OBS. 8.—­From the foregoing account, it would appear that the Cherokee language is a very peculiar one:  its words must either be very few, or the proportion of polysyllables very great.  The characters used in China and Japan, stand severally for words; and their number is said to be not less than seventy thousand; so that the study of a whole life is scarcely sufficient to make a man thoroughly master of them.  Syllabic writing is represented by Dr. Blair as a great improvement upon the Chinese method, and yet as being far inferior to that which is properly alphabetic, like ours.  “The first step, in this new progress,” says he, “was the invention of an alphabet of syllables, which probably preceded the invention of an alphabet of letters, among some of the ancient nations; and which is said to be retained to this day, in Ethiopia, and some countries of India.  By fixing upon a particular mark, or character, for every syllable in the language, the number of characters, necessary to be used in writing, was reduced within a much smaller compass than the number of words in the language.  Still, however, the number of characters was great; and must have continued to render both reading and writing very laborious arts.  Till, at last, some happy genius arose, and tracing the sounds made by the human voice, to their most simple elements, reduced them to a very few vowels and consonants; and, by affixing to each of these, the signs which we now call letters, taught men how, by their combinations, to put in writing all the different words, or combinations of sound, which they employed in speech.  By being reduced to this simplicity, the art of writing was brought to its highest state of perfection; and, in this state, we now enjoy it in all the countries of Europe.”—­Blair’s Rhetoric, Lect.  VII, p. 68.

OBS. 9.—­All certain knowledge of the sounds given to the letters by Moses and the prophets having been long ago lost, a strange dispute has arisen, and been carried on for centuries, concerning this question, “Whether the Hebrew letters are, or are not, all consonants:”  the vowels being supposed by some to be suppressed and understood; and not written, except by points of comparatively late invention.  The discussion of such a question does not properly belong to English grammar; but, on account of its curiosity, as well as of its analogy to some of our present disputes, I mention it.  Dr. Charles Wilson says, “After we have sufficiently known the figures and names of the letters, the next step is, to learn to enunciate or to pronounce them, so as to produce articulate sounds.  On this subject, which appears at first sight very plain and simple, numberless contentions and varieties of opinion meet us at the threshold.  From the earliest period of the invention of written characters to represent human language, however more or less remote that time may be, it seems absolutely certain, that the distinction