They first, by sound, in various lines design'd,
Express'd the meaning of the thinking mind;
The power of words by figures rude conveyed,
And useful science everlasting made."
_Rowe's Lucan_, B. iii, l. 334.

18. Some, however, seem willing to think writing coeval with speech. Thus
Bicknell, from Martin's Physico-Grammatical Essay: "We are told by Moses,
that Adam _gave names to every living creature_;[23] but how those names
were written, or what sort of characters he made use of, is not known to
us; nor indeed whether Adam ever made use of a written language at all;
since we find no mention made of any in the sacred history."--_Bicknell's
Gram._, Part ii, p. 5. A certain late writer on English grammar, with
admirable flippancy, cuts this matter short, as follows,--satisfying
himself with pronouncing all speech to be natural, and all writing
artificial: "Of how many primary kinds is language? It is of two kinds;
natural or spoken, and artificial or written."--_Oliver B. Peirce's Gram._,
p. 15. "Natural language is, to a limited extent, (the representation of
the passions,) common to brutes as well as man; but artificial language,
being the work of invention, is peculiar to man."--_Ib._, p. 16.[24]

19. The writings delivered to the Israelites by Moses, are more ancient
than any others now known. In the thirty-first chapter of Exodus, it is
said, that God "gave unto Moses, upon Mount Sinai, two tables of testimony,
tables of stone, _written with the finger of God_." And again, in the
thirty-second: "The tables were the work of God, and the writing was _the
writing of God_, graven upon the tables." But these divine testimonies,
thus miraculously written, do not appear to have been the first writing;
for Moses had been previously commanded to write an account of the victory
over Amalek, "for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of
Joshua."--_Exod._, xvii, 14. This first battle of the Israelites occurred
in Rephidim, a place on the east side of the western gulf of the Red Sea,
at or near Horeb, but before they came to Sinai, upon the top of which, (on
the fiftieth day after their departure from Egypt,) Moses received the ten
commandments of the law.

20. Some authors, however, among whom is Dr. Adam Clarke, suppose that in
this instance the order of the events is not to be inferred from the order
of the record, or that there is room to doubt whether the use of letter