IF no traces remained, nor any authorities could be produced of the antiquity of the Chinefe nation, except the written character of their language, this alone would be fufficient to decide that point in its favour. There is fo much originality in this language, and fuch a great and effential difference between it and that of any other nation not immediately derived from the Chinefe, that not the moft diftant degree of affinity can be difcovered, either with regard to the form of the character, the fyftem on which it is constructed, or the idiom, with any other known language upon the face of the globe. Authors, however, and fome of high reputation, have been led to fuppofe that, in the Chinefe character, they could trace feme relation to thofe hieroglyphical or facred inferiptions found among the remains of the ancient Egyptians; others have confidered it to be a modification of hieroglyphic writing, and that each character was the fymbol or comprehenfive form of the idea it was meant to exprefs, or, in other words, an abftract delineation of the object intended to be reprefented.