languages, by whatever name the compilers chose to give them. They were of great use to the world in abbreviating the labour of acquiring a knowledge of languages. Perhaps, the first that was put into a good form for the learner, and for the learned, was an Arabick dictionary, made in the ninth century by the scholars of Grand Cairo; a great number of Greek lexicons and glossaries had preceded it. This work, it is said by their historians, was done by order of the Caliph, who was supervisor as well as patron of the work. At the same time, or soon afterwards, an encyclopedia was compiled at the same place, which was unquestionably the first of its kind ever known. Other nations soon followed the example; and the scholar who had pecuniary means might have had the advantages of such a work, but he alone; and it was not until after the art of printing was discovered, about the middle of the fifteenth century, that dictionaries came into common use. From this there was a succession of dictionaries in our vernacular, down to Johnson, who set himself to the task with a gigantick genius and a philosophick mind; well read in all the best works in the English language, with a memory stored with apt examples and felicitous illustrations, and patient of the most tedious details, he wrought day and night, for many years, in the deep mines of etymology; and by analysis and comparison, solved a thousand difficulties that his predecessors were unable to grapple with. He had neither the aid of the learned or the opulent, and when his work was finished, all who would have been pleased with his fame, or benefitted by the emoluments of his pains, had gone to another world. Such are the common results of the exertions of genius and learning.

On this great work all the lexicographers of our vernacular have modelled their labours; and if, at times, they have added or amended, still their ground-work was Johnson. The learned Todd has, with great labour, brought Johnson down to the present day, with many additions and some corrections.

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It has fallen to the lot of an American scholar to follow those great men with success. To this mighty task he has devoted the flower of his youth, the prime of his manhood, and the wisdom of the gray head: Webster's dictionary has been the labour of nearly half a century. Like the Arabick dictionary, it might well be called AN OCEAN OF WORDS," for it contains about seventy thousand. About eight thousand of these, in common use, are derived from the Greek, Latin, and French languages, and about forty thousand from the Saxon and other kindred languages of the North, with the Hebrew, Arabick, Sanscrit, Coptick, &c. of eastern origin. The remainder of the words in his dictionary have been taken from the arts, sciences, and the learned professions, which are, in general,

compounds from various languages. Although grown old, and exhausted by long and intense application, by frequent disappointments, by coarse criticisms, petty insults, and heavy expenditures, yet he does not, like his great prototype, dismiss his work with frigid indifference; he is not solitary or disconsolate, for he has those about him, and connected with him, who can rejoice in his fame, and share his rewards.

The study of the languages is not, in this country, confined to a few learned men, but is pursued by many of those engaged in professional business. Duponceau and Pickering, have written learnedly on this subject; and many others, who have as yet offered nothing to the public, have with them, in addition to their labours in the common track, made considerable progress in the examination of the languages spoken by the various tribes of North American Indians; and it is now fully believed, that this examination will afford the only clue to their origin, if ever one is found.

The Indians themselves are becoming philologists and grammarians, and exciting the wonder of the world, by the invention of letters. The invention of the Cherokee alphabet, has excited the astonishment of the philosopher in this country and in Europe; but as I have not as yet seen any satisfactory account of the progress and history of this greatest effort of genius of the present day, I will state what I know of it, from the lips of the inventor himself.

In the winter of 1828, a delegation of the Cherokees visited the city of Washington, in order to make a treaty with the United States, and among them was See-quah-yah, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet. His English name was George Guess; he was a half-blood; but had never, from his own account, spoken a single word of English up to the time of his invention, nor since. Prompted by my own curiosity, and urged by several literary friends, I applied to See-quah-yah, through the medium of two interpreters, one a half-blood, Capt. Rogers, and the other a full-blood chief, whose assumed English name was John Maw, to relate to me, as minutely as possible, the mental operations and all the facts in his discovery. He cheerfully complied with my request, and gave very deliberate and satisfactory answers to every question; and was at the same time careful to know from the interpreters if I distinctly understood his answers. No stoick could have been more grave in his demeanour than was See-quah-yah; he pondered, according to the Indian custom, for a considerable time after each question was put, before he made his reply, and often took a whiff of his calumet, while reflecting on an answer. The details of the examination are too long for the closing paragraph of this lecture; but the substance of it was this: That he, See-quah-yah, was now about sixty-five

years old, but could not precisely say; that in early life he was gay and talkative; and although he never attempted to speak in Council but once, yet was often, from the strength of his memory, his easy colloquial powers, and ready command of his vernacular, story-teller of the convivial party. His reputation for talents of every kind gave him some distinction when he was quite young, so long ago as St. Clair's defeat. In this campaign, or some one that soon followed it, a letter was found on the person of a prisoner, which was wrongly read by him to the Indians. In some of their deliberations on this subject, the question arose among them, whether this mysterious power of the talking leaf, was the gift of the Great Spirit to the white man, or a discovery of the white man himself? Most of his companions were of the former opinion, while he as strenuously maintained the latter. This frequently became a subject of contemplation with him afterwards, as well as many other things which he knew, or had heard, that the white man could do; but he never sat down seriously to reflect on the subject, until a swelling on his knee confined him to his cabin, and which at length made him a cripple for life, by shortening the diseased leg. Deprived of the excitements of war, and the pleasures of the chase, in the long nights of his confinement, his mind was again directed to the mystery of the power of speaking by letters. The very name of which, of course, was not to be found in his language. From the cries of wild beasts, from the talents of the mocking-bird, from the voices of his children and his companions, he knew that feelings and passions were conveyed by different sounds, from one intelligent being to another. The thought struck him to try to ascertain all the sounds in the Cherokee language. His own ear was not remarkably discriminating, and he called to his aid the more acute ears of his wife and children. He found great assistance from them. When he thought that he had distinguished all the different sounds in their language, he attempted to use pictorial signs, images of birds and beasts, to convey these sounds to others, or to mark them in his own mind. He soon dropped this method, as difficult or impossible, and tried arbitrary signs, without any regard to appearances, except such as might assist him in recollecting them, and distinguishing them from each other. At first, these signs were very numerous; and when he got so far as to think his invention was nearly accomplished, he had about two hundred characters in his Alphabet. By the aid of his daughter, who seemed to enter in the genius of his labours, he reduced them, at last, to eighty-six, the number he now uses. He then set to work to make these characters more comely to the eye, and succeeded. As yet he had not the knowledge of the pen as an instrument, but made his characters on a piece of bark,

with a knife or nail. At this time he sent to the Indian agent, or some trader in the nation, for paper and pen. His ink was easily made from some of the bark of the forest trees, whose colouring properties he had previously known; and after seeing the construction of the pen, he soon learnt to make one; but at first he made it without a slit; this inconvenience was, however, quickly removed by his sagacity. His next difficulty was to make his invention known to his countrymen; for by this time he had become so abstracted from his tribe and their usual pursuits, that he was viewed with an eye of suspicion. His former companions passed his wigwam without entering it, and mentioned his name as one who was practising improper spells, for notoriety or mischievous purposes; and he seems to think that he should have been hardly dealt with, if his docile and unambitious disposition had not been so generally acknowledged by his tribe. At length he summoned some of the most distinguished of his nation, in order to make his communication to them—and after giving them the best explanation of his discovery that he could, stripping it of all supernatural influence, he proceeded to demonstrate to them, in good earnest, that he had made a discovery. His daughter, who was now his only pupil, was ordered to go out of hearing, while he requested his friends to name a word or sentiment which he put down, and then she was called in and read it to them; then the father retired, and the daughter wrote; the Indians were wonder struck; but not entirely satisfied. See-quah-yah then proposed, that the tribe should select several youths from among their brightest young men, that he might communicate the mystery to them. This was at length agreed to, although there was some lurking suspicion of necromancy in the whole business. John Maw, (his Indian name I have forgotten,) a full-blood, with several others, were selected for this purpose. The tribes watched the youths for several months with anxiety; and when they offered themselves for examination, the feelings of all were wrought up to the highest pitch. The youths were separated from their master, and from each other, and watched with great care. The uninitiated directed what the master and pupil should write to each other, and these tests were varied in such a manner, as not only to destroy their infidelity, but most firmly to fix their faith. The Indians, on this, ordered a great feast, and made See-quah-yah conspicuous at it. How nearly is man alike in every age! Pythagoras did the same on the discovery of an important principle in geometry. See-quah-yah became at once school-master, professor, philosopher, and a chief. His countrymen were proud of his talents, and held him in reverence as one favoured by the Great Spirit. The inventions of early times were shrouded in mystery.

See-quah-yah disdained all quackery. He did not stop here, but carried his discoveries to numbers. He of course knew nothing of the Arabick digits, nor of the power of Roman letters in the science. The Cherokees had mental numerals to one hundred, and had words for all numbers up to that; but they had no signs or characters to assist them in enumerating, adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing. He reflected upon this until he had created their elementary principle in his mind; but he was at first obliged to make words to express his meaning, and then signs to explain it. By this process he soon had a clear conception of numbers up to a million. His great difficulty was at the threshold, to fix the powers of his signs according to their places. When this was overcome, his next step was in adding up his different numbers in order to put down the fraction of the decimal, and give the whole number to his next place. But when I knew him, he had overcome all these difficulties, and was quite a ready arithmetician in the fundamental rules. This was the result of my interview; and I can safely say, that I have seldom met a man of more shrewdness than See-quah-yah. He adhered to all the customs of his country; and when his associate chiefs on the mission assumed our costume, he was dressed in all respects like an Indian. See-quah-yah is a man of diversified talents; he passes from metaphysical and philosophical investigation to mechanical occupations, with the greatest case. The only practical mechanics he was acquainted with, were a few bungling blacksmiths, who could make a rough tomahawk, or tinker the lock of a rifle; yet he became a white and silver smith, without any instruction, and made spurs and silver spoons with neatness and skill, to the great admiration of people of the Cherokee nation. See-quah-yah has also a great taste for painting. He mixes his colours with skill; taking all the art and science of his tribe upon the subject, he added to it many chemical experiments of his own, and some of them were very successful, and would be worth being known to our painters. For his drawings he had no model but what nature furnished, and he often copied them with astonishing faithfulness. His resemblances of the human form, it is true, are coarse, but often spirited and correct; and he gave action, and sometimes grace, to his representations of animals. He had never seen a camel hair pencil, when he made use of the hair of wild animals for his brushes. Some of his productions discover a considerable practical knowledge of perspective; but he could not have formed rules for this. The painters in the early ages were many years coming to a knowledge of this part of their art; and even now they are more successful in the art than perfect in the rules of it. The manners of the American Cadmus are the most easy, and his habits