The time at which Cadmus, the Phoenician, introduced this art into Greece, cannot be precisely ascertained.

There is no reason to believe it was antecedent to the time of Moses; some chronologists make it between two and three centuries later.

Nor is it very probable, that Cadmus invented the sixteen letters of which he is said to have made use.

His whole story is so wild a fable, that nothing certain can be inferred from it.

Searching in vain for his stolen sister--his sister Europa, carried off by Jupiter--he found a wife in the daughter of Venus! Sowing the teeth of a dragon, which had devoured his companions, he saw them spring up to his aid a squadron of armed soldiers! In short, after a series of wonderful achievements and bitter misfortunes, loaded with grief and infirm with age, he prayed the gods to release him from the burden of such a life; and, in pity from above, both he and his beloved Hermione were changed into serpents! History, however, has made him generous amends, by ascribing to him the invention of letters, and accounting him the worthy benefactor to whom the world owes all the benefits derived from literature.