hich had but distant resemblances to the things for which they stood.
The inference that the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians were thus
produced, is confirmed by the fact that the picture-writing of the
Mexicans was found to have given birth to a like family of ideographic
forms; and among them, as among the Egyptians, these had been partially
differentiated into the _kuriological_ or imitative, and the _tropical_
or symbolic; which were, however, used together in the same record. In
Egypt, written language underwent a further differentiation, whence
resulted the _hieratic_ and the _epistolographic_ or _enchorial_; both
of which are derived from the original hieroglyphic. At the same time we
find that for the expression of proper names, which could not be
otherwise conveyed, signs having phonetic values were employed; and
though it is alleged that the Egyptians never achieved complete
alphabetic writing, yet it can scarcely be doubted that these phonetic
symbols, occasionally used in aid of their ideographic ones, were the
germs of an alphabetic system. Once having become separate from
hieroglyphics, alphabetic writing itself underwent numerous
differentiations--multiplied alphabets were produced; between most of
which, however, more or less connection can still be traced. And in each
civilized nation there has now grown up, for the representation of one
set of sounds, several sets of written signs used for distinct purposes.
Finally, from writing diverged printing; which, uniform in kind as it
was at first, has since become multiform.

While written language was passing through its first stages of
development, the mural decoration which contained its root was being
differentiated into Painting and Sculpture. The gods, kings, men, and
animals represented, were originally marked by indented outlines and
coloured. In most cases these outlines were of such depth, and the
object they circumscribed so far rounded and marked out in its leading
parts, as to form a species of work intermediate between intaglio and
bas-relief. In other cases we see an advance upon this: the raised
spaces between the figures being chiselled off, and the figures
themselves appropriately tinted, a painted bas-relief was produced. The
restored Assyrian architecture at Sydenham exhibits this style of art
carried to greater perfection--the persons and things represented,
though still barbarously coloured, are carved out with more truth and in
greater de