six years into that of Lamech, the father of Noah, and two hundred
and forty-three into that of Methuselah, the father of Lamech, with both of
whom Noah was contemporary nearly six hundred years, it is scarcely
possible that there should have occurred any such diversity, either in
Noah's day or before, except from some extraordinary cause. Lord Bacon
regarded the multiplication of languages at Babel as a general evil, which
had had no parallel but in the curse pronounced after Adam's transgression.
When "the language of all the earth" was "confounded," Noah was yet alive,
and he is computed to have lived 162 years afterwards; but whether in his
day, or at how early a period, "grammar" was thought of, as a remedy for
this evil, does not appear. Bacon says, "Concerning speech and words, the
consideration of them hath produced the science of grammar. For man still
striveth to redintegrate himself in those benedictions, of which, by his
fault, he hath been deprived; and as he hath striven against the first
general curse by the invention of all other arts, so hath he striven to
come forth from _the second general curse, which was the confusion of
tongues, by the art of grammar_; whereof the use in a mother tongue is
small, in a foreign tongue more, but most in such foreign tongues as have
ceased to be vulgar tongues, and are turned only to learned tongues."--See
_English Journal of Education_, Vol. viii, p. 444.

[23] It should be, "_to all living creatures_;" for each creature had,
probably, but one name.--G. Brown.

[24] Some recent German authors of note suppose language to have sprung up
among men _of itself_, like spontaneous combustion in oiled cotton; and
seem to think, that people of strong feelings and acute minds must
necessarily or naturally utter their conceptions by words--and even by
words both spoken and written. Frederick Von Schlegel, admitting "the
_spontaneous origin_ of language generally," and referring speech to its
"_original source_--a deep feeling, and a clear discriminating
intelligence," adds: "The oldest system of writing _developed itself_ at
the same time, and in the same manner, as the spoken language; not wearing
at first the symbolic form, which it subsequently assumed in compliance
with the necessities of a less civilized people, but composed of certain
signs, which, in accordance with the simplest elements of language,
actually conveyed the sentiments of the race of men then
existing."--_Mi