CHARACTER, in a general sense, signifies a mark or figure, drawn on paper, metal, stone, or other matter, with a pen, graver, chisel, or other instrument, to signify or denote any thing. The word is Greek, formed from the verb γpζws<5ων, insculpere, to engrave or impress.

The various kinds of characters may be reduced to three heads, viz. Literal Characters, Numeral Characters, and Abbreviations.

I. Literal Character is a letter of the alphabet, serving to indicate some articulate sound.

1. These may be divided, with regard to their nature and use, into Nominal Characters, or those we properly call letters, which serve to express the names of things; Peal Characters, those that instead of names express things and ideas; Emblematical or Symbolical Characters, which have this in common with real ones, that they express the things themselves, but, further, possess the peculiarity of in some measure personating them, and exhibiting their form, such as the hieroglyphics of the ancient Egyptians.

2. Literal Characters may be again divided, with regard to their invention and use, into particular and general or universal. Particular Characters are those peculiar to this or that nation, such as the Roman, Italic, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Gothic, and Chinese characters. Universal Characters are also real characters, and constitute what some authors call a Philosophical Language.

That diversity of characters used by several nations to express the same idea is found the chief obstacle to the advancement of learning. To remove this, several ingenious thinkers have taken occasion to propose plans of characters which should be universal, and which each people should read in their own language. The object is to render character real, not nominal; to express things and notions, not letters or sounds; yet to be mute like letters, and arbitrary, not emblematical, like hieroglyphics. Thus, every nation would retain its own language, yet every one would understand that of every other without learning it, only by seeing a real or universal character, which should signify the same thing to all people, by what sounds soever it might be expressed in their particular idiom. For instance, by seeing the character destined to signify to drink, an Englishman would read to drink; a Frenchman, boire; a Latin, bibere; a Greek, vr/w/v; a Jew, nnor; a German, trinchen, and so of the rest; in the same manner as seeing a horse, each people would express it after their own manner, but all would mean the same animal.

The first and most considerable attempts at a real character, or philosophical language, in Europe, are those of Bishop Wilkins and Dalgarno; but they r proved wholly ineffectual. M. Leibnitz, indeed, thought that those ingenious men did not hit the right method. It was probable, indeed, that by their contrivance people who do not understand one another might easily have a commerce together; but they have not hit on true real characters. According to him, the characters should resemble those used in algebra, which, in effect, are very simple, yet very expressive, without any thing superfluous or equivocal, and contain all the varieties required. M. Lodwic, in the Philosophical Transactions, gives us a plan of an universal alphabet or character of another description. This was to contain an enumeration of all such single sounds or letters as are used in any language, by means of which people should be enabled to pronounce truly and readily any language; to describe the pronunciation of any language that might be pronounced in their hearing, so that others accustomed to this language, though they had never heard it pronounced, should at first be able truly to pronounce it; and, lastly, this character was to serve as a standard to perpetuate the sounds of any language.

A new universal character was proposed by Mr Northmore of London, by which different nations might communicate their sentiments to each other. His original plan [7:6:322]was to make the same numerical figure represent the same word in all languages. But he found afterwards that it might be improved by using a figure, not for every word, but for every useful word. And even these, he thinks, might be abbreviated by adopting certain uniform fixed signs, the number of which would not exceed twenty for the various parts of speech. Words of negation he proposed to be expressed by a prefixed sign. A few instances will explain the author’s meaning.
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“I would then,” says he, “express the tenses, genders, cases, &c. in all languages, in some such uniform manner as the following:
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“From the above specimen, I should find no difficulty in comprehending the following sentence, though it were written in the language of the Hottentots:

a ∙-~'.

9, 8, .5,—7, 6. I never saw a more unhappy woman.

“Those languages which do not usc the pronoun prefixed to the verb, as the Greek and Roman, may apply it in a small character, simply to denominate the person; thus, instead of 9, 8, .5, I never saw, they may write 8, g .5, which will signify that the verb is in the first person, and will still have the same meaning.”

Our author thinks, that according to this scheme of an universal character, about twenty signs, and less than 10,000 choseii words, synonyms being set aside, would answer all the ends proposed; and that foreigners, by referring to their numerical dictionary, would easily comprehend each other. He proceeds next to show how appropriate sounds may be given to his signs, and an universal living language formed from the universal characters.

With this view he proposes to distinguish the ten numerals by ten monosyllabic names of easy pronunciation, or such as may without difficulty run into one another. To illustrate his scheme, however, he calls them, for the present, by their common English names, but suggests that each number made usc of should be pronounced by uttering separately its component parts, after the manner of accountants. Thus, let the number 6943 represent the word horse, he would not, in the universal language, call a horse six thousand nine hundred and forty-three, but six, nine, four, three ; and so on for all the words of a sentence, making the proper stop at the end of each. In the same manner, a distinct appellation must be appropriated to each of the prefixed signs, to be pronounced immedialely after the numeral of which it is an appendage. Therefore, if plu be the appellation or the sign of the plural number, six, nine, four, three, plu, will be horses.

“Thus,” says our author, “I hope it is evident that about thirty or forty distinct syllables are sufficient for the above purpose; but I am much mistaken if eleven only will not answer the same end. This is to be done by substituting the first twenty or thirty numerals for the signs, and saying, as in algebra, that a term is in the power of such a number, which may be expressed by the simple word under. For example, let 6943 represent the word horse, and suppose 4 to be the sign of the plural number, I would write the word thus, and pronounce it six, nine, four, three, in the power of or under four. By these means eleven distinct appellations would be sufficient, and time and use would much abbreviate the pronunciation.”

3. Literal characters may again be divided, with reference to the nations among whom they have been invented, into Greek characters, Roman characters, Hebrew characters, and the like. The Latin character now used throughout all Europe was formed from the Greek, as the Greek was formed from the Phoenician; and the Phoenician, as well as the Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic characters, were formed from the ancient Hebrew, which subsisted till the Babylonish captivity; for after that event the character of the Assyrians, which is the square Hebrew now in use, prevailed, the ancient being only found on some Hebrew medals, commonly called Samaritan medals. It was in 1091 that the Gothic characters, invented by Ulphiľas, were abolished, and the Latin ones established in their room.

Medallists observe that the Greek character, consisting only of majuscule letters, has preserved its uniformity on all medals as low as the time of Gallienus, after which it appears somewhat weaker and rounder. From the time of Constantine to that of Michael we find only Latin characters; after the time of Michael the Greek characters recommence; but from that period they began to alter with the language, which was a mixture of Greek and Latin. The Latin medals preserved both their characters and language as late as the translation of the seat of the empire to Constantinople. Towards the time of Decius the character began to lose its roundness and beauty; but some time afterwards it retrieved, and subsisted tolerably till the time of Justin, when it degenerated gradually into the Gothic. The rounder, then, and better-formed a character is upon a medal, the fairer pretence it has to antiquity.

II. Numeral Characters, or characters used to express numbers, arc either letters or figures.

The Arabic character, called also the common one, because it is used almost throughout Europe in all sorts of calculations, consists of the ten digits, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,7, 8, 9, 0.

The Roman numeral character consists of seven majuscule letters of the Roman alphabet, viz. I, V, X, L, C, D, M. The I denotes one, V five, X ten, L fifty, C a hundred, D five hundred, and M a thousand. The 1 repeated twice makes two, II; thrice, three, III. Four is expressed thus, IV, as I before V or X takes an unit from the number expressed by these letters. To express six an I is added to a V, thus, VI; for seven, two, VII; and for eight, three, VIII. Nine is expressed by an I before X, thus, IX. The same remark may be made of the X before L or C, except that the diminution is by tens; thus, XL [7:6:323]denotes forty, XC ninety, and LX sixty. The C before D or M diminishes each by a hundred. The number five hundred is sometimes expressed by an I before a C inverted, thus, 13; and instead of M, which signifies a thousand, an I is sometimes used between two C’s, the one direct and the other inverted, thus, CIO. The addition of C and 0 before or after'raises CIO by tens; thus, CCIOO expresses ten thousand, CCCIOOO a hundred thousand. The Romans also expressed any number of thousands by a line drawn over any numeral less than a thousand; thus, V denotes five thousand, ‰χ sixty thousand; so likewise M is one million, MM is two millions, and so on.

The Greeks had three ways of expressing numbers: 1. Every letter, according to its place in the alphabet, denoted a number, from α, one, to ω, twenty-four. 2. The alphabet was divided into eight units, α one, β two, γ three; &c.; into eight tens, ∣ ten, κ twenty, λ thirty, &c.; and eight hundreds, ξ one hundred, d’ two hundred, r three hundred, &c. 3. I stood for one, ∏ five, Δ ten, H a hundred, X a thousand, M ten thousand; and when the latter ∏ inclosed any of these, except I, it showed the inclosed letter to be five times its value; as, ∣∆∣ fifty, ∣II∣ five hundred, ∣X∣ five thousand, ∣M∣ fifty thousand.

III. Characters of Abbreviations, &c. in several of the arts, are symbols contrived for the more concise and immediate conveyance of the knowledge of things.
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0 denotes a degree; thus, 45° implies 45 degrees.

' denotes a minute; thus, 50' is 50 minutes. ", '", "", denote seconds, thirds, and fourths; and the same characters are used when the progressions are by tens, as it is here by sixties.
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⅝ character of a sharp note; this character at the beginning of a line or space denotes that all the notes in that line are to be taken a semitone higher than in the natural series; and the same affects all the octaves above and below, though not marked; but when prefixed to any particular note, it shows that note alone to be taken a semitone higher than it would be without such a character.

b or b, character of a flat note. This is the contrary to the other above; that is, a semitone lower.

t[ character of a natural note. When in a line or series of artificial notes marked at the beginning ♭ or the natural note happens to be required, it is denoted by this character.

character of the treble cliff.

tzļ character of the mean cliff.

Q; bass cliff.

I or ∙∣, characters of common duple time, signifying the [7:6:324]measure of two crotchets to be equal to two notes, of which four make a semibreve.

C ♯ ¢> characters that distinguish the movements of common time, the first implying slow, the second quick, and the third very quick.

⅛, 3’ ¾’ ł’ ⅛ characters of simple triple time, the measure of which is equal to three semibreves, or to three minims.

í’ ⅛> or ^⅛ characters of a mixed triple time, where the measure is equal to six crotchets or six quavers.

S, or ⅛, or ⅛, or ⅛, or characters of compound triple time.

T2’ ⅛ Tth or ⅛ or T%’ characters of that species of triple time called the measure of twelve times.

Character, in human life, that which is peculiar in the manners of any person, and distinguishes him from all others.

Character, in Poetry, particularly the epopee and drama, is the effect or result of the manners or peculiarities by which each person is distinguished from others.

The poetical character is not properly any particular virtue or quality, but a composition of several which are mixed together in different degrees, according to the necessity of the fable and the unity of the action; there must be one, however, to reign over all the rest, and this must be found, in some degree, in every part. The first quality in Achilles is wrath, in Ulysses dissimulation, and in Aencas mildness; but as these characters cannot stand alone, they must be accompanied with others to embellish them, as far as they are capable, either by hiding their defects, as in the anger of Achilles, which is palliated by extraordinary valour; or by making them centre in some solid virtue, as in Ulysses, whose dissimulation constitutes part of his prudence; and in Aeneas, whose mildness is employed in submission to the will of the gods. In the making up of this union, it is to be observed, that the poets have joined together such qualities as are by nature the most compatible; valour with anger, piety with mildness, and prudence with dissimulation. The fable required prudence in Ulysses and piety in Aencas; in this, therefore, the poets were not left to their own choice. But Homer might have made Achilles a coward without abating any thing from the justness of his fable; and it was only the necessity of adorning his character that obliged him to make him valiant. The character, then, of a hero in the epic poem is compounded of three sorts of qualities; the first essential to the fable, the second embellishments of the first, while valour, which sustains the other two, constitutes the third.

Unity of character is as necessary as the unity of the fable. For this purpose a person should be the same from the beginning to the end; not that he is always to betray identical sentiments, or one passion; but that he should never speak nor act inconsistently with his fundamental character. For instance, the weak may sometimes burst into warmth, and the breast of the passionate may be calm; a change which often introduces into the drama a very affecting variety: but if the natural disposition of the former were to be represented as boisterous, and that of the latter as mild and soft, they would both act out of character, and contradict their personality.

True characters are such as we actually see in men, or as may exist without any contradiction to nature. No man questions but there have been men as generous and as good .as Aeneas, as passionate and as violent as Achilles, as prudent and as wise as Ulysses, as impious and atheistical as Mezentius, and as amorous and passionate as Dido. All these characters, therefore, are true, and nothing but just imitations of nature. On the contrary, a character is false when the author so feigns it that one can see nothing like it in the order of nature in which he designs it shall stand. Such characters should be wholly excluded from a poem, because, transgressing the bounds of probability and reason, they meet with no belief from the reader. They are fictions of the poct’s brain, not imitations of nature; and yet all poetry consists of an imitation of nature.