him the Right Hand, and walks with him Hand in Hand, behind the three present Stewards another Round about the Hall: And in the next Round, as aforesaid, the second Steward Drinks to another with the same Ceremony as the first did; and so the Third Steward, and so the Fourth, and then all walk one Round more Hand in Hand about the Hall, that the Company may take notice of the Stewards Elect. And so ends the Ceremony of the Day.

"This Ceremony being over, such as will go their ways; but others that stay, are Diverted with Musick, Songs, Dancing, Farcing, &c. till at last they all find it time to depart."

ANCIENT NAMES OF CITIES AND TOWNS. See NAMES.

ANGLO-SAXON. See SAXON.

ANTEPENULTIMATE. The last syllable but two of a word.

APOSTROPHE. An apostrophe, marked thus', is used to abbreviate or shorten a word: as, 'tis for it is; tho' for though; e'en for even; judg'd for judged. Its chief use is to show the genitive case of nouns: as, "A man's property; a woman's ornament."-Murray.

Authors frequently, in the hurry of writing, abbreviate their words and use the apostrophe; but a compositor, however his copy may be written, should never abbreviate any word in prose works, except he be particularly ordered so to do.

The apostrophe is also used in printing to close an extract, or to show where it finishes; and in dialogues, frequently, to close each person's speech; in both cases it is usually put close to the end of the word, without any space before it, except where the word finishes with a kerned letter, and then a hair space, or one just sufficient for their preservation is used; when it comes after an ascending letter, a hair space should also be put between them. See QUOTATION.

The apostrophe is not used for abbreviation in the Holy Scriptures. nor in Forms of Prayers; but every thing there is set full and at length. To this even the Latin law language had regard, and did not shorten the word DOMINUS, when it had reference to God; whereas Dom. Reg. is put where our Lord the King is understood.

APPLEGATH, AUGUSTUS. See MACHINES.

ARABIC. Arabic is read from right to left. The method of composing it is upside down, and after the points are placed at the top of the letters it is turned in the composing stick.

Mr. Astle says, "The old Arabic characters are said to be of very high antiquity; for Ebn Hashem relates, that an inscription in it was found in Yaman, as old as the time of Joseph. These traditions may have given occasion to some authors to suppose the Arabians to have been the inventors of letters; and Sir Isaac Newton supposes, that Moses learned the alphabet from the Midianites, who were Arabians.

"The Arabian alphabet consists of twenty-eight letters, which are somewhat similar to the ancient Kufic, in which characters the first copies of the Alcoran were written.

"The present Arabic characters were formed by Ebn Moklah, a learned We learn from the Arabian, who lived about 300 years after Mahomet.

Arabian writers themselves, that their alphabet is not ancient."

Seven different styles of writing are used by the Arabs in the present day. Herbin has given descriptions and specimens of them in an Essay on Oriental Caligraphy at the end of his "Développemens des Principes de la Langue Arabe Moderne."

The alphabets are copied, and the following observations are translated, from Baron De Sacy's Arabic Grammar, 2 vol. 8vo. Paris, 1831.

7. It was long thought that the written character which the Arabs most generally use at the present day, and which is called neskhi, was invented

only about the commencement of the 4th century of the Hegira; and, indeed, it appears that the Arabs, before this epoch, used another character which we call Cufic, or Coufic, from the town of Coufa, where, doubtlessly, it first was brought into use. This character has so great a resemblance to the ancient Syriac character called Estranghelo, that it is extremely probable that the Arabs borrowed it from the people of Syria. Nevertheless, even the name of Coufic, given to this character, proves that it is not that which the Arabs of the Hedjaz made use of in the time of Mohammed, the town from which it takes its name having been founded only in A.H. 17. Some papyri lately discovered in Egypt have apprised us that the character which the Arabs of the Hedjaz made use of in the 1st century of the Hegira, differed little from that which is called neskhi. Moreover, in the time of Mohammed, writing was, among these Arabs, if we may believe their historic traditions, an invention very recent, and its use was very circumscribed. But it was otherwise, according to all appearances, among the Arabs, whether nomadic or settled, of Yemen, of Irak, and perhaps of Central Arabia; for, although we do not know the characters which the Arabs made use of in very ancient times, and the few traditions which Mussulman writers have handed down to us on this subject throw but very little light on this point of antiquity, it is scarcely possible to imagine that all the people of Arabia should have remained without a written character until the 6th century of the Christian era. The Jewish and the Christian religions were widely diffused in Arabia; the Ethiopians, who professed the latter faith, had even conquered Yemen, and retained its possession for a long while: another part of Arabia had frequent political relations with Persia, and it is found at many times in a state of dependence, more or less immediate, on the kings of the Sassanian dynasty. Under these circumstances, can it be reasonably supposed that the Arabs were ignorant of the use of writing? Is it not more likely that what history tells us of their ignorance in this respect is true only of some tribes, of those, for example, who were settled at Mecca or in the neighbourhood of that town; and that the character which these received from Mesopotamia, a short time previous to Mohammed, having been employed to write the Kurán, soon spread over all Arabia with the Mohammedan religion, and caused the other more ancient sorts of writing to fall into desuetude? It is true, no vestige of these characters remains, but if one may be permitted to hazard a conjecture, they did not materially differ from that ancient alphabet, common to a great many nations of the East, and of which the Phoenician and Palmyrenian monuments, as well as the ruins of Nakschia-Roustam and of Kirmanschah, and the coins of the Sassanides, have perpetuated the knowledge even to our own days. Perhaps another sort of writing, peculiar to Southern Arabia, was only a variety of the Ethiopic.

8. The Arabs of Africa have a character differing slightly from that made use of by the Arabs of Asia. I do not comprehend, among the Africans, the inhabitants of Egypt, for they use the same character as the Asiatics. For the sake of comparison I have shown the manner in which the Jews and Syrians employ their peculiar character when they are writing in the Arabic language.

I do not speak here of the character called talik or nestalik , because it, is peculiar to the Persians. I may say as much of the different kinds of writing proper to the Turks or to the people of India, among whom the Mussulmans of Persia have introduced their characters with their language and religion.

Harmonical Alphabet, Arabic, Hebrew, and Syriac.

9. The letters of the Arabic alphabet have not always been arranged in the order in which they are at the present day. The Arabs themselves have preserved the remembrance of a more ancient order, and the value which they give to the letters when they are employed as figures, confirms the existence of this order, which they term aboudjed, in like manner as we call the alphabet a be ce.

The twenty-two first letters of the Arabic alphabet, thus arranged, are the same, and follow the same order, as those of the Hebrews and Syrians. It is very probable that the Arabs, as well as the others, had only these twenty-two letters originally, and that the other six were added afterwards, though it is not possible to determine precisely the time at which this addition took place.

10. The lam-elif is not a character per se, but only a junction of the lam J to the élif \.

12. The alphabet is divided into eight columns: the first contains the numbers which indicate the order of the letters; the second, the names of the letters; the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth show the different forms of which each letter is susceptible when it is, first, entirely isolated; second, joined only to that which precedes it; third, joined to that which precedes and also to that which follows it; and, fourth, joined only to that which follows it. There are several letters which are never joined to those which follow them: this causes the blanks in the fifth and sixth columns. It is as well, however, to observe, that when the, the J,

are found followed by, at the end of a word,

they may be joined together.

13. Many letters differ from each other only by the absence or addition of one or more points. These points are called by the Arabs

5769

ä; we call them diacritical points, a term derived from the Greek, signifying distinctive.

30. The elif, when marked with the hamza, is not a vowel. The sound may then be compared to the h not aspirated in the French words habit, histoire, homme, Hubert.

The elif, without the hamza, has no pronunciation of its own; it serves only to prolong the vowel a which precedes it; sometimes this vowel and the elif which follows, take a strong sound approaching to the French i. 31. The answers to B, and the In Africa the pronunciation of is often given to the letter L

to T.

32. The answers to the English th, as in the word thing; and it cannot be rendered in French better than by the two letters TS. The greater part of the Arabs make no distinction between the pronunciation of this letter and that of; some indeed regard as vicious the pronunciation here indicated. The Persians and the Turks pronounce the as the French ç; I render it ordinarily by TH.

33. The represents a sound similar to that of the Italian g, when followed by an i, as in giardino, and may be expressed by the letters DJ. This pronunciation, which is most used, is that of the people of Arabia and Syria; but in Egypt, at Muscat, and perhaps in some other provinces, the is pronounced as g hard followed by an a or o, as in

で

garrison, agony.

34. The

て indicates an aspiration stronger than that of the French h

in the words heurter, héros, and similar to the manner in which the Flo

rentines pronounce the c before a and o.

At the end of words, this aspi

ration is still more difficult to imitate.

For example, the word

لوح

is pronounced as louch.

35. The

خ

answers to the ch of the Germans when it is preceded by an a or an o, as in the words nacht, noch.

26. The

37. The

the

answers exactly to D.

ت

represents a sound which is to that of very nearly as is to that of It is expressed in French by the two letters DZ or DH. Most nations who speak the Arabic language make no difference between this letter and the preceding; they pronounce both as our D. Some others, as the Arabs of Muscat, pronounce the as the French z, and such is the usage of the Persians and Turks.

س

38. The answers exactly to R; and the ; to z. 39. The answers to the sound of s, when it is at the beginning of words. When this letter is found, in Arabic words, between two vowels, it may be rendered by ç, that its pronunciation may not be con

C