f his
father. After the discovery of letters, the facts of Astronomy and
Chemistry became recorded in written language, though the antient
hieroglyphic characters for the planets and metals continue in use at
this day. The antiquity of the invention of music, of astronomical
observations, and the manufacture of Gold and Iron, are recorded in
Scripture.]

--The storied pyramid, the laurel'd bust,
The trophy'd arch had crumbled into dust;
The sacred symbol, and the epic song,
110 (Unknown the character, forgot the tongue,)
With each unconquer'd chief, or fainted maid,
Sunk undistinguish'd in Oblivion's shade.
Sad o'er the scatter'd ruins Genius sigh'd,
And infant Arts but learn'd to lisp and died.
115 Till to astonish'd realms PAPYRA taught
To paint in mystic colours Sound and Thought.
With Wisdom's voice to print the page sublime,
And mark in adamant the steps of Time.
--Three favour'd youths her soft attention share,
120 The fond disciples of the studious Fair,

[About twenty letters, ten cyphers, and seven crotches, represent by
their numerous combinations all our ideas and sensations! the musical
characters are probably arrived at their perfection, unless emphasis, and
tone, and swell could be expressed, as well as note and time. Charles
the Twelfth of Sweden had a design to have introduced a numeration by
squares, instead of by decimation, which might have served the purposes
of philosophy better than the present mode, which is said to be of
Arabic invention. The alphabet is yet in a very imperfect state; perhaps
seventeen letters could express all the simple sounds in the European
languages. In China they have not yet learned to divide their words
into syllables, and are thence necessitated to employ many thousand
characters; it is said above eighty thousand. It is to be wished, in
this ingenious age, that the European nations would accord to reform our
alphabet.]

Hear her sweet voice, the golden process prove;
Gaze, as they learn; and, as they listen, love.
_The first_ from Alpha to Omega joins
The letter'd tribes along the level lines;
125 Weighs with nice ear the vowel, liquid, surd,
And breaks in syllables the volant word.
Then forms _the next_ upon the marshal'd plain
In deepening ranks his dexterous cypher-train;
And counts, as wheel the dec