the Phoenician and Punic bore considerable affinity to the Hebrew tongue, Jerome and Augustin, of ancient authorities, have remarked more than once-the latter indeed is a high authority on the subject, as living when the Punic tongue flourished in Africa. He owns

himself a Carthaginian (contra Jul. 3. 17). So also in the Questions on the Book of Judges, he says 'those tongues (Hebrew and Punic) are not widely different.' The same writer says (contra lit. Petil. 2. 104) the Hebrews call him (Christ) the Messiah, which word has the same sound in Punic, as have very many others, and in fact almost all. On John, tr. 15. These languages are cognate and neighbouring, viz. Hebrew, Punic, and Syriac.' De Dom. 35, where he explains Mammon; It is a Hebrew word of Punic affinity, for those languages are connected by a certain unity of signification.' Loc. 1. 1. 'And he raised his hand. The phrase is what I should term Hebrew, for it is nearest allied to the Punic, in which we find many words agreeing in sound with the Hebrew.' So too Jerome (Jer. 5. 25), ‘Tyre and Sidon are the principal cities of the Phoenician sea-coast; Carthage is their colony; whence also the Poeni are corruptly called Phani; their language in a great measure resembles Hebrew. In Jes. 1. 3. c. 7, In the Punic tongue also, which is said to come from the Hebrew, a virgin is properly called alma.' In Quæst. Gen. 36. 24, ‘Some think that hotwater is signified by this word, according to analogy with the Punic, which accords with Hebrew.' Priscian, 1. 5. p. 123, asserts, 'In particular the Punic has no neuter gender, in which it resembles Chaldaic, Hebrew, and Syriac.' On the other hand Jerome is in error, Jes. 19.8, 'We cannot,' says he, 'speak in Hebrew but in Canaanitish, which is a mediate tongue between Egyptian and Hebrew, and in great part resembling Hebrew.' Perhaps however for Ægyptiam we should read Aramæam.

"The same has been the opinion of more recent Philologists; such at least as have bestowed their attention on the relics of the Phoenician language, or come to a conclusion respecting them. Yet these we find dividing into two different opinions. For some affirm that, except a slight difference in writing and pronouncing, the Phoenician language is the same as the Hebrew, pure from the forms of its cognate dialects: others think it like the Hebrew certainly, but variously modified by Arabic, Syriac, Chaldaic, and Samaritan forms. Hamaker went beyond all bounds in the repeated assertion of this latter opinion. He, calling the above opinion of the similarity and affinity of Phoenician with Hebrew perverse and rash, pretends that the learned ought to reject it; and blends together all the Semitic tongues so far as they can be brought apparently to support his conjecture; making for himself a particular Phoenician speech very different from the true Phoenician. He affirms that the Phoenician is not exactly any one Semitic dialect, but at one time inclining to Arabic, at another to Syriac, and not unfrequently to Samaritan at which no one can be surprized who knows that the Samaritans drew their origin from Sidon: that the Carthaginians had not only derivatives, but also radicals, peculiar to themselves, incorporated with their own from the common mother of all the Semitic dialects, or from the Lybian; all which is proved by other Phoenician monuments, as many as are extant, as well as most especially by the Tuggensian inscription, in which almost all the expressions are novel and unknown. Quoting this opinion of a very learned man for the purposes of criticism, we now, in addition to the remarks in our notes, return to ex

Of these,

amine the grounds of his opinion, or the causes of his errors. upon reading Hamaker's essay, we detect two. The first and principal source of error consists in the false reading of various monuments; and this we perceive is to be attributed to careless copyists, and more especially to palæographic blunders (in old inscriptions). Respecting the first of these in fact, our readers should remember that such is the prevalence of error, that, in Numidian inscriptions especially, (see Tugg. Num. 3. 4), we have scarcely found even two or three continuous letters rightly decyphered by Hamaker. But no Punic Edipus could restore the legitimate analogies of the Phoenician tongue from false readings. All the obscurities of cognate dialects were to be struck out; and this Hamaker did; so that from letters wanting sense in themselves, a something, however silly, might be made out.

"A second species of error arises from the fact that Hamaker also, as well as Lancius, neglected a most important distinction for as Barthelemy had been accustomed to denominate Phoenician even those monuments which were discovered in Egypt (especially the Carpentoractensian stone), in the Aramæan dialect, and in a certain peculiar character; an error which in fact had already been detected and exposed by Koppius; yet Hamaker, biassed by a preconceived opinion respecting the nature of the Phoenician dialect, did not hesitate to deduce from such a source a confirmation of his opinions, the value of which we need not examine at any length. Now since these monuments are in reality written in the Aramæan dialect, modified with a few Hebrew and other letters, and found in Phoenicia and also elsewhere, you may define the nature of the true Phoenician tongue from these about as correctly as if you inferred from the Chaldean chapters of Daniel and Ezra, or from the Targums, that the language of the entire Old Testament is full of Syricisms and Chaldaicisms."

Beginning, then, with the tract of country bordering on Palestine, and called Phoenice, we find in the Old Testament the most ancient and undoubted specimens in the names of places and men, such as 8, 178, n. It is strange, however, that in this, the native soil of the language, are found neither very many nor very ancient monuments bearing inscriptions in the Phoenician character of marbles none are known to exist; and what coins remain are those of the Seleucidæ; the most ancient of these date from the reign of Antiochus IV., and were struck A.D. 173. The only part of Asia besides Phoenice, properly so called, which presents us with any inscriptions is Cilicia. These are indeed the most ancient, and therefore the most interesting, as they date as far back as the epoch of Persian domination in that province. The cities whose Phoenician names these coins present, such as Ibaal, Baal-melek, seem entirely to have vanished; or at any rate, if still existing, their names have merged into the Greek at the period when the use of the Phoenician language fell into desuetude. This happened shortly after the death of Alexander the Great,

Leaving the shores of Cilicia, we come upon the island of Cyprus. In this favoured region of the goddess of love, the Phoenicians founded many cities, such as that of Citium on the southern coast of the island. In this place no less than thirtythree marbles, with inscriptions in the Phoenician character, were found by Pococke in the year 1738, and described by him; and afterwards by Porter about 1750, who brought one of them to England: it is now in the Bodleian library at Oxford. The rest have been copied with more or less accuracy by both the abovenamed travellers, and thus afford, perhaps, the largest collective body of materials with which to build the edifice of Phoenician Palæography. It is remarkable that none of the whole number is bilingual, and that no Greek inscription has been found in the same locality; we may, therefore, conclude that these marbles date from the time when the Phoenician was the sole language spoken at Citium. This, however, could not have been much later than Alexander. No coins with Phoenician legends have been found in this place, and even the extremely few that have Greek inscriptions are for the most part suspicious.

Leaving Cyprus in the course of our periplus, the next place we arrive at is Athens. Here three bilingual inscriptions have been found on very elegantly formed tomb-stones erected in memory evidently of Tyrian and Sidonian merchants, who had died at Athens. One of these marbles is at present deposited in the United Service Museum. It is formed of Pentelic marble, and of very elegant shape; the translation of the Phoenician part of the inscription is,

"The tomb for remembrance among the living, of Abd-Tanith, the son of Abd-Shemesh, the Sidonian."

The other two marbles are, one at Paris and the second at Leipzig.

The inscription which we have just given is extremely interesting; the first name answers to the Greek Artemidorus, and the second to Heliodorus. We might, did our limits permit us, enter into a discussion as to what goddess is meant by Tanith, translated into Greek, Artemis, and whether she be identical with that goddess and the Latin Diana. Dr. Gesenius says,

"What in fact is non? How is this name derived? What other traces does antiquity afford of such a Deity? These we shall investigate severally; and in the first place from the inscriptions we have referred to, three points can be observed. 1st. That the Deity nin together with Baal Chaman, has been worshipped and invested with the titles of the Solar Baal (Carth. 2, 2, 5). 2nd. That it was of greater authority than Chaman, which it everywhere precedes. 3rd. That it was usually assimilated with Diana. But, as it appears, Tanais or Tanaitis was the domestic name, not of the Greek, but of the