we obferved a conjecture, founded on the knowlege of fame facts, that the hair of this Indian was the means of communi▲ cating to her countrymen this fatal diforder. On the 31st of Auguft, they reached the coaft of Labrador. The report of their arrival brought the three fouthernmoft tribes of Efquimaux, amounting to about five hundred, to receive their long-expected friends, and to hear the wonderous ftories which they might have to relate.-We fhall give an account of the affecting scene of their disappointment in the words of the author: I placed myfelf upon a rock near the water-fide, and Caubvick fat down a few paces behind me. We waited for the landing of the Indians with feelings very different from their's; who were hurrying along with tumultuous joy at the thoughts of immediately meeting their relations and friends again. As the fhore would not permit them to land out of their boats, they brought them to their anchors at a distance off, and the men came in their kyacks, each bringing two other perfons, lying flat on their faces; one behind and the other before, on the top of the fkin covering. On drawing near the shore, and perceiving only Caubvick and myfelf, their joy abated, and their countenances affumed a different afpect. Being landed, they fixed their eyes on Caubvick and me, in profound, gloomy filence. At length, with great perturbation and in faltering accents, they enquired, feparately, what was become of the reft; and were no fooner given to understand, by a filent, forrowful shake of my head, that they were no more, than they inftantly fet up fuch a yell, as I had never before heard.. Many of them, but particularly the women, fmatched up flones, and beat themselves on the head and face till they became fhocking fpectacles; one pretty young girl (a fifter to the late two men) gave herfelf fo fevere a blow upon the cheek-bone, that the bruifed and cut the flesh fhockingly, and almost beat an eye out. In short, the violent, frantic expreffions of grief were fuch as far exceeded my imagination; and I could not help participating with them fo far, as to fhed tears moft plentifully. They no fooner obferved my emotion, than, miftaking it for the apprehenfions which I was under for fear of their refentment, they instantly feemed to forget. their own feelings, to relieve thofe of mine. They preffed round me, clafped my hands, and said and did all in their power to convince me, that they did not entertain any fufpicion of my conduct towards their departed friends. As foon as the first violent tranfports of grief began to fubfide, I related the melancholy tale, and explained to them, as well as I could, the diforder by which they were carried off; and pointed to Caubvick, who bore very strong, as well as recent, marks of it. They often looked very attentively at her, but, during the whole time, they never fpoke one word to her, nor fhe to them. As foon as I had brought the afflicting ftory to a conclufion, they affured me of their belief of every particular, and renewed their declarations of friendship. Their ftay afterwards was but fhoft; they prefently reimbarked, weighed their anchors, and ran across the harbour to Raft Tickle, where they landed and encamped: the reft of of the afternoon and the whole of the night was fpent in horrid yellings, which were confiderably augmented by the variety of echoes, produced from the multiplicity of hills furrounding the harbour, till the whole rung again with founds that almoft petrified the blood of the brig's crew and my new fervants.' Having now reached the conclufion of the firft volume, and of the fecond voyage, we fhall referve for a future review the confideration of the fecond and third volumes of this amufing Journal. [To be continued.] Gell...... 15h article. ART. III. Mr. Knight's Analytical Essay on the Greek Alphabet. [Article concluded from p. 16.] WE Mr. Knight's examination of the firft of thefe fubjects tends to prove that the lifts of Spartan priefteffes, &c. which M. Barthelemy has endeavoured to illuftrate, are forgeries of M. Fourmont. He informs us, that many of the objections, which he here ftates, were first put together for the ufe of M. D'Hancarville, author of the Recherches fur les Arts de la Grèce, whofe defence in reply to them his remaining obfervations are intended to answer. Since these monuments, which, if they were genuine, would require particular notice in fuch a book as Mr. K.'s, are tacitly, throughout the work, rejected by him, it doubtless became his duty to declare his reafons for diffenting from fo many learned perfons, who have without fcruple appealed to these inscriptions as undoubted fpecimens of the most antient method of writing. When M. Fourmont returned from Greece, he profeffed to have discovered a copy of the laws of Solon; and to have employed 2000 men in digging the ruins of Amycle, where he found monuments of greater antiquity than any hitherto known. Of these he published a few specimens, but did not proceed; and he left his MSS. in the king's library, whence other specimens have been published in the Traité Diplomatique, by Tom. XXIII. p. 394-421. At the end of the volume, are added fac-fimiles of the infcriptions, which are alfo copied at the end of Mr.K.'s Effay. Dd 2 the the Benedictines, and in the Memoires of the Academy, by Abbé Barthelemy. A large volume of MSS. is fhewn in the library: but that, Mr. K. thinks, is not the collection which Count Caylus excufes the Academy for not publifhing, on account of the enormous expence which it would require. This reason Mr. K. treats as frivolous; and he thinks that a free examination of what is published will betray the concealed reason for withholding the reft. He favs that the laws of Solon, and the 20co men employed at Amycle, are now given up; it being discovered that all Peloponnefus would scarcely have afforded fo many labourers; and he was informed by the late Mr. Stuart, who followed Fourmont, that Fourmont employed as many men as he could collect,-not to discover infcriptions, but to break in pieces thofe which were already brought to light*. The infcriptions publifhed contain fpecimens of writing, from King Eurotas, feven generations + prior to the Trojan war, down to Philip of Macedon. We might therefore expect to find great variety in the form and ufe of the letters, but they appear to be the fame perfon's writing and compofition. M. Fourmont's Sigma, which is taken from the Gortynian medals, is really an Iota, and the title is to be read, Mr. K. fays, ΓΟΡΤΥΝΙ (for Γορτυνίων) not ΓΟΡΤΥΝΣ. This conformity is badly explained by the permanence of the Lacedæmonian manners and cuftoms, which were twice changed during the above mentioned period; first by the invafion of the Dorians, and afterward by the inftitutions of Lycurgus. The forms of the bucklers, on which two of the inferiptions are engraven, are totally unlike the fimple round fhields of the antient Greeks; they are in abfurd and fanciful fhapes, and are unfit for purposes of defence. Fourmont difcovered a temple dedicated to the Goddess ONGA or OGA, which no other traveller has been able to find. Wanting an antient name for the Lacedæmonians, he gave them, in his infcription, the title of IKTEPKEPATÉEE, because Meurfius produces a fhort article from Hefychius, Εκτευκρατεῖς. Λάκωνες. and concludes that the Lacedaemonians were once called I'xsungaτsis. Fourmont alters the orthogra phy a little: (perhaps he intended to read IKETEOKEPATEEE.) but the learned men who have lately edited Hefychius agree in fuppofing that a Laconic word has been joined to its * If these facts be authentic, we, for our part, fhould scarcely defire more evidence to perfuade us that the infcriptions in queftion are forgeries; fince, of these three circumftances, the first two shew the moit deliberate falfification, and the third manifefts a violent dread of detection. + Paufan. Lacon. five Lib. III. p. 200, 205. explication; explication; and that they ought to be feparated into IXTE. ngxla. Numberless inftances are found in Hefychius, in which the name of a people is thus fubjoined to a word, in order to denote that the word was chiefly used by that people. Indeed, Hefychius is fo corrupt an author that, when he is a folitary witness, his evidence ought to be received with great caution. Mr. K. in a different part of this chapter, objects, (and, we think, juftly,) to another of Fourmont's infcriptions: in which the word BATOΣis used for spalnycs, and defended by the authority of the fame Hefychius. Mr. Larcher, in the notes to his tranflation of Herodotus, not suspecting either the infcription or Hefychius, would, on their authority, introduce the word Bayoù into a Greek epigram * on Leonidas, inftead of rayoù, a word quite proper and poetical, confirmed by Suidas in v. ταγίς. The next infcription is a catalogue of the priestesses of Amycle, beginning about the fame time with the dedication of the temple. The priefteffes are called MATEPEE KAI KOTPAI TOY ANOAAQNOƐ, for which neither M. Barthelemy, nor the author of the Recherches, has been able to produce any authority, except a correfpondent title in the modern French convents of nuns, Les Meres et les Filles du bon Dieu; whence Mr. K. fufpects that the French title gave birth to the Greek. Mr. K. next objects to the orthography and declenfion of many of the proper names, fuch as Αρισετανδερο, Αρισένμακο, Kahinegaro, &c. which, according to Fourmont, are the genitive cafes of the words which we now write, Αρισανδρος, Αριςομαχος, Καλλικράτης, &c. The termination of other nouns, which ought to be in eos, is alfo, in thefe infcriptions, made so without the Sigma. The interpolation of the vowels Mr. K. attributes to Fourmont's ftudy of Hebraifms, after he had learned, from Jofephus, that the Jews and Lacedæmonians derived themselves from a common ftock. We think with Mr. K. that this interpolation feems utterly to fubvert the analogy of the Greek language. To mark the period of the Dorian invafion, the terminations of the names of the priestefles are changed from what Fourmont thought Æolic or Ionic to Doric. Hence AMTMONEE, in the beginning of the infcription, afterward becomes AMYMONA: but the two Epfilons for an Eta are unauthorized by antient monuments, and are exprefsly contradicted by a paffage of Plato. The dialect, too, of the antient Laconians was the Æolic; for Strabo tells us that the fugitives, who were * Antholog. III. c. 5. p. 204. ed. H. Steph. driven out of the Peloponnefus by the Dorians, founded the firft Æolian colonies in Afia. This monument would have fixed fo many events to their proper dates, that it must have escaped all travellers and antiquaries, though it exifted in one of the most celebrated temples and moft frequented provinces. Mr. K. anfwers an argument of a fimilar nature, brought against the Parian Chronicle, (a monument which he declares to be undoubtedly antient ;) adding that M. d'Hancarville has fhewn that Fourmont's infcription fixes the reigns of the fabulous kings of Lacedæmon to the period in which Lydiat and Marfham would place them; which, fays Mr. K. it would naturally do, having been fabricated from their writings, and from those of Cragius and Meurfius. Mr. K. then reasons on two fuppofitions; the first that the Cadmean was the primitive alphabet of Greece; the fecond, that the Pelafgian preceded it; and he concludes that the infcriptions appear to be false on either hypothefis. The fhield containing the pedigree of Teleclus might be found in Meurfius, from which it only differs in a K for a X. and in the barbarous genitive AABOTAE. (Bayds we have already mentioned.) In two other infcriptions, containing lifts of the kings, fenators, and magiftrates of Sparta, during the Meffenian war, Mr. K. finds many caufes of fufpicion; fome furnished by Hefychius, fome relating to the orthography and inflexions of the words employed. He obferves that the form of these infcriptions is not lefs extraordinary than the fubftance; they being both figned by the public fecretary, and authenticated by the public feal. In a votive shield infcribed with the name of Anaxidamus, the fon of Zeuxidamus, the pedigree is thus continued: Anaxidamus, the fon of Zeuxidamus, the fon of Anaxander, the fon of Eurycrates. This pedigree, differing entirely from that given by Meurfius from Paufanias, has afforded matter of much triumph to the defender of thefe infcriptions:-but Fourmont, carelessly cafting his eye on Meurfius, and obferving Anaxidamus, fon of Zeuxidamus, to follow Euryates and Anaxander, without regarding the words ex alterâ familiâ, confounded the two royal houses. This argument appears fo clear and cogent, to us at leaft, that we think it must decide the fate of the infcription *. * We fhall take the liberty of correcting two flight errors in this page of the work, (128,) one probably the fault of the printer, the other Mr. K.'s overfight. In 1. 9. read Anaxidamus for Archidamus; and in 1. 12. for the fon and grandfon of Theopompus,' read, the grandfon and great grandíon of Theopompus.' Several |
