Many attempts have been made to discover the origin of Chirography—the
art of writing. Looking back, far back, over the populous plains of
Time, the eye of Research seems to have perceived four or five germinal
spots whence sprang the primitive parents of all known Alphabets.
The early “untutored savage,” who chanced to be provided with an idea he
deemed worth recording for the benefit of his fellows, had recourse to
what artistic talent he possessed, and roughly expressed his idea in the
language of permanent sign. Two circumstances will have conspired to
lighten his labours: the first, that a habit of making known his ideas
by means of an outward code of signals, will perhaps, have been even
more familiar to him than that of expressing them through the medium of
speech; the second, that the burden of his thoughts will not have been
heavy with deep or intricate abstractions difficult to express. His rude
inscriptions gave rise, in course of time, to the word-painting of
China, the picture-writing of Mexico, and to the hieroglyphs of Egypt.
Our business is with the last.
The truncated sparrows and _cavo rilievo_ crocodiles, constituting the
sculptured eloquence of the ancient Egyptians, were found too cumbersome
for general purposes; so they ultimately became converted into two
varieties of a running hand—the _hieratic_ and the _demotic_ characters.
These were Alphabets. One of the characters—a figure suggestive of a
circle, of dissolute habits, with a stroke through it—seems to have been
the founder of the House of H. The latest edition of the _Encyclopædia
Britannica_, however, gives [Illustration: symbol] as being the earliest
representative of the H’s. The character first alluded to had this form,
[Illustration: symbol]. The Phœnicians, who derived their Alphabet from
Egypt, appear to have been desirous of “squaring the circle,” for in
their hands this became [Illustration: symbol], or [Illustration:
symbol]. The Greek letter was at first [Illustration: symbol]; but later
on it changed its appearance, becoming H. As such it figures in the
Sigean inscription of the sixth century, B.C. Had the Greeks imported
their letters directly from Egypt, one might have supposed _theta_ (Θ,
or θ), and not _eta_ (Η), to have been the immediate descendant of the
Egyptian symbol given above. The Samaritan [Illustration: symbol], the
Chaldean and square Hebrew ח (_cheth_ or _heth_), bear marks of a common
origin with the Phœnician H, although their general appearance has been
brought into conformity with the general appearance of the alphabets to
which they respectively belong.
The astonishing changes of shape seen in early letters, are also
accounted for by the nature of the processes by which they were usually
formed, as when a scribe would endeavour to write quickly with a metal
style on a soft tablet; or an explanation of them may be found in the
alterations that will, from time to time, have suggested themselves to
the fancy of the calligraphist. Extreme credulity and extreme scepticism
are, as a rule, found blended in the natures of those people who refuse
to believe that a chain can have existed if any of its links happen to
be lost; and lest any such persons find the differences of form in the
above H’s to be an obstacle to a belief in their descent from a common
ancestor, some specimens of evolution quite as wonderful are selected
from more modern typography, and given below—
[Illustration: Decorative H's]
Tradition asserts that the Greeks received their alphabet from the
Phœnician Cadmus (1493 B.C.). There is reason to believe that H had its
formal representative among their oldest letters, although Pliny states
it to have been introduced after the Trojan War. Mr H. N. Coleridge[2]
says, with regard to the Greek:—“After Η (or η) was appropriated to
express the long E, the rough breathing was not indicated in writing at
all till the time of Aristophanes of Byzantium, who divided the H, and
made one-half of it ([Illustration: aspirate]) the mark of the aspirate,
and the other half of it ([Illustration: lene]) that of the _lene_. By
degrees these marks became [Illustration: symbol] and [Illustration:
symbol]; and hence, in the cursive character ‛ and ’ marking the
vowels.” These last signs (‛ and ’), Professor Geddes humorously styles,
“the ghosts of a vanished consonant.”
“This practice of spiritualizing, or of sending letters aloft, that were
supposed to have a turn for climbing, has always existed in languages
(_Encyclop. Brit._, 1842).” As examples we have the two dots ¨ and the
line ¯ that hover over some words, and may generally be recognised as
being the shades of a departed _e_.
The Romans derived their alphabet from the Greeks; and the Roman
characters are those now in general European use.
The claims of H to a high respectability are conclusively established by
a genealogical review of its ancient lineage. It may be that
“Some storied urn, or animated bust”
may yet be the means of calling back the forms and “fleeting breath” of
many of the unknown and rude forefathers of H, that are now lying in the
great mysterious Asiatic burial ground.