linl!! Krh mm m k a V ■ / * " ^ +J- ^ o N .A MITHRIDATES MINOR; AN ESSAY ON LANGUAGE. BY HENRY WELSFORI), ESQ. 'OvS/jLara $dp§apa ht)ttot a'AAa£r?s, Elal yap bvSixara 7rap' htaffTois &e6a8oTa Avva/xiv iv reAercus 1i.p*p7}TOV ex ovra - Pseixus, 7. LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, PATEBNOSTEB-BOW. 1848. London : Spottiswoode and Shaw, New-street- Square. TABLE OF CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. Page 1. General reasons which justify publication - xxiii 2. Particular views of the author respecting Philology - - ib. 3. All the aid has not been derived from the Oriental languages which they are. capable of affording - xxiv 4. Lennep — Herasterhuys — Primitive Greek roots - - ib. 5. Words from the Shemitic Languages adopted by the Greeks xxv 6. Mode of their adoption, and changes produced in them - xxvi 7. List of Sanskrit Nouns adopted by the Greek and Latin - xxvii 8. The change produced in their terminations infers the existence of some cause of a very peculiar nature - xxviii 9. Sanskrit crude nouns destitute of gender, case, and number- xxx 10. The addition made to them by the Greeks was that of the - Personal Pronoun, os, -rj, -ov - - - - xxxi 11. List of Sanskrit Verbal Roots adopted by the Greek and Latin ------- xxxiii 12. The addition made to them by the Greeks and Romans was that of the Auxiliary Yerb To be, by the aid of which the Sanskrit Verb itself is formed - xxxv 13. Application of the Baconian mode of reasoning to Language — Deficiences and attainments of the Greeks - - xxxvi 14. Hindu Philosophy — Greek Sophists — Schoolmen of the Middle Ages ------ xxxviii 15. Political reasonings of the Greeks — Slow progress of Statis- tics, and Political Economy - ib. 16. Observation and experiment the only secure basis of Physics xxxix 17. Geology — Cosmogony — Comparative Anatomy — Cuvier - xl 18. The investigation of what is fact, almost, appears to constitute a peculiar science ----- xli 19. The different rate of progress of Metaphysical and Physical knowledge, illustrated by a reference to the Economical annals of England - xliii 20. Mr. Watt— The Steam-engine — Its effects- - - x lr 21. Application of steam to the production of locomotion — Pro- phecy in Darwin's Botanic Garden - - - x lvi a 2 IV CONTENTS. Page 22. Important consequences likely to be the result of the invention of railroads. Its effect on Knowledge - xlvii 23. On Philanthropy, religious Liberality, and general Civilisation 1 24. Prospect of the rapid and indefinite enlargement of the human mind — Passage from Condorcet - ib. CHAPTER I. ON THE PKIMTTIVE LANGUAGE OF MANKIND. i. Positive assertion on this subject in the Book of Genesis — Different views of Bentley, and Sir William Jones - 1 n. Mode proposed of ascertaining some of the oldest existing lan- guages - - - - - - -2 in. Reasons for believing that there are at least seven as old as the Hebrew - - - - - - 3 1. Egyptian - - - - - - ib. 2. Sanskrit - - r - 4 3. Arabic - - - - - - ib. 4. Persic - - - - - - 5 5. Turkish - - - - - - ib. 6. Syriac - - - - - - ib. 7. Greek - - - - - - ib. iv. All these probably formed parts of the Primitive language which contained the roots of all the languages since spoken - 6 v. The Indo-European class of languages of Adelung - - ib. vi. Proposed arrangement of the author - - - - 7 vii. The Arabic or Shemitic family of languages - - 8 vin. The characteristics of that family - - - - 9 ix. The Sanskrit, or Indian family of languages characterised - 10 CHAP. II. ON THE OLDEST NAMES AND FORMS OF ANY EXISTING ALPHABETICAL CHARACTERS. i. Pliny's account of ancient alphabets - - - - 13 ii. Contains little that is historical, and to be relied on - - 14 rii. We are in many respects better able to investigate the antiquities of the Greeks, than the Greeks themselves were - - ib. iv. Coincidence between European and Chinese Chronology - 16 v. Account of the ancient modes of writing in China - - ib. vi. Identity of hieroglyphic characters in China and Egypt - 17 vii. Letters derived by various Asiatic alphabets from Chinese hiero- glyphics - - - - - - -18 CONTENTS. V Page viii. The Kou-Ouen or oldest Chinese writing - - - 19 ix. The Oighur alphabet of fourteen letters - ib. x. The Runic, an Asiatic alphabet - - - - 20 xi. Identity of the Northern Woden with the Indian Budha - 21 xii. Two Runic letters on a Parthian gem - - - - 22 xiii. The names of two of the Runic letters, Persic words - - 24 CHAP. III. ON DIVERSITIES OF LANGUAGE WHICH APPEAR TO HAVE BEEN PRODUCED BY DIFFERENT MODES OF WRITING, THAT IS, FROM RIGHT TO LEFT, OR FROM LEFT to RIGHT. i. Unwritten languages least changed — Many changes appear to have been produced by the art of alphabetical writing itself 26 ii. Three leading modes of writing — from top to bottom, from right to left, and from left to right - - - - 27 in. Tien, Chinese, and Neit Egyptian — Neitha, Egyptian and Athene, Greek .---..- ib. iv. Tien, Chinese — Tihan, Sanskrit — and Dihan, Greek, — Dihan, Greek, and JSTahid Persic — Nihad, Persic, Nature- — Tabiat, Arabic, and Tabiti, Scythic - - - - 28 v. Mitra, Persic, and Artemis, Greek — Misitra, Sparta - - 29 vi. Rama, Sanskrit, and Amor and Amar, Latin — Dipuc, Sanskrit, and Cupid, and Cupidus, Latin — Rhm, Arabic, and Mhr, Persic, Love - - - - - - ib. vn. Laib, the heart, Hebrew, and Bal, Chaldee - •> -30 viii. Sar, the head, Persic, and Ras, Arabic — Kid, Arabic, and Dike Greek — Chlom, Coptic — and Moloch, Hebrew - - ib. CHAP. IV. ON DIVERSITIES OF LANGUAGE WHICH APPEAR TO HAVE BEEN PRO- DUCED BY THE SUBSTITUTION OF ONE LETTER FOR ANOTHER. ORIGIN OF DIALECTS. i. Letters inconveniently alike, when frequently mistaken for each . other, produce a Dialect - - - - - 31 ii. Great fluctuations in Alphabets before they became finally settled - - - - - - - ib. in. Hebrew Daleth (D) and Raish (R) confounded - - 33 iv. Hebrew Samech (S) and final Mem (M) confounded - - ib. v. Hebrew final Caph (Ch) and Daleth (D) confounded - - ib. vi. Arabic Re (R) and Ze (Z) confounded - - - 34 vn. Sanskrit S, and Roman R, confounded - - - ib. a 3 Vi CONTENTS. Page vin. The Duillian Inscription — S, R, and D - - - 37 ix. The Spartan Decree against Timotheus of Miletus - - 38 x. Greek Alpha and Rho, confounded - - - - 39 xi. Greek Delta and Lambda confounded — SS, the Greek letter Xi, and the Roman X - - - - 40 xn. Greek Iota, and Lambda, confounded - - - 41 xiii. Etruscan Phi, and Chi, confounded - - - - 42 CHAP. V. ON THE SPOKEN EANGUAGE OF CHINA. I. Extravagant and unfounded statements respecting almost every- thing connected with China - - - - 43 n. Dr. Marshman's comparison of the Chinese with the Sanskrit and the Hebrew - - - - - - 44 in. Observations on it - - - - - ib. iv. List of Chinese words from the Names of the 214 Keys, with their Analogies in other Languages -r - - 45 v. List of Chinese words from the Glossary in Du Halde - 46 vi. List of Chinese words from the Index to De Guignes - - 47 vn. Two spoken Languages in China, one of which may be denomi- nated the Literary — The 330 Chinese words, and 300 Greek roots - - - - - - - 48 vin. Abstract of Chinese Grammar - - - - 49 * ix. The Nominative Case - - - - - - ib. , . x. The Genitive - - ib. xi. The Dative - - - - - - - 50 xn. The Accusative, Vocative, and Ablative - ib. xrn. Adjectives - - - - - - - ib. xiv. Personal Pronouns - - - - - -51 xv. Conjugation of Verbs - - - - - ib. xvi. Artificial Classification in the first instance is favourable to the advancement of knowledge, but tends to retard it when we forget that it is artificial - - - - - ib. CHAP. VI. ON THE LANGUAGE OF ANCIENT EGYPT — THE COPTIC AND SAHIDIC. I. The Egyptians claimed the honour of being the inventors of Letters - - - - - - -53 :i. Memnon the Egyptian — Cecrops the Athenian — Linus the Theban — Palamedes the Argive — Assertion of Josephus that Homer left no written works - - - - 54 :i. Singular fact that no Egyptian Monuments prior to the accession of the Ptolemies contain Alphabetical Inscriptions - - ib. CONTENTS. Vll Page iv. Unsatisfactory account of Herodotus of the Egyptian mode of writing - - - - - - -55 v. Remarks on the Egyptian Alphabet - - - - 56 vi. List of Coptic and Sahidic Words, with their Analogies in other Languages - - - - - - - ib. vn. Abstract of Coptic Grammar — That Language has much in com- mon with the Shemitic Class . - - - - 59 viii. Adjectives and Participles never vary their termination - 60 ix. Distinction of Gender in the different Persons of the Verb - 61 x. Egyptian Verbs have five Tenses, but three Forms of the Fu- ture - - - - . - - - ib. xi. The Passive Voice - - - - - - ib. xii. Formation of the Preter-pluperfect Tense - • - 62 CHAP. VH. ON THE HEBREW LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR. i. Age of the Hebrew Alphabet - - - - - 63 ii. Probable date of the composition of the Book of Psalms - 64 in. Hebrew Nouns ----_> $ # iv. Adjectives - - - - - - - ib. v. Verbs - - - - - - -65 vi. Tenses of the Verb - - - - - - ib. vn. List of Hebrew words with their Analogies - ib. CHAP. VIII. ON THE ETH10PIC LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR. I. Ethiopia was one of the countries designated in the Old Testa- ment by the name of Cush - - - - - 69 ii. Herodotus's account of the Ethiopians - - - 70 in. That of Diodorus - - - - - -71 iv. His description of their Hieroglyphic Characters - - ib. v. Neither Herodotus nor Diodorus mentions Letters — Conjec- tures as to the Ethiopic and Amharic Alphabets - - 72 vi. Analysis of the Ethiopic Alphabet - - - 73 vn. Abstract of Ethiopic Grammar - « - - 74 viii. Many of their Verbs derived from Nouns - - - ib. ix. List of Ethiopic Words - - - - - 75 x. The Language a Shemitic one, and little more than a Dialect of the Hebrew, or Chaldee - - - - - 76 a 4 Till COM TENTS. CHAP. IX. ON THE ASSYRIAN LANGUAGE, OR THE EASTERN AND WESTERN ARAMEAN. Page i. Difficult to discover any Language peculiar to Assyria - 78 ii. Specimens of the Syriac, Assyrian, Chaldee, and Samaritan — The Peshito, or Old Syriac Version of the New Testament - ib. in. The Philoxenian, or New Syriac Version - - - 79 iv. The designations of some of the Officers of Sennacherib are not proper names, but the names of offices, and therefore Assy- rian words - - - - - - -80 v. We know no Language but the Chaldee peculiar to Assyria - 81 CHAP. X. ON THE PHOENICIAN AND PUNIC LANGUAGES. i. The Phoenicians have left inconsiderable remains of art, science or literature - - - - - - 82 ii. Herodotus' s account of their origin - - - - ib. in. Curious passage of the Prophet Isaiah - - - 83 iv. The antiquity of Tyre probably greatly exaggerated - - ib. v. The palm tree, the armorial bearing of the Phoenicians, appears to have been a play on their name - - - - 84 vi. Conjecture as to what the Phoenician letters really were — He- rodotus' s description of them - - - - 85 vii. Diodorus's account - - - - - - 86 viii. The claim of the Phoenicians to be regarded as the inventors of alphabetical writing does not appear to be well founded - ib. ix. Tradition of the building of Carthage - - - - 87 x. Extreme difficulty of discriminating the dialects of the Shemitic from the words transmitted by the Greeks and Romans — . etymology of Carthage and Carthagena - - - 88 xi. Kirchadashah in Phoenician characters from a Carthagena medal — Hanno — Hannibal — Hasdrubal — Adherbal — Maharbal 89 CHAP. XI. ON THE ARABIC LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR. i. The Arabic alphabet at an early period probably corresponded with the Hebrew - - - - --91 ii. The letters actually in use derived from the Cufic - - ih CONTENTS. IX Page in. Arabic nouns - - - - - - 92 iv. The signification of Arabic verbs modified without the use of prepositions and adverbs - - - - - ib. v. Examples of that modification - - - ib. vi. Conjugations of the Arabic verb - - - - 93 vn. Arabic causative verbs formed by prefixing A to the root - ib. viii. ' by prefixing T to the root - 94 ix. List of Arabic words with their analogies in other languages - 96 CHAP. XII. ON THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR. i. Remarks on alphabets in general - - - - 101 ii. The Sanskrit alphabet appears to be mentioned by Diodorus Siculus ---_-__ 102 in. The languages of India known very slowly to Europeans - 103 iv. Anquetil du Perron - - - - - - ib. v. Mr. Halhed the first European Sanskrit scholar — His account of the language - - - - - - ib. vi. Literal meaning of the word Sanskrit - - - 104 vn. Sanskrit Nouns - - - - - -105 viii. Pronouns - - - - - - 106 ix. Verbs - - - " - - ib. x. Moods and Tenses - - - - - 107 xi. Origin of the Sanskrit verb - - - * - 1 08 xii. The account examined and refuted - - - - 109 xiii. List of Sanskrit words which are at once nouns and verbs - 110 xiv. Observations on it- - - - - -112 xv. Nouns are necessarily older than verbs — Mode in which the significations of the former are transferred to the latter - ib. xvi. The same subject further illustrated - - - 113 xvn. The Greek and Latin derivations from the Sanskrit Dhatos prove that they must be coeval with the great body of the language - - - - - - -115 xviii. Coincidences in the mythology of Hindustan and Greece — The Sanskrit and Homeric epithets of Saturn — The three steps of Vishnu and Neptune - - - - 116 xix. The Sanskrit the parent of the Greek and Latin - - 117 xx. The iEolic Digamma in Hindustan - ib. xxi. The Doric R, redundant - - - - - 118 xxii. Anomalies in the Sanskrit as numerous as in Greek and Latin ib. xxiii. Grammar in Hindustan, while it pretends to be a revelation, has assumed the appearance of an occult science - - 119 xxiv. The Sanskrit verb really consists of an unvarying root joined to the tenses of the Auxiliary Verb To be - . - 120 X CONTENTS. CHAP. XIII. ON THE MEDIAN LANGUAGES — THE ZENDISH AND PEHLVI. Page i. Specimens of the Zendish and Pehlvi from Adelung - - 122 ii. Median words from Herodotus and Strabo - ib. in. Zendish alphabet and words - 123 iv. Pehlvi alphabet and words - - - - - 124 CHAP. XIV ON THE LANGUAGES OF PERSIA — THE DEEI AND PARSI. i. The present alphabet of Persia not older than the seventh cen- tury — Appears to have succeeded the Cufic - 128 n. The tomb of Cyrus - - - - - - 129 in. The Pehlvi widely spoken in Persia at the present time - ib. iv. Etymology of Eelauts - - - - - - 130 v. Etymology of Persians and Parthians - ib. vi. Probable origin of the modern Persic - - - - 131 vn. Herodotus's account of the ancient Persians - - - 1 32 vni. List of Persic words with their analogies - ib. CHAP. XV. GREECE. THE GREEK ALPHABET. THE GREEK VERB. i. Alpha - - - - - - 137 ii. Beta -------- 140 m. Gammma - - - - - - - 141 iv. Delta- - - - - - - - 142 v. El (Epsilon) - - - - - - ib. vi. Zeta - - - - - - - - 144 vn. Eta - - - - - - - - 145 vin. Theta - - - - - - - 147 ix. Iota -* - - - - - - ib. x. Kappa - - - - - - - ib. xi. Lambda ----___ 14s xii. Mu - - - - - - - - ib. xiii. Nu - - - - - - - ib. xiv. Xi - - - - - - - - ib. xv. Ou (Omicron) - . - - - - - ib. xvi. Pi - - - - - - - - 151 CONTENTS. XI Page xvii. Rho - - - - - - 151 xviii. San (Sigma) - - - - - -152 xix. Tau - - - - - - - ib. xx. Upsilon - - - - - - - ib. xxi. Phi - - - - - - ib. xxn. Chi - - - - - - - 153 xxiii. Psi - - - - - - - ib. xxiv. Omega - - - - - - - ib. xxv. On the origin and formation of the Greek verb - - 154 xxvi. The Greek language and alphabet derived from Asia - ib. xxvii. On the verb Tupto - - - - - 155 xxviii. On the Present Tense as the root of the Greek verb - 156 xxix. The most ancient form of the Greek verb - - 157 xxx. Imperfect Tense — syllabic and temporal augment » 158 xxxi. The First Future - - - - - -160 xxxii. The First Aorist - - - - - - 162 xxxiii. The Perfect - - - - - - 163 xxxiv. The Pluperfect - - - - . - 164 xxxv. The Second Future - - - - - 165 xxxvi. The Second Aorist - - - - - 166 xxxvu. The Paullo-Post-Futurum - - - - ib. xxxvm. The Aoristus iEolicus - - - - - 167 xxxix. Of the Moods - - - - - - ib. xl. On the formatives or terminations of the Greek verb - 168 xli. On the Auxiliary Verb To be- - - -171 xlii. The obsolete "Ew, Sum - - - - - 177 xliii. The obsolete "Eofiai, Sum - - - - 178 xliv. The obsolete Tenses of Et/xr, Sum - - - 180 xlv. The Imperative Mood and the Participles - - 181 xlvi. The obsolete Egkw, Sum - - - - - 182 xlvii. List of Latin verbs in £ sco - - - - 183 xlviii. The obsolete Avw, Sum - - - - - 184 xlix. The obsolete "Aw, Sum - - - - - ib. l. List of Greek verbs of the same signification of two, three, and four terminations, which are different forms of the Auxiliary Verb To be - - - - - ib. li. On the irregular Greek verb, as dependent on, and modified by the root or theme - - - - - 186 CHAP. XVI. ETRURIA. FUNEREAL, OR BILINGUAL INSCRIPTIONS. I. How far was the Etruscan a distinct Language - - 195 ii. Doubts as to the extreme antiquity of the remains of Art ib. in. Bad state of preservation of the Etruscan Monuments and Inscriptions - - - - - -196 Xll CONTENTS. Page iv. Immense variety of Characters, or Letters contained in them - 197 * iv. Sketch of the progress of our Knowledge respecting the Etruscan Language - - - - - 199 v. Enumeration of the ancient Languages of Italy - - 200 vi. The course pursued by Lanzi premature - ib. vn. List of Etruscan words from Bardetti - ib. viii. Explanation of the Funereal or Bilingual Inscriptions - - 201 ix. The Eujmbine Tables - - - - - 207 CHAP. XVII. ROME. OLDEST LATIN INSCRIPTIONS. i. Intimate Union between Eome and Alba ~ 209 ii. An Alban and a Sabine word - - - - - ib. m. Language of the Romans - - - - -210 iv. The Latin originated in iEolic Greek - - - - ib. v. We possess few Ancient Roman Inscriptions in their original state - - - - - - -211 vi. Proved conclusively by a passage from Polybius - - ib. vn. Extract from the Laws of the Twelve Tables - 212 vill Extract from the Laws of the Kings of Rome - ib. ix. Almost all the Roman Inscriptions that have come down to us had been renewed and modernised - - - - 213 chap. xvni. ITALY. ANTIQUITY OF THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE. i. Latin not extinguished by the barbarous languages spoken in Italy - - - - - -214 ii. But by a language older than itself perhaps - ib. in. Which was the Rustic Latin, and which finally subsided into the Modern Italian --_,_. 215 iv. Was that Rustic Latin the Etruscan Language ? - - 216 v. The word Tana, a cave, from the Etruscan Inscriptions, is Italian, and neither Greek nor Latin - - - 217 vi. The Etruscans omitted final M - - - - - 218 vn. Analogies between the Sanskrit and the Italian - - ib. vni. The word Hercules as it is invariably written in the Etruscan Inscriptions, is much more like the Modern Italian than either the Greek or Latin - - - - -219 ix. Perhaps the Bilingual Inscriptions ought rather to be denomina- ted Biliteral — Ril not a genuine reading — Explanation of that word, and Leine - - - _ - 220 CONTENTS. Xlll CHAP. XIX. ON THE MANTCHOUX, OR EASTERN TARTAR9. Page i. Reasons for not treating of the Celtae, Moeso- Goths, and Sarma- tians or Slavonians, in this Work - 224 ii. Connexion between the Mantchoux and Chinese - - ib. in. Account of their origin - 225 iv. Anxiety of the Reigning Dynasty to preserve the Mantchou Language - - - - - - - ib. v. Formation of a Thesaurus of the Tartaric Language — Mode of its arrangement ------ 226 vi. Peculiarity in the use of the Verb ... - 227 vii. Affluence of the Tartaric Language, in terms subservient to the purpose of Abridgment - 228 vni. Reasons for believing in the human Origin of Language - ib. ix. List of Tartaric Words - - - - - 229 CHAP. XX. ON THE MONGOLS, OR WESTERN TARTARS. TURKISH AND OUIGOUR LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR. i. The Ouigour the oldest dialect of the Turco-Tartaric - - 232 ii. The Ouigour and Osmanli compared - ib. in. The Tartaric Languages have strong claims to our notice - 234 iv. Dialects of the Turco-Tartaric - ib. v. Abstract of Turkish Grammar - - - - ib. vi. Etymologies supplied by the Turkish - 235 vii. Its' Analogies with other Languages - ib. CHAP. XXI. ARMENIAN LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR. I. Early traditions respecting the inhabitants of Armenia - 237 ii. The Armenian Language - - - - - ib. in The Armenian Alphabet analysed - 239 iv. Abstract of Armenian Grammar - 240 v. List of Armenian Words with their Analogies - - 241 CHAP. XXII. AFRICA IN GENERAL. i. Geographical boundaries of Africa - 244 ii. How peopled - - - - - - - ib. XIV CONTENTS. Pago in. Hercules — Cadmus — Sesostris — Tearchon — Navoeodrosorus — Idanthursus ----_- 945 iv. African Words - - - - - 246 v. African Languages ------ 247 vi. List of Mandinso Words ----- 248 CHAP. XXIII. AMERICA IN GENERAL. I. Prophecy of the discovery of America - 249 n. The Atlantic Island - - - - - - ib. in. Geographical discovery of the Phoenicians - - - 250 iv. Glimpses of some great Revolution in the State of the Earth - 251 v. Force of subterranean fire ----- 252 vi. Submersion and elevation of Continents _ _ - 253 vn. The Ancients were aware of the possibility of reaching India by holding a Westerly course — Columbus - 254 viii. Apparent coincidence between India and Peru - - 255 ix. Coincidences between the Vocabularies of the Indian Tribes formed by Jefferson and the Lists of Asiatic words by Pallas ib. x. Affinities of the American Languages - - - - 256 xi. The Mohegans have no Adjectives in their Language - - 257 xii. Remains of Architecture and Sculpture in South America - 259 CHAP. XXIV. ON HIEROGLYPHICS. i. Connexion between Hieroglyphics and the art of writing - 260 n. Stimulus of posthumous fame - - - - - 261 ni. Hieroglyphics comprised under three heads, or classes : - ib. 1. Literal Hieroglyphics, or simple picture writing ~ - ib. 2. Figurative Hieroglyphics - 262 3. Phonetic Hieroglyphics ----- 263 iv. Picture writing — Mexico - - - - - ib. v. Slow and gradual advance of Improvement - - - 265 vi. Limited degree of information conveyed by the art of painting 266 vn. The Sistine Chapel — TheCamere of the Vatican — TheCartoons — The Transfiguration - - - - - 267 vm. Warburton's division of the Hieroglyphics of Fgypt - - 268 ix. Exemplifications, and Illustrations - - - - 269 x. Their extremely doubtful interpretation — Inscription on the temple of Minerva at Sais ----- 271 xi. The authorities on which Warburton relied have been declin- ing: from his time to ours - - - - - ib. CONTENTS. XV Page xii. The Egyptian Hieroglyphics appear to have conveyed no infor- mation so early as the days of Herodotus - 272 xin. Phonetic Hieroglyphics of the Chinese — Two or three Hiero- glyphic Characters appear to be common to the Chinese and Egyptians both in form and sound - 274 xiv. Serapis — Cneph, or Cnuphis - ib. xv. Neith — Time — Nature ----- 275 xvi. Thoth— Tot— Phre - - - - - - 276 xvii. Arueris — Apopis — Etymology of Egypt - - - ib. xviii. Recapitulation — Progress and Prospects of our Hieroglyphical Knowledge ------ 277 CHAP. XXV. ON ALPHABETICAL CHARACTERS. I. Hermes, or Thoth — Tot, the hand — The Cheirogasteres and Dactyli — Orpheus — Abaris - - - - 281 ii. Hebrew and Greek terms for engrave and write - - 282 in. Progress of the writing which was not alphabetical - - 283 iv. Mexico — Picture writing has entirely disappeared in China — Trifling value of the knowledge transmitted by the Hiero- glyphics of Egypt- ----- 284 v. Hieroglyphic writing has nothing in common with alphabetical 285 vi. And does not necessarily lead to it - - - - 287 vii. Extreme importance ascribed to Music by the Greeks, as one of the chief instruments in the civilisation of mankind - 290 viii. Connexion between Music and Writing - - - 291 ix. Reasons for believing that the earliest alphabetical characters were musical notes - - - - - ib. x. Speech natural music, and music artificial speech - - 292 CHAP. XXVI. ON LANGUAGE IN GENERAL. i. The history of Language may be divided into two parts - 294 ii. Causes of the slow progress of the philosophy of Language - ib. in. The most has not been made of existing materials - - 296 iv. In what manner is the use of Language actually acquired - 297 v. Experiment related by Herodotus - - - - ib. vi. Statement of the subject by Rousseau - 299 vn. Confounds the essential with the accidental — the natural with the artificial - - - - - - ib. 1. Etymology - - - - - - 300 XVI CONTENTS. Page 2. Prosody - - - - - - ib. 3. Inflexion - - - - - - ib. 4. Syntax - - - - - - 301 via. Object of Philosophical Grammar — Tenses - ib. ix. Moods - - - - - - - 302 x. Voices - - - - - - *■ ib. xi. Numbers - - - - - - - - ib. xii. Cases - - - - - - - ib. xni. Genders ------. 303 xiv. Parts of Speech - - - - - - ib. xv. Simple or abstract words - - - - _ _ 304 xvi. Sanskrit Dhatos - - - - - - ib. xvit. Words of the Chinese spoken language - 305 xvm. Analysis and Synthesis of Language - ib. CHAP. XXVII. ON NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. EXTENSION OF THE MEANING OF WORDS. i. The formation of Language supposes two conditions - - 307 11. And communication by words has a double use - - 308 in. It is no part of the philosophy of Language to inquire why particular ideas were distinguished by particular names - 309 iv. The Scriptures contain no information as to the origin and formation of Language - - - - - ib. v. We can form as little idea of the language as of the happiness of Paradise _...._ 310 vi. The oldest words in every language were the names of external objects - - - - - - -311 vii. Parts of the human body — The relations of kindred - - 312 vin. Singular uniformity in the operations of the mind where the words are very different ----- tf,. ix. The Head — Extension of its meaning — Metaphors borrowed from it - - - - - - - 313 ib. - 314 ib. - 315 ib. - 316 ------ ib. ib. - 317 ib. - 318 - 319 - ib. X. The Face - XI. The Ear XII. The Eye - xm. The Nose - XIV. The Mouth - XV. The Teeth - XVI. The Arm xvri. The Hand - XVTH. The Heart - XIX. The Foot - XX. The Nails - XXI. The Heel - XXII. Miscellaneous CONTENTS. XVII CHAP. XXVIII. ON NOUNS ADJECTIVE. Page i. Nature of a Noun Adjective ----- 321 ii. Various definitions of it - - - - 322 in. Mode of employing it - - - - - - 323 iv. Not a distinct Part of Speech - 324 v. Both Noun Substantives and Noun Adjectives in Greek and Latin appear to consist of an Immutable Root, joined to a Pronominal Termination — Durus, Latin — Eurus, Greek — Koilos, Greek — Coelus and Coelum, Latin — Ouranos, Greek — Urania, Latin - - - - - - ib. vi. The gratification the ear experienced from euphony, led to va- riety in the termination of words - - - _ 326 vn. Which again permitted a greater liberty of choice in their collo- cation - - - - - - - ib. viii. Personification, or Prosopopeia - 327 ix. Alliteration — The 119th Psalm — Virgil — Euripides — Mil- ton ------- 328 x. Words with similar terminations in a line of Homer — Repeti- tion of the same words in a passage from Pope - - 329 CHAP. XXIX. ON PRONOUNS AND ARTICLES. i. Arrangement of the matter of the Chapter - 330 ii. Etymology of the English Pronoun She - ib. in. Etymology of Ego — Egoge — Sphoi - - - 331 iv. Etymology of Emoi — Emeis — Ammes - _ - 332 v. Pronouns and Articles of Greece and Rome traced to an Oriental root - 334 vi. Analogies between the Pronouns of the Sanskrit and Arabic Families of Languages ----- 335 vn. Regularity of the Personal Pronoun in Coptic - - 336 viii. The first Person Singular - - - - - ib, ix. The first Person Plural, and the other Persons - - 337 x. The Pronouns probably more altered than any other Class of Words - - - - - - - ib, CHAP. XXX. ON VERBS AND PARTICIPLES. I. In the Shemitic Languages the Verbs possess a Gender, which is one of the strongest proofs of their Substantive Origin - 339 11. The Hebrew verb Hajah ----- 340 XVlll CONTENTS. in. The Arabic Verb Nasar - - - - - 340 iv. The Verb may be analysed into a Noun, and its Terminations into Pronouns Personal - - - - - 341 v. Uniform march, of the human mind in the formation and pro- gress of Language - - - - - - ib. vi. Terminations of Greek Verbs traced to an Asiatic Origin - 342 vn. Attempt to trace the gradual Formation of the Hebrew Verb 343 viii. The essential difference between Hebrew Xouns and Verbs consists in adding to the same Root a different set of Pro- nouns Personal as Terminations - 346 CHAP. XXXI. ON PARTICLES. i. The indeclinable Parts of Speech, Prepositions, Conjunctions, Adverbs, and Interjections - ii. Egyptian Particles ------ in. Hebrew Particles ------ iv. Arabic Particles ------ v. Persic Particles ------ vi. Greek Particles ------ vn. Latin Particles ------ CHAP. XXXII. ON INFLEXION. GREEK AND LATIN NOUNS. THE LATIN VERB. I. Inflexion comprises both Declension and Conjugation — The essential respects in which they differ - 353 ii. The Sanskrit has enabled us to trace many Greek and Latin Words to their source - - - - - ib. in. Oriental Roots with Greek and Latin Terminations - - 354 iv. What those Terminations really are, and why they were added 355 v. The basis of the regular Declensions of Greek Xouns - - ib. vi. The Irregular Declensions analysed - - - - 357 vn. And accounted for by supposing that the different cases are formed from distinct Roots — Exemplifications - - 358 vm. Corruptions, or Changes of the final letter of the Root - 360 ix. Latin Xouns — Their Terminations formed by the Pronoun Isj Ea, Id - - - - - - - 361 x. Derivation of the Verb Substantive To be - - - 362 xi. The Latin Verb — Its Forniatives - ib. xii. On the obsolete Latin Verb Eo, To be — Its Analogies - 363 xiit. Its Conjugation. — The Indicative Mood - 364 CONTENTS. XIX Page xiv. Its Conjugation — The Potential Mood - 365 xv. The Romans appear to have employed Sum chiefly as the Formative of the Passive, and Eo of the Active Voice - 366 xvi. Eram and Ibam were probably identical originally - - 367 xvn. Fui, Ivi, and li, the Formatives of the Perfect - - ib. CHAP. XXXIII. ON THE VOWELS OF THE SHEMITIC LANGUAGES, AS ILLUSTRATING THOSE OF THE GREEK AND LATIN, AND THE ORIGIN OF THE GREEK ASPIRATES OR BREATHINGS. i. The Shemitic Vowels in connexion with the Greek Breathings 370 ii. Extraordinary mistake of Mr. Payne Knight - - - ib. in. The Samaritan or Phoenician Aleph, and He - - - 371 iv. The Samaritan Heth - - - - - - ib. v. The common Syriac Vau - - - - - 372 vi. The Estrangolo, or Old Syriac Vau - ib. vn. The Hebrew Yood ------ 373 viii. Greek Eta primarily an Aspirate with the power of H, and finally a contraction for writing two Epsilons - - ib. ix. The Breathings originated in the disappearance of Eta as an Aspirate Letter - -. - - - 374 x. As applied at present worse than useless - 375 xi. The imperfect mode of writing the Shemitic Languages has pro- bably retarded the civilisation of the race - - - 376 CHAP. XXXIV. ON PROSODY. THE GREEK DRAMA. i. Interminable disputes respecting Quantity and Accent - 378 n. We are constrained to come to the conclusion that the Greek and Latin Languages were essentially different from all others 379 in. Persic Prosody - - - - - - ib. iv. Sanskrit Prosody - - - - - -380 v. Egyptian Prosody - - - - - - ib. vi. Passage from Cicero, which proves that the great Mass of the Romans had no knowledge of long and short syllables - 381 vn. From which the necessary inference is, that their Speech was regulated by Accent, like that of all the rest of Mankind - ib. in. Origin of the Greek Drama ----- 382 ix. That origin was perfectly decisive of its nature - - ib . x. And Greek and Roman Tragedy was essentially a musical enter- tainment, analogous to the Italian Opera - - - 333 a 2 XX CONTEXTS. Page xi. The Roman audience exclaimed because the actor sung or re- cited out of tune - - - - - - 384 xn. The Greek Epic and Lyric poets sung to a musical accompa- niment, and their syllables were long or short, because they were associated with long or short musical notes - ib. xni. The different poetical measures are musical tunes - - 885 xiv. Intimate union between Greek poetry and music - - 386 xv. Greek Prosody was formed by and proceeded pari passu with Greek music - - - - - 387 xvi. Of the two essential parts of music, tune and time, the poetical measures and feet represent the latter, the former not having come down to us - - - - 388 xvii. In the struggle between poetry and music the former has invariably been sacrificed ----- 389 xvni. Actual condition and future prospects of English Opera - ib. xix. Nature appears to have done much less for the ears of the moderns than of the ancients - 392 xx. TVe ought to revert to the primitive mode of writing Greek, which left no more doubt respecting the quantity of the syllables than of the letters of which they were composed - 393 xxi. Analogy of the Persic and Sanskrit — The ancient Greeks denoted a long syllable by writing the vowel twice - 394 xxn. Anomalies of Prosody - - - - - 395 xxm. Abstract of the rules of Prosody from Thiersch - - 396 xxiv. Observations from Yalpy ----- 397 xxv. Extract from Matthias - - - - - 398 xxvi. Matthias supposes that Homer and the early Greek poets had the power of making all the vowels either long or short, as suited the measure of their verse - - - - 400 xxvn. Tendency of sonorous words to conceal ignorance - - 401 xxvni. Thiersch's remarks on Accent — Conclusion and proposed remedy ------- 402 CHAP. XXXV. ON INITIAL ASPIRATES. — THE IEOJLIC DIGAMMA. I. Perplexity and uncertainty of the subject — Might be de- nominated the Pelasgic Digamma - 404 ii. Is susceptible of illustration in no other mode than by re- curring to the languages of Asia - ib. in. There is a general tendency in Language to drop aspirates - 405 iv. Passage from Dionysius of Halicarnassus the foundation of almost all the speculations on the Digamma - - 406 v. Reasons for believing that the passage is either interpolated or corrupted --__-- 407 vi. Account of the Digamma by Yarro, Didymus, and Priscian ib. vn. Inquiry into the origin of the Roman F - - 408 CONTENTS. XXI Page viii. Was certainly derived from Ouau, Vau, or Wav, the sixth letter of the Sheinitic alphabets - 408 ix. The Ethiopic letters Af and Wawe - 409 x. The letters B and V 410 xi. Ambiguous character of the sixth letter of the Shemitic al- phabets - - - - - - - ib. xn. Origin of the Greek Omicron and Upsilon - ib. xiii. Words in which O in Greek becomes V in Latin - - 411 xiv. Latin words commencing with V accounted for without the Digamma - - - - - -412 xv. Various forms of Digamma - - - - 413 xvi. Hebrew Hay (H) and Roman F (Digamma) - - ib. xvii. Hebrew Bayth (B, or V,) Hay and Heth - - - 414 xviii. Sanskrit Hv, Sanskrit Ha (H) and Digamma (F) - - ib. xix. Inquiry whether H or F was the older aspirate — Herodotus — Etymology of Vesta - - . - - - 415 xx. Ovid — Falisca from Halesus - 416 xxi. Aristotle — Italus king of the CEnotrians - 417 xxn. Pliny — Servius — Priscian - ib. xxiii. Attempt to reconcile the different accounts - - - 418 xxiv. Elean inscription, H, and F - - - - 419 xxv. How far the Digamma is of any practical importance - 420 xxvi. Opinion of Marsh in his Horse Pelasgicss - ib. xxvn. Opinion of Dunbar in his Dissertation on the versification of Homer - - - - - - - ib. xxvin. On the use of the Digamma by Homer - - - 421 xxix. The aspirate character in the oldest Greek inscriptions - 422 xxx. The Digamma does little for the versification of Homer - 424 xxxi. Era of Homer, or rather of his works - ib. xxxn. Probability that in the early ages of Greece the Licentia Poetica extended to the lengthening of all vowels - 425 xxxni. Desirableness of some improved mode of printing Greek and Latin books which might render the quantity of the syllables obvious at a glance - - - - - 426 1. The Sanskrit has a double set of Vowels, long and short - - - - - - ib. 2. The Greek approximates to the Sanskrit in having two of its five vowels both long and short - - 427 3. The Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans wrote a short vowel twice to denote a long syllable - - ib. 4. Probability that the ancient Greeks had some character equivalent to the Hebrew Dagesh to denote that a letter was doubled, and that therefore the anomalies in the inscriptions are only apparent - - - 428 5. Supposing Prosody to be the most valuable part of classical learning, we ought to adopt an improved method of writing ----- 429 6. The acquirement of some of the Oriental languages might be advantageously substituted for verse making 430 a 3 ADDENDA ET CORRIGENDA. Page 53. line 2. from bottom, before " invention" insert "the." 54. line 8. for " book ii." read " book xi." 55. line 9. for " lib. i." read "lib. ii." 92. line 13. after " accusative" add " distinguished by distinct terminations, the dative and ablative being included in the genitive." 129. note, for " Wilkinson" read " liawlinson." 249. line 12. from bottom, for " Proculus" read " Proclus." 342. last line, after " Egyptian," for " J" read " I." 418. line 11. fiora bottom, for "inscriptions" read " inscription." INTRODUCTION. 1. In the present advanced state of philological knowledge, any man about to make an addition to the mass which is already so vast, may very reasonably be asked what end he proposes to himself, and by what means he intends to effect it ; and, unless he can return a satisfactory answer to both questions, he can hardly expect that his work will be at- tended to, when he observes the various new productions which the press pours forth every day with such increasing profusion, most of which, while they make fewer demands on the time and attention of the reader, are likely to afford him more entertainment and gratification than a work that is merely philological. 2. The present work was undertaken under a conviction that most of the philological treatises which have been given to the world, up to this time, have failed, because they have been founded on too narrow a foundation of fact ; because their authors have written as if there were no other lan£uao;es in existence than the Greek and Latin, or at any rate as if they were the only ones deserving the notice of scholars, and have drawn all their examples and illustrations from them ac- cordingly. Believing that the Baconian method of reasoning is as applicable to philology as to physics ; that the obscurities with which the subject of language is in a peculiar manner beset, could be dispelled in no other way than by concen- trating all the rays of light that can be collected from every attainable source however remote; and that no mode of safety was to be found except by consulting a multitude of coun- sellors ; I have anxiously looked about in every direction in a 4 XXIV INTRODUCTION. which such guides might be expected to present themselves, and my attention has been attracted more especially to the East. 3. A little reflection on the subject convinced me beyond the power of doubt, that all the assistance has not been derived from the languages of Asia, in elucidating those of Europe, which they are capable of affording; and further consideration suggested the possibility that I might effect something myself, that I might at least point out the true road, though I could not expect to make any considerable advances in it, and collect materials for a foundation to be laid at a future period by stronger and abler hands. I was well aware that many of the great philologists of the last and the preceding century, as well as those nearer our own times, Scaliger, Vossius, Schultens, Valckenaer, Ruhnken, Lennep, and Hemsterhuys, were familiarly acquainted with most of the Shemitic languages ; but I was also aware that the labours of Halhed, Jones, Colebrooke, and Wilkins, by laying open the stores of knowledge contained in the Sans- krit, constituted a new era in philology, and that a boundless extent of country was unfolded not to be commanded by the highest point of that Pisgah occupied by the distinguished scholars comprised in the first list. 4. Of these Lennep produced a work expressly devoted to the etymology of the Greek language, and Hemsterhuys attempted to prove that all the words in that language might be derived from a very limited number of primitive roots*: * This was a favourite theory seventy or eighty years since, when Adam Smith published his " Considerations concerning the first Formation of Languages," and perhaps one more utterly unfounded was never con- ceived. In that work the following passage occurs : " The Greek seems to be, in a great measure, a simple uncompounded language, formed from the primitive jargon of those wandering savages, the ancient Hel- lenians and Pelasgians, from whom the Greek nation is said to have been descended. All the words in the Greek language are derived from about three hundred primitives ; a plain evidence that the Greeks formed their language almost entirely among themselves, and that when they had oc- casion for a new word, they were not accustomed, as we are, to borrow it from some foreign language, but to form it either by composition or de- rivation from some other word or words in their own." INTRODUCTION. XXV and yet I think it is a point susceptible of demonstration, that a large proportion of the words in the Greek language are not primitive to that language, but derivative ; and that of those which up to this time have been in an especial manner selected as its radicals, few will be found deserving of that character, as they are neither roots, nor do they exist in a simple state, but are on the contrary clearly compounds, the component parts of which may be pointed out and traced to their true origin. I know no better mode of imparting my ideas to my reader, and inducing him to partake of my conviction, than by stating the way in which that conviction was attained, which I will do as briefly as is consistent with clearness. 5. I shall commence by giving a few words from such of the Shemitic languages as I am acquainted with, which have passed into the Greek and Latin ; and an attentive reader cannot fail to perceive, not only that the terminations of the Asiatic words are varied in the derivative languages, but that they are all varied in precisely the same way. Hebrew and Chaldee Roots. Greek and Latin Derivatives. Baal, lord, in the Septuagint Bel j ^ 1] Japhet, the son of Noah \ Jaoet-us' Caiph, a rock Keph-as, Peter (New Testament). Moom, a stain, blemish | M °J£~°g" Lo-Moom, spotless A-Mum-On (Greek), blameless. ■c, , ,, . f Ereb-os. Ereb, the evening | Ereb-us, son of Chaos and Darkness. I lPiflO'-flS I Peleg, a brook (that which divides) 1 p e i a °. u « f tne sea - Sak, sackcloth { g^;™' Mot, a moving or shaking Mot-us, Latin. rr, -, n f Taur-os. Tor ' abu11 tTaur-us. Arabic and Tersic Roots. Greek and Latin Derivatives. Bal, the heart, mind, soul Boul-e, council, Greek. Jaw an (Persic), a young man Juven-is, Latin. Chugh (Persic), a yoke Jug-um, Latin. Diw, or Div (Persic), a demon Div-us (Latin), a god. Sunnat (Arabic), institution, law ... Senat-us (Latin), a senate. XXVI INTRODUCTION. Arabic and Persic Roots. Greek and Latin Derivatives. Sinali (Persic), the bosom Sin-us, Latin. Kalam (Arabic), a pen or reed \ ,-, \ Kirbas (Arabic), fine linen Carbas-us, Latin. Kiras (Arabic), a cherry Ceras-us, Latin. Lawt (Arabic), bedaubing with mud Lut-um (Latin), mud, clay. Mubhil (Arabic), setting at liberty.. Mobil-is, Latin. Marmar (Pers. and Arab.), marble.. Marmar-os, Greek. Mahal (Arab.), formidable, dreadful Mal-us (Latin), bad. Nail, or Nav (Persic), a boat ( S au '. S ' 5 r< ;? k - ' v >" ^ JNav-is, Latin. Nabil (Arabic), great, noble Nobil-is, Latin. Sif (Arabic), a sword Xiph-os, Greek. f Amar (Doric), a day. Amar (Arabic), time (in general) ... -I Emer-e, Ionic. [ Emer-a, common Greek. 6. The first impression on my mind is one of surprise, that the Greek and Latin appear to have borrowed so few words from the Shemitie languages, widely as these languages are dhTused over western Asia ; for though many words might be added to the preceding lists, and I should experience no difficulty in doing so myself, still the coincidences are so few as may serve to convince us that we have not discovered the birthplace and the parents of the Greek and Latin. The next observation which can hardly fail to strike every one is, that the words adopted by those European languages from the Asiatic, are rarely found in their primitive state, the Greek being changed by the added terminations Os, As, E, and On ; and the Latin by the terminations Us, Is, A, and Urn. These additions appear to indicate a radical difference in the genius and character of the languages, which it is much easier to notice than to account for. The first and most obvious conjecture is, that these terminations of Greek and Latin words were added to the Asiatic roots as marks of gender ; and if they had all been derived from the Persic, this idea would have carried much probability with it, as that language, like the English, Turkish, and Armenian, acknowledges no distinction of gender in words, but such as are founded on difference of sex : but in all the Shemitie languages, the Arabic, Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Samaritan, INTRODUCTION. XXVll and Ethiopic, every Noun Substantive possesses a distinct gender, as well as in Greek and Latin. The preceding lists of Shemitic words, therefore, present too narrow and unsafe a foundation to raise any considerable superstructure on, and by directing our attention to another quarter, we must draw a wider induction from a more varied and ample collection of facts. 7. From the Shemitic languages let us turn to the Sanskrit, the generally acknowledged mother of most of the dialects in the vast continent of India, and the oldest of the large family of languages denominated Indo-European, of the existence of which, seventy years ago, hardly any inhabitant of Europe was aware ; and first of its Noun Substantives, the following list of which presents some of the closest analogies with the Greek and Latin. I shall give the words in Sanskrit characters, and also in English, so far as it is possible to render them. ^{ Ulva, the womb Alv-us. 3f"|cfj Oka, a house Oiic-og. cjlMTiiT Karpasa, cotton Carbas-us. C^^S^-J Kalama, a pen, or reed KaAa/j-jj. "{"cteJ Kriya, the sign Aries ... Kpi-og. $T ^cuit 81 " 7, ether ' Va "} Xa -° g - ^clyOy Grini, the sun Tpvvei-cg, an epithet of Apollo. \ ^ej^jOT TrikoUa, a triangle Tpiyiav-og. <^c| Diva, a deity, a god .... Div-us. XXV111 INTRODUCTION. Dru, a tree Apv-c "^^ !Nava, new Nov-us. •"Jtl Nasa, the nose Nas-us. ■"tl^ Nida, a nest Nid-us. ?f Nu, a boat Nau-c. «T3T ISToma, a portion No/-<-?;. e^"7 !N~au, a boat Kavis. L| jctj t Pithali, the sun Tlv6t«oc, an epithet of Apollo. L^«"j ♦ Phinah, froth, foam Venus,bornfromthefoamofthesea. T"TfT| Kajni, a queen Regin-a. frj^Gl Loka, a letter, an epistle Aoy-oc, a word. ^"TrT Vata, air, wind Vat-es, a prophet, a poet. ■5*cT5r Suasru, a mother-in-law Socr-us. A lid F^-i Sanhati, an assemblage Senat-us ^w&]t\ s uge og !:. a !. a !. e . m :} »«w* (fX^f Swasri, a sister Sosor, Old Latin. H"^T Haya, a horse Equ-us. fn^JH t Hayanah, a year Ann-us. ^■■F^T Hili, the sun H\t-oc. 8. Here we may remark that although the Sanskrit is the undoubted mother of the Greek and Latin, and although more roots of Nouns and Verbs are to be traced to that language than perhaps to all the other languages of Asia put together, when adopted from the original into the two derivative languages they have been subject to precisely the same treatment as the roots borrowed from the Shemitic languages. We are now quite certain, that some cause for INTRODUCTION. XXIX these changes, so systematically produced, must exist deep in the very genius and nature of the Greek and Latin lan- guages, which, if we can discover, it cannot fail to throw much light, not merely on the two languages in question, but on the structure and formation of language in general. The labourers in the vast field of language may be divided into two great classes, the practical and popular, and the specu- lative and philosophical. The object of the former is simply to give an accurate account of the actual state of every lan- guage, with a view of facilitating its acquisition, and render- ing it perfectly intelligible when acquired. The Lexicographer collects all the words of which it is composed, arranges them according to their initial letters, or their roots, explains their various meanings, and illustrates the application of each by apposite passages, collected from the works of authors of the highest authority in the languages of which he treats ; while the Grammarian arranges these words into classes, describes the mode in which the mea'ning of Nouns Substantive and Nouns Adjective is modified by declension, and of Verbs and Participles by conjugation, together with the laws agreeably to which all these words are arranged in a sentence, which is Syntax, or in metrical composition, which is Prosody. The exertions of the Grammarian are, for the most part, limited to an account of that which actually is, and the mode in which it exists ; while the philosophical Philologist endeavours to ascend to the fountain head of the different languages he investigates, to trace their gradual changes, to reproduce that which has become obsolete, to ascertain not merely the meanings of words but the successive steps of their formation, and the cause of their various shades of signification ; to note the peculiarities of each language, and observe how, in one, high excellencies are counterbalanced by corresponding de- fects, while in others, apparent deficiencies are atoned for by unexpected compensations ; with a view of deducing from the whole general conclusions as to the nature and structure of language itself. It is no doubt true that these various la- bours have been in a considerable degree united in such works as the Latin grammars of Zumpt and Scheller, and XXX INTRODUCTION. the Greek of Thiersch and Matthias ; and it is quite certain that any great improvement in the metaphysics, or philoso- phy of language, will react on its practice and acquirement ; and that, thanks to the invention of printing, any advance of esoterical knowledge in the innermost shrine of the temple will be soon felt by the crowd of exoterics who are thronging the vestibule, or painfully and slowly ascending the long flight of steps of the portico. 9. A publication which has done essential service to the cause of knowledge, remarks, in connexion with my subject, a Sanskrit Noun, in its first formation from the general root, exists equally independent of case, as of gender. It is neither Nominative, nor Genitive, nor Accusative, nor is im- pressed with any of those modifications which mark the relation and connexion between the several members of a sentence. In this state it is called an imperfect, or crude, Noun. To make a Nominative of any Noun, the termination must be changed, and a new form supplied. Thus we see that, in the Sanskrit at least, the Nominative has an equal right with any other inflexion to be called a case. (Rees's Cyclopaedia, in voce Shanskrit.) As Raphael, the greatest of artists, in his ardent pursuit of excellence, and exquisite sensibility to every species of beauty, with a clear perception of the invariable dependence of beauty on truth and nature, sometimes took the pains to draw the naked figure and invest it with drapery ; and sometimes even pre- viously to draw the skeleton and clothe it with flesh, that he might be quite certain as to the outline and proportions of his figure : in the same way the philologist may be sure, that, if he has been successful in discovering the genuine roots of speech, or words in an uncompounded state, reasons of a very especial nature must exist for the additions made to that root, which are discoverable by the exercise of patient at- tention and careful reflection. The Sanskrit Noun in a crude state, or destitute of gender, case, and number, may be compared to the skeleton ; when prepared for declension, to the skeleton invested with flesh ; and this is the state in which we find Nouns existing in the Shemitic languages, INTRODUCTION. XXXI and in Persic, of which a short list has been given in the preceding pages ; and, as to almost all of these the Greeks and Romans still made an addition, they may be said to have attached drapery to the naked figure, which latter the English and most of the languages of modern Europe have dropped again, and we find words existing in precisely the same state as they had been in the respective Shemitic Ian guages from which they were borrowed. 10. If we turn from Sanskrit to the Greek and Latin grammars, with the advantage of knowing what is essential and wdiat extraneous, what is radical and what adscititious, the words will soon assume a totally new character, and di- vide themselves into two parts, a root which never varies, and exhibits the meaning of the term in a general way, and a set of terminations equally applicable to all roots, and by the changes of which all the modifications of that meaning are effected. Eor instance the Sanskrit word for a house is Oka, or rather Ok, a biliteral word, since the A is not writ- ten but understood. If we insert the vowel I between these two letters, write Oik, and add the termination Os, we shall have the Greek word Oikos (Olkos), house, a Noun of the masculine gender and third declension. If again we take the Sanskrit word Lok, a letter or epistle, substitute for the final Kappa, a letter of the same organ, Gamma, and add the termination Os, we shall have the Greek word Logos (Aoy- os), word, also a Noun masculine of the same declension, wdiich is given in the Eton Grammar; and if we follow it through all its cases, we shall observe not only that the Sanskrit root never varies, but that all the terminations in the Singular, Dual, and Plural Numbers are formed by what grammarians denominate the Personal Pronoun 69. If we take the Sanskrit word Samayog, an assemblage, write it in Greek characters and add a final Eta, w T e shall have ^vva- yftry-77, a synagogue, a Noun feminine of the second de- clension ; and if w r e follow it through all its cases, we shall observe in the same way that the Sanskrit root never changes, and that all the terminations in the Singular, Dual, and Plural Numbers are formed by the Article 77. The XXXll INTRODUCTION. same may be remarked of the Sanskrit word Kalani, a pen or reed, in Greek Ka\a/x-7]. And if again we take a Greek Noun Substantive, of the neuter gender and third declension, avXov, wood, for instance, we may notice that the first syllable Xul never changes, and that the second in every case is formed by ov, the neuter of 09, letter for letter, without the smallest change. If we now take the word Ashtoreth, which occurs so frequently in the Old Testament, and write it in Hebrew characters with the Greek letters under it, we shall perceive that the Greeks have added a final Eta, and, by disjoining the root from the termination, obtain a perfectly clear idea of the modus significandi. H-TqATZA Literally. By Prescription. Affrapr-T) Astarte she Astarte (an agent). AffrapT-ijg Astarte of her Of Astarte. Aarapr-r] Astarte to her To Astarte. AarapT-riv Astarte her Astarte (a subject). And as many of the Greek declensions are effected by the aid of the Personal Pronoun Os, there can be as little doubt that many of the Latin are formed by the Pronoun Is joined to an immutable root. Kajni, a Queen, Sanskrit. Regin-a, Latin, by transposition, and a final A. Regin-a, a Queen Regin*33, Queens. Regin-aa Regin-arum, of Queens. Regin-ae Regin-is, to Queens. Regin-ani Regin-as, Queens. Regin-a Regin-se, O Queens. Regin-a Regin-is, by Queens. In Musa, a song, not a letter of Ea, the feminine of Is, is changed, except in the Genitive and Dative Cases Singular. The Plurals of Magistri and Domini are formed from Ii, letter by letter. In the third, fourth, and fifth declensions, the resemblance is less close, and we must suppose that the INTRODUCTION. XXX111 terminations of the different cases were formed from a Pro- noun that has become obsolete. * 11. "The Sanskrit, the Arabic, the Greek, and the Latin verbs f says Rees's Cyclopaedia, under the article Shanskrit) are furnished with a set of inflexions and terminations so compre- hensive and so complete, that by their form alone they can express all the different distinctions both of person and time. Three different qualities are in them perfectly blended and united : thus by their root they denote a particular act ; and by their inflexion both point out the time when it takes place, and the number of agents." But that we may be quite sure that we are not imitating the example of the Hindu cosmogonists, who support the earth on the back of a huge elephant, and the elephant on the shell of a tortoise, while the tortoise itself rests on nothing, too apt a picture, alas ! of no inconsiderable portion of the fabric of human knowledge, or at any rate of what is called by that name, let us bring to- gether such Dhatos, or verbal roots, from the Sanskrit as have obviously and undeniably given birth to corresponding deri- vatives in Greek and Latin, as they tend to prove not merely the similarity, but in many respects identity of the three languages, while, if I am not very greatly mistaken, the dif- ferences that will be found to exist, will supply a much more valuable lesson in inflexion than the resemblances in etymo- logy- Sanskrit Boots. Greek and Latin Derivatives. 3PT Ag, move ( A 7 -o, Proficiscor. ' ' & [ Ago, I move. 3f^ Ad, eat Edo, I eat. 3j"^f Ay, move, go Eo, I go. 3J"fT Arha, be able ApK-eoj, Sufficio. 3TTTJ Ap, possess Habeo, I have. «T Go I, go thou, Imp, of Eo. V \j' It, go, move Ito, I go often. * For further elucidations of this subject, see Chapter XXXIL, On Inflexion. b XXXIV INTRODUCTION. Sanskrit Roots. Greek and Latin Derivatives. \\ Id, see Eid-tit, Video. 5^ Ir, move Ire, the Infin. of Eo. ^ ^ Ir, irritate Ira, anger. vj"^" Uk, move &K-uc,Velox. ^ f Tfo7r-a», Delecto (by transpo- ^■q- Trip, please, gratify | C^ ^ > f-fG7 Triph, be satisfied Ts-repfa. f^\^\ Til, make smooth TtXX-w, Vellico. Da, give Do, I give. Dan, give Dono, I give. Das, give Awit-w, Dabo, Fut. 1. of Didomai. Dad, give Aidco-fxt, Do. Dam, be tame Aapa-o, Domo. 3J 7-JT Dram, go { ^f"' Cu T rr ° <> bso f lete )- S*ol ' => (_ E-dpafi-ov, Imperfect. ^?SJ Dans, bite Dens, a tooth. jjrt Pi, drink IIi-w, Bibo, inusit. pro irivu. ■ ■ ,^> Pani, drink IIiv-w, Bibo. q^ p - d • {Zl-^ ed °- INTRODUCTION. XXXV Sanskrit Roots. Greek and Latin Derivatives. f IT\f-w, navigo. TIp5J" Plav, float J IlXfF-w, „ with medial Di- ^ y gamma. ^ Blm, exist, be, become ( *"-"> Sum ^ ,„ . , ... <\ |_ Fy-o, pro Sum (Facciolati). *-j«"| Man, know, understand.... Mj/vu-w, Declaro. CJTT Mna, study, practice, learn f Mva-w, in memoriam revoco. ' ' by heart \ Mva-ofiai, „ ±\*~\ Man, fix, stop Mtv-w, Maneo. ^5f Ra y>go • P«-w, Fluo. J cj Rav, go PfF-w, „ with medial Digamma. ^Gj Riv, flow PlF-to, „ „ "T"g" Rah, go, move P*h-w, „ with medial H. ^rj" Li, embrace Ad), Yolo (Doric). fg Tlch Lok, speak, or tell A*y-w, Dico. rTXy^X Lambhi, cause to obtain.... Aofx^-avuj, Capio. 12. The reader now has all the facts fairly before him, and nothing remains to be done but to deduce a logical con- clusion from them. There is no doubt about the form or meaning of the Dhatos, or simple roots, in Sanskrit, and as little as to the addition made to them in Greek and Latin, and the new signification produced by that addition. In the chapter on the Sanskrit it will be shown that the con- jugations of the Verb are effected by the aid of the Auxiliary Verb, to be, as in English, and that the Present Tense in par- ticular consists in almost every instance of an unvarying root, joined to the persons of the Verb Asa, in the Infinitive Mood Astun, to be, without any change whatever, except dropping the letter S. Applying this principle to the Greek language, and enlarging the mode of its application, which we are en- abled to do from the circumstance of our finding the Verb Substantive existing in a more perfect state, and from that b 2 XXXVI INTRODUCTION. part of it which has become obsolete being recoverable, we can account for, perhaps it is hardly using too strong language to say we can demonstrate, the mode of the formation of the Present, the Imperfect, and the Future Tenses throughout all the Voices and Moods in the Greek Language. Active Voice, Indicative Mood, Present Tense. The termination in w, is a contraction of the obsolete Ew, Sum. „ „ in avio „ „ „ Avw, Sum. Root, Ana, Sanskrit, breath, exist. „ „ in jitf, is a contraction of Eip, Sum. Passive and Middle Voices, Indicative Mood, Present Tense. The terminations are contractions of the obsolete * Eojugu, Sum. 13. Such are a few of the advantages arising out of the circumstance of our finding the roots of the Greek and Latin Nouns and Verbs existing in a more simple and undisguised state in the languages of Asia, and more especially the Sans- krit, than they are to be found in those of Europe. It may be regarded as a proof that the Baconian method of reasoning is susceptible of being applied with as much success to Philology as to Physics, that, if we attempt to build on any- other foundation than that of fact, we must expect that the edifice raised will possess neither firmness nor durability, and, that if any consistent theory of the philosophy of language is ever to be formed, it can only be the result of a comprehen- sive survey of languages. In connexion with this view of the subject, a volume, and by no means an uninteresting or un- important one, might be written ; and, though this is no place for discussing such a topic at great length, I may perhaps be allowed to add a few words. Every year that passes over our heads tends to add force to the conviction, that the only solid and secure basis of human knowledge, in all its departments, must be laid in well- observed and accurately-defined facts. If we cast a retrospective glance over the vast field of science, we shall discover that those branches of it which possess most certainty, and have assumed the most strictly regular form, are those of which the body of facts of which they are com- * For further elucidations, see Chap. XV. Part II., on the Greek verb. INTRODUCTION. XXX Vll posed, fall most completely under the survey and scrutiny of our senses. The value of the stock of physical knowledge transmitted to us by the Greeks and Romans bears no sort of proportion to that of the moral, mental, poetical, and criti- cal, from the simple circumstance that their mode of philoso- phising in the former was vicious ah initio, as they were of opinion that they could dispense with the observation and collection of facts, and instead of reasoning from particulars to generals, from individuals to universals, they fancied that they could infer from the latter to the former. For this cause, while of their physical systems and theories little remains, they reasoned so well and so conclusively on many branches of mental and moral philosophy, of eloquence and criticism, that to this day little has been removed as unsound, and as little added as original. The average powers of the human mind, have certainly been pretty much the same in every age of the world, and perhaps also its activity ; and the result of its ef- forts, in almost every instance, appears to have depended on the mode in which they were made, and the direction in which they were exerted. The Greeks of the age of Pericles, and under the dynasty of the Ptolemies, were essentially the same people, but the value of their literary exertions was so different, that while few productions of the former period which time has spared have been allowed to be forgotten, as few of the latter, subsequent to the reign of Ptolemy Phila- delphus, continue to be remembered and read. The mental activity of the schoolmen of Europe, during the middle ages, was at least equal to that of the Romans in the Augustan age, and yet we no more resort to their writings, in the hope of being made either wiser or better, than we expect to gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles. The subjects of their disputations were all beyond this visible diurnal sphere, and had a very remote concern with the world and its con- cerns. They fell not under the cognizance of the senses, they could not be made the subject of observation or experiment, they had no existence as facts, and presented no materials from which to deduce logical conclusions. The learned fraternity, renouncing the active business of life, b 3 XXXV111 INTRODUCTION. " Apart sat on a hill retired, In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, And found no end in wand' ring mazes lost." Paradise Lost, book ii. 14. As we meet with brilliant eras in history, when the human mind appears to flourish in unusual health and strength, and to produce its fruits with unexampled profusion and feli- city, the age of Pericles in Greece, of Augustus at Home, of Leo the Tenth in Italy, of Louis the Fourteenth in France, and of Queen Anne in England, so periods of desolation and barrenness appear to recur in different ages and countries with precisely the same characteristics. What is called Philosophy in Hindustan, is so much like the body of learning denomi- nated Scholastic Theology in Europe, that, if I could believe in the Oriental doctrine of transmigration, I should fancy that the souls of the Indian Brahmins had passed into the bodies of the schoolmen of the middle ages, occupying in their transition, as a sort of half-way house, those of the Greek sophists of the school of Gorgias of Leontium, and of the Eclectics or later Platonists. 15. We may remark that, in another department of science, not only there can be nothing deserving the name of know- ledge, until after the collection of a large mass of facts, but that the value of the knowledge will depend on the variety of the facts collected, the accuracy with which they have been observed, and the fidelity with which they have been recorded. For instance, the speculations of the Greeks on the subject of Politics are of little value compared with those on many other topics. The reason is obvious ; they lived in too early an age of the world, too soon after the invention of alpha- betical writing, and the dawn of genuine and authentic, that is, of contemporary history, of which Herodotus may almost be said to be the father. In the next place, their field of observation was too narrow, as they had nothing before them but their own little republics, to furnish matter for speculation, and accordingly their conclusions are comparatively of small worth ; certainly not from want of intellectual activity, but INTRODUCTION. XXXIX from want of materials on which to employ it, not from fee- bleness of mind, but from deficiency of matter. In another department of the art of government, that of Political Eco- nomy, or the science of the creation of public wealth, they can hardly be said to have made a commencement, except, perhaps, in some of the works of Xenophon. Of the extreme negligence with which statistical facts were observed and re- corded even up to a late period, a striking instance occurs in the great work of Adam Smith, on the Wealth of Nations. Well- informed as he was on the general subject, and indefatigable as he had been in collecting all the materials within his reach, with the subject of population, and the laws by which it is regulated, he was so little acquainted, that he supposed that of Europe required five hundred years to double it ; while it appears, by the latest authorities, that that of Prussia is now doubling in 26, that of Great Britain in 52, that of Austria in 69, that of Russia in 66, and that of France in 105 years.* During a quarter of a century later, the great fear of political writers was, that the world would be depopulated; and towards the end of the century, when Malthus published his Essay on the Principle of Population, and demonstrated that in every country it is solely limited by, and has a constant tendency to outrun, the means of subsistence, the bare statement of the fact came with all the force of a discovery. 16. If we turn from Political Philosophy and Political Economy to Physics, we shall perceive, not merely that all sound knowledge must be based on a foundation of facts, collected by observation and experiment, but that, from the moment when facts begin to be accurately observed and faithfully recorded, we may be quite sure that knowledge is advancing, however unsatisfactory, inadequate, or even false the theories may be which are deduced from them; and although year after year, and even century after century, the tree of knowledge should appear to produce nothing but leaves, we may be confident that fruit will follow. If we revert to the history of Astronomy, we may ask what has % Alison's History of Europe, vol. ii. p. 35. b 4 xl INTRODUCTION. become of the system of Ptolenry, " with its cycle on epicycle, orb on orb." The theory, or hypothesis, which pretended to account for the motions of the celestial bodies lias been long estimated at its just value, and consigned to deserved ob- livion, but Ptolemy was an indefatigable and accurate ob- server of natural phenomena, and many of his observations have found a permanent place in the body of astronomical science. And, at a much later period, Tycho Brahe, even with Kepler at his elbow, was a firm believer in the Ptole- maic system, and yet few have rendered more essential service to astronomy, or promoted its advance more effectually. He was enthusiastically attached to the science, and a diligent observer and faithful recorder of astronomical phenomena, and that being the case the falseness of his reasonings, did not at all detract from the value of his facts, and he is to be named with Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler, as accumu- lating materials and preparing the way for the maturity of the science in the hands of Newton, La Grange, and La Place. 17. Geology is a science which may be said to have been created in our own times, and it began to deserve that name from the period that it found an accurate and unwearied observer of nature, and an industrious collector of facts in Werner. Long before his time we had cosmogonies in abun- dance. There was Burnet's Sacred Theory of the Earth, in 1681; followed by Whiston's New Theory of the Earth, from its Original to the Consummation of all Things, about 1694 ; and Whitehurst's Enquiries into the Original State and Formation of the Earth, published in 1778 ; and Howard on the Structure of the Globe, and a host of other works of a similar description. Cosmogony stands in pretty much the same relation to Geology, as Astrology does to Astronomy, Alchemy to Chemistry, and Perpetual-motion to Mechanics. The unbounded stores of physical knowledge possessed by Cuvier, incomparably the greatest natural philosopher of our times, joined to his vast powers of original thought and logical reasoning, brought a new class of facts derived from Comparative Anatomy to bear on Geology ; and, with an INTRODUCTION, xli acuteness which it is impossible to admire too much, he con- trived to make organic remains the test of geological truth. Who, prior to experience, could have dreamed of the possi- bility of such an alliance ? And who at the present moment, seeing how much has been effected, will pretend to limit the application of such an instrument? Already Geology and Comparative Anatomy have united themselves with Chro- nology, and proved to demonstration that we can no longer continue to limit the duration of the globe we inhabit to a few thousand years, though perhaps we may that of our own species ; that it is as old as the solar system of which it forms a part, and that system as the great system of the universe ; and that the latter may be said to have existed from all eternity, as it is difficult to conceive of a time when it was not; not, indeed, a metaphysical eternity, or that which was absolutely without beginning, which applies to nothing created, and solely to the great Creator of all things, but a period of time so vast, that our limited faculties cannot discriminate it from eternity, a period which we have neither minds to conceive, words to describe, nor numbers to desig- nate. As Geology commenced prematurely with Cosmogony, perhaps in its most advanced state it may terminate in Cos- mogony again, and after some centuries of observation, de- voted to the careful collection of facts, we may be able to give not merely a probable, but a true account of the age of the different strata of the earth, the order in which they appeared, the process by which they were formed, and the laws agree- ably to which they were deposited. 18. While the Baconian system informs us that no branch of human attainment deserves the name of knowledge, unless founded on facts, and that the knowledge possesses a charac- ter of solidity and permanence in proportion as the facts are numerous and well denned, I do not remember to have seen it remarked by the great author of that system, or any of his successors, how large a portion of human knowledge and acquirement is limited to the investigation of what is fact, which is pursued as an ultimate end, and that incomparably more severe exertions of the logical faculty are requisite to xlii INTRODUCTION. ascertain what is real and what is fictitious, than to deduce just conclusions from the data after they are discovered. For instance, this appears to me to be the case with that large class of questions which treat of events that happened, or are supposed to have happened, before the general use of alphabetical writing and the existence of authentic history ; the origin of ancient nations, their primitive seats, their early migrations, the route they pursued, the obstacles they en- countered, the language they spoke, the forms of govern- ment they established, the deities they worshipped, the laws they enacted, the sciences they originated, the arts they practised, the virtues by which they were adorned, and the vices by which they were disfigured. In moral subjects of this sort we are as much, perhaps more, perplexed by the paucity and uncertainty, than in our physical inquiries by the exuberance and diversity, of facts. On many of these topics we have volumes of dissertations, the subject of which was clearly a nonentity, and never existed at all, so that to engage in such inquiries is like sowing the wind to reap the whirlwind. In connexion with the early history of Hindus- tan, we have elaborate investigations as to the chronological era when Fo, or Budha, made his appearance, and from the contradictory accounts some have supposed two and some more ; while there is conclusive evidence from the epithets or names of Budha in Sanskrit, to prove that it is merely one of the innumerable Asiatic names of the sun, and that Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva are no more. The Indian Budha is identical with the European Woden, and in the antiquities of the Northern nations, we are perplexed with the same inquiries respecting the period of his appearance, as we had previously been with regard to that of his Indian prototype, and of course with the same success ; for how can we write a history of that which never existed ? There can be nothing of an historical character in such inquiries, but the period at which the people first appeared who professed to follow Budha, or Woden, called themselves after their names, and • ascribed to them the origin of a code of religious opinions, moral precepts, and ceremonial observances. The chronology INTRODUCTION. xliii of the early, or heroic, ages of Greece, as we read it arranged in tables, is little more than a transcript from the Parian marble, and the latter had no existence until after the age of Alexander, and may well be denominated a composition in more senses than one. Up to the period of Herodotus all detail is little more than waste of time, until we have asked and satisfied ourselves as to the previous question, Did such a person ever live, did the events ascribed to him ever really happen? Menes, the reputed founder of the Egyptian monarchy, appears to be identical with the Indian Menu, or Menus, a name of the sun ; Nimrod, the founder of the As- syrian monarchy, is a Persic name of the sun ; and there appears to have been a fabulous Cyrus, the founder of the Persian monarchy, whose exploits are mixed up with the true one, the name being derived from the Persic word Khur, the literal name of the sun, with the Greek termination Os. Phoroneus, the second king of Argos, is identical with Pha- roah, or Pharaon, in Coptic a name of the sun. Memnon, the son of Aurora, or the dawn, and Tithonus, or the earth, was a name of the sun, and probably identical with the sup- posed inventor of letters of that name in Egypt. Cadmus is the Hebrew word Kedem, the east ; Abaris, the Scythian, the Latin word Jubar, a sun-beam, in the Oriental languages probably written Aibar ; and Orpheus, the inventor of letters, the Arabic word Harf, a letter, a mere abstraction, or per- sonification. Though the Argonautic Expedition, the War of Thebes, and the Siege of Troy, are related at greater length, I believe they are not one jot more real or veracious than the earlier events in Grecian history, and to make them the basis of a chronological system is really like attempting to apply chronology to the novel of Clarissa Harlowe, or any similar work of fiction. Nay, such was Richardson's spirit of minute accuracy, that I think it highly probable that the work was written with an almanack before him, and that it would be found very difficult to convict him of the fault into which Mrs. Radcliffe is said to have sometimes fallen, of having two full moons in one month. 19. Perhaps one of the most powerful illustrations of the xtty INTRODUCTION. essential difference between Metaphysics and Physics is af- forded by the Economical history of England during the last three quarters of a century. Of the large class of subjects denominated metaphysical, many were as well understood by the Greek philosophers two or three and twenty hundred years ago, as they are now, or as they will be two or three and twenty hundred years hence. They are not founded on fact, cannot be improved by observation, or become the subject of experiment, are not cognizable by the senses, hardly conceivable by the understanding, and, not being susceptible of being defined in words, cannot become matter of reasoning. Let us contrast this with a few of the results produced by Mechanics and Chemistry, results so powerful, that they have already changed the whole face of society, and opened a future prospect of indefinite improvement. In enumerating the causes which tend most efficaciously to promote the progress of national wealth, the political econo- mist places in the foremost rank the division of labour, or that arrangement by which one man's exertions are confined to one trade, or to one branch of a complicated manufacture, the effect of which has been to increase his skill, augment his power of production, and ultimately lower the price of the article on which his labour is employed, or in which it is fixed. The division of labour, independently of its result to increase manual skill and dexterity, has tended in at least an equal degree to improve machinery, by its effect of keeping any particular process constantly before the eyes of the labourer, and making it almost the only subject of his thoughts. About the year 1760, Hargreaves, a common weaver, invented the carding machine, and in 1767 the spinning jenny, which, by working eighty spindles, increased human power eighty-fold. Mythology describes Briareus with his hundred hands as warring against the gods, but here every hand was more usefully employed, with the addi- tional advantage that he would be quiet when you desired him to be so ; unlike some domestic utensils in the Oriental tale, which, being converted into water-carriers by the spell of some magician, and no force being able to stop them short INTRODUCTION. xlv of that which had set them in motion,, persevered in their labour until they were in danger of inundating a city. About the same period, Sir Richard Arkwright invented that still more extraordinary piece of mechanism, the spinning frame. In 1775, Mr. Samuel Crompton invented the mule jenny, a great improvement upon Sir Richard Arkwright's invention ; and, by the united operation of all these inven- tions, the productive poivers of labour were increased to a degree that the most sanguine could never have dreamed of. 20. So far as the improvement and excellence of ma- chinery were concerned, hardly anything was left to be wished for ; but in another branch of the subject there was still a great want and deficiency, which became more obvious and pressing in the exact ratio that machinery attained perfection, and that the manufacturing interest was extended, this was the want of a moving power. Of this, up to that period, only two kinds had been employed, that of horses and that of water. The first was both expensive in its nature, and limited in its application ; and the second entailed the very inconvenient necessity of building all manufactories in the vicinity of considerable streams of running water, while the interests of the proprietors and the convenience of the workmen required that they should be situated in the very centre of Glasgow, Manchester, or London ; and a beautiful invention was soon devised by which every inconvenience was remedied, and every advantage attained. In the year 1761, accident directed the attention of Mr. James Watt, one of those extraordinary men who appear from time to time destined to effect improvements so vast, productive of consequences so important, that they revolutionise the forms and fashions of society, to the circumstance of the prodigious expansive power of steam ; when the fortunate idea occurred to him that it might, by possibility, be used with success as a general moving force * ; and the final result of many experi- ments and many failures, of contrivances which exhausted all * The principle of the steam-engine was known to the Marquess of Worcester, but for all practical purposes Mr. James Watt may be regarded as its inventor. xlvi INTRODUCTION. the resources of mechanics, and expedients which availed themselves of all the improvements of chemistry, was the steam-engine, beyond all controversy one of the noblest monuments of human perseverance, ingenuity, and invention. The battle was now completely gained. Like another be- nevolent Prometheus, Mr. Watt came to assist the fortunes and raise the condition of man, and the Titans, the emblems of the powers of nature, were enlisted on the side of hu- manity. Enceladus, instead of shaking Etna with his convul- sive throes, communicated motion throughout all the parts of a vast manufactory of six or seven stories ; while Briareus with his hundred arms turned the spindle, plied the shuttle, and directed the loom. 21. Though so much was achieved, the powers of the steam-engine, so far from being exhausted, were hardly de- veloped. Two distinct triumphs were in reserve for it, which have since been completed ; and how many more are to follow, it would be difficult to say. After the fact had been es- tablished that the steam-engine was susceptible of being so employed as to convey almost every modification of motion to almost every species of machinery, a long interval of time was suffered to elapse before it appears to have occurred to any one that the steam-engine might be applied to the pro- duction of locomotion, with as much success as to commu- nicating an impetus to machinery. It would be more strictly correct, however, to say, that no practical man attempted so to employ it, than that speculative men had not conceived the idea that it might be so employed ; for in Dr. Darwin's Botanic Garden, the third and last part of which appeared in 1792, we find the following curious prophecy? which is now in the process of being accomplished in every part of Europe, America, and even Asia : — " Soon shall thy arm, unconquer'd Steam, afar Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car." Canto 1 . Even after the steam-engine had been applied successfully to the purpose of navigation on the great rivers of Ame- rica, doubts continued to be raised if it could be made INTRODUCTION. Xivil available for sea-going vessels ; and, after it had been so em- ployed, another considerable interval elapsed before the idea appears to have been seriously entertained of using it as a moving force on terra Jirma, and making it instrumental on railroads, and even then the leading, if not the sole, idea was, that steam power might be applied advantageously to trans- porting heavy weights ; that it might become the source of quick motion was little dreamed of; in the language of Darwin, it might " drag the slow barge," but could hardly be expected to " drive the rapid car ; " and when Mr. George Stephenson, the distinguished engineer, whose name is so honourably identified with the original formation and subse- quent improvement of railroads, first suggested the possibility of progressing on them at the rate of twelve miles an hour, he was laughed to scorn by practical men, but he has had an ample triumph since, in witnessing that rate doubled, trebled, and for short distances even quintupled. 22. It is almost as difficult to bring home and familiarise to the mind the effects already produced by the application of steam as a moving force to railroads, as to anticipate the results reserved for it to achieve. It has more than realised, as to the rate of speed, all that we ever read in the Arabian Nights, about flying chests and enchanted horses. Sup- posing the ordinary rate of stage-coach travelling to have been about six miles an hour, and the greatest sustained rate of railway travelling to be about forty-five miles an hour, you now, by the latter mode of travelling, reach Exeter in about the same time as would have taken you by the former to Windsor. Practically, therefore, to the inhabitants of London, railway travelling has brought Exeter to Windsor, and Liverpool to Tring, and it will bring York to Luton, and Edinburgh to York. It has rendered Milan as easily accessible as Paris used to be by the old system of diligence travelling, and will eventually bring Naples to Milan. Six hours now on the continental railroads will carry the tra- veller over the same space as, under the old system, occupied four and twenty. So much as to the mere saving of time ; but, in the next place, you are carried without any jolting or xlviii INTRODUCTION, feeling of fatigue, or without any expense except that of the carriage itself, as from the rapid rate of speed you may travel two hundred miles without requiring any refreshment. In the course of a few years, probably, the immense superiority of railway travelling will cause one of the greatest achieve- ments of the fifteenth century to be comparatively forgotten, and the passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, so far at least as passengers are concerned, be as little frequented as before that celebrated Cape was doubled by Vasco de Gama, the ordinary route being the Mediterranean, Egypt, the Desert, and the Red Sea, or the Persian Gulf, should our good understanding with the courts of Constan- tinople and Teheran be unable to effect a continuous rail- road from the Mediterranean to the Indus. If the duration of life is to be measured by the amount of interesting objects we are enabled to survey and study, railway travelling may be said to have quadrupled it, and brought back the patriarchal ages. Its direct influence on the promotion of general knowledge is likely to be prodigious, as distance may almost be said to be annihilated. In the language of the Vulgate, " Pertransibunt terram et augebitur scientia." Nor is its effect likely to be less powerful on the advancement of physical science, more especially those branches of it which depend on accurate, varied, and extensive observation, Botany, Geology, Mineralogy, Electricity, Magnetism, Meteorology, Astronomy, and Geography. In a politico- economical point of view, the effects of railways are likely to be most important. Ultimately they are probably destined to supersede every other mode of inland conveyance, both for passengers and goods ; and, as the horses now employed in drawing coaches and w T aggons will thereby be rendered un- necessary, the ground employed at present in raising hay and oats for them may be converted to growing corn, and feeding- cattle for the support of human beings. From the increased facility of transporting manure, and bringing the produce of the most distant estates to market, new soils are likely to be brought under cultivation, and those already cultivated to be rendered more productive, so that population may go on augmenting at its present rate not only without any increase INTRODUCTION. _ xlix of price in the necessaries of life, but even with a great reduction. The experience of the thirty years that have elapsed since the General Pacification of 1815, tends to dis- prove one of the leading facts on which Malthus founded many of the reasonings in his celebrated Essay, that all the first quality land in England was already brought under culti- vation, and that as additional supplies of food could only be raised by resorting continually to worse and worse soils, which with a greater outlay of capital would produce a more scanty return, the price of food must go on increasing in a rapid ratio, and either check the rate of increase of the population of the country, or the rate continuing the same, deteriorate the con- dition of the labouring classes, and engender more intense wretchedness. Now the course of events has been so far from realising this prediction, that in the year 1835 wheat, for the first time for a hundred years, was below forty shil- lings a quarter, while the average amount of foreign grain imported has been steadily diminishing ever since the com- mencement of the present century * ; a conclusive proof that Malthus, with all his acuteness and sagacity, had mistaken the artificial rise in the price of corn resulting from the de- preciation of the paper currency, for the natural rise which would be the inevitable effect of the diminished fertility of the soil, and the exhaustion of the powers of nature. In a political point of view, the consequences of railroads will probably be great. In proportion as it becomes more easy to visit distant parts of the world, distant parts of the world will be more visited. Perhaps in a few years all the coun- tries of Europe will be as easily accessible, and at as small an expenditure of time and labour as the different counties of England are at present, and the countries of Asia then, as of Europe now ; and it will be as discreditable for a man calling himself a traveller not to have looked into the cavern temples of Ellora and Elephanta, as not to have " Stood within the Coliseum's wall, Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome." Byron's Manfred, * Alison's History of Europe, vol. x. p. 512. C 1 INTRODUCTION. 23. The effect of all this must be, not only to make us better acquainted with the face of the earth, and with all the appearances, productions, and operations of nature, but to enlarge in an equal degree our stores of moral and political information, augment our acquaintance with human nature, and make man better known to man. JSTew desires will be raised, and new products discovered susceptible of gratifying them; new capacities developed, and new objects devised capable of giving them full exercise and employment. We may reasonably expect that the first effect of this will be to soften national prejudices, to moderate national antipathies, and calm national passions ; to convince the various people of the earth of their close connexion with, and intimate de- pendence on, each other ; and demonstrate how much more is to be gained by the peaceable exchanges of commerce than by the cruel ravages of war, and how infinitely the fruits of love transcend those of hate. Perhaps the last and best effect will be to mitigate the bitter feelings arising out of the diversity of religious creeds, that worst passion of human nature, which has always been the first to take up arms, and the last to lay them down, the odium theologicum ; to induce the votaries of Moses and Mahomet, of Budha and Brahma, of Christ and Confucius, convinced that the creeds of all contain much that is excellent, to tolerate what each regards as objectionable in the other, and, since the imperfection of human nature and the weakness of human reason will not allow them to agree, to come to a mutual understanding, that they will at least agree to differ. 24. Perhaps at no period since the very early stages of the French Revolution, that great event so pregnant with hopes and disappointments, with virtues and crimes, could the sanguine expectations contained in the following passage of Condorcet, as to the possible future attainments of the species, have appeared less extravagant, or better warranted by the general aspect and rapid improvement of society. " To such of my readers as may be slow in admitting the possibility of this progressive improvement in the human race, allow me to state as an example the history of that INTRODUCTION. h science in which the advances of discovery are the most certain, and in which they may be measured with the greatest precision. Those elementary truths of geometry and of astronomy, which in India and Egypt formed an oc- cult science upon which an ambitious priesthood founded its influence, were become in the time of Archimedes and Hip- parchus the subjects of common education in the public schools of Greece. In the last century a few years of study were sufficient for comprehending all that Archimedes and Hipparchus knew ; and, at present, two years employed under an able teacher carry the student beyond those con- clusions which limited the inquiries of Leibnitz and of Newton. Let any person reflect on these facts : let him follow the immense chain which connects the inquiries of Euler with those of a priest of Memphis ; let him observe at each epoch how genius outstrips the present age, and how it is overtaken by mediocrity in the next ; he will perceive that nature has furnished us with the means of abridging and fa- cilitating our intellectual labour, and that there is no reason for apprehending that simplifications can ever have an end. He will perceive that, at the moment when a multitude of particular solutions and of insulated facts begin to distract the attention and to overcharge the memory, the former gradually lose themselves in one general method, and the latter unite in one general law ; and that these generali- sations continually succeeding, one to another, like the suc- cessive multiplications of a number by itself, have no other limit than that infinity which the human faculties are unable to comprehend." (Condorcet sur lTnstruction Publique, as quoted in Dugald Stewart's Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. i. p. 222.) MITHRIDATES MINOR AN ESSAY ON LANGUAGE CHAPTER I. ON THE PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE OF MANKIND. " Blissful Paradise Of God the garden was, by him in the east Of Eden planted ; Eden stretch'd her line From Auran eastward to the royal towers Of great Seleucia, built by Grecian kings, Or where the sons of Eden long before Dwelt in Telassar." Paradise Lost, book iv. I. The Book of Genesis, a work believed equally by the Jewish, the Christian, and the Mahommedan world to be the oldest written composition possessed by the human race, commences its eleventh chapter with the following unequi- vocal declaration, " and the whole earth was of one language, and one speech." So much has been written about the primi- tive language of mankind, and to so little purpose, that it is not my intention to make any considerable addition to the quantity. Some have taken it for granted that the oldest written lan- guage must necessarily be that primitive language ; which is to reason very inconsequentially, as we know that many ancient languages have disappeared from the face of the earth, leaving hardly a trace of their having existed ; the Punic or Carthaginian for instance: and such may very well have been the case with the primitive language in question. One B 2 PEIMITIVE LANGUAGE of the most illustrious of English scholars, Bentley, in his Dissertation upon Phalaris, expresses himself on this subject as follows, " We are sure from the names of persons and places mentioned in Scripture before the Deluge, not to in- sist upon other arguments, that the Hebrew was the primi- tive language of mankind ; and it continued pure for above 3000 years, till the captivity into Babylon. Even from the date of the Mosaic law to the prophecy of Ezekiel, there is a distance of 900 years ; yet the language of the two writers is the very same. (Works, vol. ii. p. 11. London, 1836.) On the other hand Sir William Jones, who was, perhaps, as much above Bentley as a general linguist, as he was inferior to him as a profound classical scholar, a department of litera- ture in which Bentley has had no superior, and very few equals, says, " if it be urged that those radicals (adduced by Bryant) are precious traces of the primitive language, from which all others were derived, or to which at least they were subsequent, I can only declare my belief, that the language of Noah is lost irretrievably ; and assure you, that, after a dili- gent search, I cannot find a single word used in common by the Arabian, Indian, and Tartar families before the inter- mixture of dialects occasioned by the Mahommedan conquests." (Works, vol. iii. p. 199. 13 vols. 8vo. London, 1807.) What is to be said after this ? " Non nostrum inter vos tantas componere lites, Et vitula tu dignus, et He." Virg. Eel. iii. I. 108. II. If this primitive language, however, be entirely lost, or if, which comes to nearly the same thing, among actually existing languages, philologists cannot agree in allowing a superiority in point of antiquity to any one, can any unob- jectionable criterion be devised, which avoiding all gratuitous assumption, steering clear of all unfounded hypothesis, and based on the evidence of undeniable facts alone, may guide us in the selection of some of the oldest languages, as the nearest approximation we are capable of making to that pri- mitive language which Sir William Jones informs us we must not hope to recover ? I know of no better practical OP MANKIND. 6 test, than in the first instance to select that specimen of written composition, which mankind are generally agreed in regarding as the oldest ; and in the next, to endeavour to ascertain such clear traces of the existence of distinct lan- guages, as are contained in that composition. Single words are obviously the only specimens we can expect to meet with, and these will generally be the names of persons and places ; and as all proper names were originally significant, the test of a foreign idiom will be, that they have no meaning in the language which is the basis of the written composition, and a distinct one in other languages. The Christian and Ma- hommedan world are equally agreed in regarding the five Books of the Hebrew Pentateuch, together with those of Joshua and Judges, which contain the history of the Jewish theocracy prior to the establishment of the monarchy, as the oldest specimens of alphabetical writing in the world ; and the only question therefore is, what admixture of foreign languages do those books contain, and what words which are not Hebrew ? in. I think we may safely assert, that proofs of the exist- ence of at least seven foreign languages, are clearly deducible from the first seven books of the Old Testament. 1. Egyptian. Moses, in the Hebrew Mosheh, — from Moou (Coptic), water ; Ski, to take, or lay hold on — by contraction and reading the Egyptian letter Skima as Sigma, with a Greek termination, Moses. " And she called his name Moses : and she said, because I drew him out of the water" (Exodus, ii. 10.) Here the reader will observe, that in the above and many similar instances which will be ad^ duced, the words printed in italics, as they leave no doubt whatever as to the meaning of the name, admit as little as to the language from which that name was derived. Pithom, Pi (Coptic), definite article, masculine. Thorn, a wall. Raamses, Bamao (Coptic), rich. B 2 4 PEIMITIVE LANGUAGE "And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses" (Exodus, i. 11.); the first denominated from its strength, and the second from the wealth it contained. The Rhamses mentioned by Tacitus appears to be altogether a creation of mythology, and merely a personification of riches. 2. Sanskrit. Jabal, Jabala (Sanskrit), a goatherd. " And Adah bare Jabal ; he was the father of such as dwell intents, and of such as have cattle." (Genesis, iv. 20.) Jabal in Hebrew is not significant. Palestine, Pali (Sanskrit), a shepherd. Stana, a place. " And they said unto Pharaoh, thy servants are shepherds ; both we and also our fathers." (Genesis, xlvii. 3.) 3. Arabic, Tubal Cain. — The first word is the Hebrew Baal, lord, with the definite article Hay (h) converted into Tav (t) ; and the second the Arabic Kayn, a blacksmith (Richardson). " And Zillah she also bare Tubal Cain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron." (Genesis, iv. 22.) The literal meaning of Tubal Cain is the lord of blacksmiths. From Baal Cain we have the Latin Vulcan, according to Yossius (Facciolati). Euphrates, Eu (Greek), good. Prat (Arabic), pure, fresh water. In the Hebrew the name of the river is Phrat, or Pherath ; a word not significant, but clearly cognate with the Arabic Frat. Hiddekel, Daykal (Arabic), a branch ; also the river Tigris, with the Hebrew definite article Hay (h) pre- fixed and coalescing. At whatever period the rivers of Paradise were named, the Arabic language was in existence : and those rivers still bear among the Arabs the precise names by which they are de- scribed in the second chapter of Genesis. OF MANKIND. 5 4. Persic. Paradise, Firdaws (Persic), a garden, or rather an enclosed park, or chace for hunting. Shinar ; the word appears to be used (Genesis, xi. 2.) as equi- valent to the modern Mesopotamia ; but it is of Persic origin, and in that language means the bottom of any piece of water, and describes the nature of the country between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Gershom, Gair (Hebrew), a stranger. Shum (Persic), I am. " And he called his name Gershom : for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land." (Exodus, ii. 22.) 5. Turkish, or Mongol- Tartaric. Ajalon, Ai (Turkish), the moon. Lun (Hebrew), to dwell. " And thou moon in the valley of Ajalon." (Joshua, x. 15.) We are quite sure not only that Lun signified city, but that it formed part of compound words like the above, as Strabo says that Pampeluna in Spain signified city of Pompey. The meaning of Ajalon, therefore, was city of the moon, no doubt from being dedicated to Ashtoreth, the Horned Astarte, or the queen of heaven. A city of the name of Ai also occurs in the book of Joshua. 6. Syriac. Galeed (Hebrew), Jegar-sahadutha, heap of witness (Syriac). " And Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha : but Jacob called it Galeed." (Genesis, xxxi. 47.) 7. Greek. Anakim, Anax (Pausanias), a Titan, a son of the earth, with the (Hebrew) plural termination im, Anakim. " And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants." (Numbers, xiii. 33.) I believe the word Zamzummim to have had a similar meaning, and to have been corrupted from the (Persic) Zamin, earth, and Ainmira, B 3 b PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE (Hebrew) people, i. e. people of the earth, or earth-bora. (Deuteronomy, ii. 20.) Seir (Hebrew) ; Seir, and Seirios (Greek), the sun. Anakim and Seir appear to me to be Greek words written in Hebrew characters. This meaning of Seir is corroborated by the context : " as he did to the children of Esau which dwelt in Seir, when he destroyed the Horims from before them." (Deuteronomy, ii. 22.) Horims from Khur (Persic), the sun, and so denominated from being sun-worshippers. iv. If we adopt Bentley's mode of reasoning, we shall perceive that it is not tenable for a moment. The words Tubal Cain, Hiddekel (Tigris), and Phrat (Euphrates) are mentioned in Scripture before the Deluge. But these words are Arabic; therefore the Arabic was the primitive lan- guage of mankind. But the word Jabal also occurs before the Deluge ; therefore the Sanskrit was the primitive lan- guage of mankind, and so of many of the others. Dismissing all hypothesis, however, the above languages are at least as old as the oldest books of the Bible, and in the present state of our knowledge, must be regarded as forming parts of a primitive language which probably contained the roots or elements of all the languages now spoken by mankind. The very etymology of Palestine, or Philistia, the country in which the Jews settled, appears to be Sanskrit ; a strong presumption, if all others were wanting, of the existence of languages much older than their own. v. With respect to the principle on which I have selected the languages to be examined, there was less difficulty to be encountered, as little aid in determining the affiliation of people and nations could be expected from languages, unless they possessed a certain degree of antiquity ; and as the class of language denominated by Adelung Indo-European, is the only one that can be regarded as containing written com- positions, deserving the name of old. In adopting this ar- rangement, however, I must beg leave, with some of the ancient geographers, to regard Egypt as in Asia rather than Africa, or at any rate to include the Coptic and Sahidic in the Indo-European class, as well as the spoken Chinese, OP MANKIND. 7 which presents numerous analogies with the Sanskrit, the Persic, the Greek, and the Latin, and is quite as well de- serving of attention as their system of real characters, curious as the latter undoubtedly is. A wish to appreciate the just- ness of that theory of Sir William Jones, in which he traces the languages of Asia to three principal sources, induced me to cast a glance on two or three languages of the Tartaric class ; and as the limited nature of my plan precluded me from entering on the vast field of the languages of Africa and of North and South America generally, I have been satisfied with devoting a short chapter to each of those great continents. VI. With my present views I should arrange the principal written languages, ancient and modern, of Asia and Europe, somewhat in the following order : — 1. Chinese (the spoken language). 2. Egyptian (Coptic and Sahidic). The Chinese connects itself with the Egyptian by means of two hieroglyphic characters, those of the sun and moon; agreeing precisely as to form, and probably also as to name ; and by one Egyptian letter Schei, clearly deducible from a Chinese hieroglyphic. The Arabic or Shemitic Family, 1. Arabic. 2. Hebrew. 3. Assyrian, Chaldee, or Eastern Aramean. 4. Syriac, or Western Aramean. 5. Samaritan, Phoenician, or Tyrian. 6. Punic, or Carthaginian. 7. Ethiopic, Geez, or Axumitic. 8. Amharic. The Sanskrit, or Indian Family. 1. Sanskrit (Prakrit). 2. Persic. 3. Sarmatian, or Slavonic. 4. Median. B 4 8 PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE 5. Zendish. 6. Pehlvi. 7. Languages of Asia Minor, not Greek. 8. Scythian, Cimmerian, or Celtic. 9. Greek. 10. Etruscan, or Old Italian. 11. Latin, or Roman. 12. Italian and rustic language of ancient Italy. 13. Mseso-Gothic, Mysian, Phrygian, or Trojan. 14. Anglo-Saxon and English. 15. Prankish and German. Tartaric Class. 1. Mantchou. 2. Mogul, Ouigour, and Turkish. 3. Armenian. vii. On the Arabic, or Shemitic family of languages, Heeren, one of the greatest names among continental scholars, in his " Asiatic Nations," a work equally distinguished by profound research and the philosophical spirit that pervades it, has the following observations: — " This perpetual change of language ceases as soon as we cross the river Halys, and enter rip on Cappadocia, comprehending the country after- wards called Pontus. On the eastern bank of this river began the empire of a mighty language, which was spoken from the Halys eastward as far as the Tigris, and from the heights of Caucasus to the southern coast of Arabia ; and which, with some variations, preserves everywhere a dis- tinctive and original character, being usually styled the Semitic. Its dialects were the Cappadocian in the western countries on the banks of the Halys ; the Syrian between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates ; and the Assyrian on the farther side of the Tigris, in Kurdistan, or the ancient Adiabene ; the Chaldean in Babylonia ; the Hebrew and Samaritan in Palestine ; the Phoenician in the maritime cities of Phoenicia, and their extensive colonies; and lastly, the Arabic, extending not only over the whole Arabian peninsula but also over the steppes of Mesopotamia, which OF MANKIND. V have at all times been frequented by wandering hordes of Arabs. Several of these dialects still survive ; with others we are acquainted only through their literary fragments ; and it cannot be doubted, that at some remote period, antecedent to the commencement of historical records, one mighty people possessed these vast plains, varying in character according to the nature of the country which they inhabited ; in the deserts of Arabia pursuing a nomad life ; in Syria, applying themselves to agriculture, and taking up a settled abode ; in Babylonia, creating the most magnificent cities of ancient times ; and in Phoenicia, opening the earliest ports and constructing fleets, which secured to them the commerce of the known world." (Heeren's Asiatic Nations, vol. i. p. 71.) viii. The next question that presents itself is, Have the people who spoke these languages, or the languages them- selves, any prominent features, or remarkable qualities, which enable us to fix and discriminate them ? And if I am not greatly mistaken, the Shemitic race and languages, the latter of which appear to me to be little more than dialects of the Arabic, may be described by the following general characteristics : — 1. Many of these people have used the rite of circumcision from time immemorial. 2. They have no particular name for the days of the week, but denominate them from the order of their succession. 3. They omit many of the vowels in writing. 4. Their verbs have a gender in some of the persons of the different tenses. 5. Their verbs, strictly speaking, have but two tenses. These characteristics, with certain modifications, will, I think, be found generally applicable, but still require a few words to be said in explanation. For instance, Herodotus, our principal authority, informs us that the Egyptians used the rite of circumcision; but I have not classed them among the Shemitic people, and have disposed of them elsewhere with the Chinese. On the subject of circumcision generally Herodotus remarks, that the inhabitants of Colchos, Egypt, and Ethiopia were the only people who, from time im- 10 PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE memorial, used it ; that the Phoenicians, and the Syrians of Palestine, acknowledged that they had borrowed the custom from Egypt ; that the Egyptians certainly communicated it to the other nations by means of their commercial know- ledge; and that in his time it had fallen into disuse among the Phoenicians connected with Greece. (Lib. ii. c. 104.) Again, every scholar knows that nothing can be positively affirmed respecting the language and mode of writing of the Phoenicians, except so far as it agrees with that of the Samaritans, the same system of alphabetical characters being denominated sometimes by the one name and sometimes by the other, while, of the language of their descendants, the Carthaginians, we are in the same state of ignorance. With these qualifications, I believe my observations with respect to the Shemitic people and languages will hold good, and if not altogether conclusive, tend to lead to something better. ix. The Sanskrit, or Indian family of languages, may be regarded as characterised by the following leading qualities or peculiarities; as the class, however, is much more nu- merous than the Shemitic, the exceptions will be found to constitute a much larger amount, and the rules themselves will require to be received with greater allowance and modification. 1. Most of the people speaking such of these languages as are living ones, or who did speak such of them as are become dead ones, do not use, nor ever have used, the rite of circumcision. 2. They have a particular name for every day of the week, borrowed from the deity to whom it is devoted. 3. Many of them write all the vowels, and many more omit them to a less extent, than the people using the Arabic class of languages. 4. Their verbs have no gender in the different tenses. 5. The greater part of them have at least iive tenses, and in many instances these tenses are formed by the aid of the auxiliary verb, To be. For the sake of greater clearness, perhaps, it will be desirable to say a few words under each of these divisions : — OF MANKIND. 11 1. The passage quoted from Herodotus would prove con- clusively, were there no other authority, that the rite of circumcision neither originated with, nor can be regarded as peculiar to, the Mosaic Law. But there is older and better authority, for in Genesis, xvii. 10., we read, " every man child among you shall be circumcised." And in the Gene- rations of Sanchoniatho, we meet with the following passage, " Moreover, Cronus visiting the different regions of the habitable world, gave to his daughter Athena the kingdom of Attica ; and when there happened a plague with a great mortality, Cronus offered up his only begotten son as a sacrifice to his father, Ouranos, and circumcised himself, and compelled his allies to do the same." (Cory's Ancient Frag- ments, p. 14.) The modern Persians, in common with every other people who have submitted their necks to the yoke of the Koran, received as a matter of course the rite of circumcision ; but I believe it was entirely unknown to their ancestors as a religious ceremony. 2. The names of the days of the week cannot but be regarded as a most peculiar and characteristic circumstance ; and, what is not a little remarkable, they are not only devoted to the same deities, but follow each other in the same order in India and Europe. (Jones, vol. iv. p. 87.) I have read the names myself in Sanskrit, Canara, and Mah- ratta ; the Roman names are familiar to every classical scholar, and have been adopted by all the nations of southern Europe ; while the Germans and ourselves have followed the Anglo-Saxons. I cannot discover that the Greeks had par- ticular names for the days of the week, as the Romans had, except in one instance ; for the custom of regarding the seventh day of every month as sacred to the sun, appears to be at least as old as the Works and Days of Hesiod ; and the reason assigned for it is because Phoebus, Apollo, or the Sun, was born on that day. " Of each new moon, the rolling year around, The first, the fourth, the seventh are prosperous found ; Phoebus, the seventh, from mild Latona born, The golden-sworded god beheld the morn." Elton's Hesiod, 12 PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE OF MANKIND. 3. In all the writings of the Greeks which have come down to us, the vowels are expressed ; but in many of the Etruscan inscriptions, which can be regarded in no other light than a more ancient species of Greek writing, we are assured by the intelligent Lanzi, and may easily convince ourselves with our own eyes, that the vowels were omitted to a considerable extent. There is very little contraction in the ordinary mode of writing Sanskrit, except that a short is never written except at the commencement of a word, when its sound is required after a consonant as a medial or final, it being pronounced with it as in the alphabet, much in the mode proposed by the Anti-Masorists in reading Hebrew. We are assured by Anquetil du Perron, that in the Zendish not only are the vowels all written, but also the long and the short clearly discriminated by appropriate characters. Together with the alphabet of the Arabians, the modern Persians have adopted their mode of writing, and omit the vowels to an equal extent. 4. With respect to the gender of verbs, it is a most material circumstance in illustrating the origin and progress of language. The discriminations of gender in the persons of the different tenses are clearly so many pronominal termi- nations added to a root or theme. 5. With regard to the numerous tenses of the Sanskrit, or Indian class of languages, as all the Shemitic nations have contrived to do with two only, more than that number can- not be regarded as absolutely necessary. And this circum- stance may lead us to suspect that in the Greek irregular verbs many of the tenses are not formed from the theme under which they are arranged in the lexicon, but from some obsolete root which has disappeared, and which, when dis- covered, renders the formation of all the tenses regular. Also, that in the regular verbs the double futures and aorists were derived from distinct themes, and that, consequently, the Greek verb has strictly but five tenses, like the Latin, and the first aorist in addition. 13 CHAP. II. ON THE OLDEST NAMES AND FORMS OF ANY EXISTING ALPHA- BETICAL CHARACTERS. I. The elder Pliny in his work, which must be regarded as in some measure the encyclopaedia of classical antiquity, has a chapter on the inventions of the ancients, which, though not so long as the history of Beekman, contains much that is interesting and curious. Among other matters he has a few words to say on the origin of alphabetical writing. " I suppose letters," says he, " to have been the invention of the Assyrians, but others with Gellius ascribe them to the Egyptians instructed by Mercury, while others again insist on it that they were first used by the Syrians. At any rate, Cadmus brought sixteen letters into Greece from Phoenicia ; to which, during the Trojan war, Palamedes is related to have added four — Theta, Xi, Phi, and Chi — and Simonides as many more at a subsequent period — Zeta, Eta, Psi, and Omega — the power of all of which we recognise in our Roman alphabet. Aristotle~enlarges the primitive alphabet of sixteen letters to eighteen, by the addition of Zeta and Phi, and prefers ascribing the introduction of Theta and Chi to Epicharmus, rather than to Palamedes. Anticlides relates that letters were invented in Egypt by a person of the name of Menon (Memnon), fifteen years before the reign of Phoroneus, the most ancient king of Greece (b. c. 1822), and endeavours to establish the fact by historical documents. On the other hand Epigenes, an author of no inconsiderable weight, teaches the existence of astronomical observations at Babylon, re- corded on baked tiles 720 years old, or according to Berosus and Critodemus, at least 480 years old. From all these cir- cumstances the use of letters appears to have been almost eternal. They were brought into Latium by the Pelasgi. (C. Plinii Nat. Hist. lib. vii. c. 56. cum notis var.) 14 OLDEST NAMES AND FORMS II. It may have the appearance of ingratitude to assert that almost the whole of this information is little better than mythology, with hardly a vestige of an historical character, yet such I believe will prove to be the case when it is care- fully sifted. The clue to the whole will be found in the fact, that the sun, under innumerable names, was the earliest god of almost the whole human race, and that to him was as- cribed the foundation of all empires, the establishment of all laws, and the invention of all arts and sciences. It was re- marked by Sir Isaac Newton in his Chronology, that Cadmus is merely the Hebrew word Kedem, the east (or the sun), and Phoenicia his country is no more, as the Egyptian Phoenix was a name of the sun, and its pretended death and resuscitation a highly poetical allegory, in the oriental taste, of sun-set and sun-rising. Mercury, the Egyptian Taut, or Hermes, is a name of the sun from two Persic' words, Mir, Lord, and Khur the sun. Memnon is the sun, being the progeny of Aurora, or the dawn; and Tithonus, corrupted from Titan, or Chthon, the earth. Phoroneus is the sun, from two Coptic words, the definite article, masculine, Phi, and Ouro, king : the king, that is, of the host of heaven, consist- ing of the planets and stars in general. In Hebrew Pharaoh, in French Pharaon, which approximates very nearly to Phoroneus. in. So much for those by whom letters are said to have been invented, and next as to the letters themselves. It may seem paradoxical to assert, that after the lapse of two thousand, or two thousand five hundred years, we are in a better situation for investigating the antiquities of Greece than the Greeks themselves were ; yet this is undoubtedly the case with regard to the origin of letters ; for the Greeks and Romans were so indifferent about the languages of those they were pleased to denominate barbarians, that it is doubtful if Pliny, or any of the authors named by him, including Ari- stotle himself, had ever taken the trouble to inspect the alphabet of any one oriental language ; and whether we bring the fabulous Cadmus from Egypt with Tacitus, or from Arabia with Strabo, or from Phoenicia Proper with Pliny OF LETTERS. 15 himself, it is quite obvious that if the investigation is to be brought to any satisfactory result, this ought to have been the first step in the inquiry. It is undoubtedly true, that the modern Coptic alphabet contains the twenty -four letters of the Greek ; but it also contains eight letters which have no place in that alphabet, and which may, by possibility, be much older. If letters were invented by the Assyrians, or eastern Arameans, the system of Chaldee letters in which Hebrew books are now written, appears by common consent to belong to them. If by the Syrians, or Western Arameans, we find two perfectly distinct systems of alphabetical cha- racters, in the Estrangolo or old Syriac, now I believe en- tirely disused, and the modern Syriac, in which books still continue to be printed ; if any vestige of an alphabet strictly Phoenician, or Canaanitish, still remains in existence, it is only in the Samaritan, which may be found in every grammar of the language, in the Samaritan version of the Pentateuch, and in what may be called a variorum alphabet, published by Dutens in his Ancient Medals. The alphabets actually used by the Persians and Arabians are acknowledged on all hands to possess no claim to antiquity, and are therefore not worth naming ; but it is not a little remarkable that the Chaldee or Hebrew alphabet, the Estrangolo, or old Syriac, the modern Syriac, (which however is as old as the Peshito version of the Syriac New Testament of the first century of the Chris- tian era, and how much older it would be difficult to say,) and the Samaritan, or Phoenician Proper, all consist of twenty- two letters ; and it is equally remarkable that they may be said to be the same letters, for though they are infinitely diver- sified in form, they are precisely the same as to power, there- by attesting not merely a common origin of alphabets, but a primary identity of language. How did Cadmus contrive to . Kappa in voce Akile (Achilles), Lanzi, torn. i. p. 247. 3. Kappa in voce Hercle (Hercules) — — 244. 3. Sigma in voce Seisna, — — 302. The Port-Royal Greek Grammar resolves Xi into Ks, and says, further, that the iEolians transposed them, and in this way their mythological Xuthus becomes Skuthus, a Scythian, indicating from what quarter the Pelasgi, or earliest in- habitants of Greece, came. We clearly recognise Ks as a final in the Latin Luks, or Lux, light, and as an initial in the words Xenophon and Xenophanes, or Ksenophon and Ksenophanes ; in Italian, dropping the Kappa, Senofane, and Senofonte, where it is worth remarking that the Greek Phi was derived from the Ethiopic Yau, and the Roman F, or Digamma, from the Phoenician or Samaritan Yau. xii. I, Iota (I), and J, Lambda (L). Lanzi says that Lambda, in Etruscan, is changed into a vowel ; but whoever will look at the letters, will, I think, be 42 SUBSTITUTION OF ONE LETTEE FOR ANOTHER. disposed to admit, that the change in many cases was acci- dental, from the disappearance of the lower stroke of the Lambda, or simply from its being made too short. Where- ever we find two letters very liable to be mistaken for each other, as in the case of the Etruscan Iota and Lambda, we are sure that they will be mistaken, and when they have been mistaken very frequently, a dialect is formed. Many Latin words might be enumerated, which in Italian change their L into I, as Flores, Fiore ; Flamma, Fiamma ; Flatus, Fiato ; Flavus, yellow, Fiavo, a honeycomb, from its yellow colour. xin. Greek Phi® (ph); Greek Chi ® (Ch). Lanzi reads this character as Phi, in the word Amphiare (torn. i. p. 216.), and as Chi, in the word Achtu (torn. i. p. 399.) ; and we have the authority of a goddess for believing that this confusion was of very ancient date. In the fifth book of his Fasti, Ovid introduces Flora, saying — " Chloris erani, quae Flora vocor, corrupta Latino Noniinis est nostri littera Grseca sono." The "Graeca littera," however, may have continued to be precisely the same after it was " corrupta Latino sono," which is the account the goddess gives of it. 43 CHAP. V. ON THE SPOKEN LANGUAGE OP CHINA. " Cambalu, seat of Cathaian Can And Samarchand by Oxus, Temir's throne, To Pekin of Sinaean kings, and thence To Agra and Lahore of great Mogul, Down to the golden Chersonese ; or where The Persian in Ecbatan sat, or since In Hispahan." Paradise Lost, book xi. I. So much has been written about the Chinese and their language, with a view to prove that the former are altogether a peculiar people, and that the latter has nothing in common with any other known tongue, that if the philologist be- lieved all that has been said on the subject, he would be dis- posed to class it with those profound mysteries, which, as no one can hope to illustrate, all must abandon in despair. " It is, perhaps, impossible," says the Supplement to the Ency- clopedia Britannica, " for the Chinese themselves to determine what portion of their present mixed religion and super- stitions belong to their ancient institutions, and what has been borrowed from other people. This, however, is not the case with their language ; their speech, and the character in which it is written, have maintained their primitive purity, and may be considered as exclusively their own. This lan- guage, more than any thing besides, stamps them as an original people ; it has no resemblance whatever to any other language, living or dead, ancient or modern ; it has neither borrowed nor lent, any thing to any other nation or people now in existence, excepting to those who are unquestionably of Chinese origin. The written character is just as distinct now from any alphabetical arrangement as it was some thousands of years ago ; and the spoken language has not proceeded a single step beyond the original meagre and in- flexible monosyllable." (Article China, p. 83.) 44 THE SPOKEN LANGUAGE ir. Dr. Marshman, whose name is well known for his pro* found attainments in Chinese learning, has taken a great deal of pains to institute a formal and elaborate comparison between the language of that country and several others. He took the Raniayana, which is supposed to be the most ancient poetry in the Sanskrit language, and the Shee-king of the Chinese ; in ten pages of the former, containing four hundred and fifty-nine words, he found only thirteen mono- syllables, and of these thirteen, seven do not occur in the Shee ; nor are any two of them used to express the same idea in both languages. He next took four pages of the Maha- bharu (Mahabharat) in the Bengalee dialect, containing two hundred and sixty- five words, in which he found only seven monosyllables, and of these three only were Chinese. Pro- ceeding in the same manner, he proves that there exists not the most distant resemblance between the Chinese and the Hebrew languages ! In examining the speech of Judah to Joseph, in the 44th chapter of Genesis, he finds it to contain two hundred aad six words, in which there occur sixteen monosyllables, but of these seven only are Chinese words. In Abraham's intercession for Sodom, out of two hundred and thirty words, ten only are monosyllables, and of these four are Chinese. (Article China, p. 68.) in. Assuming the perfect accuracy of these comparisons, which I have not the slightest disposition to doubt, I cannot but express my surprise at the conclusion at which the learned doctor arrived. If the Chinese be, as we are so con- fidently assured it is, strictly a monosyllabic language, it follows, as a matter of course, that we are not to look for any analogy with it in other languages, except in words of one syllable, and in the trial with the Bengalee, out of seven monosyllables, three were Chinese, and in that with the Hebrew, in one instance out of sixteen monosyllables, seven, and in the other, out of ten, four were Chinese, or, in other words, where it was possible that there should have been any resemblance, that resemblance was found to extend nearly to one half; out of thirty-three monosyllabic words of the Bengalee and the Hebrew, he meets with fourteen out of the OF CHINA. 45 three hundred and thirty words, of which the Chinese lan- guage is said to be composed, and concludes with requesting us to believe, very inconsistently with his premises, as it appears to me, that the Chinese is altogether a peculiar lan- guage, and has nothing in common with any other. To prove that this is very far from being the case, I shall now proceed to point out the numerous analogies I have re- marked between the Chinese and many other languages both of Asia and Europe. iv. List of Chinese words, from the names of the 214 keys, or elementary characters, as given in the Supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica, with their analogies in other lan- Chinese Words. Analogies. 1. Ye-one, alone, the chief, the "1 la, (Greek), the Fern, of ios, alone. same J Yek (Persic), one, once. 4. Pei, to arrive at Pay (Persic), end, limit. 8. Too, the summit, or top of 1 rp /T > • \ ,, n L „ , any thing J To ( Persic )' cream, the fat of broth. 9 Jin, a man, mankind Jan (Sanskrit), man individually, or collectively. All Nouns Ethnical terminating in ian. 10. Jin, the ancient character for 1 T m „ /T) . x .,, ., m ' an \ Jinan (Persic), the world. 14. Mee, to cover, the roof of a I May, or Mo (Persic), the hair of the house J head. {Sayah (Persic), a shade or shadow. Siyah (Persic), black. Skia (Greek), shadow. 37. Ta, great, gross Ta (Persic), multiplicity. 38. Neu, a virgin Kau (Persic), new, fresh. 40. Miou, a covering, a roof. Moy (Persic), the hair of the head. 45. Che, a bud Chah (Persic), used in forming dimi- nutives, as Ghun-Chah, a rose bud. 46. Shan, a hill, or mountain Shain (Hebrew), a sharp cliff. 48. Kung, work, an artificer Kayn (Persic), forming, framing. 51. Kan, a shield Ma-Gain (Hebrew), a shield. " used as a pre - 52. Yau, the sign of the future 1 Yood ( Y) (Hebrew), ^ to v de : -shall... /Ye (Arabic),! notethe3d v " person — future. 65. Chee, the branches of a tree... Chah (Persic), a bud. 67. Wan, fair Wan (English), pale. 72. Jee,orGe,thesun (^ w two. 171 . Tai, until, at, or to a certain j Ta (Perg . ^ gQ ^ point J v /» ■ ' 176. Mien, the face Mien (English), look, manner. 189. Kau, high, eminent, noble Koh (Persic), a hill, a mountain. 1 94. Quoi, a spirit, a ghost Khoi (Persic), oneself. 203. Shee, black, dark fSiyah (Persic) black. ' ' I Skia (Greek), shadow. 211. Tehee, the teeth { IwSb^' } B ^°^' v. List of Chinese words, from the Glossary at the end of the first volume of Du Halde, 4 tomes 4to, a la Haye, 1736. Chinese Words. Analogies. Fo, Budha, happiness Phe (Egyptian), heaven. " The substance of Fo is one, but he has three forms." Fong-hoang, the phoenix ; (the "1 In David's Turkish Grammar, we sun), literally, yellow eagle. J meet with the remarkable expres- sion, " the sun, the golden -winged bird of heaven." Ki, the soul Chi (Hebrew), (radical letters), life. Lao would appear to be merely an- other name of Fo, or Budha. Long- Yen, dragons eye Ain, the eye, Hebrew and Arabic. Mo, negative particle Ma, Persic and Arabic. or china. 47 Chinese Woi-ds. Analogies. Mou, mother Mau, Egyptian. Mou-Sing, the planet Jupiter Mou-Tsae, Shepherd and governor of the people, is very like Moses, if we did not know that the etymology of that word is Egyptian. Pou-sa, Du Halde says, the god of Porcelaine ; but the word, from the way in which it is used, is evidently a general name of deity. If Pousa's name and attributes had been known in England, he would have been frequently invoked at sales of old china, and have had the honour of numbering among the most devoted of his votaries no less distinguished a person than Horace Walpole. Tai-ki, great soul. Tchang, eternal. Tchang-koue, middle kingdom. Chum-cue, central kingdom. Jones, vol. iii. p. 139. Chung-quo, middle kingdom. Art. China, Sup. Ency. Brit. Note. — Not the least difficulty connected with Chinese philology is the indefinite orthography, of which the above is a specimen. The Chinese disguise European words so much by their manner of writing them, that they are scarcely to be recognised, and European authors have not been much be- hindhand in returning the compliment. The language of the Celestial Empire in some instances appears to differ from other languages, in the same degree as that of gods and men differed in Homer's time, when the former called that river Xanthus, which the latter denominated Scamander ; and ascribed to Myrinna, the tomb known to mortals as that of Bateia. Ti, emperor. Tiao, honour paid to the dead ... {^ggffi*^ Tien, heaven, the god of heaven. Tien-heou, queen of heaven. Tien-hia, China, i. e. under heaven. Y, one See final I in Persic — letter Ye. Yemen, tribunal of justice Yamen (Sanskrit), Judge of Hell. Yaomo, a malevolent genius Yama (Sanskrit), death, Pluto. vano'-fi'nff 11 ^ ° I Q ucere > G enen and Gehenna, Greek . vi. From the Index to De Guignes, Voyages a Pekin, 8fc, 3 tomes, Paris, 1808. Chinese Words. Analogies. Chang-ty, the Supreme Being Cbe-kia, a name of Budha, \ Ju-kiao, a name of Fo, or Budha. J 48 THE SPOKEN LANGUAGE Chinese Words. Analogies. Kien, heaven, written also Tien. Men-chin, the genius of doors. Tao, the principle of heaven and earth. Tay-ky, the principle of heaven and earth. Temples of Confucius. the sun, Ge-tan. the moon, Yue-tan. heaven, Tien-tan. earth, Ty-tan Ty, appears to be cognate with the Doric Da, the earth. It is impossible, it appears to me, to peruse the preceding lists of words with attention, without being convinced that the language of the Chinese, so far from having nothing in common with any other, presents at every step numerous points of resemblance ; and I am fully persuaded that, with the progress of accurate philological knowledge, we shall no more expect to find any language standing apart, and insu- lated from all other languages, than we think of looking for " men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders." vn. I shall now proceed to offer some further illustrations of the Chinese spoken language ; and a glance at their gram- mar, will convince us, if I am not very much mistaken, that, if they have borrowed nothing from other nations, they have imparted a great deal ; and that, whatever degree of antiquity we may be disposed to allow to the Chinese annals, in the state in which they are presented to us, their language and grammatical arrangements have irresistible claims to be regarded as among the very oldest of which the art of writing has preserved any record. We are informed by Du Halde that there are two spoken languages in China : one confined to the common people, which varies so much in different parts of the empire, that the inhabitants of one province can scarcely understand those of another ; and the other, which is denominated the Mandarin language, that of the court, the church, and the schools, the use of which appears to be somewhat analogous to that of Latin in Europe, or of Sanskrit among the dialects of the Indian continent. The number of spoken words is said not to exceed three hundred and thirty ; the meaning of OF CHINA. 49 which, however, is varied almost indefinitely by accentuation ; and as the Greek language is said to be derived from about three hundred roots, or primitive words, perhaps this appa- rent coincidence was the circumstance which induced Webb to write an essay to prove that the Greek language was de- rived from the Chinese. I strongly suspect that in both instances there is much, perhaps an equal degree of, exagge- ration, and an equally narrow foundation of fact. viii. The following abstract of Chinese grammar is chiefly borrowed from the work of the younger De Guignes, who resided several years in the country, and was well acquainted with their language and literature. In compositions of an elevated style the Chinese decline no noun and conjugate no verb ; and in fact the same word, according to circum- stances, is a noun, a verb, or an adverb, all the varieties of meaning being indicated by its position. The Chinese word, therefore, agrees with the Sanskrit Dhato or root, which, standing alone, has neither case, gender, nor number. ix. The Nominative is represented by a simple word, for example, Fong, the wind, a word which appears to be cog- nate with the Latin ventus, and still more so with the French vent, as pronounced. Sometimes the Chinese, es- pecially those of the northern provinces, add the words Teou, Tse, and Eul ; but this usage is regarded as inelegant. The nominative is placed near to, and precedes the verb. x. The Genitive is distinguished by the particles Ty and Tchy ; but they are merely understood, and not expressed when the sense is clear without them. When written, it is in the following way, Gin ti hao, which, translating the words in the order in which they stand, means of man the kindness. And here it is impossible not to be struck, not with the similarity, but the perfect identity, in the mode of forming the genitive case, between Chinese nouns and such Greek and Latin ones as increase in that case. Among the Chinese keys, or elements, we have seen (No. 9.) Jin, signi- fying man, mankind. Du Halde writes the word Gin, and according to him Gin ti signifies of man. In Latin we find the word Gens, a people, the genitive case of which is Gen- E 50 THE SPOKEN LANGUAGE ti-s, formed by inserting the particle ti between the third and fourth letters of the root Gens. Dens, a tooth, is another example of precisely the same kind, as it forms in the genitive Den-ti-s. By writing the Ti, Di, with a letter of the same organ, it is equally obvious in the Latin words Pes, Pe-di-s, a foot ; and we find the Ti slightly changed in the Greek Odons, Odon-to-s, a tooth. Pay, the foot, is the 103rd Chinese root, or key. One cannot but feel strongly disposed, from these instances, to derive the Latin de, and the Italian di, from the Chinese Ti. xi. The Dative is characterised by the particles Yu and Y, which precede the substantive, but are frequently omitted. Here again there is an analogy, though not so close, between the Chinese, and the Greek and Latin, as the Oriental Y is frequently rendered in the European languages by I, which forms the termination of many Greek and Latin datives, as Basileus, Basile-i, Rex, Reg-i, a king. xii. The usual mark of the Accusative is that it follows the verb, some verbs however require it to precede them. Both the Vocative, and Ablative, like the genitive, are formed by the use of particles. The plural of nouns is formed by the addition of Men, or Teng after the words. The former suggests close analogies with the Greek, in the genitive and dative formations of the personal pronouns ego and su, in the plural number. xiii. In Chinese, Adjectives do not agree with their sub- stantives, or in other words are invariable in their termina- tions, as in Persic and English. They generally, but not always, precede the noun. The comparative is formed by the addition of the words Keng-hao, better ; and the superlative, sometimes by the employment of particles, and sometimes by doubling the positive with the addition of the word Ty. The latter mode is very like the Hebrew ; as in the account of creation, in the first chapter of Genesis, we find tob, good, and tob tob, very good. It is remarkable that the plural of Chinese substantives is sometimes formed in the same way ; as Jin, a man ; Jin Jin, men. In Chinese, as in Persic, the distinctions of sex are expressed by the addition OF CHINA. 51 of appropriate words ; as Nan Jin, a man ; Nuu-Jin, a woman : in Persic, Sheeri-Ner, a lion ; Sheeri-Made, a lioness. xiv. The Personal Pronouns are Ngo, me ; Ni or Ny, thee ; Ta, him ; and these are converted into plurals by the addition of Men, and into possessives by the addition of Ti, the formatives also, as we have seen, of the plurals and genitives of substantives, as Ngo ti, my ; Ni ti, thy ; Ta ti, his. xv. All the conjugations of the Chinese Verbs are effected by means of auxiliaries, and they are very much in the habit of speaking in the third person, more especially when ad- dressing superiors. Du Halde says, that, strictly speaking, they have no tenses but the present, the preterite, and the future ; in this respect nearly agreeing with the Hebrew, Arabic, and whole family of Shemitic languages. The preterite is formed by the addition of the word Leao, and the future, of Yau, or Yao. The letter Y is the formative of the third person of the future in Hebrew and Arabic ; and the Chinese Ta, he or him, appears to constitute the termi- nation of the third person singular of the Latin verb, as Sum, es, est, Amo, amas, amat. The passive voice in Chinese is formed by adding the particle Pi. xvi. Du Halde remarks that, although the Chinese language actually consists of so small a number of words, its apparent poverty is by no means inconsistent with real copiousness, as the same word is frequently not only noun and verb, but also preposition, adverb, and conjunction. In other parts of this work I have endeavoured to show the probability that alt the words in every language were primarily formed from nouns substantive, and that in many instances they may be traced back to, and resolved into, them again. The division of language by grammarians into ten parts of speech, or sorts of words, is perfectly unobjectionable, perhaps desirable, for the sake of order, clearness, and facility of reference ; but we must never forget that the arrangement is altogether artificial, and that many others might have been quite as good, or even better, as it is very much more matter of prescription than of reflection. But it has happened in language, as in many of the physical sciences, in which, having first made an artificial E 2 52 SPOKEN LANGUAGE OF CHINA. classification solely for our own convenience, we have at length become surprised and disappointed at discovering that nature refused to bend to it, when the lesson conveyed, if we had been disposed properly to attend to it, was, not that nature was wrong, but that our mode of operating was not right ; that our observations were narrow, our facts badly defined, our reasonings illogical, and that all our proceedings bore much stronger marks of our own essential feebleness and littleness, than of being adapted to the variety of her means, the grandeur of her scale, and the sublimity of her results. 53 CHAP. VI. ON THE ANCIENT LANGUAGE OF EGYPT. THE COPTIC AND SAHIDIC. " But on the south a long majestic race Of Egypt's priests the gilded niches grace, Who measured earth, described the starry spheres, And traced the long records of lunar years. High on his car Sesostris struck my view, Whom sceptred slaves in golden harness drew : His hands a bow and pointed javelin hold ; His giant limbs are arm'd in chains of gold. Between the statues obelisks were placed, And the learn 'd walls with hieroglyphics graced." Pope's Temple of Fame. i. Perhaps there is hardly any one subject calculated to throw so much light on every branch of philology, as a complete history of the formation of the Egyptian alphabet. Un- fortunately, however, the whole matter is deeply involved in doubt and difficulty. Of the few facts which seem to be established, none are clearly and circumstantially narrated, nor are they susceptible of being arranged with much con- fidence in a strictly chronological order. Such as they are, however, I shall now proceed to lay them before my readers, assigning the first place to an authority, not indeed of very early date, but still of great weight and importance, the pro- found and philosophical Tacitus. He says : " The Egyptians were the first who had the ingenuity to express by outward signs the ideas passing in the mind. Under the form of animals they gave a body and a figure to sentiment. Their hieroglyphics were wrought in stone, and are to be seen at this day, the most venerable monuments of human memory. The invention of letters is also claimed by the Egyptians. According to their account, the Phoenicians found legible characters in use throughout Egypt, and being much em- ployed in navigation, carried them into Greece ; importers of the art, but not entitled to the glory of the invention. The history of the matter, as related by the Phoenicians, is, that *E 3 54 THE LANGUAGE OF Cadmus, with a fleet from their country, passed into Greece and taught the art of writing to a rude and barbarous people. We are told by others, that Cecrops the Athenian, or Linus the Theban, or Palamedes the Argive, who flourished during the Trojan war, invented sixteen letters ; the honour of adding to the number, and making a complete alphabet, is ascribed to different authors, and in particular to Simonides." (Murphy's Tacitus, Ann. book xi. c. 14.) ii. This elaborate passage which appears to be so full of in- formation, really proves little more than our entire ignorance of the subject, and convinces us of nothing, except that nothing is certainly known. The invention of alphabetical characters is ascribed by some to Memnon the Egyptian, who lived fifteen years before the reign of Phoroneus in Greece, or B. c. 1822 : and by Tacitus, as we have seen in the preceding paragraph, to Cecrops the Athenian, who is said to have conducted a colony from Sais into Attica about the year B. C. 1556 ; to Linus the Theban, who is supposed to have lived about 500 years before the foundation of Rome, or B. c. 1253 ; and to Palamedes the Argive, who flourished during the siege of Troy, B. c. 1184: while Josephus informs us that Homer, who, according to Hero- dotus, lived 400 years before himself, or in the ninth century before the Christian era, left no written works because there was no alphabet in existence in which to write them. in. And it would appear as if circumstances of every kind had conspired to keep us in profound and perpetual igno- rance. Egypt is, perhaps, more full of the remains of art than either Greece or Italy ; and its architects planned and executed on a scale of colossal magnitude, of which the latter countries present few or no examples. Its tombs, its temples, and above all its pyramids, are so many quarries above ground ; and yet, by a singular fatality, not a vestige of an inscription in alphabetical characters has ever been discovered on any of them. While the Thesaurus of Greek and Roman antiquities by Graevius and Gronovius occupies thirty- nine folio volumes, I do not believe that so many lines, or ANCIENT EGYPT. 55 words, that can be said to be strictly alphabetical, have ever been discovered in Egypt of an earlier date than the accession of the Greek dynasty of the Ptolemies, B. C. 323. Herodotus informs us that the pyramid of Cheops once contained an inscription, which Larcher, his learned French translator, believes to have been alphabetical, giving an account of the various sums of money expended during the progress of the work for the radishes, onions, and garlic consumed by the artificers. (Herod, lib. i. c. 125.) iv. The female figure described in the Apocalypse, upon whose brow was written Mystery, appears to be in many respects an apt type of ancient Egypt ; as she herself is an enigma, and every thing connected with her as dark as the responses of oracles. After making some inquiries as to the origin of the Egyptian alphabet, we naturally wish to know in what direction they wrote ; whether like the Hebrews, and most of the people speaking the Shemitic languages, from right to left ; or like the Hindus and modern Europeans, from left to right ; and on this point the testimony of Herodotus, by whom we might have expected the question .to be set at rest, is so vague and unsatisfactory that it can hardly be said to communicate any information. " The Greeks, when they w T rite, or reckon by counters," says he, " proceed from the left to the right, the Egyptians from right to left ; notwith- standing which they persist in affirming that the Greeks write to the left, but they themselves always to the right. They make use of two kinds of waiting, one of which is denomi- nated sacred, and the other demotic." (Lib. ii. c. 36.) If this passage of Herodotus stands as he wrote it, it is one of the most singular in his work, as it respects a matter of fact, about which one would have supposed there could be no mistake ; while the opposite assertions are utterly inconsistent with each other, and appear to place both the writer and his informants in the situation of the six score thousand persons in Nineveh, who could not discern between their right hand and their left. Nor is what Herodotus seems altogether to forget less remarkable than the circumstance w T hich he states in so confused a way, viz., that the ancient mode of writing of E 4 56 THE LANGUAGE OF the Greeks, and probably up to his own times, was that deno- minated by them Boustrophedon, from its resemblance to an ox ploughing, or from left to right, and right to left, alternately. v. Plutarch, in his treatise on Isis and Osiris, informs us that the alphabet of the ancient Egyptians consisted of twenty-five letters. By ancient, I believe, we must under- stand under the Greek dynasty, or that of the Ptolemies ; and by the alphabet, the Coptic, the principal literary remains of which language consist in fragments of a translation of the Old and New Testaments. In Scholtz's Coptic Grammar, we find the twenty-four letters of the Greek alphabet, with eight additional, making in all thirty-two. Of the former, however, many appear to discharge the office of numbers, rather than of letters, in Coptic ; as hardly any words in that language begin with Gamma, Delta, Zeta, Xi, Psi, So (St), or Di, and indeed several of them occupy no place whatever in the Lexicon. The Coptic letters not contained in the Greek alphabet are, Schei (sh), Phei (f), Chei (k, ch), Hon (h), Genga (g), Skima (sk), Dei (ti). vi. I shall now proceed to give a list of some of the most remarkable words I have observed in the Coptic and Sahidic, and point out their analogies with those of other languages. Coptic Words. Analogies. Atshi, muliercula, a girl ; from At, "1 c , ^ ru , negative particle* and Shi, 1 1 £ gg"* P™ pe^ . woman, she who is not a woman, j ^. fp ot v r \ i. e. who is a girl. Derivatives, J , » , . •. f Aish (Hebrew), a man. Ash, quis, who tAsher (Hebrew), who. f Ebion (Hebrew), poor, needy. E bien, humilis, vilis -j Abios (Greek) , destitute of the (_ means of supporting life. Note — This word appears to supply the etymology of Ebionites in Ecclesiastical History ; it is also remarkable that, although Ebion occurs in the Hebrew Pentateuch, it looks like a derivative from the Greek Abios. Entot, habere, from En, injicere, and Tot, manus ; literally, to lay hands on. In Hebrew we have Caph, the palm of the hand, and in Latin, Captus, i. e. with the palm of the hand closed on it, caught, or taken. Et, qui, qua?, quod Et, and (Latin). ANCIENT EGYPT. 57 Coptic Words. Analogies. The, quae, articulus relativus fcem. The (English), definite article. „„ v f Tomb (English), place of burial. Thorns, sepelire (Entomb, to bury. T . . fl, go (Sanskrit). I, ire, venire il,ito (Latin). Karia, cassis, a helmet Probably this is the only ground Herodotus has for saying that the Carians were the first who added crests to their helmets. Ke, iterum Kai (Greek). Ket, sedificare This word appears to enter into the composition of the Homeric epithet Euktimenos, which is always translated well built, but which is very unsatisfactorily explained by any etymology merely Greek; Kota, a shed (Sanskrit), and Cot (English), appear to be cognate. Kour, mutus, Rcnfp The Greeks evidently read the final R as P, and formed Kwcpos. ir , , f Koh (Persic), a hill. Koh ' arock tKoh (Chinese), high. [ Less (English), that which is made Les, confringere, to break in pieces \ ^^'(Englkh), the act of making [ small. Ma, locus, and perhaps terra. Mai, amor Note. — Maia was one of the names of Cybele, who was supposed to preside over fertility, vege- tation, and generation, under one or another of her denomina- tions, Terra, Rhea, Bona Dea, or Magna Mater. The name of our month of May is probably borrowed from the Coptic word, and our Maypoles are a vestige of heathen worship, perhaps nearly coeval with the human race. Maie, tantus, quantus Maha (Sanskrit), great. T. r , fMaa (Sanskrit). Mau ' mater JMa (Greek), isch. Supp. 897. Mah, implere Maha (Sanskrit), increase. T. r . ,. fEmera (Greek), a day. Men, dies JEmere (Ionic), form/ Mor, ligare Moor a ship, i. e. to fasten or tie. Mour, vinculum Mooring-chain (English). Amsah, a crocodile Note. — To the ears of Herodotus this word sounded as if commencing with an aspirate, and accordingly he wrote it Champsa. The old Egyptians probably spelt it with their letter Hori, the Roman H, and wrote Hamsah. Antoou, terrestris Note. — This word, with a Greek termination, supplies a probable etymology of the name of the giant Antaeus, the son of Neptune and Terra. The generic word giant, and its equivalents in most languages, mean no more than earth-born. Ouon, habere To own, to possess (English). Ouosh, voluntas, desiderium Wish, English. 58 THE LANGUAGE OP Coptic Word. Analogies. Ouom, to eat; Ouoni-anhet, to "j This illustrates an expression of grieve ; literally, to eat the j- Homer's, who, describing the me- heart. J lancholy end of Bellerophon, says — ? Htoi o KairiT^iov rh 'AX-q'iov ohs a\a,TO, "Ov &V/J.OV koltcZuiv, irarov avOpcoircov aXzzlvwv. Iliad, vi. 201. " Qui miser in campis moerens errabat Aleis, Ipse suum cor edens, hominum vestigia vitans." Cicero, Tusc. Qucest. iii. 26. Pe, sum Pelo, and Pelomai, Greek. -p /Root (English), i.e. the foot of the Kat ' P es 1 plant. Rek, inclinare, to rock a cradle, to cause it to incline from side to side, a rocking-horse. Ret, plantare, that is, to cause to take root: see Rat above. Rimi, fletus..... Rheum, English. Note.— " Bisson rheum," Hamlet. The Commentators explain this by blind rheum. The idea intended to be conveyed evidently is, that Hecuba's tears were so copious, that they threatened to extinguish the flames of Troy. In Coriolanus we read? " At a few drops of women's rheum, which are as cheap as lies, he sold the blood and labour of our great action." In these two passages of Shakspeare, the word rheum clearly signifies tears or weeping, and is no less evidently derived from the Coptic Rimi. Rompi, annus Note. — If we substitute time in general for the year, this is very likely to have been a name of Chronus or Saturn, mentioned Amos, v. 26., and Acts, vii. 43. Rot, germinare But as it is written with Omega, or two Omicrons, it is our English word Root, letter for letter ; and, used as a verb, is equivalent to take root, to bud. Sat, seminare satum (Latin), sown. Sen, gladius, Sif, Arabic, Xiphos, Greek. Perhaps the Hebrew word Saphah, a lip or edge, is the root of all these words. Sladi, labi Slide, English. o.L v m i t, f Steel, English, Stah, Chalybs {^ ^^ o . • f Shond (Persic), they are. Sont, creatio jg^ ^ ' Phat, pes Foot, English. " Bat, lingua Bali quse est lingua erudita Sinaensium." (La Loubere.) TJ1 t ud ov'r t fFrore and frozen, English: that Phro,hyems,withRe,Sahidic,fa-l wMi . g ^ ^ » of ^^ cere . L Frore, Milton. Phork, lorica Thorax, Greek and Latin. Note. — This was an ambiguous character in the early alphabets of Greece and Italy, and read sometimes as Phi and sometimes as Theta. Read as Theta, ANCIENT EGYPT. 59 Coptic Words. Analogies. for Phork we have Tkork, and by the insertion of a vowel, Thorax, Greek and Latin. Chrof, dolosus Craft and crafty, English. Chrom, ignis Cremo, Latin to burn; in the infini- tive mode cremare, from Chrom, and Re (Sahidic), facere. Cre- mare is, therefore, literally, to make a fire. "We have the word in English, in the first syllable of Cromlegh, a Druidical altar. Shorn, sestas, summer, and pro-1 c -^ r , ,-, , ,. bably *stus, heat, with Er, I Summer English, or that season of facere, Coptic. J the ? ear whlch P roduces h eat. Fatou and Fatoou, plural of Fato, and Fate, four Note. — The characters for Phi and Chi are frequently perfectly undistinguishable in Etruscan, or early Greek, according to some of Lanzi's readings, both being which is one form of Ethiopic Vau. From Fatoou, with the addition of a final r, we have Fidwor, Gothic ; and Pedwar, Welch ; and by dropping t and d, we have Vier, German and Dutch, and Four, English. By reading the initial letter Ch, instead of Ph, we have Chatur, Sanskrit, Chehar, Persic, and Quatuor, Latin. Chroou, vox Crow (like a cock), English. Halai, volare Ales (Latin), a bird ; Ala (Latin and Italian), a wing. Halet, avis Alitis Gen., Aliti Dat., Alitem Ace, and Alite Ab. of Ales (La- tin), a bird. Note. — This word was evidently known to Homer, and he has employed it in the Odyssey, book ii. line 18G. " The prince of augurs, Halitherses rose. Prescient he view'd the aerial tracks, and drew A sure presage from every wing that flew." Halet, a bird, and Ter, all, Coptic, and Es, Greek termination, in Greek Alitherses with the spiritus asper, and in Latin Hali- therses. Htho, equus By reading Theta as Chi, which the Etruscans appear to have done in many instances, we have Hacho, or Equo, the Dative case of Equus, which is cognate with the softer sound of Hay a, ahorse, Sanskrit. Tpolis, a city, with the Egyptian 1 Hence by transposition we have the fern. art. t prefixed and coa- j- Homeric words Ptolis, a city, and lescing. J Ptoliethron, a town. vii. The Coptic Grammar will not detain us so long as the Lexicon has done, as the light thrown on the structure of speech by the former, appears to me to be much less clear than the illustrations of the affinity of languages supplied by the latter. The first question is, in what class of Ian- 60 THE LANGUAGE OF guages are the Coptic and Sahidic to be arranged? are they of the great Arabic, or the Indian family ? and what are their leading characteristics ? To which I reply, that they have much more in common with the Shemitic than the Sanskrit, as I shall endeavour to prove by applying the criteria es- tablished in the First Chapter. All their nouns, whether the names of things animate or inanimate, are invested with a gender, which may be either masculine, feminine, or common ; but they have no neuter, and what is very remarkable, the distinctions of gender are not observed in the plural number. There is no attempt to lay down any general rules for de- termining the gender of nouns, which must be ascertained either by signification, or by the preceding article, or by the pronoun, adjective, participle, or verb by which they are accompanied. viii. Adjectives and participles never vary their termi- nation, but are the same in both genders ; and this appears to be incurring all the trouble of the distinction of gender, without reaping any of the attendant advantages. Through- out all animated nature, the mind experiences no difficulty in making the distinctions of gender co-extensive with those of sex — so far it is the work of reason, but all beyond seems to belong to the imagination. The genius of the East appears from the earliest ages, to have delighted in the multiplication of tropes and figures, and the ascription of gender to things inanimate is a sort of personification, and an investing of them with the powers of life ; but if the adjective be undeclined, its agreement with its substantive can be ascertained only by j uxta-position ; and while philosophy appears to lose by the attempt to establish a distinction not founded on the nature of things, poetry and eloquence do not gain. By the power of separating the noun substantive and adjective in Greek and Latin, much is effected with respect to harmony, and little lost as regards clearness. If we attempt to translate from Virgil — " Extinctum Nymphse crudeli funere Daphnim Flebant," ANCIENT EGYPT. 61 word by word, we must write — dead the nymphs by a cruel fate Daphnis lamented ; and it is not until we apply the rules of grammar to the sentence, and observe the distinctions of gender, case, and number, that we discover that it is not the nymphs who are dead, but Daphnis ; that he was snatched away by a cruel fate, and they survived to lament his death. IX. In the Coptic and Sahidic, we discover that pecu- liarity which certainly constitutes one of the broadest lines of distinction between the Shemitic and the Indian family of languages. The various persons of the verb, in all the different tenses, recognise the distinctions of gender, or, in other words, sympathise with the person addressed or de- scribed, whether man or woman. As in Hebrew, the first person is common, the second and third masculine and fe- minine in the singular number. In Hebrew, the distinction of masculine and feminine is carried into the plural of the verb ; in Egyptian, it ceases in the plural altogether. In this respect the verb sympathises with the noun, in which, as has been already remarked, the distinction of gender is not ob- served in the plural number. This throws some light on the origin and formation of language. What are denominated by grammarians the parts of speech were primarily all nouns, and in the Hebrew it is easy to prove that the noun and verb differ only in being joined to, and terminated by, a different set of pronouns, which primarily were nouns also. x. The Egyptian verbs have only one conjugation, like the Hebrew. The conjugation in Hiphil, or the Causative, is formed by means of the verb Thre, or Thro, to make, or do. They have no neuter gender, which is expressed by the feminine ; nor have they any dual number. The Egyptians have five tenses, the present, the imperfect, the perfect, the pluperfect, and the future, in which they agree with the Latin ; but they have three forms of the future, the Sanskrit and Greek each having two. xi. The passive form of the verb does not differ from the active in termination; but must sometimes be inferred from the circumstances, and sometimes distinguished by the sense alone. This is also the case with the Arabic, as far as the 62 LANGUAGE OF ANCIENT EGYPT. radical letters are concerned, the active and passive voice being expressed by the vowel points, Fatha, Kesra and Darnma, the use of which is probably not much older than the Koran. The same remark applies in some degree to the Hebrew, as the Anti-Masorists deny the antiquity of Piel, Pual, and Poel. (Masclef, torn. i. p. 80.) xii. The preter-pluperfect is expressed by prefixing the formatives of the imperfect to the preterite or second future. This is exactly the reverse of the Latin, where the preter- pluperfect is formed by prefixing the perfect Fui to the imperfect Eram, — Fui Eram, Fueram ; Amavi Eram, by contraction Amaveram. The nouns of the Egyptians, strictly speaking, cannot be said to possess declensions, and Varro remarked of them that they had only one case. 63 CHAP. VII. ON THE HEBREW LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR. " A nation from one faithful man to spring : Him on this side Euphrates yet residing, Bred up in idol- worship." Paradise Lost, book xii. i. Sir William Jones gives it as his opinion, but without assigning any ground for it, that the square or Chaldee characters, in which most Hebrew books are written, are not of a very remote antiquity. On this point I would observe, that whatever may be the origin or antiquity of the cha- racters, we possess more clear information respecting both their number, and the order in which they were arranged in the alphabet at a very early period, than we do perhaps with regard to any other. Every scholar who looks at the 1 1 9th Psalm, will readily infer, that its twenty-two portions or divisions are denominated from the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet ; but the Hebrew scholar only is aware that every one of the eight verses arranged under each letter invariably begins with that letter, so that the whole Psalm forms a long acrostic, in one of the very last compositions in the world in which we should have thought of looking for such a piece of wit. The letters, then, do not merely serve the purpose of division, and occupy the place of ciphers or numerals, in which case they might by possibility have been no older than the invention of printing, but the Psalm was evidently written for the letters, and whatever may be the age of that composition, so old at least is the arrangement and settlement of the Hebrew alphabet. After reading the Hebrew Scriptures with great attention, I can only discover that a letter, or rather a point, has disappeared ; that is, is not included in the twenty-two which at present constitute the 64 THE HEBREW LANGUAGE Hebrew alphabet, and that is in the instance of the letter Ayin, with which the words Gomorrah and Gaza are now written, and which a point placed above it no doubt invested with the power of the Arabic letter Ghain, or Gh. ii. The Hebrew alphabet then, is as old as the actual form of the Book of Psalms, the whole of which are popularly denominated the Psalms of David. That the whole were not written by David, however, may be incontrovertibly proved by internal evidence. Psalm lxxii. concludes with the ob- servation " The prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended," from which we should naturally infer that all the preceding Psalms at any rate are his ; but the last verse of the 53d Psalm hardly admits of a doubt that it was written during the Babylonish captivity, for though the Israelites were often tributary to the Philistines and the neighbouring nations, they were never carried out of their country, except by Shalmanezer and Nebuchadnezzar, from the former of which captivities they never returned, and from the latter of which they were restored by Cyrus. The arrangement of the Psalms, then, is not in a chronological order ; and re- specting the first seventy-two we cannot say that they were all written by David, while it is almost matter of de- monstration that the 126th and the 137th Psalms could not by any possibility have been so. Admitting the Jewish Scriptures, then, to have received their present form from Ezra, as appears to be asserted in the apocryphal book of Esdras, the present arrangement of the Hebrew alphabet is probably nearly as old as the return of Ezra from Babylon, which is fixed by Sir Isaac Newton at B.C. 457. in. In the Hebrew language nouns have three genders, and are either masculine, feminine, or common ; and three numbers, singular, dual, and plural. The cases are not distinguished by varying terminations, as in the Greek and Latin ; but by particles prefixed, as in English. iv. Adjectives have three degrees of comparison — positive, comparative, and superlative. The second is formed by placing the word Min after the positive ; and the third, by placing the word Meod, very, before it, as Meod Tob, very AND GRAMMAR. 65 good, or by writing the positive twice, as, Tob, Tob, very good, or best. v. The Hebrew verb has, strictly speaking, but one con- jugation, but that conjugation has seven voices, or modes of signification : Paal or Kal, Piail and Hiphil are active ; Niphal, Pual, and Hophal are passive ; and Hithpael is both active and passive. The verb has three moods, the in- dicative, the imperative, and the infinitive ; and two tenses only, the preterite and the future, which is the case with the whole class of languages denominated Shemitic. VI. In stating that the Hebrew verb has only two tenses, or times, I hardly know whether the circumstance ought to be regarded as an imperfection in words, or a perfection in things ; as a defect in grammar, or a superior accuracy in philosophy. The greatest poet of our own times says : — " In all the days of Past and Future, for In life there is no present." Byron's Manfred, act ii. And nothing can be more strictly and rigidly true ; for even in expressing the word Present, while it exists only in the intention, it is part of the future, and in writing it, ere the action of the hand is completed, the first syllable is already become part of the past. Popularly however, as time is said to have three modes of existence, past, present, and future, so every language has some contrivance for expressing them ; and as the Hebrew has no regular present tense, it supplies the want of it by the use of the participle Benoni, or active, and as it cannot say he learns, says he is learning. And in another respect the language, with its two tenses, is not so destitute as we should at first sight expect ; for the particle Wa, and, when prefixed to, and read with, the future tense, gives it a past signification, with much of the character of the Greek aorist, or time indefinite. vit. I shall now proceed to give a list of the most remark- able Hebrew words which have occurred to me in the course of my reading, pointing out their analogies with the words of such other languages as I am acquainted with. F 66 THE HEBREW LANGUAGE Hebrew Words. Analogies. t , l+ i | , , ■ . i J Angarah (Persic), a writing. § ' 'J- * ' ^Angareion, Herodotus, viii. 98. Adam, proper name of the first man.. Aclima (Sanskrit), first. A , , ,, , f " Out of it wast thou taken." Ge- Adamah, earth, ground | ^^ ^ 19 Aon, first begotten [ ^^LaUn. Acharon, hinder, following, fu- \ Hayam Haacharon, the western ture, last J sea, or the Mediterranean — Icarium Mare, Greek and Latin. The Greeks found the sea named by the Asiatics, did not understand the etymology, and invented the fable of Icarus to account for it. A real name can hardly arise from a fictitious event, or in the language of Shakspeare " Nothing can come of nothing." This word is also likely to have suggested the Acheron of the Greeks, one of the rivers of Hell. Bash, to be ashamed Bashful, English. Bohu, emptiness (chaos), Gen. i. 2. . In the Generations of Sanchoniatho this word is personified as the wife of Colpias. Gibbethon, a city of the Philistines. This word is remarkable as being compounded of Hebrew and Greek, from the radical letters Gba, a hill, and Chthon, ground. Gedi Kid, English. Golah, captivity Goal and jail, English. Dum, to be silent Dumb, English. Dio, ink Dim (Celtic), black. Haras, to lay waste, to destroy Harass, English. Chebel, aline, rope, cord Cable, English. Choph, coast, shore This appears to be the etymology of the Copts, the natives of Lower Egypt, on the shore of the Mediterranean. Chemed, beauty. Chemdah, wishing, desiring Camdeo, the Hindu god of love. Charoots, fine gold In English, gold of so many carats, i. e. the pure gold independent of the alloy, which is of no value. " Chrysa, a name of Apollo. Sophocles. Chrvsa, also a city dedicated to him. Cheres, the sun -I Homer. Chryses, a priest of Apollo. Homer. _ Chryseis, his daughter. Homer. Tit, clay With the Persic Tan, body; Titan, Greek. The Titans were giants, children of the Earth. The sun was a Titan in some Theogonies, and in the 19th Psalm is figuratively described as a giant. Caph, the palm of the hand This appears to be the root of the Latin Capio, contracted from Caph, Ego. Captus, taken, i.e. with the palm of the hand closed on it. Caiph, a rock Kephas (Greek), Peter. AND GRAMMAR. 67 Hebrew Words. Analogies. Chetoneth, a close coat Chiton, Greek. Migraoth, to lessen, shorten, narrow.. Mikros (Greek), little. Moom, a stain, blemish Momos, a spot, Greek. Lo-Moom, without spot Amumon, Greek. Mook, to deride Mock, English. »«..., e , t , , f Metallon, Greek. Metal, a forged, or wrought bar I Metall Latin . of iron I Metal, English. f Mai (Coptic), love. ,,.,,, , I ]\fau (Coptic), mother. Maieh, the womb K Maa ^nabS), mother. |_Ma (Greek), mother. " Mare (Latin and Italian), the sea. Mer (French), the sea. Mar, bitter -< Amarus (Latin), bitter. Amaro (Italian), bitter. _Amer (French), bitter. Nut, to shake, to tremble Nuto (Latin), to nod. Nfaitsach, the juice which spat- "I Nisseus (Greek), a name of Bacchus, ters from the pressed grapes .... J the grape personified. This is the etymology of all the cities of the name of Nysa, or Nyssa, which were at once sacred to Bacchus, and celebrated for their wines. Atishah, sneezing. This word appears to be imitative of the sound. Amas,toload, lade a beast of burden.. Amass (English), to heap together. Anak, the progenitor of a race of "I Anax, the son of Ccelus, and Terra. giants J (Pausanias.) -p, , . f Erebus (Greek), the son of Chaos Ereb, evening | and Darknes // " From Night the Day sprang forth and shining air, Whom to the love of Erebus she gave/' Hesiod's Theogony. .. , , , f Arrabon, Greek. Airabon, a pledge JArrhabo, Latin. Airech, or Erech, whatever is ar- \ This word appears to enter into the ranged, or ordered J composition of several mythological Greek names, such as Erechtheus, Erechthonius, &c, in some accounts celebrated as the first teachers of agriculture, as the last word implies from Arach (Hebrew), to prepare, and Chthon (Greek), the ground. Pheni, face, countenance With the Arabic word Hiat, life. Penates, the domestic gods of the Romans, or those in whose presence they conceived their ordinary life to be passed. Phar, a bull, bullock, Juvencus With the definite article Hay pre- fixed and coalescing seems to be the origin of our English word Heifer, as the Persic word Gaw, which is generic, is of our Cow. Tsidon, or Sidon, a celebrated city of Phoenicia, now called Said. The name is probably derived from its tutelary god Flercules, or the sun, in Arabic, Sid, lord, with the Tenwin, or Nunnation (final on), Sidon. With the Arabic definite article Al prefixed, and a Greek termination, Al- Sid-es, orAlcides. F 2 68 THE HEBREW LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR. Hebrew Wo7*ds. Analogies. Tsar, an enemy. Tsarar, to be hostile. The second word appears to be formed from the first, by the addition of the Coptic verb, Er, esse, facer e. Kol, a voice Call, English. Katan, small, young (Kitten, a young cat. ' J ° I Kit, a small fiddle. Rechush, substance, goods, pos- ~| t>. , -& v , sessions ...?. \ RlcheS > En § llsh ' Raphai, Rephaini, or sons of Raphah. I am disposed to believe that this stange word may be Aphar, dust, earth, reversed, and that the Hebrew Rephaim, and the Greek Titans (Terrae Filii) referred to the antiquity of particular races of men, as Autochthones, or Aborigines, or coeval with the earth which they inhabited. In Psalm lxxxviii. 11. Rephaim is translated dead ; and the buried, in perfect conformity both with the Hebrew and Arabic idiom, may easily have been called sons or children of the earth. Sud, to whitewash (Sud (Turkish) milk. I Soapsuds, English. Sar, a prince, with the Coptic verb, Er, esse. Sarar, to bear dominion, to have rule. Shabah, to carry away cattle This is a very probable etymology of the Sabeans, or plundering Arabs of the desert. See Job, i. 15. Shalishah, Baal Shalishah, Beth Shalishah. Who was this god, or who were these gods ? The second word Shalishah is unquestionably cognate with Shelshah, three. Was it a Phili- stine city sacred to the Zeus Triophthalmos, or Jupiter with three eyes, mentioned by Pausanias, and identified by Sir William Jones with the Indian Siva, or have we here the Hindu Triad itself, and was it the house or temple of Brahmah, Vishnu, and Siva ? The etymology of Palestine is Sanskrit, from Pali, a shepherd, and Stan or Istan, place. Shenhabim, elephants' teeth, ivory, from Shain, a tooth ; and perhaps Habem is a corruption by transposition from Be- haimah, a large quadruped, applied to the elephant and hippopotamos. Sharak to tmtip i Surigx, a pipe. 1 „ •. bnarak, to pipe | Surisso, to pipe. J ^ reeK ' Tammuz, a deity of the Syrians, identical with the Adonis of the Greeks. Both are names of the sun, and I believe Tam- muz, or Thammuz, is a corrupted Chaldee form of the Hebrew Shemesh, the sun. Tarshish, the sea Tarisha, the ocean, Sanskrit. In various passages of the Old Testament Tarshish does not appear to denote any particular place, but the sea itself, and ships of Tarshish to be as nearly as possible equivalent to the Homeric expression lv viiujgi TtovTOTropoivi, in sea-crossing ships, CHAR VIII. ON THE ETHIOPIC LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR. " Nor where Abassin kings their issue guard, Mount Amara (though this by some suppos'd True Paradise) under the JEthiop line By Nilus' head, enclosed with shining rock A whole day's journey high." Paradise Lost, book iv. I. Theee are few countries of the ancient world, the history of which is shrouded in more impenetrable darkness than that of Ethiopia. The little information we possess respect- ing it tends rather to excite than to gratify curiosity, to raise doubts rather than to satisfy them, for while Herodotus represents Ethiopia as civilized by Egypt, the account of Diodorus is precisely the reverse, and he describes the former as the parent and oldest settled country, and the latter as a colony, and comparatively recent. Respecting the early history of Ethiopia, chronology affords us very little assistance, and geography opens many sources of doubt and error from the ambiguity of the name. Gush in the Hebrew Scriptures, is to the best of my recollection uni- formly rendered Ethiopia by the Septuagint, and the trans- lators of the English version, and there are certainly three countries of the name of Cush mentioned in the Old Testa- ment. Cush describes sometimes south-eastern Africa, or Abyssinia, sometimes northern Arabia, and perhaps the whole peninsula, and sometimes a country to the east of the Euphrates. Lieut. Wilford says, that in Hindu geography, Cusha Dwipa is Persia ; and the scripture Cuthah may mean the whole, or a part of that country, and a portion also of Mesopotamia. There can be no doubt, however, that when Herodotus speaks of Ethiopia in the following passage, he limits the term to the south-east of Africa. After describing Arabia, he says, Ethiopia, which is the extremity of the habitable world, is contiguous to this country on the south- F 3 70 THE ETHIOPIC LANGUAGE west. It produces gold in great quantities, elephants with their prodigious teeth, trees and shrubs of every kind, as well as ebony ; its inhabitants are also remarkable for their size, their beauty, and the length of their life. (Herodotus, lib. iii. c. 114.) II. The most important information given by Herodotus respecting the Ethiopians is to be found in connexion with his account of the Automoli. After leaving Meroe in as- cending the Nile, you next arrive at the country of the Automoli, who are also known by the name of Asmach*, says the historian. The latter word translated into Greek means those who stand on the left hand of the sovereign. The Automoli, to the number of two hundred and forty thousand individuals, were formerly Egyptian warriors, and migrated to those parts of Ethiopia in the following manner. In the reign of Psammeticus (who is said to have died B. c. 617), they were by his command stationed in different places, some for the defence of Elephantine against the Ethiopians, some at the Pelusian Daphne, some to prevent the incursions of the Arabians and Assyrians ; and to overawe Libya there was a garrison at Marea. When these Egyptians had re- mained for the space of three years in the above situation, without being relieved, they resolved, by general consent, to revolt from Psammeticus to the Ethiopians, on intelligence of which event they were immediately followed by Psamme- ticus, who on overtaking them earnestly adjured them not to desert the gods of their country, their wives, and their children. On their arrival in Ethiopia, the Automoli de- voted themselves to the service of the monarch, who in recompense for their conduct assigned them a certain dis- trict of Ethiopia, possessed by a people in rebellion against him, whom he ordered them to expel for that purpose. After the establishment of the Egyptians among them, the tincture which they imbibed of Egyptian manners had a very sensible effect in civilizing the Ethiopians. (Herodotus, lib. ii. c. 30.) * The etymology would appear to be the Arabic word Sham, the left hand, and the Persic Ak, or Aka. lord, AND GRAMMAR. VI in. On the other hand, Diodorus says, the Ethiopians affirm that the Egyptians are one of their colonies which was conducted into Egypt by Osiris. They even pretend that that country at the commencement of the world was merely a sea, but that the Nile carrying down in its annual overflowings much of the mud of Ethiopia, filled it up, and gradually converted it into a part of the continent. Indeed the mouths of the Nile exhibit a peculiarity which seems to prove that the whole of Egypt is the work of the river. After the running off of the waters, we may remark every year that the sea has driven against the shore great heaps of mud, and that the soil is augmented. They add that the Egyptians are indebted to them as their founders and ancestors for the greatest part of their laws. (Diodorus, lib. iii.) IV. As Diodorus brings the inhabitants of Egypt from Ethiopia, he supposes, as a matter of course, that the former country was indebted to the latter for its arts and knowledge of every description. From the Ethiopians, says he, they learnt to honour their kings like gods, and to bury their dead with so much pomp ; sculpture and writing also had their origin among the Ethiopians. The Egyptians make use of characters which are peculiar to their nation, but some are applied to the common purposes of life, and for this reason denominated vulgar ; the others are sacred, and understood by the priests only, who transmit the knowledge of them from father to son. The Ethiopians have also two sorts of characters, but with them they are common to everybody. These characters resemble, some, different kinds of animals ; others, the extremities of the human body ; and others again, mechanical instruments. Thus their writing is composed not of an assemblage of letters and words, but of an arrange- ment of figures, of which a long use has fixed the significa- tion in their memories. In fact, when they represent a hawk, a crocodile, a serpent, or some part of the human body, for instance an eye, a hand, a face, and such like, the hawk, by a very natural and obvious metaphor, signifies everything that is quick and sudden, because he flies more F 4 72 THE ETHIOPIC LANGUAGE swiftly than any other bird ; the crocodile denotes every sort of wickedness ; the eye marks an observer of justice, and everything that defends the body. Among other parts of the body, the right hand with the fingers extended expresses the abundance of the things necessary to life ; the left hand closed denotes economy and saving. It is nearly the same with the other parts, and with mechanical instruments. The Ethiopians investigate carefully the meaning of each of these figures, and fixing it in their memory by long application* understand at a glance what they are intended to represent. (Diodorus, lib. iii.) v. This passage appears to me to be a most important one. It is entirely in harmony with what is said by Hero- dotus on the same subject with respect to Egypt, and proves conclusively that two modes of writing, not alphabetical, existed in that country and in Ethiopia, and that they were such as are now perfectly familiar to us — the hieroglyphic proper, which consisted entirely of pictures, or representa- tions of material objects ; and the demotic, which was merely a simplified or contracted hieroglyphic, for the sake of de- spatch in the common affairs of life, but formed precisely on the same principle as the former, both being a real and not an alphabetical character, both the signs of things and not of sounds, and not one word about the Egyptian or Ethiopic alphabet being said either by Herodotus or Diodorus. The former probably, and the latter certainly, found the Greek alphabet in common use in Egypt (for with the exception of eight letters, the Coptic and Sahidic alphabet is entirely Greek, all the characters of the latter being found in it), but travellers remark and describe only that which is uncommon, and things with which they are perfectly familiar they imagine their readers must be. Where then are w T e to look for the origin of the Ethiopic and Amharic alphabets ? are they of a remote antiquity, or comparatively modern, in- vented or borrowed, indigenous or extraneous, and if the latter, from what quarter derived ? Sir William Jones says that many of the most ancient inscriptions in India exhibit a great resemblance to the writings of the Abyssinians ; this is AND GRAMMAR. 73 a point on which I cannot speak ; I can only say that I cannot trace such a degree of similarity between the Devanagari cha- racters, and the Ethiopic or Amharic, as to induce me to adopt the conclusion that all were derived from some common origin. vi. The Ethiopians have twenty-six letters, and seven vowel sounds. Also five diphthongs, the combinations of which, however, are limited to four consonants, and denoted by appropriate signs, so that all the characters of the Ethiopic language are 202, viz. 26 letters combined with seven vowels, and four letters combined with five diphthongs. Some letters differ from each other in name and figure only, and by no means in pronunciation, or, in the language of grammarians, in power, though it is possible a real difference existed between them formerly, which has disappeared with time. For instance, there are three forms of H, two of S, three of Z, two of T, two of A, three of P, and two of K. I have already remarked, that the primary division of all alphabets ought to be into letters of two classes : not vowels and consonants between which there is frequently no real dif- ference, but into such as are the signs of elementary sounds which alone are real letters, and such as are merely contrac- tions in writing, or, in other words, the signs of the preceding signs. If we leave only one form of each of the above letters which have two or three expressions, we shall have to deduct ten, which will make the Ethiopic alphabet correspond very nearly with the ancient Greek. The Greek alphabet is said to contain twenty-four letters ; but of these three are aspirates or contractions in writing, to denote the combinations of H with another letter ; three double letters, that is, contractions for two letters ; and two long vowels, that is, contractions for two short vowels. After deducting these eight, we shall find only sixteen genuine letters, or signs of simple or elementary sounds, and Homer is said to have employed no more. It cannot be by accident that so many alphabets are capable of being resolved into about sixteen letters, or signs of elemen- tary sounds ; but on the contrary a presumption is raised, that speech is natural music, with an analogy more or less perfect 74 THE ETHIOPIC LANGUAGE between the letters of the one and the notes and half notes of the other, which again have an analogy with the seven pri- mitive colours, as was first remarked, I believe, by Sir Isaac Xewton in his Optics. vii. " To the Ethiopic verb," says Ludolph, " belong qua- lity, conjugation, mode, tense, number, person, and gender." The last, as I have already remarked, is a leading charac- teristic of the Shemitic class of languages. In the Ethiopic language there are ten conjugations, dis- tinguished by their characteristic letters. In the fourth conjugation the A prefixed is causative, as in some Arabic verbs, and corresponds with the Hebrew conju- gation in Hiphil. The passive voice is formed from the active by prefixing T. Verbs have four modes — the indicative, the imperative, the subjunctive or optative, and the infinitive. They have no participle, but express it sometimes by the future, and some- times by the infinitive. Like the Hebrew, the Ethiopic has only two tenses — ■ the preterite, which is the root, and the future, which in the indi- dicative mode is also used for the present. The Ethiopic has only two numbers, singular and plural, without any dual ; and three genders, masculine, feminine, and common. Among the Ethiopians there are no compound verbs ; but the simple forms have the various significations of the Latin compounds. Adverbs are formed from nouns, by prefixing B, signifying in. viii. " In the Lexicon," says Ludolph, u we have fre- quently put a verb for the radical, although they appeared to be derived from nouns." I believe this observation might have been stated much more broadly. All verbs, and indeed all the other parts of speech, were originally simple nouns, and may be clearly proved to be so in many rude languages, espe- cially the Hebrew. The principal cause of the slow progress of philosophical grammar has been because philologists have sought for their illustrations in Greek and Latin solely, AND GRAMMAR. 75 of all other languages the most improper, as being the most polished and cultivated, or, in other words, the most artificial and the most changed from their original state. In both instances the elaborate structures have been so carefully- finished as to efface every trace of the scaffolding by means of which they were raised. ix. I shall now proceed to make some remarks on the ety- mology of a few Ethiopic words. Ethiopic Words. Analogies. Hagary, Urbs, Civitas Agar (Sanskrit), a house. Lelity, Nox Laylat (Arabic), night. Hakyly, Ager Hakl (Arabic), a field. Hatat, Quaesivit Aiteo (Greek), to seek. Mahyzany, Matrix i. e. -J tt ^ st?A- • \ \ r J J ' ^Hyzany (Ethiopia), Infans. ]STote. — Ma is found in many com- pound words both in Hebrew and Ethiopic, but never in a simple state. Myhyr, Misertus est Muhr (Persic), affection, kindness. Hear, A_.se i. e. { £$g$ &""*• Marya, Nuptiae Marry, English. Mawaz, Fructus also Arabic. , T . A f Ma (Arabic), water. Majy, Aqua | jj^ ^'^ Magabi, Pectus Qu,re{ ^J^^^ Commander {Ma (Coptic), Locus. Saryky, Ortus (Solis), Ethiopic. Mashrak (Arabic), the east. . Rasan, Ignescere Roskan (Persic), splendour. Nygusy, Rex The empire of Negus. Milton. Nagary, Sermo. Note. — This is a remarkable word as connected with some Sanskrit etymologies. Sir W. Jones says, the characters in which the languages of India were originally written are called Nagari, from Nagara, a city, with the word Deva sometimes prefixed, because they are believed to have been taught by the divinity himself, who prescribed the artificial order of them in a voice from heaven. The inscriptions at Canarah, of which you now possess a most accurate copy, seem to be compounded of Nagari (Sanskrit) and Ethiopic letters, which bear a close relation to each other, both in the mode of writing from the left hand, and in the singular manner of connecting the vowels with the consonants. (Works, vol. iii. p. 35.) If Deva-Nagari, in Sanskrit, ever really signified the language of the Gods, the second word was certainly the Ethiopic Nagary ; but if Nagari is formed from Nagara, a city, Deva may be a corruption of the Hebrew Dabar, or Davar, speech. The Sanskrit R is peculiarly liable to accidents. 76 THE ETHIOPIC LANGUAGE Ethiopic Wof^ds. Analogies. Am, Cum Ama (Greek). Amiry, Dies Emera (Greek). Arab, Occubuit. A i r\ or f Ereb (Hebrew), evening. Araby, Occasus Solis ( 3^ (Greek £ ^^ Dabela, Taurus Jeremiah, xlviii. 22. Beth-Dibla- thairu. Perhaps the house of the Bull, from being consecrated to Osiris, like Beth Meon, the house of the Sun, and Ashteroth Karnaim, the city of the horned Astarte or Isis. Daphan, Abscondit sub terrain Dafn (Arabic), burying. Bahamy, Mutus » Abham (Arabic), dumb. Derivative, Behaimah (Hebrew), a quadruped, from being dumb, in opposition to man, who possesses the power of speech, or of forming articulate sounds. Merops is frequently used by Homer in connexion with Anthropos, as peculiarly character- of the human race. Phales, or Palas, Perio-rinare, Mi- ] t,, . , c T , • grai 4 . ° mm ... \ Pola, a city of Istria. Polas inde Colchi vocarunt urbem ^vyadiov. Strabo, lib. i. Hadasy, Nova Chadashah (Hebrew). Hadasa, Esther, i. e. Nova (Sponsa), J AU >***> ******** a » d ^chylus, if p +1 •• 7 -\ Ahasuerus is Darius Hystaspes, ' i as I believe. rwi \ Wi x. Such is a short account of the Ethiopic as exhibited by Ludolph and compared with the languages of Asia. It is clearly of the family denominated by philologists Shemitic, appears to be little more than a dialect of the Hebrew, and, indeed, has so much in common with it, that in many respects it would seem to be the Hebrew itself, merely- written in another character. In fact, the term Chaldee has been applied to the Ethiopic, as we are informed on the best of all possible authorities, that of the distinguished scholar to whom we are indebted for almost all that we can be said to know of it. Ludolph says, " Cur autem hasc nostra JEthiopica lingua Chaldrea a quibusdam appellata fuerit, nee Ethiops mens dicere poterat, nee ego conjicere possum." (Lexicon, p. 292.) The coincidences between the Hebrew and Ethiopic are so close and numerous, that if our account of the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt were one jot less au- thentic than it is, we should be tempted to look for the land of Goshen, not in the north of Egypt, but in the extreme TVila (Persic), time. Waal, diem transegit «{ Wilah, or Vilah (Sanskrit), time While (English). AND GEAMMAR. 77 south, in Ethiopia ; and to conjecture that the Jews crossed the Red Sea from necessity, because they were at such an enormous distance from the Isthmus of Suez, while, situated as we understand they were, it appears to have been a matter of choice, for which it is difficult to account. The value of the Ethiopic version, like that of others, must depend on the antiquity and correctness of the Greek MSS-, from which it was made, and the degree of talent and fidelity with which it was executed ; but with respect to the language itself, I can give a positive opinion that there is little curious about it, and that it cannot be expected to throw much light on the origin of Sanskrit and the other languages and dialects of India, though some characters and words appear to have been common to Ethiopia and Hindustan at a remote period, and I would recommend no scholar to learn Ethiopic, with the hope of advancing the cause of knowledge, or immortalizing himself by unfolding the Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin of the long-buried inscriptions of Canara or Ellora. 78 CHAP. IX. ON THE ASSYRIAN LANGUAGE OR THE EASTERN AND WESTERN ARAMEAN. " Here Nineveh of length within her wall Several days' journey, built by .Ninus old, Of that first golden monarchy the seat, And seat of Salmanassar, whose success Israel in long captivity still mourns ; There Babylon the wonder of all tongues, As ancient, but rebuilt by him who twice Judah and all thy father David's house Led captive, and Jerusalem laid waste Till Cyrus set them free." Paradise Regained, book iii. I. Of the language of Assyria, as distinct from Syriac and Chaldee, we cannot be said to know any thing. The Greek writers make no distinction between Assyria and Syria, and in the Old Testament (2 Kings, xviii. 26.) Syriac is spoken of as the native tongue of Rabshakeh, the general of Senna- cherib, and in Daniel, ii. 4., the Chaldeans, or Magi of Babylon, are described as addressing Nebuchadnezzar in Syriac. The Shemitic, in some form or other, seems to have been spoken in Western Asia from the earliest ages, certainly from the Tigris, perhaps from the Indus, to the Mediterranean, and from the shores of the Pacific to the great mountain chain of Taurus; for the Pehlvi, or ancient language of Persia, from the little we know of it, appears to have more analogy with the Chaldee than any other language we are acquainted with. ii. Adelung gives the following words as specimens of the Syriac, Assyrian, Chaldee, and Samaritan. 1. Syriac, - — Shemaio, heaven, — Aro, and Areto, earth. 2. Assyrian, — Simmi, heaven, — Dinii, earth. 3. Chaldee, — Shemaia, heaven, — Ara, and Arga, earth. 4. Samaritan, — Samia, heaven, — Aroa, earth. (Sup. Ency. Brit. art. Language.) THE ASSYRIAN LANGUAGE. 79 The Chalclee and Syriac are so much alike, that they appear to be almost the same language written in different characters. The names of the numerals in both languages are almost exactly alike as to letters, and vary only in the vowel points. The learned translator of Michaelis says he has been able to discover very little difference between the Syriac and the Chalclee. We possess numerous works in both languages, of which the most interesting and important are two translations of the New Testament in Syriac. The oldest, which is by some supposed to have been made in the first century of the Christian era, is denominated the Peshito, or literal, though Michaelis says it is far from being so literal as the more recent version. He describes it as follows: — u The Peshito is the very best translation of the Greek Testament that I have ever read; that of Luther, though in some respects inferior to his translation of the Old Testament, holding the second rank. Of all the Syriac authors with which I am acquainted, not excepting Ephrem and Bar Hebrseus, its language is the most elegant and pure, not loaded with foreign words, like the Philoxenian version and other later writings, and discovers the hand of a master in rendering those passages where the two idioms deviate from each other. It has no marks of the stiffness of a translation, but is written with the ease and fluency of an original ; and this excellence of style must be ascribed to its antiquity, and to its being written in a city that was the residence of Syrian kings." (Marsh's Michaelis, ii. 40.) in. The Philoxenian, or new Syriac version derives its name from Philoxenus, otherwise Xenayas, Bishop of Hiera- polis, or Mabug, from the year 488 to 518, an account of whose life and writings may be seen in Asseman. But Philoxenus was only the patron of the work, and not the translator, the task being executed by Polycarp, his rural bishop, in the year 508. Michaelis characterizes it as under — " The intrinsic worth of the Philoxenian version admits of no comparison with that of the Peshito ; the style is much inferior and more difficult to be understood, the version is less accurate, and the translator was less acquainted with 80 THE ASSYRIAN LANGUAGE. the Greek ; it is neither so valuable to a divine for the pur- pose of instruction in the Christian religion, nor to the learned expositor as a means of explaining difficult and doubtful passages. But the version is not devoid of value, and is of real importance to a critic, whose object is to select a variety of readings, with a view of restoring the genuine text of the Greek original, for he may be assured that every phrase and expression is a precise copy of the Greek text, as it stood in the manuscript from which the version was made. But as it is not prior to the sixth century, and the Peshito was written at the end of the first, or the beginning of the second century, it is of less importance to know the readings of the Greek manuscript that was used in the former, than those of the original employed in the latter." (Marsh's Michaelis, vol. ii. p. 67.) iv. If I were required to produce an Assyrian word, and at the same time positively to affirm that it is neither Chaldee nor Syriac, I should be considerably puzzled. The nearest approximation I can make to it, is by noticing a highly curious passage Avhich occurs, 2 Kings, xviii. 17. When Sennacherib the king of Assyria invaded Judaea in the fourteenth year of the reign of Hezekiah, he besieged Lachish in person, and sent some of his officers against Jerusalem, " and the king of Assyria sent Tartan, and Bab- saris, and Babshakeh, from Lachish to king Hezekiah with a great host against Jerusalem." Now these are not personal names, but the names of offices, and we find one of them occurring again in Jeremiah, xxxix. 3., Bab-saris together with Bab-mag. The signification of Bab -saris is great, or chief eunuch ; of Bab-shakeh, great, or chief elder ; and of Bab-mag, great, or chief Magian. In Daniel, i. 3., Bab Has- sarisim is translated master of the eunuchs, and in verse 7. of the same chapter we find the nearly equivalent expression Sar Hassarisim, prince of the eunuchs ; and in Jeremiah, xxxix. 3., Bab-mag is rendered in Gibbs's Gesenius the chief Magian. Judging from analogy, there can be little doubt that the name of Tartan is significant, and I believe it to be formed from the two Persic words Tar, dark or black, and Tan, body or person, THE ASSYRIAN LANGUAGE. 81 and have little doubt that Tartan was chief of the black eunuchs, a personage of great importance to this day in the seraglios of Teheran and Constantinople, as Rab-saris was of the white eunuchs. The only Syriac word I can find for eunuch in SchafFs Lexicon, is Mahimno fidelis, which is clearly not literal, no more than Soricho, which I observe in Gibbs's Gesenius, and which evidently means no more than overseer. Saris appears to be primarily an Arabic word, and is found as such in Richardson's Dictionary, as also is Sheik, with the meaning of elder and chief. Mag is Persic, and signifies fire-worshipper, from which the Greeks, by adding a termination of their own, formed Magus. From this single specimen the language spoken in Assyria, at that period, would appear to have been a very mixed one. In the same chapter of Kings (xviii. 26.) we find Rab-shakeh addressing the Jews on the walls of Jerusalem in Hebrew, while the elders desire him to speak in the Syrian language, as they understand it. But the common Jews did not understand it, so that there must have been an essential difference between the Syriac (Chaldee) and the Hebrew be- fore the Babylonish captivity. After that event the Hebrew ceased to be a spoken language, and parts of the books of Daniel and Ezra are written in Chaldee, which the Jews are inferred to have acquired on the other side of the Euphrates, and at the period of the appearance of Jesus of Nazareth, the Syriac of the Peshito, or old version, is supposed to have been the common language of Palestine. v. We cannot be said to know any language which we have reason to regard as peculiar to ancient Assyria except the Chaldee, and in his grammars of that tongue, the Syriac, and the Samaritan, Masclef says, that in the gender and number of nouns, and the modes, tenses, and conjugations of verbs, they do not differ in any essential respect from the Hebrew. 82 CHAP. X. ON THE PHOENICIAN AND PUNIC LANGUAGES. " Urbs antiqua fuit, Tyrii tenuere coloni, Carthago, Italiam contra, Tiberinaque longe Ostia, dives opum, studiisque asperrima belli; Quam Juno fertur terris magis omnibus unam Posthabita coluisse Samo. .... Dux foemina facti. Devenere locos, ubi nunc ingentia cernes Moenia, surgentemque novae Carthaginis arcem : Mercatique solum, facti de nomine Byrsam, Taurino quantum possent circumdare tergo." Virg. JEneid. i. 12—16. 365—369. I. Though the Phoenicians have acted so conspicuous a part in the history of the world, traded with every region of the globe, founded important colonies in several, enlarged the boundaries of our geographical knowledge, and taken the lead in fitting out expeditions for the purpose of maritime discovery, it is astonishing how very little we really know of their origin, advancement, language, literature, arts, or sciences. II. Herodotus says that the Phoenicians, by their own account, once inhabited the coasts of the Red Sea; but migrated thence to the maritime parts of Syria, all w T hich district, as far as Egypt, is denominated Palestine (lib. vii. c. 89.). We should have been indebted to the father of history if he had been more communicative on this point ; but, perhaps, he did not possess the means of being so. The first question that arises, however, is, Did the Phoenicians who migrated into Palestine confer that name on it ? The etymology appears to be Pali (Sanskrit), a shepherd*, and * Genesis, xlvii. 3. " And Pharaoh said unto his brethren, What is your occupation ? And they said unto Pharaoh, Thy servants are shepherds, both we, and also our fathers." ON THE PHOENICIAN AND PUNIC LANGUAGES. 83 Stana (Sanskrit), a place* ; and if this be admitted, it can hardly be denied, that the Philistines of the Old Testament and the Phoenicians were the same people. We shall now feel disposed to take Herodotus's expression, " coasts of the Red Sea," in the most comprehensive sense; and we know that the Greek and Roman geographers comprised under that term the Persian Gulf, as well as what we now under- stand by the Red Sea. With this extension of the meaning of the word, there is no difficulty in accounting for terms of Persic or Indian etymology. in. That part of the prophecies of Isaiah, which describes the fate of Tyre (chap, xxiii. 13.), contains a passage which is deserving of very particular attention — "Behold the land of the Chaldeans: this people (Tyre) was not, till the Assyrians founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness: they (the Assyrians) set up the towers thereof, they raised up the pa- laces thereof; and he (the Lord) brought it to ruin." This account is substantially the same as that of Herodotus, and it is important in no common degree, because if Tyre was an Assyrian colony, the basis of their language must have been essentially Chaldee, as well as that of their descendant Carthage, with, perhaps, a strong infusion of Persic and Sanskrit words derived from the extreme east of Assyria. The motives which may have induced the Assyrian monarchs to establish such a settlement as Tyre are obvious enough. The commodities of India, after being conveyed up the Tigris and Euphrates, may have found their way to Tyre through the central station of Palmyra, and the produce of Europe and the coasts of the Mediterranean may have been transported to Babylon through the same channel. iy. One objection to this view of the origin of Tyre arises from the very remote antiquity which Herodotus ascribes to that city. He says it was founded two thousand three hundred years before his own time ; a period which, if not * Richardson, in his Persic Dictionary, says, " Stan is a termination much used in the names of countries and places, both in Persia and India ; and seems of Sanskrit origin, in which language it signifies a place or station." G 2 84 ON THE PHOENICIAN altogether fabulous, is at least long prior to the existence of anything like authentic and credible history. Diodorus, how- ever, in connexion with the chronology of Egypt informs us, that in the early periods of their history, they were supposed to have confounded revolutions of the moon and the sun, or months and years ; an error which appears to have pervaded every part of ancient history, and enables us in many instances to correct its extravagancies ; and if we apply this test to the foundation of Tyre, and divide the two thou- sand three hundred by twelve, we shall obtain a result which will bring that event within the historical period of the Assyrian Empire, which Sir Isaac Newton declared himself unable to carry farther back than about eight hun- dred years before the Christian era. v. Lanzi, in his Essay on Etruria, says, that the cogni- zance, or armorial bearing, of the Phoenicians was a palm tree (torn. ii. p< 58.). Did they take this cognizance because the palm tree (<3>otVif) was peculiar to, or at any rate the produce of, their country ; or because Edom in Hebrew and Phoenix in Greek signifies red ; because they were Idumeans as described by Herodotus, and because the palm was a type or play on their name? In Hebrew, Shittim signifies cedars; and Shit, an oar, probably from being made of that wood. In Micah, vi. 5., Balaam is said to have answered Balak from Shittim unto Gilgal. Gilgal was on the borders of Moab ; and was Shittim Phoenicia, or the land of cedars? If we suppose the word ever to have been written with the Persic Chim (ch) which is soft, by a change of the diacritical points, it would become hard, and be converted into Chittim, or Kittim. In Genesis, x. 4, 5., we read, "And the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands : every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations." The Septuagint, in many passages, have rendered Tarshish by Karkedon, Carthage ; and in the above, instead of Dodanim, they read Bodioi, Bhodians ; and if Shittim, or Kittim, signified Phoe- nicians, we shall have the names of three of the most enter- AND PUNIC LANGUAGES. 85 prising commercial people of antiquity. The Hebrew letters Daleth and Raish (cl and r) are easily mistaken for each other, as I have already remarked ; and the Septuagint have so mistaken them by reading Rodioi for Dodanim ; and by a similar mistake in the second Daleth of Dodanim, we should have a reading of Doranim, Dorians. The oldest forms of Delta and Rho in Greek are also very easily mistaken. VI. While, on the authority of the Greek authors, we are accustomed to ascribe the invention of alphabetical characters to the Phoenicians, and their introduction into Greece to Cadmus, we are without any very precise information as to the form or number of those letters. The letters of the Sa- maritan alphabet, in which the Pentateuch in that language is commonly printed, are generally denominated Phoenician, though on what authority it is not very easy to say, as many of the medals ascribed to the Tyrians and Carthaginians have legends in Hebrew or Chaldee characters (vide Gibbs's Gesenius, in voce Canaan). The most convincing argument to my own mind is, that there is a pretty close general agreement between the Phoenician, Punic, and Siculo-Punic alphabet published in Dutens' Medals, and the Samaritan alphabet, as given in Masclef's grammar. Herodotus is, perhaps, our best authority, and what he says on the subject is far from being conclusive. He informs us that the Phoe- nicians who came with Cadmus, and of whom the Gephy- reans formed a part, introduced during their residence in Greece various articles of science, and among other things, letters, with which the historian conceives the Greeks were previously unacquainted. They were at first such as the Phoenicians themselves used, but which, in process of time, underwent changes both in sound and form. At that time the Greeks most contiguous to this people were the lonians (of Asia Minor), who learned these letters of the Phoenicians, and with some trifling variations, received them into common use. As the Phoenicians first made them known in Greece, the Greeks, as justice demanded, denominated them Phoe- nician letters. I myself have seen, says the historian, in the temple of the Ismenian Apollo at Thebes of Boeotia these G 3 86 ON THE PHOENICIAN Cadmean letters inscribed on some tripods, and having a near resemblance to those used by the Ionians (Herodotus, lib. v. cc. 58, 59.). vu. On the same subject Diodorus has the following ob- servations : — Cadmus made presents to the Lindian Mi- nerva at Rhodes, among which is a superb caldron of gold, of an ancient form. On it is seen an inscription in those original Phoenician characters, which are said to have been brought from Phoenicia into Greece. With regard to those who say that the Syrians are the inventors of letters, which they communicated to the Phoenicians, which the latter brought into Greece when they followed Cadmus in his passage into Europe, and which for that reason were de- nominated Phoenician, we reply to them, that the Syrians were not really the inventors of letters, and that even the term Phoenician, which the Greeks applied to letters, was not because the Phoenicians invented them, but rather because they substituted for their ancient form, another form which has been more generally adopted. viii. On an attentive review of the whole of the evidence I have been able to collect on the subject, I cannot discover a single definite and well-authenticated fact, tending to confer on the Phoenicians the honour of being the inventors of alphabetical characters. Cadmus is a mere creation of mythology, resolvable into the Hebrew word Kedem, the east, and Phoenician is used by Greek authors so loosely, as to be almost equivalent to Oriental ; and while there can be no doubt that the Greek alphabet generally was borrowed from Asia, it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to assign particular letters to any particular Asiatic people. That several letters of the Egyptian, Hebrew, Phoenician, and Shemitic lan- guages generally, owed their origin to the real characters of China, appears to me to be proved beyond the possibility of doubt, as the letters agree with the Chinese in name, form, and power. , We have just seen that Herodotus describes the characters of the Boeotian inscriptions, as being like the Ionic letters of his own time ; a circumstance extremely unfavour- able to their genuineness and remote, antiquity, and con- AND PUNIC LANGUAGES. 87 elusive against their being of the age of Cadmus. It is quite clear that the Ionians of Asia Minor could not have been in a situation to borrow letters from the Phoenicians, until they became their neighbours, a circumstance which did not happen until Ionia was colonized from Greece, in the year B. c. 1044, nearly 450 years after the pretended -arrival of Cadmus in Greece, and from Asia Minor we derive that inscription, the Sigsean, which is generally regarded as the oldest in existence, and beyond which we cannot argue from experience as to the forms of the Greek letters. ^< ix. Whatever we may think of the entertaining story by which the Greek and Roman writers endeavour to account for the Carthaginian word Byrsa, the term is a perfectly genuine one, and we are informed by Strabo, that the citadel, or Acropolis, continued to bear that name in his time (Lib. xvii). The Tyrian colonists, whether conducted by Dido or not, arrived on the coast of Africa, and requested of the natives, not, I imagine, as is related by the Greek historians who understood no language but their own, as much ground as they could inclose with a bull's hide (Bursa, Greek), but sufficient ground to erect a fortification, Burj (Arabic) or Bariz (Arabic), that which is stretched out or ex- tended, or Barsa (Persic), that which is done in haste, perhaps a breast- work or field-work. The request, I have no doubt, was made in that singular spirit of moderation, which has almost invariably marked all the transactions of civilized with savage nations ; they merely desired sufficient ground to con- struct a fortress, that was their only wish, and well it might be, for that being complied with, the next assumed the shape of a positive command. The Greek story says that they bargained for as much ground as they could cover with a bull's hide, and then proceeded to inclose as much as they could circumscribe with the narrowest strips or thongs, and this is probably very true, or at any rate an excellent spe- cimen of the spirit in which such negotiations have been conducted by almost all colonists, except the humane and honest William Penn ; but we may rest assured, that it was not the first step, but the second ; and that this earliest G 4 88 ON THE PHOENICIAN exhibition on record of Punica Fides, was not made until the citadel was completely finished, and all the resources of force were at hand to defend and execute the contrivances of fraud. x. All that can be said on the subject of the language and literature of Carthage, will occupy a very limited space. It would be more easy to fill a volume with what we conjecture, than a page with what we know. There appear to be his- torical grounds for admitting that Carthage was a Phoenician colony ; but the obscurity which we have to encounter with respect to the language of the mother country, still pursues us in any inquiry we undertake into that of the descendant. We have strong reasons for believing, that the Punic lan- guage was a branch of the Shemitic ; but to what dialect of that extensive family it approximated most closely we cannot say, and it may be doubted if there are sufficient materials in existence for determining. Its remains are both scanty and dubious ; and with respect to the little we can be said to possess, there are two sources of uncertainty which it is ex- tremely difficult to get over, and which apply equally to the Phoenician. The roots in most of the Shemitic lanormores are the same, and the termination must decide whether any particular word is to be regarded as Arabic, Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, or Samaritan. Our knowledge of the few Phoenician and Punic words we possess, is derived from the Greeks and Romans, who have altered them in two ways, first by the addition of their own terminations, and second^ by inserting the vowels agreeably to the genius of their respective lan- guages, so that it is hardly possible we should ever determine with any tolerable certainty which of the known dialects of the Shemitic, the Phoenician and Punic most closely re- sembled. Philologists have not been able to settle the etymology of the name of Carthage itself, to their entire satisfaction ; some suggest Kir (Hebrew), city ; and Hadath, or Cbadath (Chaldee), new ; which is very little like the Latin Carthago, and very near to the Greek Karchedon, if w^e could account for the change of the final th of the Chaldee word, into the n of the Greek. I believe Carthage to be AND PUNIC LANGUAGES. 89 simply the Hebrew Kirjath, city, with the second syllable transposed, or reversed, thaj, and I am confirmed in this opinion by the etymology of Carthagena. It is more certain that the Carthaginians founded Carthagena, than that the Phoenicians founded Carthage, and we are quite sure that Carthagena meant New Carthage*, as it is so explained both by Polybius and Livy. The termination Na, then, is the Persic Nu or Nou, new ; and Carthage, the Hebrew Kir- jath, with the second syllable transposed — Carthage, the city emphatically, or the metropolis ; Carthagena or Carthage, No or Nu, the New City founded in Spain by Asdrubal. XI. Kirchaclashah. In Dutens' Medals, Plate ii. No. 8., is one which he assigns either to Palermo or Carthage, with a legend in Phoenician or Samaritan characters, which he does not attempt to decipher, but which appears to me to prove conclusively that the medal ought to be assigned neither to Palermo nor Carthage, but to Carthagena or the New City. n Kappa (K), Ancient Greek, Dutens ; and no doubt Phoenician also. p Rho (R) „ „ „ Heth (CH) Phoenician, Dutens. Q Daleth (D) W Schin(SH) „ 8 He (H) By reading the above letters from right to left we have the two Hebrew words, Kir city, and Chadashah, new. Hanno. This proper name is generally referred to the Hebrew Chain, grace, favour, the word Baal, Lord, being understood. The Carthaginians appear to have written the word with Hay (h), the Hebrews with the stronger aspirate Heth (Ch). The Syriac form of the word, however, Chanono, * The Greeks appear to have denominated Carthage, Karchedon (Kapxr)do>> ), i.e. New City, with reference to Tyre, the metropolis, or mother city, and the Carthaginians themselves to have named Carthagena with reference to Carthage. " Etiam altera Carthagine, quae Nova appel- lata est," in sinu maris juxta portum amplissimum, et satis conmiodum, condita. (Frainshem. Sup. ad Liv. Hist. lib. xx. c. 21.) 90 ON THE PHOENICIAN AND PUNIC LANGUAGES. approximates most closely to the Punic. Reading the Ch as H, and omitting the first O, it becomes Hanno, as written by the Romans. Hannibal is evidently the same word with the addition of the Hebrew Baal, Lord, a name of the sun, and identical with Hercules, the tutelary god both of Tyre and Carthage. Hasdrubal appears to be the Hebrew Chesed, grace, favour, but with a mixture of Persic, the Ru being probably the Persic Ra, the mark of the oblique case, with Baal (Hebrew), as in the preceding words, which we ought to translate the sun. Adherbal. I should say certainly the Persic Azar, fire, the second letter being converted into d, by dropping the dia- critical point. Azar in Persic also signifies the god of the worshippers of fire, the sun. Adherbal is nearly synony- mous with Adrammelek, mentioned 2 Kings xvii. 31., the first word signifying Lord of Fire, and the second King of Fire, and both being names of the sun. Maharbal. Here again I should say that the first word is certainly Persic, Mihr, love, and the signification of the whole name, the love or favour of Baal, or the sun. Not a single work in the Punic language has come down to us. Mago, a Carthaginian general, is said to have written a voluminous treatise on husbandry, which the Romans caused to be translated ; but the translation has shared the fate of the original. Of the Periplus of Hanno, which was translated into Greek, we possess some consider- able fragments. 91 CHAP. XL ON THE ARABIC LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR, " As when to them who sail Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow Sabean odour from the spicy shore Of Araby the Blest; with such delay Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league Cheer'd with the grateful smell, Old Ocean smiles." Paradise Lost, book iv. I. It is difficult to conceive that the Arabic language was originally written with the number of letters it now contains, simply from the circumstance that the characters of the alphabet having been primarily the signs or representatives of the elementary sounds of the human voice, and those simple sounds not exceeding about sixteen in what is regarded as the primitive Greek alphabet, a greater number of characters would have been superfluous ; consequently all above that number are not distinct letters, but merely various forms of the same letter, or mere contractions for the sake of dispatch in writing ; that is to say, double or treble letters. The analogy is so close between the Arabic and the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, and Samaritan, that there is a high degree of probability that the alphabet of the former originally corresponded with those of the latter. (Erpenius, cura Schultens, p. 323.) II. Sir William Jones says, " Of the characters in which the old compositions in Arabic were written we know but little, except that the Koran originally appeared in those of Cufah, from which the modern Arabian letters with all their elegant variations were derived ; and which, unquestionably, had a common origin with the Hebrew or Chaldaic : but as to the Himyarick letters, or those which we see mentioned 92 THE ARABIC LANGUAGE by the name of Almusnad, we are still in total darkness, the traveller Mebuhr having been unfortunately prevented from visiting some ancient monuments in Yemen, which are said to have inscriptions on them." (Works, vol. iii. p. 55.) The Arabic alphabet at present used consists of twenty- eight letters ; but as each of these letters has three forms according as it is initial, medial, or final, it may be said to contain eighty-four characters, besides the three vowel points, Fatha, Kesra, and Damma. in. Nouns are of two genders, masculine and feminine. The names of women, of cities, and of regions are feminine, in this respect agreeing with the Latin. Nouns in Arabic have three numbers, singular, dual, and plural ; and three cases, nominative, genitive, and accusative. iv. The verb, says Savary in his Arabic Grammar, is the word, emphatically and par excellence ; and as it is the soul of discourse, expresses all the actions which creatures ex- ercise on each other, and describes all the feelings of the human heart. In proportion as the composition of the verb is more or less perfect, the brevity and energy of language will be greater or less ; and the Arabs who, for many ages, have taken much pains to polish their language, have suc- ceeded in giving to this part of speech an astonishing degree of perfection. Without the help of prepositions and adverbs, which the poverty of the languages of modern Europe has pressed into the service of the verb, the Arabs have paid so much attention to its formation, that by the aid of some characteristic letters they are able to render with precision the finest shades of our sensations, and to follow the widest excursions of thought. The following instances may be cited in support of this assertion : — v. The French have only the verb Aimer to express love, while that passion has innumerable degrees of strength, and is more or less tender or ardent, timid or violent, according to the nature of the soul in which it inheres. To express these various degrees the European languages are constrained to make use of adverbs, such as More, Most, Tenderly, Pas- sionately, which at once encumber and weaken speech. The Arabs have recourse to other expedients, employing the AND GRAMMAR. 93 verb Ahobb, I love, to express love simply: and Achak, he has burned with love, to paint the excess of that passion. And by the aid of characteristic letters they are enabled to render verbs reciprocal or reflective, or to extend their signification at pleasure. By adding Elif (a) to the commencement of the root we shall have Aachak, he has caused to burn with love. By prefixing Te (t) to the first radical letter, and adding Elif (a) after it, we shall have Taachek, they have burned with love one for the other. By prefixing the three letters Ast to the root, we have Estachak, he has desired that they should burn in love for him. A glance is sufficient to convince us how much energy and precision may be given to language by the use of these simple means, which enable us to dispense with the periphrases and circumlocutions of modern tongues. By studying Arabic we cannot fail to perceive how feeble and poor the French, though the predominant language of Europe, is, as compared with it, the only really ancient language which can be said not to be extinct, as it has always been spoken by a proud people who have never bowed their necks beneath the yoke of servitude. (Grani- maire Arabe par Savary (Langles), pp. 26, 27, 28.) vi. The simple regular verb, the root of which consists of three letters, is divided into six conjugations, besides which there are thirteen of compounds which add one, two, or three letters to the root, and give it a sense, transitive, intransitive, neuter, common, and reciprocal. (Savary, pp. 30 — 33.) The passive voice differs from the active in the vowel points only, the radical letters being the same in both, and as these are rarely written in Arabic, except in the Koran, and in poetical compositions, the two voices must be inferred from that which precedes and follows. (Savary, p. 65.) vn. Though Albert Schultens, the editor and commen- tator on Erpenius, has pointed out, at considerable length, many close analogies between the Arabic and the Hebrew, I do not remember that he has noticed in the former lan- guage a causative form corresponding with the Hebrew verb in Hiphil, and yet there can be no doubt that it abounds in the language, and nothing is less equivocal than its nature. Savary has pointed out its existence, though not in the mode 94 THE ARABIC LANGUAGE in which I have remarked it. In his account of the conju- gation of the irregular verb Rai, he saw, he says, that by compounding it, by prefixing Elif (a) Arai, it signifies he showed. Now, it is quite obvious in this case, and probably many others, that the Arabic Elif (a) has precisely the power of the Hebrew Hay (h). In the latter language we have Raah, he saw. Hirah, he showed, i. e. he caused to see. Arabic — Rai, he saw. Arai, he showed, i. e. he caused to see. (Savary, p. 199.) viii. Bat I wish to direct the attention of my reader to that very large class of words in the Arabic Lexicon, which are converted into causatives, with the powder of the Hebrew verb in Hiphil by prefixing Ta (t) to the first, and inter- posing le (i) between the second and third radical letters. Takhlif, appointing a substitute, i. e. to cause to succeed. Root, Khalf, a successor. Tadaklikkul, being introduced. Root, Dakhl, entering. Note. — ■ Though the I is omitted, I have no doubt of the origin of the word. Tazhib, gilding. Root, Zahab, gold. Tarkim, writing. Root, Rakm, a letter. Tasmia, ordering one to listen. Root, Sama, hearing ; Hebrew, Shama, to hear, in Hiphil Hiskmia, to cause to hear ; the Arabic Ti causative, corresponding to the Hebrew Hi. Tashrib, giving to drink. Root, Shurb, drink. Tashmir, diligence, care. Root, Shamar (Hebrew), to keep watch, guard, with T causative before the first, and I interposed between the second and third radical, to cause to guard. Tashmis, exposing to the sun. Root, Shems, the sun. Tasdik, confirming. Root, Sidk, truth, i. e. to cause or prove to be truth, cognate with the Hebrew Tsedek, truth. Tasaid, raising up. Root, Saad, high. Xasghir, diminution. Root, Saghar, small. Tasfir, making pale. Root, Safar. Taslib, crucifying. Root, Salb. Tazmir, making lean. Root, Zamr. Tataim, giving to taste. Root, Taam. Tazfir, making one to conquer. Root, Zafar, victory. Taabid, reducing to slavery. Root, Aabd, a slave. Taatim, delaying. Root, Aatm, slow. Taadid, causing to be numbered. Root, Add, number. Taadil, rectifying, adjusting. Root, Aadal, justice. AND GRAMMAR. 95 Taarif, explanation. Root, Aurf, knowledge. Taghmid, concealing. Root Ghimd, a sheath, i. e. to cause to cover. Taf'rih, rejoicing. Root, Farah, gladness. Tafhim, teaching, instructing. Root, Fahm, understanding. Takbir, causing to bury. Root, Kabr, a tomb ; Hebrew, Keber, a grave ; i Kabar, to bury. Takrib, approaching. Root, Kurb, approach. Talbis, covering, clothing. Root, Libs, a garment. Talsin, teaching. Root, Lisan, the tongue, i. e. to cause to repeat. Talmiz, or Talmid, a scholar. Root, Lamad (Hebrew), to learn, in Hiphil, Hilmid, he caused to learn, i. e. he taught, the Arabic Ti causa- tive having the force of the Hebrew Hi. Tanzil, revelation from heaven, the Alcoran. Root, Nazi, descending. Tanzil, that which divine knowledge causes to descend from heaven. Note. — The Hebrew verb Nazal, to run, to flow, appears in some instances to have the signification to descend. Tawfid, sending. Root, Wafd, coming, i. e. to cause to come. Tawlid, procreating. Root, Walad, a son, offspring ; Hebrew, Yalad, to bring forth, in Hiphil, Holid, the Arabic Ti causative corresponding with the Hebrew Hi. Tawin, despising, slighting. Root, Hawn, contempt. Tahlil, praising God, timid, pusillanimous. Note. — For the root of the word in the first sense see the Hebrew verb Halal in Piel, to praise, and in the second the Arabic Halal, timid, pusillanimous — Tahlil, to cause to be timid, We may account for the origin of these words in two very probable ways. First, by supposing that the Hebrew letter Hay, the prefix to the verbs in Hiphil, was in various instances read as Tav, by gaining a superfluous point at the bottom. Should any one object to this, my answer is that Hay and Tav have actually been misread, substituted for each other, and printed by the translators of the English Bible ; for in 2 Samuel, xxiii. 8., we read " The Tachmonite, chief among the captains," and in 1 Chronicles, xi. 11. "An Hachmonite, the chief of the captains." Hay, by gaining a superfluous point at the bottom, becomes Tav, and at the same time a Hebrew causa- tive verb is converted into an Arabic one, and Tav by losing its bottom point becomes Hay ; and at the same time an Arabic causative verb is converted into a Hebrew one, in both instances with the same signification. Secondly, by supposing that the Arabic letter He *, the * The numerical value of this letter is five, which is precisely that of Hay in the Hebrew. There can be little doubt, therefore, that in the 96 THE ARABIC LANGUAGE twenty-seventh of the alphabet, was at an early period con- founded with Ha, the sixth of the alphabet. The former by the addition of two diacritical points becomes T, or Hebrew words are converted into Arabic. By losing the diacritical points, T becomes H, or Arabic w T ords are reconverted into Hebrew. In many instances large classes of words have been created by misreading early manuscripts, and alphabeti- cal writing, instead of preventing, has been an active cause in increasing the diversity of language, so that in this case the very reverse of the maxim of Horace is true : — " Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures Quani quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus." Hokat. Be Arte Poetica, 180. In every thing connected with language, I believe the eye lias been more frequently deceived than the ear, and that written languages are most, and unwritten least changed. I shall now proceed to give a list of those Arabic words which I have remarked as containing curious etymologies, or exhibiting analogies with, and illustrating the formation of, other languages. Arabic Words. Analogies. Abati, poetically for Abat, my father .Abbot, the superior of a monastery. Ab-.d, sempiternal, durable Abide, English. Aaj am, a Persian Ogham, ancient Irish writing. Sir William Jones says it has been observed that the writing at Persepolis bears a strong resemblance to that which the Irish call Ogham. Isak, binding, constraining Is not this a more probable etymology of the name of the patriarch Isaac than that usually given, in the sense of covenant? Genesis, xvii. 19. j Bursa, the c'tadel of Carthage. _, . ,, , o . -n J Birs iSTimrod, at Babvlon. Bur,, a castle, tower, fortress, wall A ^^ ^ [Borough, English. Tarik, leaving, deserting By some supposed to be the origin of the name of the Turks in the sense of emigrants from Tartary. Samsam, a destroyer The name of the sword of the Ca- liph Haroun al Rashid. (Gibbon, vol. x. p. 54.) arrangement of the old Arabic alphabet, it occupied the fifth place ; a cir- cumstance which gives additional probability to the opinion of Albert Schultens, who says, " Probe est tenendum antiquissimas Arabum literas aliam faciem obtinuisse ; atque turn numero, turn ordine, alphabeto Hebraico examussim respondisse." AND GRAMMAR. 97 Arabic Words. Analogies. Samrat, one fruit The Arabic final T, as the mark of individuality, appears to be perfectly identical with the Persic I. See Jones's Grammar, pages 205 and 335. Perhaps there was a period when the two letters were precisely the same in both lan- guages, a change having gradually taken place in the diacritical points which distinguish I and T. Jadib, a liar This is very like the Hebrew Chazab, with a change of the diacritical points. Jahjah, a prince, a chief. Has this word any connection with the Hebrew Jehovah which is sometimes written Jah, as a con- traction ? Julus, tile accession to the throne.... This appears to be the etymology of lulus, the second name of Ascanius the son and successor of iEneas, and equivalent to heir apparent. Jihun, Persic and Arabic The river Gihon or Bactrus, remark- able for being mentioned as one of the rivers of Paradise. Khulus, purity, sincerity Kalos (Greek), good. Dall, looking amorously to dally, English. Dawn or Dun, inferior Down, English. Dahmat, blackness Dimmet (Provincial English), twi- light. Rumman, the pomegranate Rummanat, one pomegranate. In Hebrew, Rimmon, which is also the name of a celebrated god of Syria. If Iacchus, one of the names of Bacchus, be derived, as I conjecture, from the Persic Tak, a vine, by a change of the diacritical points, which converts it into Iak, Rimmon may be the Oriental Bacchus, or the sun ; the vine and the pomegranate, " the efforts of his power," being put in both instances for the sun itself. Or Rimmon, the pomegranate, may have been sacred to the god Rimmon, simply from homonymy, or similarity of name, which I believe will be found to have been the principal source of all such consecrations. Rawd, going in quest of forage and \ This seems to be the origin of the water J Scottish word Raid, a predatory border incursion The word road occurs once in the English Bible for inroad. 1. Sam. xxvii. 10. Zibal, filth In the Arabic Testament we have Baalzebul, instead of Beelzebub, i. e. the lord of unclean spirits. In Hebrew the latter word signifies god of flies. Sibil, necessity, and perhaps fate Quaere, the Roman Sibyl. Sijjil, hard stones Sigillum (Latin), a seal. Sidn, the awning of a camel's litter.. .Sedan, English. Saraj, the sun Surya, Sanskrit. Sard, sewing, with the Coptic verb f Sartor (Latin), a tailor. Er, esse, facere. \ Sartore, Italian. Sunnat, institution, law (Senatus (Latin), the assembly which L made laws. Sharif, noble Sheriff, English. H Sakaa, the sun 1. 93 THE ARABIC LANGUAGE Arabic Words. Analogies. Sabun, soap Savon, French. Sabaa, Sabaism, Tsaba, Hebrew. I believe the oldest form of Sabaism consisted in the worship of the sun only, or of the sun and moon at most, and in this sense to be derived from the Sanskrit Sava, or Saba, the sun, the moon. When it included the stars and constellations also, " the Host of Heaven," the probable etymology was Subha, Sanskrit, an assembly of the gods, or the above Arabic or Hebrew word. Sakya, or Sacya, a name of Budha, Sanskrit. Sacse, ancient Scythians, Persians, or sun worshippers. Odin, or Woden, the son of*Sigge, in the Northern Mythology. -Saxons, i. e. sun worshippers. Tas and Tash, Pers. and Arab., a cup. .Tasse, French, Tawl, long Tall (English), high. Aajuz. The meanings of this word are absolutely endless, and must require to be discriminated by as many inflections of the voice as any word in the vocabulary of the Celestial Empire, the spoken language of which, I feel confident, is far from standing quite isolated, as has hitherto been pretended. Aadd, numeration, number Add, English. Aammat, a mother's sister 1 A ., /T ,. x e +!.„„»«, •+_ A ,.11 r Amita (Latin), a father s sister. Aammu, a paternal uncle J v y Ghalb, victory, dominion " Ettu, Galba, quandoque degustabis imperium." (Tacit. Ann. 6. 20.) Tiberius resided seven years at Rhodes, was probably acquainted with some of the languages of the East, and merely played on the name of Galba ; but when the latter really attained the dignity of emperor, the pun was converted by superstition into a prophecy, as many others have been both before and since. Ghars, plant Grass, English, by transposition. Fajir, the dawn In the Hebrew Scriptures Baal-Peor, i. e. lord of the morning, an epithet of the sun, and sometimes Peor simply, " in the matter of Peor." Furat, very fine sweet water The river Euphrates, written Frat, Dual Furatan, the Euphrates and Tigris. Farzi, skilled in the law Quaere, Pharisee, as affecting a parti- cular attachment to the law of Moses. fPhemi (Greek), dico. Fim, the mouth < Pheme (Greek), fama, i.e. ea quse I dicta est. ™, ,, ., f Phi (Hebrew), a mouth. Fih, the mouth |phe (Ionic Greek), dixit. Kubal, the fore part. Pudenda "1 I believe this word with a final Eta viri vel fceminas J to be the origin of the Greek Cybele, the mother of the gods, who appears to be a personification of nature, generation, creation, or production, and to have much in common with the Siva Linga of the Hindus, one of whose names AND GRAMMAR. 99 Arabic Words. Analogies. is Bhagah. It is probable that the above Arabic may be com- pounded from two Hebrew words, Kobah, matrix, Vulva, and Ail, god, by contraction, and with a final Eta, Kubele (Greek), literally, the goddess of generation. Kuraa, a wager at a horse-race Quaere, Curragh, an Irish race-course in the county Kildare. If the Arabic letter Ain were written Ghain (Gh) with the addition of a dot, the two words would correspond almost letter for letter. Karn, a horn, the top of a moun- 1 Quaere, Cairn (Scottish), a barrow, tain, a tumulus of sand. J or monumental tumulus. Kasm, division .....Chasm, English. Tr , , fKalamos, Greek. Kalam, a pen, a reed { Calamus, Latin. Kamis, a shirt Chemise, French. Kaas, or Kas, wine "1 f One, or both of these words are related Kasa, cream of milk J \ to the Kous-Kous, or fermented mare's milk, which the Tartars are so fond of. There is cer- tainly a more intimate relation between the languages of Persia and Arabia and those of Tartary than Sir William Jones was disposed to allow. See Kipchak in Richardson. Kabar, a drum with one face This and many other words in Arabic remind one of what is said of the Chinese language, that it consists of a few roots, the meaning of which is in- finitely varied by accentuation. Kirbas, fine linen Carbasus, Latin. Kursuf (Arabic), cotton "I Xer „i- ef English Karshaf (Persic), cotton j Bremer, .fcmgiisn. ^ a cherry { %£+%£ } a cherry tree. Lawt, bedaubing with mud [ ^^pS^^Jb. 01 *^ Mubhil, setting at liberty Mobilis, Latin. Mutsia, making the number nine .... The Muses, nine in number. Mutalatum, battered Mutilatus, Latin. Masmas, a confused affair Mizmaze (vulgo), English. Makhzan, a storehouse Magazine, English. Madk, breaking a stone "I Midakk, an instrument with which J» Maddock, or Mattock, English. any thing is broken J Marsh, ground levelled or reduced 1 ,»- , -, -^ ,. 1 , ' fe t ■. . , • > Marsh, a meadow, English, to a pulp by the ram J ' ' ° Marmar (Pers. and Arab.), marble { £^^ ek . Maskin, a miserable wretch Meschino, Italian. Mashin, villainous Mechant, French. Malih, good The regular positive of the Latin comparative Melior, contracted from Malih- or, better. Mamnun, strong, robust. I suspect that this was the surname of Artaxerxes, King of Persia, which the Greeks not under- H 2 100 THE ARABIC LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR. Arabic Words. Analogies. standing, changed into Mnemon. Herodotus calls Susa the city of Memnon, which in Persia, as well as in Egypt, was a name of the sun. The meaning of Memnon in Arabic is in perfect harmony with the description of the sun in Hebrew poetry (Psalm xix. 5.), in which it is said that " He rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race," and with the gigantic statues of Memnon in Egypt. That the Sun in the Greek Mythology was regarded as a giant, and the son of the Earth, see Lein- priere in voce Titan. Mahal, formidable, dreadful Malus (Latin), bad. Nati, swelling, prominent Nates, Latin. . Nubah, a barker Latrator Anubis, Latin. Nabil, grand, beautiful Noble, English. And by Metonymy, perhaps, the nose itself; hence we have, Nasus, Latin. Naso, Italian. Nez, French. Nose, English. Ness, Northern. Naal, a hoof; any thing which de- \ Hence Nail (English) of the toes and fends the feet of man or beast... J fingers. Mar (Hebrew), bitter. Nass, elevating, moving the nose. Nassas, drawing up the nose Nawfal, the sea. Nawfalat, salt, saline Mare (Latin), the sea. Mer (French), the sea. Als (Greek), salt. Als (Greek), the sea. Als Pontos, in Homer, the salt sea, not the Hellespont. Real names can hardly originate in mytho- logical stories like the extravagant one of Helle, and in every instance, probably, the name is centuries older than the fable which pretends to account for it. Wasit, the middle Waist (English), by transposition. Wahim, imagination, fancy Whim, English. Watar, singular, alone Perhaps Water (English), in the sense of pure, an element. Wadd, Wid, or Wad, love, friend- 1 md Eno . ligh ship J ' ° Washi, painting, dyeing A Wash, in the language of painters. Waad, promising Wedding, in the sense of avow or contract. Wan, small, few Whiffling (English), trifling. Walk, active, nimble Walk, English. Wann, weakness, languor Wan (English), languid of look. m , - f f Wae, Scotch. Wah ' § rief " J Woe! English. - Haaha, laughing. This word appears to be imitative, like the English Ha, Ha ! Hubub, awaking, rousing Hubbub (English), a sudden dis- turbance. 101 CHAP. XII. ON THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR. " Ye orient realms, where Ganges' waters run ! Prolific fields ! dominions of the sun ! How long your tribes have trembled and obey'd ! How long was Timur's iron sceptre sway'd ! Whose marshall'd hosts, the lions of the plain, From Scythia's northern mountains to the main, Raged o'er your plunder'd shrines and altars bare With blazing torch and gory scyraitar, Stunn'd with the cries of death each gentle gale, And bathed in blood the verdure of the vale. Yet could no pangs the immortal spirit tame When Brama's children perish'd for his name ; The martyr smiled beneath avenging power, And braved the tyrant in his torturing hour !" Pleasures of Hope. I. The primary division of every alphabet, according to my view of the subject, is into two classes. 1. Those characters which are the signs of simple or ele- mentary sounds, and are all the genuine letters. 2. Those characters which are not the representatives of simple sounds, and therefore, strictly speaking, not letters, but merely contractions in writing, and combinations of ele- mentary sounds, like the Greek long vowels, aspirates, and double letters. 3. But all the signs of simple, or elementary sounds, are not distinct letters ; but merely different characters for, or modes of, expressing the same simple sound. Should the English ever become a dead language, because we have two or three modes of writing R, S, and T, in manuscript, remote posterity will fancy each form a distinct letter with a power of its own, as has been the case in most of the dead lan- guages (more especially the Sanskrit), and in the Arabic, a living one. As the Greeks appear to have possessed the most musical ears of any people that ever existed, if we could ascertain H 3 102 THE SANSKEIT LANGUAGE with certainty the number of letters which constituted their primitive alphabet, together with their power, it would form something like a criterion to guide us in all other cases. The precise power of their letters is matter of great doubt and obscurity, as it must necessarily be with every dead lan- guage; but we have strong reasons for believing that the letters themselves did not exceed sixteen. II. The Sanskrit Alphabet, says Wilkins, appears to possess no less than fifty letters : but, upon examining their power, the number of simple articulations may be reduced to twenty- eight, namely, five vowels, and twenty-three consonants. Diodorus Siculus appears to be the first European who has described the Sanskrit alphabet, in his relation of the voyage of Iambulus to Ceylon, though it must be confessed that his account is neither very clear nor very circumstantial. He says in their writing they make use of seven characters, or letters ; but each of these characters has four different posi- tions, which gives in all twenty-eight names of letters. They extend their lines, not as we do from left to right, but from top to bottom. (Diodorus, lib. ii.) It must be ac- knowledged that the twenty-eight names of letters would, at the first view, appear to indicate the Arabic alphabet beyond a doubt, as that is the precise number which it now contains, and Savary's Arabic Grammar gives four forms of letters, varying according to their position of initial, medial, or final. On the other hand, I believe there was a period when the Arabic alphabet contained fewer letters than it does at pre- sent, perhaps not more than the Hebrew, or twenty-two. But we may remark that in Wilkins's Sanskrit Grammar, the arrangement of the letters (consonants) is seven perpendicu- larly, and five horizontally ; and as many of these are double letters, and many different forms of the same letter, which are of little use in writing Sanskrit, and hardly occupy a place in the Lexicon, it is highly probable that the primitive alphabet did. not contain more than twenty-eight characters, to which number Wilkins has remarked the existing one may be reduced. But the mode of writing described by Diodorus, from the top to the bottom of the page, which the Greeks AND GRAMMAR. 103 denominated Kionedon, and made use of in columnar in- scriptions, is still practised in Ceylon ; and there is every reason to believe that their ancient religious books were written in the Pali language, which may almost be regarded as a dia- lect of Sanskrit ; two circumstances which render it highly probable that Diodorus intended to describe the Sanskrit alphabet, and the Devanagari characters. in. A knowledge of the native languages of India appears to have been acquired by Europeans very slowly and gra- dually. On their first introduction into that vast continent, they found the language of conversation and general inter- course to be the Hindustani or Moors, while the Persic was, and continued up to a late period to be, the language of diplomacy, the court, and the law. That distinguished Oriental scholar, Reland, must at least have felt some interest on the subject, as is proved by the titles of some of the essays in his Dissertationes Miscellanea? (3 torn. 12mo. Traj. 1706), De Veteri Lingua Indica, which appears to allude directly to the Sanskrit, and De Linguis Insularum quar. Orientalium ; but as I have never seen the work itself, I can give no opinion as to the extent or accuracy of his know- ledge. IV. If I am not much mistaken, Anquetil du Perron has the merit of having made the Sanskrit alphabet, in its present state, first known in Europe, though it does not appear that he made much progress in the language itself. He describes it as consisting of sixteen vowels and thirty-five consonants and has given the names of the letters, though not their forms, very accurately. (Zend Avesta, torn. i. p. 172 t , note.) The abridged account of his travels was published in 1762, while Mr. Halhead's remarks on the Sanskrit language were not earlier than 1778, and Sir William Jones's Discourse on the Hindus was not delivered until the 2d of February 1786. v. According to the late Sir Charles Wilkins, one of the highest possible authorities, to Mr. Halhead is due the dis- tinguished honour of having been the first European Sanskrit scholar. In the preface to his Grammar of the Bengal lan- H 4 104 THE SANSKEIT LANGUAGE guage, which was published in 1778, he expresses himself as follows : — " The great source of Indian literature, the parent of almost every dialect from the Persian Gulf to the China Seas, is the Sanskrit, a language of the most venerable and unfathomable antiquity ; which, although at present shut up in the libraries of the Brahmins, and appropriated solely to the records of their religion, appears to have been current over most of the Oriental world ; and traces of its original extent may still be discovered in almost every district of Asia. I have been astonished to find the similitude of Sans- krit words with those of Latin and Greek ; and those not in technical and metaphorical terms, which the mutation of re- fined arts and improved manners might have occasionally introduced, but in the main groundwork of language, in monosyllables, in the names of numbers, and the appellations of such things as would be first discriminated on the imme- diate dawn of civilization." (Wilkins's Preface to Sanskrit Grammar, p. 8.) * VI. The literal meaning of the word Sanskrit appears to me to occur in the phrase " Sanskrita Yavan," when the barley is winnowed (Wilkins, Gramm. page 562.), i. e. the language from which all colloquial barbarisms, provincial peculiarities, and grammatical anomalies are excluded. The unsifted language is the Prakrit, or natural, which confers on it a double value in the eyes of the etymologist and the inquirer into the philosophy of language. The great cause of the slow growth and imperfect state both of etymology and the theory of language, has been, first, because almost all the efforts of philologists have been exerted on the two lan- guages of all others the least fit for their purpose, because the most polished and refined, that is, in other words, dif- fering most widely from their original structure — the Greek and Latin; and secondly, because all have confounded the artificial arrangements of grammarians, made solely with a view to classification and facility of reference, with the es- sential nature of language itself. The above etymology of the word Sanskrit derives a slight degree of support from the name of the Florentine Academy. The Academy of AND GRAMMAR. 105 Florence, says Hallam, resounded with the praises of Petrarch. A few seceders from this body established the more cele- brated Academy clella Crusca, of the sieve, whose appellation bespoke the spirit in which they meant to sift all they undertook to judge. (Literature, vol. ii. page 424.)* VII. Sanskrit Nouns are of three genders, masculine, femi- nine and neuter, and have also three numbers, the singular, the dual, and the plural. They have eight cases in each number, which are always arranged in the following order, and in naming them it is usual to say the first, second, third case, singular, dual, or plural. The first is the Nominative Case. The second is the Accusative Case. The third may be denominated the Implementive Case, having the force of the sign by, or with. The fourth is the proper Dative Case, with the sign to. The fifth i3 the Ablative Case, with the sign from. The sixth is the Genitive, or Possessive Case, with the sign of or belonging to. The seventh may be called the Locative Case, with the sign in or on. The eighth is the Vocative Case. The number of declensions of nouns in Wilkins's Grammar is eight, distinguished by their terminations, the first three of which nearly correspond with the vowel terminations of the Greek fifth declension of nouns of unequal syllables. Rules 68 and 69 for the declension of nouns, as given in the native grammars of India, really appear to be worse than no rule at all, as, according to Wilkins, 69 cannot be rendered operative without the application of upwards of twenty ad- ditional special rules. If the Sanskrit language is ever to be extensively studied in Europe, a necessary previous condition must be the entire remodelling of the grammar. In the example of the first declension given by Wilkins, I * The literal meaning of Crusca in Italian is bran. The Sanskrit is the fine flour, which is abstracted by the process of sifting, the Prakrit is the residuum. 106 THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE observe that in the singular number of the masculine and neuter genders, the nominative and vocative cases only differ from each other ; and that the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh cases are exactly alike, both in the dual and plural numbers ; also, that the masculine and feminine are pre- cisely similar in the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh cases of the dual number, and the first, sixth, and eighth of the plural. Surely, prima facie, this agrees very badly with Sir William Jones's elaborate eulogium, " that the Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful struc- ture ; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more excellently refined than either." (Wilkins's Gramm. pages 36 — 39.) viii. The Sanskrit Pronouns are as under, viz. Aham, I. Vayan, we. Twan, thou. Yuyan, ye. Sah, he. Tava, thy. Sa, she. Sus, his. Tad, that. ix. The Verbs may, in the first instance, be considered as divided into three species, primitives, derivatives, and nomi- nals. The primitives require no explanation ; the term deri- vative is used to denote such verbs as are formed from primitives, and which are of three kinds, causals, reiteratives, and volitives. A causal verb is derived from its primitive, by the intro- duction of the syllable Ay before the termination ; and thus from Yachati, he seeketh, is formed the causal Yachayati, he causeth to seek, Yachayitun, to cause to seek. The power of the causal verb in Sanskrit is precisely similar to that of the Hebrew verb in Hiphil, which is characterised by the letter Hay (h) prefixed to the first, and the letter Yood (i) inserted between the second and third radicals. That the resemblance between the Sanskrit causa- tive verb and the Hebrew verb in Hiphil is very close, will be rendered more obvious by placing in juxta-position two words very nearly alike, having the same meaning both in Hebrew and Sanskrit- AND GRAMMAR. 107 Hebrew root, Shainar, he remembered. Hiphil, Hishmir, he caused to remember (not used). Sanskrit root, Smri, remember. Smarati, he remembers. Smarayati, he causes to remember. A volitive derivative is formed upon its primitive by doubling and modifying its root, and introducing a sibilant letter before the termination. Verbs have two voices, active and passive. There are two distinct forms of conjugation for the active voice, which we may call proper and common. The proper form is said to be used when the fruit of the action reverts to the agent, and the common form when it passes to another ; but these distinctions do not appear to be much adhered to. (Wilkins's Grammar, p. 121.) After all that has been said about the extreme accuracy and superior refinement of the Sanskrit, it cannot but appear extraordinary that these two forms should be confounded, as they appear to be separated by a well-defined line of demar- cation, The former corresponds with the Hebrew verb in Hithpael™ " Jam dictum est verba in hac conjugatione signi- ficationem habere reflectivam, seu significare actionem agentis in se ipsum " (Masclef, torn. i. p. 113.); and with the Greek middle voice — " Quasdam sunt sensu vere medio, qua3 reci- proca dici possint, ut louomai, lavo me ipsum, vel lavor a me ipso, ubi actio reflectitur in agentem " (Eton Greek Gramm. p. 84.) ; also with the French reflective verb, Je me lave, I wash myself. The latter or common form is obviously the Latin verb active transitive. x. The Sanskrit has six moods — the infinitive, the in- dicative, the imperative, the potential, the precative, and the conditional. In the indicative mood are six tenses — one present, three preterites, and two futures : the other moods consist but of one tense each. And here I cannot but notice an observa- tion of Wilkins, which appears to admit that in the written compositions of Hindustan there is a divorce between theory and practice, between the injunctions of the grammarian and the actual productions of the author, which we should little 108 THE SAMSKKIT LANGUAGE have expected in the Sanskrit, a language the subtlety and refinements of which, we were confidently assured by its early proficients, were destined to throw both Greek and Latin into the shade. He says, " The author of the Mugha Bodha (Vopadeva) has given an example of each of the six tenses of the indicative mood, in a verse which comprehends a brief history of the ten incarnations of Yishnu. It is Avorthy of particular notice, that the three preterites and the two futures are here used indiscriminately and indefinitely, and that in works of great length it is seldom that the nice distinctions noticed in grammars can be perceived, particularly as applied to the preterites and the two futures. (Sanskrit Grammar, p. 648.) xi. With respect to the origin of the Sanskrit verb, about which a great deal has been written, there is a passage on the subject in the Edinburgh Review, in its notice of Thiersch's Greek Grammar, so apposite as to require no apology for quoting it, though it is rather long. " Hemster- huys far outstripped his predecessors by the boldness and originality of his views, no less than by the learning and sa- gacity with which he supported them. Availing himself of some hints thrown out by Scaliger and Vossius, and probably influenced by considerations drawn from the peculiar structure of the Oriental tongues, he was led to conclude that the primary verbs consisted of two or three letters, from which all the other forms and inflexions were derived ; and that by skilful decomposition, the root or elementary part might in every case be determined. Plausible arguments may be urged in favour of this etymological theory, which was re- ceived as a great discovery by Valcnaer, Rhunken, Lennep, Albert Schultens, Everard Scheide, the Bishop of St. David's, and others ; but notwithstanding all this weight of authority, it seems to us, we confess, to be radically unsound. Much of the Greek language is of Asiatic origin ; a considerable portion of its vocabulary is pure Sanskrit ; the whole of its inflexions and conjugations have been modelled upon the sacred language of India, Greek and Sanskrit answer to each other as face answers to face in a glass. But in AND GRAMMAR. .109 SANSKRIT, THE ROOTS OR ELEMENTARY PARTS ARE OF POSTERIOR FORMATION ; THEY ARE THE WORK OF GRAM- MARIANS ALONE, MERE TECHNICAL ELEMENTS OBTAINED BY ARBITRARY RESOLUTION, NOT PRIMARY OR ORIGINAL FORMS, CONVERTIBLE INTO NEW SPECIES OF WORDS BY THE ARTIFICES OF INFLEXION AND CONJUGATION. They are not natural roots, and consequently can have had no share in the original formation of the language. They are significant by consonants alone, and for this reason differ diametrically from Greek roots, which are significative or determinable by vowels only. The theory of Hemsterhuys is, therefore, wholly inapplicable to all that portion of the Greek which is incontestably of Asiatic origin, and there would be no great difficulty in showing that it is equally so to the remainder. But whatever objections may be taken to the speculations of Hemsterhuys, it certainly tended to stimulate inquiry, and produced many collateral investigations of the greatest importance to the general science of grammar. In Hermann's celebrated treatise f De Emendenda Ratione Grsecse Grammatical,' there is much to gratify the lovers of philosophical discussion as applied to the subject of Greek grammar ; and although it may be true that he trusted too much to metaphysical principles, and 'the universal nature of speech,' it seems at least equally so that his example has operated powerfully on the minds of his learned countrymen, and encouraged them to undertake and execute those valuable works on the subject which have recently appeared in Ger- many, and which reflect so much credit on the transcendant scholarship of that country." (Edin. Review, vol. lii. p. 474.) xii. If we could believe that the sentences printed in capitals were strictly and literally true, we should be under the necessity of coming to the conclusion, that the Sanskrit is a language sui generis, and altogether different from any other language that was ever spoken, or at any rate written, by the human race. In the present advanced state of science, however, every year that passes by, augmenting our stores of philological knowledge, and enabling us to draw our in- ductions from a more ample and varied collection of facts, 110 THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE and establish general conclusions as to the nature of speech, indisposes us more and more to receive such startling para- doxes, and, what is much more to the purpose, supplies us with materials for refuting them. We are requested to believe, that the Dhatos, roots, or themes, of the Sanskrit verbs, are not the work of nature, but of art ; not the pro- ductions of man in the infancy of language, but the con- trivance of grammarians in a far advanced state of civil society; an assertion which appears to me much about as rea- sonable as it would be to say that, after an architect has completed the body and superstructure of his edifice, he directs his attention to laying the foundation. If it be so, and it is well worth inquiring if this be actually the case, the grammarians of Hindustan have acted a much more im- portant part on the theatre of the world, than the same class of men in any other age or country, and achieved a triumph compared with which that of the institution of castes, arbitrary and unnatural as it is, is as nothing. In other countries, grammarians have never been looked on as the creators, or even legislators, of language ; and were regarded as exercising their highest functions by acting the part of his- torians, and tracing its origin and progress, or of interpreters, by illustrating its obscurities and unfolding its principles, principles not established by them, but resting altogether on that prescription, that mixture of antiquity, knowledge, and custom — " Queni penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi." Horat. de Arte Poetica. xiii. I will commence by giving a list of upwards of thirty words, which are at once verbs and nouns in Sanskrit, the result of which must be, either to dethrone the Hindu grammarians by proving that they invented nothing, or to double their dominions by proving that they invented both nouns and verbs ; and if I am not much mistaken, this list will go a great way in inducing us to come to the conclusion, not only that verbs were derived from nouns, but to suspect at least that all the other parts of speech w T ere so also. AND GRAMMAR. Ill Nouns. Verbs. Archa, the sun Archa, to worship. Kisa, the sun Kusha, to shine. Tr r. , fKrama, to go, to walk. Krama, afoot JKhiram, Persic. Grini, the sun ~J Grynseus (Greek), a name of \ Grina, to shine. Apollo J Pada, a foot Pada, to go, to move. Patha, a road Patha, to go. Parna, a leaf Parna, to make or be green. Phala, fruit Phala, to produce fruit. Bandha, a tie, or fetter Bandha, to bind. Baha, the arm Baha, to endeavour. Mriga, a deer Mriga, to hunt. Yudh, war, battle Yudha, to fight. Ranga paint colour JRanja, to die. Rang (Persic), stain, die J J ' Raj a king (the sun the king of f ^giaf to^shtie, perhaps from Bex, the host of heaven) ... j * ^^ ^ V f Rucha, to shine. Ruch, light «| Rusa, to shine, perhaps from Roshan [ (Persic), splendour. Rupa, form Rupa, to form. Rij, Agni, or fire Rija> to shine. Varsha, rain, raining Yarsha, to be wet. Yaha, any vehicle Yaha, to carry. Yina, Brahma (the sun) (Vina, to go (from the sun's apparent v y motion j. Brahma, the sun ( Bh ™ ma > , to mo ^ circularly (like ' L the sun). " As Eastern Priests in giddy circles run, And turn their heads to imitate the sun." Essay on Man. Sana, a grindstone Sana, to whet, to sharpen. Sina, crimson "I c . , , -, Shani, Hebrew j Sma, to be red. Swita, white Swita, to be white. Sura, the sun (contracted from ( gh to sMne . Surya) J Sambhs, water Sanibha, to go (like a stream). Sura, the sun Sura, to shine. Stoma, praise 1 Stoma (Greek), the mouth J- Stoma, to praise. Stoman (Sanskrit), the head J Haya, a horse Haya, to move. Hay a, Indra (the sun) Haya, to worship. Hrada,alake {^atake)! "^ (like the waterS of Rudah (Persic), a river Hruda, to go (like its stream). 112 THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE Nouns. Verbs. Phullan, a flower, or blossom ... 1 Phullon (Greek), a leaf J- Phulla, to blossom, to flower. Pulhis (Latin), a sprout or bud... J Pushpan, a flower Pushpa, to expand, flower, blossom. Grasa, a mouthful Grasa, to eat. Ghars (Arabic) a plant { Grasa ( Sansl F it ) J to eat - v ^ /' c F ••• • (_ Graze (English), to eat grass. Pithah, the sun ] Pjthius (Greek), a name of f Putha, to shine. Apollo J {Asa, to shine, from a Sanskrit root, Asha, to shine, from Aish (Hebrew), fire. Radical letters Ash. xiv. If we take the first words in the list Archa, the sun, and Archa, to worship, it appears to me that there can be little doubt as to which is the primitive and which the derivative. The records and traditions of almost every ancient people tend to prove that the sun was their earliest, and in many instances their only god. As the most conspicuous object in the creation, it would naturally be one of the first named ; and as the principal, if not the sole God and object of adoration, his name as naturally became equivalent to worship. As the most brilliant object in the material world, we may observe that his numerous names produced as many verbs signifying to shine ; and it is quite obvious that, when the noun denoting the sun was recollected, there could be little doubt about the verb formed from the same, or nearly the same, letters. xy. The most comprehensive definition of a verb is, that it is a word significant either of Action or Being ; but as Action necessarily supposes an agent, and Being something that exists, nouns may be said to be metaphysically older than verbs. We can conceive of an agent without the exertion of active power, as he may possess it but be indisposed to exercise it ; but we cannot, by any effort of our minds, form an idea of Action without an agent, or of Being without some- thing that is. We may remark, that in every instance the verb expressing any particular action has derived its name from the agent, member, or part of the body chiefly instru- mental in producing that action ; as Krama, a foot, Krama, AND GRAMMAR. 113 to go. Pada, a foot, Pada, to go. Baha, the arm, Baha, to endeavour, the arm being the chief member employed in almost all our exertions, and the great instrument in pro- ducing most of the enjoyments and blessings of civilization. Perhaps the most striking quality of the sun is his splendour, and hence the numerous verbs To shine derived from his various names ; but it is far from being his only one, as his apparent motion is equally remarkable : and hence we have Vina, the sun, and Yina, to go or move generally ; and as the sun appears to move round the earth, Brahma, the sun, Brahma, to move circularly. Sometimes a verb signifying motion is formed from a natural object which moves quickly, as Hay a, a horse, Hay a, to move ; Sambha, water, Sambha, to go (like a stream); and as the noun always imparts its own colour to the verb corresponding with its name, instead of borrowing from it, we may suspect that where the Sanskrit verb Haya signifies to worship, it was formed not simply from Haya, horse, but from Haya, a form of Indra, or the sun ; that where the Sanskrit verb Hruda signifies to collect, it was formed from the Sanskrit noun Hrada, a lake, by analogy with its assembled waters, but that where it signi- fies To go, it was formed from an extraneous root, the Persic word Rudah, a river, from a resemblance with its stream or current. The Sanskrit verb Grasa, to eat, was probably formed from the noun Grasa, a mouthful. Grasa is very like graze, English. If we suppose our own word derived from the Sanskrit, we must suppose at the same time that its use was restricted, not simply to the eating of cattle, but to the eating of cattle in a pasture field ; but as To graze sig- nifies to feed on grass, and Ghars in Arabic signifies a plant, it is much more probable that the English verb To graze was formed from the Arabic by a slight transposition, than that it was derived from the Sanskrit. xvi. Suppose I had wished to describe the action of hunting in a hieroglyphic picture (and it must never be forgotten that hieroglyphics appear to have constituted the primitive writing of almost all the nations of mankind, and that after it had been superseded by the invention of I 114 THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE alphabetical characters, both the origin of words and the extension of their meaning appear to have proceeded on the same principles) in what mode could I make it most clear to the spectators, or readers? There was no other mode than to draw the image of an animal commonly the object of pursuit, followed by a crowd of dogs, horses, and men, the latter armed with bows and arrows, and hunting spears, and this we know the Mexicans have actually done. The Egyptians and Chinese, in the second stage of picture- writing, for the sake of compendiousness would probably have described the action of hunting by the single figure of some animal which constituted the ordinary object of the chase ; and on this latter principle the Sanskrit language has proceeded by employing the word Mrig to signify a deer, and precisely the same word, letter for letter, to signify to hunt. And the Sanskrit has been closely followed by the Greek in which we find Ther (®rjp), a wild beast of any kind, Thera (®r}pa), hunting, and Therao (Srjpdco) I hunt. Sup- pose, again, that I had wished to describe, in hieroglyphic writing, not merely the object but the place of pursuit, not only what was hunted but where it was hunted, that the- deer was pursued through the green recesses of the forest. Hieroglyphics experience no difficulty about their nouns if they are the names of external objects. They draw the object, and their task is accomplished ; but to express qualities, to write adjectives, they have no other resource than to de- lineate some material figure in which the quality is most con- spicuous, and to contrive, at the same time, to inform us that the object is an adjective and not a substantive, and that we are to attend to its quality and neglect its form. And here again the Sanskrit has proceeded on the principles of hiero- glyphics, as in that language Parna signifies a leaf, the ob- ject in nature most remarkable for the quality of greenness ; and Parna is also a verb, signifying to be or to make green. Sometimes a verb signifying motion is derived from the name of some noun which facilitates motion; as, Patha, to go, from Patha, a road, or way, the etymology of our English word Path. AND GEAMMAR. 115 xvii. It appears to me that quite enough has been said to prove that the Sanskrit Dhatos, or verbal roots, are any thing rather than the arbitrary and artificial contrivances of gram- marians, as we find many of them existing in that language as nouns substantive. But there is another argument that may be made use of, little less forcible ; which is, that we find numerous Greek and Latin verbs certainly cognate with, I should confidently say derived from, these Sanskrit roots ; a circumstance which goes a great way to prove, that at whatever period the progenitors of the Greek and Roman races may have emigrated from the great Indian stock, those Dhatos or roots were in use in Hindustan as ordinary words. I shall adduce a few instances only, but the list might be enlarged almost indefinitely. Sanskrit Roots. Greek and Latin Derivatives. Ma to spp I Eido ' Greek * icla ' t0 see \ Video, Latin. Gna, to know Gno5, Greek. Daha, to burn Daio, Greek. Nusha, to injure Noceo, Latin. Pa, cherish, nourish Pao (Greek), I feed. Pi, drink Pio (Greek), I drink. Phana, shine Phaino (Greek), I shine. Shtha, stand Sto (Latin), I stand. Ri, go Reo (Greek), I now. Ila, go Elauno (Greek), I go. Lambhi, cause obtain Lambano (Greek), I take. Tracha Traucha -go Trecho (Greek), I run. Traga J p , f Psao (Greek), I crush, or break in s ' " 1 pieces. -p , J Brucho (Greek), I gnash the teeth, Bru, speak | I groan. Stu, run Stoicheo (Greek), I go. In the Greek and Latin words, we not only find the Sanskrit root, but something more ; what is that something ? It appears to me to be a pronominal termination annexed and coalescing, and that the final O is in most instances a contraction of Ego ; the terminations of Elauno, and Lam- bano, the Syriac pronoun Ano, I ; and the terminations of I 2 116 THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE Brucho and Stoicheo, a contraction of the Hebrew Anochi, I. We find some verbs in Sanskrit which appear to be formed from Turkish roots, and it must be recollected that the Turks were Mongol Tartars, and the neighbours of the Hindus. Cushi (Turkish), handsome Ghushi, make bright, or beautiful . f Juna, go. Giun, the sun , < Ghuna, go round. |^ Ghana, shine. Sud (Turkish), milk Sudan, clean, whiten. xviii. Independently of these simple roots of Greek verbs, we find, on the other hand, several words having a common meaning in Sanskrit and Greek, without possessing, however, the smallest resemblance in form or sound applied to the same poetical personages, and employed to describe the same events ; a circumstance which induces us to come to the con- clusion, not merely that the two languages were derived from a common stock, but that the great body of Hindustan tradition, mythology, and poetical fiction, was afloat in Greece during the heroic ages, and supplied occasional hints to the creative genius of Homer himself. For instance, in Sanskrit we find the word Yakra, with the signification of crooked, curved, dishonest, fraudulent, cruel and malignant, and not merely an epithet joined with, but a name of Saturn. If we were required to translate Yakra into Greek, we could not render it more literally than by the word Agkulos ; and ^A^KvkofirjTrjs, crooked-counselled, is Homer's most ordinary epithet of Saturn. Again, in Sanskrit we find the compound word Trivikrama as a name of Yishnu, signifying crossing over the three worlds in three steps, which Homer appears to have availed himself of, but with that modification and softening, which is always requisite to render Oriental imagery palatable to the greater sobriety of European taste. The passage occurs in the 13th book of the Iliad, and de- scribes the march of Neptune from Samothrace to JEgse. Avt'ikcl cT t£ vpcog ica-cot'icaro TranraXofVTog, Kpanrvd 7togI 7rpo€i€ag' rpsfxe ci' ovpsa [xaicpa icai vXrj AND GRAMMAR. 117 Tioaaiv vtt' aQavciToiai UoaeiSaiovoQ Iovtoq. Tplg fJLtv nps^ar IwV to St rkrparov 'iketo TSKfXiop Aiyug. " Prone down the rocky steep he rush'd along : Fierce as he pass'd, the lofty mountains nod, The forest shakes ; earth trembled as he trod, And felt the footsteps of the immortal God. From realm to realm three ample strides he took, And at the fourth the distant iEgae shook." Pope. xix. When the Turks are particularly desirous of making honourable mention of the patriarch Japhet, they describe him by the periphrasis Aboul Turk, the father of Turk, whom they regard as peculiarly their progenitor ; and it appears to me, that the highest eulogium that can be be- stowed on the Sanskrit is, that it is the undoubted mother of the Greek and Latin languages, which not only contain some of the most perfect specimens of literary composition the world has ever seen, but are, up to this day, the repositories of no inconsiderable portion of human knowledge. Under such circumstances, a few additional pages will not be unem- ployed in pointing out some unobserved analogies between the Asiatic and European languages, and in drawing closer those which have been already remarked. xx. I would begin by observing, that we find in the Sanskrit, what has been called the ^Eolic Digamma, or, in other terms, the same radical word in two distinct states, being sometimes written with, and sometimes without the aspirate letter, which has the power of V in the Shemitic alphabets, and which indeed derived both its form and power from the Phoenician or Samaritan Yau, and gave birth to the Greek Phi, and the Roman F. For instance, we find in the Sanskrit, the verbal root Ei, go, whence the Greeks formed their Eeo, I flow, of which Payne Knight, in his Analytical Essay on the Greek Alphabet, supposes the ancient form to have been Pefo (PEFfl), of which we find the prototype in the Sanskrit, in the root Eiva, flow. The same distinguished scholar also supposes the oldest form of Pleo, navigo, to have been Plefo (flAEFH), of which we find the prototype in the i s 118 THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE Sanskrit Plava, float. The Hindus appear to have had their ^Eolians as well as the Greeks, or in other words, some tribes were in the habit of using dialects in which aspirates abounded, and when by the progress of society the tribes were conso- lidated into one great people, and the dialects were melted into one language, the aspirated and unaspirated forms of the same word assumed the appearance of distinct roots. It is the same with the aspirate H, as with what has been called the Digamma, as we find in Sanskrit Aya, and Aha, go; Ray a, and Raha, go. We also find Tupa, injure, in the as- pirated form of Tupha, and Tripa, please (whence by trans- position Terpo, delecto), in the aspirated form of Tripha, which throws considerable light on the formation of the Greek perfects, Te- Tupha, and Te-Terpha, and their derivatives the preterpluperfect tenses. xxi. We find in Sanskrit the Doric R, redundant, that is, various roots of precisely the same signification, written in- differently with or without the letter R. We have Sana and Srana, give ; Maksha and Mraksha, mix ; Yaja and Yraja, go ; Yana and Yrana, produce sound. The Sanskrit also may teach us to doubt if the R was primarily redundant, whatever it may be now, as in the words Dhu, shake, and Dhru, be steady ; the letter Jv has clearly a privative or negative power, and Dhru is equivalent to Do not shake ; Dhruva in Sanskrit is the name of the polar star : L and R in Sanskrit are frequently exchanged, as in the words Hlasa and Hrasa, sound ; Bhlasa and Bhrasa, shine. xxii. An attentive perusal of Wilkins's Radicals of the Sanskrit Language has forced me to come to the conclusion that that tongue has been exposed to as many casualties, passed through as many revolutions, and contains as many irregularities as the Greek and Latin, and that the claim of its grammarians to infallibility, though urged with more con- fidence, is not one jot more valid ; indeed, in this and most similar instances, I have remarked that the legitimate claim will generally be found to be in the inverse ratio to the pre- tensions. Sanskrit grammarians deduce the verb Dadami, AND GRAMMAR. 119 whence the Greek Didomai, from the root Da; but Dada appears to be the true root, and the terminations in the sin- gular number, the persons of the verb substantive Astun, to be, dropping the S — Dadami, Dadasi, Dadati, and in Greek in the same way in the passive voice, Didomai, Didosai, Di- dotai. The close sympathy of the Sanskrit with the Greek and Latin in this verb is remarkable. From the Sanskrit Da we have the Latin Do ; from the Sanskrit Dana, the Latin Dono ; and from the Sanskrit Dada, the Greek Di- domi. Of Dana, Wilkins remarks that the final N is always dropped in composition, which is really saying that it exists as a simple root, but is not found as a verb in Sanskrit. At page 71. of his Radicals, Wilkins gives us the root Dasa, speak or tell, of which the third person of the present tense is Dansayati ; also the same root in the sense of bite, of which the third person present tense is also Dansayati. But the root does not appear to be a genuine root, and to have lost Anuswarah, or a point above the A, equivalent to M or JST, and accordingly the next word is the root Dans, bite, cognate with the Latin Dens, a tooth. xxiii. Although grammar in Hindustan is regarded as a revelation as well as religion, as we find it actually existing in the works of the native grammarians, it assumes the ap- pearance of an occult science, which, though divulged, is still unintelligible, except to those who possess the key ; and reminds us of that apologetic letter from Aristotle to Alex- ander, mentioned by Plutarch, in which he assures him that his philosophical opinions, though published, were still con- cealed. At page 125 of his Grammar, Wilkins says the following scheme exhibits in the foregoing order all the ter- minations applicable to verbs in the two active forms. It is the artificial and technical mode used in some original works, wherein redundant letters have been introduced, either as signs to denote certain changes to be effected, or merely to help the pronunciation. The letter P, as in Tip, Sip, being one of these servile redundant letters, is everywhere to be dropped in conjugating ; and every final S, as in Thas, Yas, I 4 120 THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE Mas, &c. is regularly changed to Visargah ( • with the power of H) ; the I as well as the P, of Dip, Sip, and Ainip, is also a redundant letter, used only to give utterance to the con- sonants D, S. and M. The D, in Dip, is converted into T, and the S, as before, into Visargah : — The N of Nap in two persons of the second Preterite is also a servile letter, which with the P, being dropped, leaves A only for the real ter- mination. The S of Sit and Sis in the third Preterite of the common form, is also redundant. The N of Tan is also a servile letter. xxiv. With all my respect for the memory of the accom- plished Sanskrit scholar, the author of the Grammar, I cannot but wish that he had referred us to page 186. for the conju- gation of the root Asa, in the infinitive mode Astun, to be, from which, by returning to the scheme of terminations at page 132., we should have clearly perceived that the Sanskrit verb, through all its conjugations^ consists of two perfectly distinct parts, the Dhato, or verbal root, which never varies, and gives the meaning in a general way, while the modifica- tions of that meaning in the different persons and tenses are effected by the aid of the auxiliary verb, to be, as in English and most of the languages of modern Europe ; and that this fact must have been earlier observed and admitted, but for the circumstance that the verb Astun, to be, is both irregular and defective in Sanskrit, as indeed it is in Persic, Greek, Latin, and most other tongues ; nor must we be surprised at discovering in language, as in many other things, that that which is most used is at the same time most worn and most changed. The Sanskrit verb substantive is as under : — Singular. 1. Asmi — Sum 2. Asi — Es 3. Asti — Est Dual. Svah Sthah Stah Plural. Small — Sumus Stha — Estis Santi — Sunt ; and the scheme of terminations — 1. Ami 2. Asi 3. Ati Avah Athah Atah Amah- Atha Anti ; AND GRAMMAR. 121 from which we may clearly perceive that the latter is formed from the former, simply by dropping S. Here we have the real terminations totally freed from those servile or redun- dant letters, which answer little other purpose, as used in the native grammars, than to make us understand what the Sans- krit is not, not what it is, and in which the words appear, as Bayes in the Rehearsal proposed to himself that his army should take towns, in disguise. 122 CHAP. XIII. ON THE MEDIAN LANGUAGES — THE ZENDISH AND PEHLVI. " From Arachosia, from Candaor east, And Margiana to the Hyrcanian cliffs Of Caucasus, and dark Iberian dales ; From Atropatia and the neighbouring plains Of Adiabene, Media, and the south Of Susiana, to Balsara's haven." Paradise Regained, book iii. I. Of the language or languages spoken in ancient Media, we possess very few specimens that can be entirely relied on. Adelung gives the following examples of the Zend and the Pehlvi: — {Tshekhre, Sukhter, Esmene, Spereze Heaven, Sky. Za, Zao, Zemo, Zemeno Earth. |" Tsherk, Shmeha, Seper Heaven, Sky. Pehlvish. -J Zivand, Arta, Damik, Leka, Bamih Earth. Sup. Ency. Brit., Art. Language. All these words are analogous to what may be found in the Persic, Tartaric, Chaldee, and Arabic. ii. A few Median words occur in Herodotus, who informs us that they called a bitch Spaca, and Larcher, his French translator, says that Spac is the name of a dog in modern Hyrcania. The etymology of Ecbatana appears to be Persic, from Ak, lord, and Ba tanha, alone. In the Book of Ezra, Ecbatana is called Achmetha, which seems to be the same Persic word Ak, prefixed to Media slightly altered. We are informed by Strabo, that the Medes called an arrow Tigris, and in Persic we have the word Tij, an arrow, which with Pa, the mark of the oblique case, and a Greek THE MEDIAN LANGUAGES. 123 termination, would produce something very like Tigris. The Persians themselves call the Tigris Tir, which in that language also signifies an arrow. I am not aware that there is in existence any work which has any pretension to be regarded as a specimen of the language of Persia, or Media, older than Ferdousi, unless we have recourse to the Zend Avesta, real or pretended, of Anquetil du Perron. in. He informs us, that the Zend alphabet is composed of forty- eight characters, of which sixteen are vowels, and thirty-two consonants ; but that the genuine letters amount to no more than thirty-five, twelve vowels and twenty-three consonants. The Zendish, like the Hebrew, the Arabic, and the modern Persic, is written from the right hand to the left. The circumstance which chiefly distinguishes it from these languages is the mode of writing the vowels, which are expressed at full length, and discriminated, whether long or short, by appropriate characters, as in the Sanskrit. The construction of the language is simple, and the rules of syntax few. The formation of the tenses of the verbs is very much like the Persic. The following list contains some of the most remarkable words I have noticed in going through Du Perron's vocabulary, together with their analogies with other languages. (Tom. iii. p. 424.) Zendish Words. Analogies. I ■ , . f Ast, Persic. Aste ' lieis i Esti, Greek. Astern, the bones Atsem (Hebrew), bone. Aspo, ahorse Asp, Persic. . , . . , , f Ashta, Sanskrit. Aschte, eight | Hisht, Persic. Bakhsched, he gives Bakshid, Persic. Besch, two Bis (Latin), twice. Bamie, fertile land Bum (Persic), earth. Khschethro, a king Shah, Persic. P Dogdo, the mother of Zoroaster, Dogde, girl Quaere^ i.e. a virgin, as his birth was [ miraculous. Doue, two Dou, Persic. Dato, given Dadah, Persic. Zeste, hand Dast, Persic. Zemo, earth Zemin, Persic. 124 THE MEDIAN LANGUAGES. Zendish Words. Analogies. rj ,, f Ta, Sanskrit. Za ' earth ' 1 Da, Greek (Doric). Staranm, the stars Starah (Persic), a star. Sreono, horn Seringa, Sanskrit. Se, three Seh, Persic. Ghnao, females Gune (Greek), a woman. ***■ ^ { ISSl Waxon. ***» {q^lX?- Goschte, ear Gosh, Persic. Medo winP X Mead ' honey-wine, English; from Medo, wine | MadhvL (Sanskrit), honey. Meschio, man Maschio (male), Italian. Ma, no Ma, Sanskrit and Arabic. Manm, me Man Am (Persic), I am. Mrete, mortal Mriti, Sanskrit. f Nar, Persic. Na, male A Nara, Sanskrit. [ Aner (Greek), a man. Yeheschtem Behesht (Arabic), Paradise. Yeedem, intelligent Yidan (Sanskrit), knowing. Yatem, wind Yatah, Sanskrit. Jekere, the liver Jecur, Latin. ti j f Hede, Egyptian. Hede ' now lEde, Greek. Hapte, seven Heft, Persic. Houo, himself Hooa (Hebrew), he. Jare Year, English. m i i. c f Chatur, Sanskrit. Tchetvere, four \ r\ * r *• ' ^ Quatuor, Latin. t> xl -, f Patha, Sanskrit. Petho ' road { Path/English. •td -, n , f Pada, Sanskrit. Pade ' f00t { Pede, Italian. Thre Three, English. Thvanm, thee Twan (Sanskrit), thou. IV. Anquetil du Perron derives the word Pehlvi from Pehlou, which, according to him, signifies strength. In this language, as well as in the Zendish, the mode of writing is from right to left. Its alphabet is composed of nineteen characters, which are obviously much like the Zendish, and which give twenty-six values, consisting of twenty- one con- sonant and five vowel sounds. (Tom. iii. page 426.) THE MEDIAN LANGUAGES. 125 PeMvi Words. Analogies. Iedeman, tlie hand Yad, Hebrew and Arabic. . , , . f Ast, Persic. Ast ' heis 1 Est, Latin. Bandeh, a slave ,. Bandha, bind, Sanskrit. Sosia, ahorse Sus, Hebrew. Ascht, eight Hesht, Persic. Anhouma, the planet Jupiter. Lab, lip Leb, Persic. Bahar, spring Ber (Bijp), Ionic Greek. Vahar, spring Yer, Latin. Note. — Here we may perceive that both the Greek and Latin words appear to be derived from Oriental sources, and that it is not necessary to suppose the existence of the iEolic Digamma to account for the formation of the Latin Yer from the Greek Ear or Er ; and, as the Greek Omicron appears to have been derived from the Syriac Yau, which was both o, oo, and v, if we suppose the letter to have retained its consonant character in the early ages of Greece, there is no difficulty in reading the Greek words Oacog and Otvog, like the Latin Yicus and Yinum, without supposing the exist- ence of any extraneous character like the iEolic Digamma. The Greek Ear appears to me to be cognate with the Hebrew Aor, light, the sun. Dou, two Also Persic. Zari, river Jaro, Egyptian. Toun, body Tan, Persic. Zivad, he lives Jivati, Sanskrit. Dehom, tenth Dahum, Persic. Din, law Din, Arabic. Tchaschm, eye, Chasm, Persic. Roschnesch, light Roshana, Persic. Toban, powerful Tobi (Arabic), a king. Daman and Zaman, time Zanin, Persic. Zamestan, winter Zamistan, Persic. Ahider father I Ab ' Hebrew and Arabic. Abicler, tatner | p^ Pergic> Gaiomard Kaiomorts, the name of the first man. Madeh, female Maid, English. Meh, great Maha, Sanskrit. r»- • , • f Pirouz, Persic. Pirouzgar, victorious | Firo ^ ^^ -r.. r f Jigar, Persic. Djeguer, liver | -^ ^^ -~ , , , f Damm, Arabic. Damma, blood 1 tv • tt -u ' I Dammim, Hebrew. f Sanat, Arabic. Sanat '? ear 1 Shanah, Hebrew. -r- . , -. f Zanu, Persic. Djanouh, knee | GenU5 Latin . 126 THE MEDIAN LANGUAGES. Pehlvi Words. Analogies. Anita, myrtle, sacred to Venus, from Homonynry, or similarity of name. Anaitis, a name of Venus in Armenia (Strabo, lib. ii.). Anaitis, a name of Diana among the Lydians (Pliny, 33. c. 4.). Anahid, the planet Venus (Du Perron). !Nahid, the planet Venus (Persic). Dihana and Dihan (Greek), from the two above words reversed. Arta, earth ( Eretz, Hebrew. I Araz, Arabic. Toum, finished ; Tarn (Hebrew), perfect. rr -i ii f Taurus, Latin. Tora ' abu11 1 Toro, Italian. Tchipa, wood to burn Chips, English. Hes, behind Chthes (Greek), yesterday. Hireh, Membrum Virile Hiran (Sanskrit), Siva (Linga). Schmeha, ~) , c i . ' Y heaven Ibchmia, J o ■, . ,i f Shems, Arabic. Schemsia, the sun -^ Q1 ', tt , L Shemesh, Hebrew. f Shamio, Syriac. \ Sham aim, Hebrew. Schem, name Kokba,\ Kokpa, J Kala, voice star Shaim, Hebrew. Sam, Arabic. Kukab, Arabic. Kukabim, Hebrew. Kol, Hebrew. Call, English. Mona, God, king tt u j f Kalb, Arabic. Kalba ' ad0 - 1 Cheleb, Hebrew. Lama, bread Lehem, Hebrew. Lelia, night Lilah, Arabic. Meon (Hebrew), a name of the Sun — Baal-Meon, Beth-Meon. Menu (Sanskrit), a personification of Brahma himself (Wilson). Meon, the name of an ancient king of Phrygia and Lydia, according to Diodorus (the sun). Menes, the founder of the Egyptian monarchy (the sun). Minos, the lawgiver of Crete, the echo of the Indian Menu. Minos was a name of Jupiter according to Sir Isaac Newton. Mannus, the son of Tuisco (Tacitus). Mona (isle), seat of the Druids, who were sun-worshippers. Moou, Coptic and Sahidic. Ma, Arabic. Mayim, Hebrew. f Melek, Arabic. Malka, king 4 Moloch, Hebrew. [ Malcho, Syriac. Mia, water THE MEDIAN LANGUAGES. 127 Such are the analogies with other languages, ancient and modern, which have occurred to me in going through Du Perron's Glossaries of the Zendish and Pehlvi ; and whatever may be the antiquity of the works which he wishes to es- tablish as the Zend Avesta of Zoroaster, there appears to be little doubt that they contain the words of which the pre- cedinglists form a part ; and it must be admitted that the words themselves raise some presumption of genuineness from the numerous points of resemblance they present with those languages of Asia, respecting the antiquity of which there cannot be any dispute. 128 CHAP. XIV. ON THE LANGUAGES OF PERSIA. THE DERI AND PARSI. " Persepolis, His city, there thou seest, and Bactra there ; Ecbatana her structure vast there shows, And Hecatompylos her hundred gates ; There Susa by Choaspes, amber stream, The drink of none but kings ; of later fame, Built by Emathian or by Parthian hands, The great Seleucia, Nisibis, and there Artaxata, Teredon, Ctesiphon, Turning with easy eye, thou mayst behold." Paradise Regained, book iii. I. Richakdson supposes that the present Persian Alpha- bet, which, with the exception of four letters, agrees with the Arabic, is not older than the seventh century, and was intro- duced into that country by the Arabian conquest (Prelim. Dissert, p. 7.). Sir William Jones says, the inscription behind the horse of Rustam, which Niebuhr has given us, is apparently Pehlvi, and might with some pains be deciphered. It has since been translated by the Baron de Sacy, and turns out to be almost pure Chaldee written in Cufic characters, and records the defeat and capture of the Roman emperor Valerian by Sapor, king of Persia, of the race of the Sassanidas, who died A. D. 273. It would be difficult to say whether this distinguished Oriental scholar, by translating the inscription in question, has ren- dered a greater service to history, or inflicted a heavier blow on romance. Rustam, the Persic Hercules, of an indefinite antiquity, is metamorphosed into a Persian king of the third century of the Christian era ! Perhaps nothing so disastrous to antiquarians has occurred since the scouring of the shield of Martinus Scriblerus ; and such, I venture to predict, will be the case in every instance in which an attempt shall be made to extract authentic history from the romance of Fir- dousi, or the two Indian epic poems, the Mahabharat and the Ramayana. THE LANGUAGES OF PERSIA. 129 II. Plutarch, describing Alexander's visit to the tomb of Cyrus, says, after he had read the epitaph, which was in the Persian language, he ordered it to be inscribed also in Greek. It was as follows : — " O man, whosoever thou art, and whencesoever thou comest (for come I know thou wilt), I am Cyrus, the founder of the Persian empire — envy me not the little earth that covers my body." Both these inscriptions exist at this day at Pasargadae, and were copied by Kerr Porter. But the Persic is in the arrow-headed character, which there is every reason for believing is hieroglyphical, and not alphabetical, at least in many instances. If Alex- ander, however, read it, it must have been written in the common Persic letters then in use ; but minute accuracy is not to be expected in such a case as this, and perhaps we are not justified in inferring anything farther from this passage in Plutarch than that Alexander caused the inscription to be translated to him, and made himself master of its meaning.* ill. Sir John Malcolm, whose intimate acquaintance both with the language and country tends to give much weight to all his opinions, has a remark in his History of Persia of extreme importance in connexion with the original language spoken there. He informs us that the inhabitants of Persia may be divided into four great classes, of which the first and most powerful, if united, are the native tribes of that nation, who continue to live in tents and change their residence with the season. The great mass of this part of the population, whose habits are pastoral and military, are to be found along the ranges of hilly country, which commencing near the en^ trance of the Persian Gulf, stretch parallel with its shores to Shuster, and from thence taking a north-western direction extend up the left bank of the Tigris as high as the province of Armenia. The region in question includes Kerman, al- most all Fars, a part of Irak, and the whole of Kurdistan. The inhabitants of these countries are divided into many * This Chapter was written long before the exertions of Lassen, and the still more recent ones of Major Wilkinson, had rendered it almost certain that portions of the arrow-headed inscriptions were written in an alphabetical character. K 130 THE LANGUAGES OF PERSIA. tribes, but there cannot be a stronger proof of their coming from one stock than that the languages which they speak are all rude dialects of the Pehlvi. There is a considerable dif- ference in these dialects, but not so much as to prevent the inhabitants of one province from understanding that of ano- ther. (Malcolm's Persia, vol. ii. p. 119.) IV. Sir John further informs us that these tribes are de- nominated Eelauts, a word respecting the etymology of which there can hardly be a doubt, as it describes their mode of life, and which is certainly the Hebrew and Arabic Ahel, or Ohel, tent, and the Arabic Hiat, life, by contraction Eelauts, or a people dwelling in tents. When we are told by this distinguished writer that these are the native tribes of the Persian nation, and that they inhabit Farsistan, or Persia Proper, I am disposed to go one step further and conjecture that the Hebrew words Pharas, a Persian, and Pharash, a horseman, were originally cognate if not identical, that Persian described not so much a people speaking a particular language, as the manner of life of a people in a certain state of civilization, that the armies who, under Cyrus, overthrew the Assyrian and founded the Persian monarchy were the Nomadic tribes, the people dwelling in tents of the region which is at present Persia, that they spoke the Pehlvi language or some dialect of the Chaldee, and that, at that early period, a Shemitic language prevailed from the Mediterranean to the Indus. v. All that Herodotus says as to the degree of civilization the Persians had attained, at the era of the conquest of Assyria, tends to confirm this conjecture ; it is certain, says he, that the Persians before their conquest of Lydia were strangers to every species of luxury. They were in the Nomadic state, and their name indicated as much. From the Hebrew Pharash we have the Chaldee form Pharath, radical letters Phrth, with the Sanskrit Jan, a man, or per- son, Parthian, that is, a horseman.* In the third century of the Christian era, we have an inscription commemorating the * U*1F -^ars (Arabic), a horse, or mare, Persia. u~J^ Fars (Ara- bic), a horseman, Persia, Parthia. THE LANGUAGES OF PERSIA. 131 defeat and capture of the Roman Emperor Valerian, by Sapor, King of Persia, of the race of the Sassanidaa, which is written in Cufic characters, and in a dialect of the Chaldee language, according to Baron de Sacy ; and according to the relation of Anquetil du Perron, about the year A. D. 1400 the Destour Ardeschir arrives in India from Sistan in Persia with a Pehlvi translation of the Vendidat, while in our own times Sir John Malcolm, a distinguished Oriental scholar, finds the Pehlvi generally spoken in Persia. VI. Connecting the preceding particulars with a fact rather hinted at than explained by Strabo, we shall not only be led to doubt the remote antiquity of the classic Persian, or present language of books in that country, but have a glimpse of the cause in which it originated, and of the mode in which it was gradually formed. He says, that in the age of Alexander it was the Indus which separated India from Ariana, situated to the west of the former, and at that time possessed by the Persians, but that at a subsequent period a great part of Ariana was given by the Macedonians to the Indians. There can be little doubt that the Ariana of Strabo is the word which Sir William Jones writes Iran, and which in the native characters is spelt Airan. That geographer says the name of Ariana extends over a part of Persia, of Media, of northern Bactriana, and of Sogdiana, and in fact the people of all these countries speak nearly the same language. The geographical distribution of the various people of Ariana is as follows : — Near the Indus, and to the south of Paropamisus, is a nation deriving its name from that mountain chain ; more to the south still are the Arachotas, and next the Gedrosians, who occupy the sea-coast. To the west of the Paropamisans are the Arii ; and of the Ara- chotse and Gedrosians, the Drangaa. The people of all the countries lying to the west and along the banks of the Indus were transferred from the dominion of the Persians to that of the Indians. Alexander in the first instance expelled the Arianians, and settled colonies there, but eventually Seleucus Nicator ceded them to Sandracottus in a matrimonial treaty, and received in exchange for them five hundred elephants, K 2 132 THE LANGUAGES OF PERSIA. (Strabon par Coray, torn. v. livre 15. pp. 10 and 104.) May we not, with much probability, date from this period the formation of the modern Persic, and account in this way for the numerous words it has in common with the Sanskrit ? From the ascendancy of the Indian settlers introduced into Persia by Sandracottus and his successors, the Zendish and Pehlvi fell into disuse, and a language more analogous to the Sanskrit prevailed. This, at a much later period, was de- nominated the Deri, or the language of the court, and may be regarded as the classical language of Persia, and that in which their best books are written, the works of Sacli, Hafiz, and above all the Shah Namah of Firdousi, which, as it contains the smallest mixture of Arabic, must, I suppose, be regarded as the purest specimen of Persic in existence. vii. Herodotus says that the ancient Persians were called Cephenes by the Greeks, and by themselves and their neigh- bours Artaei. The latter word appears to be formed from the Pehlvi word Arta, earth, and the Hebrew Hai, or Chai, life, and to correspond in meaning as nearly as possible with the Greek word Autochthones, and the Latin Aborigines, implying not that they were born of the earth, as the poets feigned of the Titans, but that they were the oldest known inhabitants of the country, and that no trace or tradition existed of their having migrated from any other. Herodotus also mentions the word Angareion as Persic, and describing what we should call travelling post, and his accuracy is con- firmed by the circumstance of our finding Angari in Jose- phus in the sense of messengers, but I can find nothing like it in modern Persic. Plutarch informs us that the name of Cyrus was derived from that of the sun, and Khur is still the literal word for that luminary, which, with a Greek ter- mination, becomes Cyrus. viii. The nature of my plan would now lead me to make some remarks on the grammatical arrangements and pecu- liarities of the Persic language ; but as I have already done so in another work *, to avoid repetition, I prefer referring * On the Origin and Ramifications of the English Language, 8vo. London, 1845, THE LANGUAGES OF PERSIA. 133 the reader to that, and proceed to give a list of some of the most remarkable words I have observed. Persic Words. Analogies. Abtakhash, the first of Alexander's successors according to the Persians and Arabians, who reigned in Persia, Antiochus. This extraordinary reading is produced merely by the erroneous position of a point or dot. In Persic and Arabic, b (■?), and n (•'), are precisely the same as to form. An- takhush differs very little from Antiochus. Abasta, or Avesta, the name of a book which the Magi of Persia attribute to the Patriarch Abraham, whom they suppose to be the same with Zoroaster. Atish, fire Aish (Hebrew), fire ; originally pro- bably the same word, the change being merely in the diacritical points, the shape of t and i, in Persic, being perfectly similar. See Abtakhush. Aray, decoration Array, English. Arjab, an ancient king of Turkistan. Note. — Rather Darius Hystaspes, from Arj, honour, and Asb, horse, as he was elected to the throne of Persia from the neighing of his horse. Ispanak, or Isfanaj Spinach, English. Ayaridah, and Khurdah, two books of the Magi, Parsi, Guebres, or disciples of Zoroaster, or Zerdusht. Note. — The etymology of Khurdah implies Given by the sun, from Khur, sun, and Deh, giver, in this circumstance agreeing with the Indian Vedas and Laws of Menu, and the Egyptian books of Hermes. — Zoroaster, or Golden Star, was merely a name of the sun. Aydun, God Adon (Hebrew), Lord. Bazand, or Pazand, the principles of the Book of Life. Bazirah or Pazirah, an hour. Basaman or Pasaman, a good man. Basij or Pasij, a swallow. Basidan or Pasidan, to guard. Bashan or Pashan, an inner garden. Bashin or Pashin, bark, chips. Note. — Probably all these various readings originated in inattention to the diacritical points, B and P in other respects being precisely the same letter in Persic. Hundreds of words in Persic and Arabic originated from confounding the con- sonants in this way, and using an imperfect alphabet. Nu- merous letters are distinguished from each other solely by the diacritical points, and they were neglected in writing. Bal, the heart, also Arabic, reversed... .Laib (Hebrew), the heart. Bach, a child, a boy Note. — With a Greek termination Bacchus,— " Bacchus ever fair and ever young." — Dryden's Ode. K 3 134 THE LANGUAGES OF PERSIA. Persic Words. Analogies. Baichah, boy, child, ivy. Note. — The ivy was clearly sacred from Homonymy. See Anita, myrtle, in the list of Pehlvi words. Bakhtar, the east Hence, Bactriana. •Buran, sharp, cutting Burin (French), an engraving tool. Barsh, Barshan, ivy. Note. — Though Persic words, the difference appears to arise from the Arabic Tenwin, or Nunnation, Perhaps the absence or presence of this mark accounts for the difference between Babel and Babylon, and Sid, lord, one of the names of the sun, and Sidon in Phoenicia, a city dedicated to the sun, or Alcides — Arabic, Al Sid, the Lord, with a Greek termination, Alcides . Bostan, a garden, from Bui, fragrance, and Stan, place. Bui, the nose, preceded by Istan, place, Istambul, Constanti- nople, from its situation, that is, the Place of a Cape. Bui in this instance it is used precisely like the northern Ness. tv , , , , , r f Besch (Zendish), two. Bist, twenty, contracted from j Deh ( £ ersic)j ^ Bin, seeing , Bin (Hebrew), to see. Pak, pure, chaste Naki (Hebrew), the same word by a change of the diacritical points, N and P in other respects being the same letter in Persic. Puf, a blast of wind Puff, English. Tak, the tendril of a vine Note. — Probably in Greek Bac- chus; and still more probably Iacchus, from a change of the diacritical points, the forms of the letters b, i, and t, in Persic being precisely similar. Tarist, three hundred From Traya, three, and Sat, a hun- dred (Sanskrit). Tan, the body, person With Tit (Hebrew), clay, prefixed, Titan (Greek), i. e. Terras Filius. Tundar Thunder, English. Jadwal, a river Also Arabic, with Kebir (Arabic), great, the, Guadalquiver in Spain. Jastun, to spring forward, assail... "1 T . rp , -& v t Justan, to seek * j Joust or T °™ment, English. Jugh Yoke, English. Chartah, skin, leather ( ^ ar + ta ( Lat f)' P a P er ' .. L Lnarta membranacea, vellum. nui~ « +*.;«« f Chose, French. ChlZ ' \ thm % I Cosa, Italian, Drust, right, true Droist, Old French. Dawist, two hundred, probably corrupted from Deh, ten, and Bist, twenty, i. e. ten twenties. Dih, a village ; probably from containing ten (Deh) houses, and corresponding with our English tything. Dikhan, the chief of a village, from the above, and Khan, lord, t corresponding with our tything-man. THE LANGUAGES OF PERSIA. 135 Persic Words. Analogies. Day, the Deity, the good principle { ^eus, Latin.' Disah, variegated. Probably from Du, Seh, two, three: like Yachdav (Hebrew), together, from Yek, Du (Persic), one, two ; and Alphabet, from Alpha, Beta, the first two letters of the Greek alphabet. Diw or Div, a demon, a genius ... { D^rSj^i® 04 Rustak, a village j Rustick (English), pertaining to ' ° (_ the country. Zab, a fountain, from Zi, living, and Ab, water. Sa, like .... So, English. . Sal, a year Perhaps this word is related to the Latin Sol, the sun. Sal, a year, from the revolution of Sol, the sun. Sarjang, a leader { Se g; ant ( En S lish )> either in war or Surkh, red Note. — This word is applied by the Persians to Salmon, and appears to form the first syllable in Sur- Mullet. Sarma, cold , . .With the Arabic Hi at, life, and Jan (Sanskrit), man, Sarmatians, those who live in the cold, or inhabit a high northern latitude. The word appears to be generic, and as indefinite as the Greek term Hyperboreans, with which it nearly corresponds. Sifnidan, to blow a flute > Souffler (French), to blow. Shah, a king. Shah-tarab, a satrap. Tarab, earth, and perhaps a province. Kaliwan or Kalivan (w is interchangeable with b, Richardson). Kaliban Note. — This name of one of the most extraordinary creations of Shakspeare's muse appears to be significant, and to mean " an adorer of fire." Caliban, de- scribing his first acquaintance with Prospero, says that the latter then taught him " how to name the bigger light, and how the less that burn by day and night." Warton, in his observations on the Tempest, remarks that the name of Ariel came from the Talmudical mysteries ; and Stevens says, " No one has hitherto been lucky enough to discover the romance on which Shaks- peare may be supposed to have founded this play." Though the romance should be Aurelio and Isabella, printed in Italian, as Collins the poet conjectured, it is highly probable that parts at least of that were borrowed from some Oriental fable. Tru cT,^f J Kit, a short fiddle. lut, snort | Katan (Hebrew)j 1Ittle# Kaak, biscuit Cake, English. Kaf, the palm of the hand Caph, Hebrew. Kilid, a key Kleidos (Greek), gen. of Kleis. Kalizah, a cup for water Chalice, English. Kiwan, the planet Saturn Chiun, Hebrew. k 4 136 THE LANGUAGES OF PEKSIA. Persic Words. Analogies. Gar, a particle which, when sub- \ Note. — It is cognate with the Persic joined to a word, denotes agency. J Kar, an action; and occurs as a verb in Scottish. " It gars me greet," i. e. " It makes me cry." n- j , i . , t rn n • • fFrom Gird, a circle, and Ab, water: Girdab, a whirlpool (Gaf, g, is m- J , transposition with a Greek ter- terchangeable with Kaf, k.). 1 b ? transposition, witn a ^reeK ter- ° I mmation, Chary bdis. Grft (Radical lette rs ), taken { ih ^j^^^ ^ " ^^ n -x-l i7< t J.- f Garment (English), that which is Garm, warm, with Ens, Latin ... < K ° y ' ' ' ' i warm. n . . f Cry, English. Gri, weeping | Gridare (Italian), to cry out. Gaw, the sun Ge, Chinese. Mar, used for Mader Mere (French), mother. Maru, mother Note. — We have Mount Meru in India, the residence of the Gods ; and probably both words have some connexion with the fabulous Greek account of the birth of Bacchus, from the Meros, or thigh of Jupiter. Mam a mother -f Mamma > English. "| Mamma (Latin), a breast. Murdar, a dead body Murder, English. Marz, boundary of a country Lord of the Marches, English. ivr . ■■ ■. f Margarites, Greek. Marwarid,apearl | Margarita/Latin. Mizmar, a flute or psaltery Mizmor (Hebrew), a song. Majn, a small shield Magain (Hebrew), a shield. Mushku, a temple Mosque, Turkish. Nab a prince or chief -f ^ eb (Egyptian), Lord ' ' x " \ Nebo, identical with Baal, the sun. Was, for Bas, enough Basta, Italian. Hrw, brave, warlike Hero, English. Hulk, shipwreck j Hulk ($*&&>> . a shi P without her ' i L masts and rigging. Hoi, true, just . Holy, English. xt ,-. f Khur, the sun, Persic. Hur, the sun -{ A \ Vr i, |_ Aor, the sun, Hebrew. 137 CHAP. XV. GREECE. THE GREEK ALPHABET. THE GREEK VERB. " On the iEgean shore a city stands, Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil ; Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts And eloquence, native to famous wits Or hospitable, in her sweet recess, City or suburban, studious walks and shades. See there the olive grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trills her thick- warbled notes the summer long ; There flowery hill Hymettus, with the sound Of bees' industrious murmur, oft invites To studious musing ; there Ilissus rolls His whispering stream : within the walls then view The schools of ancient sages ; his, who bred Great Alexander to subdue the world, Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next." Paradise Regained, book iv. I. The subject of the Greek language and grammar opens so vast a field of inquiry, that I could not pretend to do any- thing like justice to it, could I make it the theme of my whole work, instead of a short chapter. Besides, so much has already been done in this way, and more especially by the camparatively recent labours of Buttman, Thiersch, and Matthiae, that perhaps the Greek language has already re- ceived all the illustrations it is susceptible of receiving from sources merely Greek ; and I should shrink from the task in despair, were I not of opinion that all the advantages have not been derived from the Oriental languages which they are abundantly capable of affording, and convinced that this de- partment of literature has hitherto been little cultivated in England, because few are even yet aware of the rich harvests it may be made to produce. On the present occasion I must confine my observations to the formation of the Greek al- phabet and the origin of the Greek verb. It may not be unnecessary to premise, that my chief authorities for the forms of the letters are " Explication de quelques Medailles 138 THE GREEK ALPHABET. Grecques et Pheniciennes avec une Paleographie Numis- matique, par M. L. Dutens, 4to. Londres, 1776/' and "In- scriptiones Graecae Vetustissimse, H. I. Rose, 8vo. Cantab. 1825." Alpha. H- Samaritan or Phoenician Aleph. A complete and critical account of the Greek alphabet would comprise at least three particulars — first, the oldest name of every letter, the primitive language from which the name was derived, and its precise signification in that lan- guage ; secondly, all the various forms the letter has assumed from the origin of alphabetical writing, arranged in exact chronological order; and thirdly, its power or its various sounds as a vowel and consonant through the lapse of suc- cessive centuries, as almost all the vowels have, under some circumstances, a consonant power \ and many of the con- sonants, more especially the liquids, L, M, N, and R, a vowel one. Indeed, L and R in Sanskrit bear the name and are arranged among the vowels. The name of the Greek letter Alpha is usually thought to have been derived from Aleph, the first letter of the Phoenician and most of the Shemitic alphabets, and probably from that quarter it came, together with the letter itself ; but as the name is not sig- nificant in any of these languages that I am aware of, or in other words does not explain itself, it is worth while to look for another etymology. I believe that Alpha is not so much essentially the name of the letter, as an adjunct or epithet descriptive of its nature, and that it is the Sanskrit word Alpa, little, and was intended to answer the same purpose with respect to A, as the similar epithets Micron and Mega appended to O, and Psilon to E and U, that is, to inform us of the length or quantity of the vowel in poetical composi- tions. The Shemitic alphabets have two forms of A, Aleph short, and Ayin long, and equivalent to, and representing two short vowels, and in some cases susceptible of being re- solved into them. For instance, in Hebrew Aor, written with Aleph or single A, signifies the sun and light, while the same word written with Ayin, or double A, signifies blind, and explains its own meaning if we resolve Ayin into two THE GREEK ALPHABET. 139 Alephs, the first of which is privative, Aor, light, Aaor, no light, that is, blind. Of the origin and progress of the Greek alphabet, we have accounts mythological, poetical, and con- jectural, every thing in short except what we particularly wish for, that is, historical. Whatever the truth may be, I think we should understand the subject better, if we regarded the alphabet of sixteen letters, said to have been introduced by Cadmus, as the prose alphabet of Greece, and that of twenty-four, as existing in the works of Homer, as the poeti- cal alphabet. It is quite clear to me, that if such an art as that of music had never been invented, or even if music and song had not been habitually conjoined, as we know they were in every stage of Greek epic, dramatic, and lyric poetry, we should never have heard of long and short vowels, or long and short syllables. In fact what are the Greek poetical metres or measures ? * Ancient musical compositions, of which just one half has come down to us, the other being irrecoverably lost. Music consists of two parts, tune and time. What the Greek tunes were, hardly a vestige remains to assist us to form an idea of; and Dr. Burney, on being shown some specimens of ancient musical notation of that people, professed himself totally unable to conjecture with what modern notes they corresponded, and regarded the inquiry as altogether desperate, profoundly versed as he was both in the theory and practice of the art. But we possess the time, in the various poetical metres that have come down to us, and I believe that what is called a short syllable in poetry was short, because it coincided with a short note of * " At the end of the Oxford edition of Aratus, &c, there are some learned observations on the ancient music by Chilmead, and a few frag- ments of ancient tunes to some Greek odes and hymns reduced to our modern notation. " It came into my mind that I had perused them long ago, and upon looking now into the book, I find two remarks of the editor agreeing with my own notions : one, that the time of the musical notes answered to the quantity of the syllables ; the other, that the music of the ancients was very plain and unadorned." (Jortins' Tracts, vol. i. p. 28.) The whole of the Letter to Mr. Avison, of which the above extract forms the post- script, is extremely curious and replete with learning and original thought. 140 THE GREEK ALPHABET. the musical accompaniment, and long because it coincided with a long one, and for no other reason whatever, and THAT IN MANY INSTANCES IT IS IN VAIN TO SEEK FOR THE CAUSE OF LONG AND SHORT SYLLABLES IN THE NATURE OF LANGUAGE, AS THE CAUSE WAS ALTOGE- THER EXTRANEOUS TO LANGUAGE, AND DEPENDED ON THE NOTES, LONG OR SHORT, OF THE MUSICAL ACCOM- PANIMENT. It is remarkable that in Sanskrit very many words are written indifferently with the long or short vowels, and that in the Egyptian language which uses Greek cha- racters chiefly, a great number of words are written both with Epsilon and Eta, Omicron and Omega. What was the Licentia Poetica as practised by Homer and the earliest rhapsodists? It must be remembered that their composi- tions were sung or recited to the accompaniment of a lyre or some other musical instrument ; and I believe the poet had the option of pronouncing all the vowels long or short, as suited his convenience, to make his verse harmonize with the tune he was singing. Does not every musical composer and singer still take the same liberty with every language spoken in Europe ? The words of a song with a musical accompaniment are hardly intelligible, because their accent and usual pronunciation are completely changed, the lan- guage being subordinate, and a slave to the music. What are the rules of prosody but an enumeration of the expe- dients resorted to by the poet, to adapt and accommodate the length of the syllables of his verses to the musical notes to which they were sung? As an agreement between the two was imperative, and the music could not change, the language necessarily did. ii. Beta. £. Beta from Dutens. ||. Beta from Rose. ^. Biarkan from the Runic Alphabet in Mallet's Northern Antiquities. v Beta, the name of the second letter of the Greek, appears to be derived from Beth, the second letter of the Phoenician THE GREEK ALPHABET. 141 and other Shemitic alphabets, but not so the form, of which I cannot find the prototype in any Oriental language. v Beth in Hebrew, and most of the Shemitic languages, with slight modifications, signifies a house ; and as the forms of the let- ters have not the most distant resemblance to a house, they do not appear to be so old as the name. I believe, however, the etymology of Beth in the Shemitic languages to be Bet (Coptic), costa, a rib, and it is certain that in Hebrew, Ethiopic, Syriac, and Samaritan, Beth has much more resem- blance to a rib joined to the spine, than to a house. The Greek form of Beta is probably older than that of either of the Shemitic alphabets ; and what is rather singular, is the very counterpart of the Runic, which has induced me to give the latter a place, and it is remarkable enough that Biarkan, the name of the letter in the Runic alphabet, signifies house in Persic, as Beth does in Hebrew. It is further remarkable that Biarkan is evidently compounded of two tents, the primitive dwellings of the human race, and more especially of a pastoral people, and the form of a tent in China, where nothing changes, is said to predominate in the architecture of that nation, and still attests their Nomadic origin. III. Gamma. *r Samaritan, or Phoenician Ghimel. Orientalists are fond of deriving the name of this letter from the Hebrew word Gimel, or Gamal, a camel, and if this be the true etymology the Syriac is probably the oldest form, as it bears the closest resemblance to the long neck of that animal. Dutens supposes the form he has given of Gamma to be by much the most ancient of the letter, in which I believe he was entirely mistaken, and that the form given by Rose has much stronger claims to be regarded as such. Dutens copied it from the medals of Gelo and Agri- gentum, the workmanship of which is extremely rude, and supposes that it passed into the Roman C ; I strongly sus- pect, however, that that letter, or at any rate its soft sound, was derived from one of the forms of Sigma, and that Dutens's Gamma is a common Roman G badly formed. 142 THE GREEK ALPHABET. iy. Delta. v ^ Samaritan, or Phoenician Daleth. The name of the letter in Hebrew is Daleth, which sig- nifies a door, to which, however, the character in that lan- guage bears very little resemblance. There can be little doubt that both the form and name of the Greek letter were derived from the Phoenician alphabet. v. Ei (Epsilon). 3 Samaritan, or Phoenician He. The forms of this letter, as given by Rose, agree with that of Dutens, and vary very little, except as they are written from left to right, or from right to left. He, the Oriental name of the letter, is not significant, or in other words does not explain itself, either in Hebrew or any other Shemitic language that I can discover. Plutarch informs us that the ancient name of this letter in Greek w r as Ei, and this name it still retains in the Coptic and Sahidic alphabets, in which we find the twenty-four letters of the Greek alphabet ar- ranged nearly in the same order, together with eight addi- tional. Every thing connected with the Greek alphabet appears to be sheer mythology, from Cadmus and his sixteen Phoenician letters, to the final settlement of the Athenian alphabet, in the archonship of Euclid. Cadmus himself is the mere creation of fiction, his name being derived from the Hebrew word Kedem, the east, or the sun. He is a mere shadow, vox et prgeterea nihil, and every thing connected with him appears to be as unsubstantial as himself. He is said to have brought only sixteen letters into Greece, and we cannot discover any Shemitic alphabet which contains fewer than twenty-two. This is the case with the Phoenician or Samaritan, the Hebrew and the Syriac; and not only do these alphabets agree as to the number of letters, but also as to their name and power. The Greek alphabet, in the age of Homer, is said to have consisted of those sixteen primitive Cadmean letters, and yet in every part of his works we find the alphabet as complete as it was after the archonship of THE GREEK ALPHABET. 143 Euclid, and, what is still more singular, both the Iliad and the Odyssey are each divided into twenty-four books, ap- parently for no other reason than because the Greek alphabet contained twenty-four letters, each of which has given its name to a book. I have already remarked, that we learn from Plutarch that the name of Epsilon among the ancient Greeks was Ei, and that Ei is its name in the Coptic alpha- bet, and we actually find it written Ei in one of the epi- graphs to the 5th Book of the Iliad. There are two, the first being AlojuutJSovs apio-rsla, the bravery of Diomed, and the other E2 ftaXku KvOepsiav, "Aprjd re, TvBsos vlos, that is, Ei (the name of the letter) the son of Tydeus wounds Yenus and Mars. It is remarkable that perhaps the oldest quota- tion of the Iliad was made from this book, that by Herodotus in the second book of his History (c. 116.), who refers to neither letter, number, nor line, but makes use of the first of the above epigraphs.* The probability, therefore, is that both epigraphs are as old as the age of Herodotus, and per- haps even that of Peisistratus. Again, it is remarkable that the lines quoted by him are not in the 5th Book of the Iliad as.it has come down to us, and do not occur until line 289. of the 6th Book. The division of the Iliad, therefore, in the age of Herodotus was not what it is at present. That poem contains about 15,673 lines; and if we suppose the Greek alphabet to have consisted of sixteen letters, and the Iliad to have been divided into sixteen books, they will average at about 980 lines, and by some such arrangement those quoted by Herodotus may have formed part of the 5th Book, which however contains 909 lines in its present state. At any rate, we are quite certain that the ancient name of the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet was Ei, and I regard this as a most important fact. The mode in which I purpose to employ it is as follows : — We know that Asia was peopled and civi- lised before Europe, and that the Greeks and Romans bor- rowed their alphabets thence. The next question is, to what * 'ETri/jtsfivriTai Sk avrov kv Aioj-irjSsog apiareiri' Xsyei dk ra e~ea ovtoj. , Ev9' icav oi ttsttXoi, k. t. X. 144 THE GREEK ALPHABET. extent did they, in the first instance, adopt their mode of writing. The Phoenicians, in common with the other She- mitic people, wrote from right to left, and in that direction we find the legends of the earliest Greek medals, and the oldest inscriptions in Etruscan, or ancient Greek characters. The Oriental nations omitted the vowels in writing to such an inconvenient extent, that their descendants have endea- voured to remedy the defect by the invention of vowel points ; and Lanzi, in his Saggio di Lingua Etrusca, assures us that this was the case with the Etrurians and other people of ancient Italy. We learn from him that E, in some instances, was equivalent to the diphthong EI, and he adduces the Sigasan inscription as an example of it. (Tom. i. p. 88.) Payne Knight, in his Analytical Essay on the Greek Alphabet, referring to the same document, says " the first Sigaaan written about six hundred years before the Christian era has EIMI ; but the second copied from it, probably about fifty years later, has EMI." (P. 18.) Now I believe, that in the early ages of Greece there was no gram- matical anomaly in this, and that no one was deceived. Accustomed to see the Asiatics omit the vowels in writing to a great extent, they themselves did something like it, and in many instances read the name of the letter in- stead of the letter itself. In the second Sigsean inscription E only was written, but they read its name EI, and there was no anomaly. This mode of reading is still practised invariably in Sanskrit with regard to A short, which is always supposed to be annexed to every consonant ; and the Anti-Masorists, who wished to do away with the Hebrew vowel points, proposed to read instead of them the first vowel that occurs in writing the name of every conso- nant. vi. Zeta. We find the elements of this double letter exhibited in the Medals of Troezene, in the words Sdeus Eleutherios, i. e. Zeus Eleutherios. The Eolians, however, reversed the order of the initial letters, and wrote Dseus, Jupiter. THE GREEK ALPHABET. 145 VII. Eta. 3 Phoenician Heth from Dutens. H Greek Eta „ „ & „ „ Rose. Dutens in connexion with this letter says, " The Sigaean Inscription supplies us with many important particulars. It consists of two parts, of which the one is a repetition of the six first lines of the other ; and Chishull has very justly re- marked that the upper was engraved some time, perhaps fifty years later than the lower, with a view of rendering it more clear. In the lower part of the inscription we do not find the letters H and 12, the first of which appears only as a sign of aspiration; and in the upper this same H (Eta), which was then newly introduced, is substituted for E (Epsilon), and 12 for O, in those cases in which the pro- nunciation required long instead of short vowels: we may also perceive that in the upper part of the inscription the Attic is substituted for the Eolic dialect. These observations make the antiquity of this inscription ascend beyond the time of Simonides — how much beyond, it would be difficult to determine ; which would be in accordance with the sug- gestion of Chishull that the JEsop, of whom the inscription makes mention, may have been identical with the celebrated fabulist, who was a Phrygian, and consequently resided near Sigseum, and flourished about the time of Simonides. Either of these proofs places the date of the inscription about the year 590, or 600, before Jesus Christ. It presents us with the Greek alphabet of that period, and may enable us to form conjectures as to the date of those medals on which are found letters resembling those of the inscription" (p. 173.). Thus far Dutens, but I would remark that in the common Biographical Dictionaries, Simonides is said to have flourished about B. c. 538 ; and as we find the long vowels in an in- scription fifty or sixty years older, they could hardly have been introduced into the Greek alphabet by him, and the subject requires a few more observations. The form of the oldest Greek Eta is Phoenician, and its name is Phoenician, L 146 THE GREEK ALPHABET. both circumstances constituting a strong presumption as to its primitive power. What was that power in the Oriental alphabets? Masclef, in his Hebrew Grammar, expressly assigns to Heth, the eighth letter of that as well as of the Sa- maritan and Syriac alphabets, the character of the Greek Eta, and adds, " Differt ab n (He), ut Eta difFert ab Epsilon, id est, ut E longum differt ab E brevi, vel potius ut E gutturale differt ab E simplici." (p. 12.) I cannot discover any ade- quate grounds for believing that Eta was introduced into the Greek alphabet at a later period than Epsilon (Ei). The latter was most certainly He, H, the fifth letter of the Phoe- nician (or Samaritan) alphabet, and the Roman E, and there really appears to me to be no more doubt that Eta was the Phoenician (or Samaritan) Heth, Q, H, and passed un- changed from the second form into the Roman H. In the oldest Greek inscription that we possess, or at any rate that we can rely on (for we can repose little confidence in those of Fourmont), the Sigsean, Eta H, occurs twice with precisely the power of the Roman H, that is, of an Aspirate letter in the words ^OTO^ I AH and HA<3EU4>0[, Haisopus and Hadelphoi, the first written from right to left ; and Schotz, in his Coptic Grammar, says, (e H, in vetusto Grsecorum alphabeto cum adspiratione pronunciabatur uti Athengeus in Deipnosophist. 1. 9. c. 12. testatur. In My- sterio Lit. Grgec. Sahidico MSS. etiam ^HTA, appellatur " (i. e. Heta), p. 6. Eta, then, in the early Greek alphabet, was precisely what it had been in the Phoenician, and what it continued to be in the Roman, and the very utmost that we can ascribe to Simonides appears to be, that he CHANGED THE CHARACTER OP THE LETTER, RETAINING the form, and employed what had been a mark of aspi- ration as a contraction in writing for expressing long E, equivalent to two Epsilon s in time or quantity, and at the same time one of the primitive letters of the Cadmean or Phoenician alphabet disappeared from the Greek, except so far as it was imperfectly represented by the Spiritus Asper, £-, and the Spiritus Lenis, -\. THE GREEK ALPHABET. 147 viii. Theta. Thau, or Tau, the last letter of the Shemitic alphabets, seems to correspond with the Greek Theta in power, but in no way in form. It appears to me to be one of the very oldest letters in existence, to have passed into the Greek alphabet directly from the Sanskrit, and not through the medium of any of the Shemitic languages, or alphabets, and to have been primarily an Hieroglyphic, both in China and Egypt. © . In the former country signifies the sun, and its name is Ge, or Je. o. In the second country has the same signification under the name of Phre. o . Tha or Thah (easily read as That in the Arabic and many Oriental languages), in Sanskrit signifies, according to Wilson's Dictionary, a circle, a globe, the disk of the sun or moon, an idol, a deity, a name of Siva. Tha, a circle, ex- plains the essential form of the letter, from which it never varied, except, perhaps, in inscriptions on stone, when for the sake of convenience it was made square. Its primary signification was probably that of the sun, the earliest god of the human race, whence it was extended also to the moon, and gradually became a general name of deity. Siva is the sun, and his wife Parvadhi or Parvati, the moon. By reading the v of Siva as o, the Greeks appear to have formed Sios, and as u, Zeus. Tha, the Sanskrit name of the as- pirate Th, by the addition of final Ta, became the Greek letter Theta ; and by the addition of final Os, the Greek word Theos, a generic name of deity, as it had previously been in the primitive language, the Sanskrit. ix. Iota. Dutens says that this letter never changed its form among the Greeks, but he appears to have been mistaken. x. Kappa. Scholtz says, that in the Egyptian language Kappa some- times supplied the place of Gamma. The form of Kappa L 2 148 THE GREEK ALPHABET. appears to have varied less than that of almost any other letter of the Greek alphabet. XI. Lambda. 2. Samaritan or Phoenician Lamed. The form of Lambda in the Sigasan and all the oldest inscriptions in Greece Proper and Asia Minor, is precisely the same as in what are called the Etrurian inscriptions of Italy, the great majority of which are certainly Greek and Latin merely in an early and obsolete character. xii. Mu. 2L\ Samaritan or Phoenician Mem. The form of Mn in Dutens is that of the Sigaean inscrip- tion, the Farnese columns, and the Metapontum medals. xiii. Nu. ti. Samaritan or Phoenician Nun. The Greek letters are found nearly in this shape on the inscriptions of Sigasum and Delos, on the medals of Zancle, and on the ancient medals of Leontium and Naxos. xiv. Xi. X^. Xi from Dutens, or rather the elements for which the character B was a contraction in writing, Chi and Sigma. In Coptic 3 is not unfrequently found resolved into Kappa and Sigma, and we find the same letters substituted for it in some Greek inscriptions (Lanzi). The -ZEolians reversed the order of the letters in many words, and wrote 2K, and in this way they may have imparted some meaning to the name of the mythological BvOos by writing it ^/cvdos, sl Scythian. I am aware that Herodotus writes the word BovOos, and that %kv6t)s is the common Greek form of Scythian, but my remark refers to a much earlier period. xv. Ou (Omicron). o. Ouau, or Vau, from Masclef's Syriac Grammar, the sixth letter of the Shemitic alphabets. THE GREEK ALPHABET. 149 The first question that occurs is, what was the name of this letter in the primitive Greek alphabet, before the intro- duction of the long vowels, as this is the first step towards the truth. Its name in the Coptic alphabet is Ou, and Scholtz says, that its modern pronunciation is not that of o, but u ; and although it should be admitted that the Greek letters of that alphabet are not older than the age of Alex- ander, and the accession of the dynasty of the Ptolemies to the throne of Egypt, the feeblest gleam of light that can be obtained from that, or indeed any other quarter, is not to be despised, as there is really nothing transmitted by the Greeks, in connexion with their alphabet, on which the smallest reliance can be placed. The authority of Hellenius is quoted by Plutarch in his treatise on Isis and Osiris, to prove that the name of the god was pronounced by the priests, not Osiris, but Usiris. But there is better evidence than this, and in a quarter where we should least have thought of looking for it — the works of Homer in their present state, where the name of the letter is written Ou (05), as in the Coptic alphabet, in the epigraphs to the 15th books both of the Iliad and of the Odyssey. The form of the letter in Syriac was O, its name Ouau, and its power, judging from that of Wav, the corresponding letter in the Hebrew alphabet, not merely that of the vowels o, oo, and u, but of the con- sonants v and w ; and as I have already remarked, it is probable that oikos and oivov by the early Greeks were pronounced like the Latin Vicus and Yinum, without supposing the existence of Digamma (which is really the same letter in the Samaritan or Phoenician alphabet), or any other extraneous character of any sort whatever, but merely that the Greek Ou (Omicron) retained the double character of its Syriac prototype Ouau, that is, was both vowel and consonant, until the introduction of Phi into the Greek alphabet from the Ethiopic (in which it exists also as Wav), after which a per- pendicular stroke added to Ou (Omicron), thus, (D , denoted that it had entirely lost its vowel character, and was con- verted into an aspirate consonant with the precise power of L 3 150 THE GREEK ALPHABET. Digamma, or Roman F, in which language Films might have been written ilms, if the letter Phi had been naturalised, and in which the Greek <§vco became the Latin Fuo (vide Facciolati in voce Fuam). But I wish to point out another feature of Orientalism in the letter. The nations speaking a Shemitic language wrote from right to left, and omitted the vowels to a great extent. The Etruscans, or Italian Greeks, wrote in the same mode, according to Lanzi, and the early Greek inscriptions are Boustrophedon, or alternately from right to left, and from left to right, and may be regarded as a connecting link between Asiatic and European writing. So far as to the mode of writing, and next as to the primitive power of the letters, and here, as we have seen, the Sanskrit, perhaps the oldest language of Asia, and undoubtedly the immediate mother of the Greek and Latin, never writes A short, except at the commencement of a word, which letter is always understood to be annexed to every consonant in the alphabet, or, in other words, they read not merely the letter, but the name of the letter. To save trouble inscriptions on stone were generally written with as few words and letters as possible. The Romans hardly ever wrote the terminations of words, and indeed were so fond of using abbreviations, that Gerrard has devoted a volume to explaining the initial letters they were in the habit of employing. In the same spirit, I suppose the early Greeks to have written the short vowels E and O, instead of the diphthongs EI and OT after the ana- logy of the Sanskrit, from which the Greek language was principally derived. But this produced no ambiguitv, nor was it regarded as a grammatical anomaly in the first in- stance, as there no doubt existed a clear understanding that in such cases the name or the letter, and not merely the letter itself, was to be read. We have seen from the epigraphs of Homer, that the original name of Epsilon was Ei, and of Omicron, Ou, and I entertain not the slightest doubt that the ancient Greeks read accordingly, and from habit and veneration for antiquity, it is highly probable that this mode of writing continued to be employed, long- after the final settlement of the Greek, or rather the THE GREEK ALPHABET. 151 Athenian alphabet, in the archonship of Euclid.* In con- nexion with this subject, Dutens remarks, that in the Sigaean inscription, the Genitive ov is expressed by a simple O, and that the same circumstance may be observed in the inscrip- tion discovered at Athens by the Marquis de Nointel on his return from his embassy to Constantinople, of which the date may be referred to the year b. c. 450, and he infers that the use of a simple O to express the Genitive Case when found on any medal may fairly lead us to conclude that it is not of inferior antiquity. (P. 175.) xvi. Pi. r Pi, from Dutens. f Pi from Rose. It is remarkable that the name of this letter in the Coptic alphabet is not Pi but Bi, and that Scholtz defines its power by the letters Bi. xvn. Rho. <\ Samaritan or Phoenician Resell. The oldest form of Rho is so much like the most ancient one of Alpha, as found in inscriptions and on medals, that the two letters must have been frequently mistaken for each other. They are quite undistinguishable except by their di- rection^ and that disappeared in Boustrophedon writing. I have little doubt that the Doric R, redundant, which Strabo * " Statuenduni igitur erit, ut vere Thierschius post alios, isto Euclidis decreto nihil aliud fuisse contentum nisi ut Ionicas literas in publicis monumentis inscribendis adhibere liceret. Quo tempore ergo aut in reliqua Grsecia aut in ipsis Athenis percrebuerit usus longarum vocaliuni, nemo satis idoneis auctoribus fretus dicere potest. Utilissima procul dubio et pame necessaria fuit earum inventio, quod antea quam invectae sint, triplicem vicem vocales E et O sustinuerint. E scilicet sibi pro- priam potestatem, diphthongi EI et longas vocalis H vim habebat. Vocali O eodem modo non sua tantum potestas tribuebatur, sed pro diphthongo OY et vocali O ponebatur. Negavit quidem Dawesius E pro El unquam a Graecis esse positum, et auctoritatem scriptorum a Tayloro advocatorum nullam esse ostendit. Sed frustra negavit ; nihil enim hoc usu notius est, quod sine Grammaticorum auctoritate ab exemplis quivis discere potest." (Rose, Inscriptiones Grsecae Vetustissimas, Prolegom. p. J 8.) L 4 152 THE GREEK ALPHABET. mentions as being found in many words of that dialect, had its origin in many instances in an obsolete form of Alpha, the Doric characteristic letter, misread. xyiii. San (Sigma). Shan (i. e. a hill) from the Kou-ouen, or very oldest Chinese Hieroglyphics. (Pere Amiot, Lettre de Pekin, Plate 1.) Oldest form of Sigma given by Dutens and Rose. This appears to be the Doric San mentioned by Herodotus, and if so, we have the oldest name and form of the letter in Greece. xix. Tau. f Phoenician Thau from Dutens. T" Coptic Dau with the power of D. This letter among the Egyptians, as well as the Etruscans, expressed the sounds both of Tau and Delta. xx. Upsilon. The name of this letter in the Coptic alphabet is He, but it has no place in the Lexicon, not a single word either in Coptic, or Sahidic, commencing with it. Marsh, in his Horse Pelasgicse, says, that it was introduced late into the Greek alphabet, and that it was frequently used with the consonant power of V. Unfortunately, however, we find it in the Sigasan inscription, which is generally regarded as the oldest authentic one. The real fact is, that all the inscrip- tions and medals in existence throw very little light on the Greek alphabet, except as to the shape of the letters, and all that their authors have transmitted to us, respecting its gradual formation, is as apocryphal as the Expedition of the Argonauts, or the Tale of Troy. xxi. Phi. ^ I Phi, from Rose. In the inscription Naniana, as given by Lanzi, we find not THE GREEK ALPHABET. 153 the contraction, but the elements of it, P and H, in the word Ekphanto. (Tom. i. p. 86.) xxii. Chi. 4, Chi, from Rose. f\ Chi, from Lanzi. In the same inscription, we find the component parts of Chi in the letters K and H, of the word Epeukhomenos, where the capital Eta is clearly and simply an H, as it had been in the Phoenician, and continued to be in the Roman alphabet. (Lanzi, torn. i. p. 86.) xxiii. Psi. nZ From Dutens. There is not the slightest doubt, I believe, that the ele- ments of this contraction consisted of the characters P and S, though I have not been able to find them so written in any existing Greek inscription ; they are very commonly sub- stituted however in the Coptic dialect, for the contraction, or double letter, Psi. xxiv. Omega. Q Omega, from Dutens. n Omega, from Rose. The first form does not appear to me to be a distinct letter at all, but merely Ou (Omicron) with a mark to de- note that it was doubled, or long, the mark in fact which we still use in Lexicons to show that a vowel is long, only placing it above instead of below the letter. It appears to me extremely doubtful, if the miniature character of Omega, g>, was not primarily rather Umega, or a contracted mode of writing two Upsilons, and the Coptic form of the letter III approximates to the Roman W, which, though denominated Double U, rather represents double V, and has an aspirate, if not a consonant power. 154 THE GREEK VERB. On the Origin and Formation of the Greek Verb. xxv. After all that has been written on the subject of the Greek language in general, from the earliest grammars of Dionysius the Thracian, Apollonius Dyscolus, and Con- stantine Lascaris, to the latest and most perfect productions of Buttman, Thiersch, and Matthias which apparently leave hardly anything to be desired, and more especially after the learned treatises of Vincent and Dunbar, devoted expressly to the Greek verb, it would naturally be supposed that little remains to be said under the head which gives a title to this section ; but this is so far from being the case, that every part of the subject is still involved in doubt and uncertainty, and the best scholars are by no means agreed as to the origin of the root of the verb itself, the number of tenses of which it is composed, the mode of their formation, or their precise signification when formed, and on each of these topics I shall have a few words to say. xxvi. One of the most accomplished living scholars (the Bishop of London), in his preface to Matthias's Grammar, remarks that much light was thrown upon the structure and origin of the Greek language by the sagacity and erudition of Hemsterhuys, who supposed that the primary verbs con- sisted of two or three letters from which all the other forms and inflexions were derived. So much indeed was he thought to have effected in this way, that his pupil Ruhnken says of him, " Denique tenebras linguae per tot secula offusas ita dis- cussit ut qua lingua nulla est neque verbis, neque formis, copiosior, eadem jam nulla reperiatur ad discendum facilior." That there is considerable truth in the etymological theory of Hemsterhuys, continues the Bishop, it is impossible to deny, but that it has been pursued to too great an extent is no less certain ; and one obvious and unanswerable objection to its universality is the undoubted fact, that much of the Greek language, together with its written characters, was borrowed from some Asiatic nation. With all deference to this distinguished scholar, I prefer substituting nations, for although perhaps the major part of the Greek alphabet may be traced to the Phoenician (Samaritan), some of the THE GREEK VERB. 155 letters are clearly referable to the common Syriac, and some to the Estrangolo, or old Syriac, and again several letters of the Shemitic alphabets may be proved to have had their origin in Chinese hieroglyphics. And with respect to the roots of Greek words, though some may be traced to the Persic and Arabic, the Sanskrit is undoubtedly the imme- diate mother both of the Greek and Latin. xxvu. To that language we must have recourse, if we wish to have a perfectly clear idea of the origin and formation of the different tenses of the verb Tupto. This far-famed verb has been used as a Paradigm in Greek Grammars, and enforced by so very peculiar a discipline in our great public schools, until, like the laws of Draco, it may almost be said to be written in blood, and yet, which is singular enough, I cannot discover a true account of it in any Lexicon in my pessession. That of Scapula, which is usually regarded as the best after Stephens's Thesaurus, says, " Tupto verbero, percutio, pulso, tundo," entirely omitting two of its most important meanings, to wound and to kill. The Lexicon of Damm, denominated in the title-page Homericum et Pindaricum, omits the word altogether, though it occurs in one or another of its senses in almost every page of Homer's descriptions of battles, but under the word Tupo he says, " pro quo usus obtinuit tvtttg)" and he explains it by the Latin words Tundo, Casdo corn- minus, Verbero, Pulso, I strike, thrust, beat, which appear to be copied from Scapula, and are quite as imperfect ; but before concluding the article he quotes Iliad N. from line 567. to line 575., and adds, " ex quo apparet Tvirrsa-Oai h. 1. ut cognatum verbum positum pro /3\7]6r)vcu ut sit in genere letaliter vulneratus, todlich getroffen " (mortally wounded). The common school Greek Lexicon of Schrevelius, in which I have often discovered the true etymology and meaning of a word after having looked for it in vain in works of much higher pretensions, says, " Tv7ttcq, Verbero, Percutio, Pulso, Tundo," copying Scapula, but adds as an illustration of its meaning a passage from Anacreon, Otyi? fx sTvyjrs, which he translates Serpens me vulneravit, adding one more important signification to the word ; and he might have quoted from 156 THE GREEK VERB. the same author, speaking of Cupid, Kat fie tvtttsc jjlsgov rjirap, where the verb has clearly the same signification, to wound. If we turn from Tupo in Damm's Lexicon, to page 380. of Wilson's Sanskrit Dictionary, we shall find the Dhato, or verbal root Tupa, with the meanings — to injure, to hurt, to kill, and immediately following it, its aspirated form Tupha, with precisely the same meanings. ]\ T ow by turning to the Sanskrit, we have discovered not merely the genuine root of Tupo, which Damm appears to regard as the root of Tupto, but several of its most important signifi- cations, which are looked for in vain in a Greek Lexicon, and we have also discovered as certainly in the aspirate Tupha, the genuine root of the Greek Perfect Tense Te- Tupha, and the Pluperfect Ete-tuph-ein. xxviil On the Present Tense, as the Root of the Greek Verb. With regard to the question whether Tupto or Tupo is to be considered as the genuine root of the verb, and whether the former is derived from the latter by inserting t, or the latter from the former by dropping it, the Eton Grammar makes no observation whatever, but by selecting Tupto as its Paradigm, it appears to regard that word as the root, in common with most of the Lexicons, and Tupo as its Second Future. But the admirable grammar of Thiersch observes expressly, that of the verbs irpaaa-w, do, tikt-o), bear, yrjpao-K-co, grow old, and tvttt-cDs beat, not nrpacrcr, tlkt, yrjpaafc, tvttt, but 7rpay, tsk, yrjpa, and tvtt, are the original roots. And the still more elaborate grammar of Matthias remarks, that the insertion of t, after a consonant, served to lengthen the Present Tense of the verb, e. g. tvtttco for tvttco, leaving his readers to infer that the r in tvtttco is altogether a redundant letter, and was added to the root by the poets solely for their own convenience. There is, however, another view of the subject. That the Greek root Tup is cognate with the Sanskrit Dhato Tup, or Tupa, kill (a trilateral word as written, for the final a being short is merely under- stood and not expressed) there cannot be the smallest doubt, and Tupa in Sanskrit makes Tupati in the third person THE GREEK VERB. 157 Present Tense, in Greek Tuptei, and hence probably the redundant T found its way into the other persons of Tupto and into the tenses formed from it. Indeed the First Future Passive rv(f)d-7)(rofzai has all the appearance of having been formed from the Present tv7tt-cd by changing the single letters into their corresponding aspirates, and adding eo-o/jLcli,, the Future of sofiai, substituting Eta for its initial Epsilon. In the same way rvir-rjaofiat, the Second Future, appears to be formed from the genuine root tvtt-w. The oldest form of the Greek Present Tense was probably tvit-sw, or the un- changing root joined to the auxiliary verb, the obsolete sco, I am, which contracted to tvttco was called the Second Future, and its regular Imperfect stvttov the Second Aorist. xxix. So much for the root, or theme of the verb, and as to the verb itself we have a glimpse of it in a more ancient state, than we find it existing even in the works of Homer. The excellent Greek Grammar of Moor, with additions by Dalzel and Dunbar, remarks that there is every appearance that verbs terminating in /jll were much older than those terminating in a), and adduces as a proof of it the much more common use of this form of the verb by Homer than by the other Greek writers ; while Yalpy observes that verbs in fit, have only three tenses in that form, the Present, the Imper- fect, and the Second Aorist, which we may perhaps reduce to two, as the Second Aorist appears to be formed from a distinct root ; and if a period ever existed in the Greek language when jnc was the only form of the verb, and that form had only two tenses, the Present and the Imperfect, the absence of the Future must have been supplied by the auxiliary /xsWco, or some such equivalent, and the Indo-European class of languages would not appear to have been more rich in tenses than the Shemitic ; for though the Hebrew has only a Preterite and a Future, that Future has sometimes a present and sometimes a past signification. Almost all the best Greek Grammars now appear to admit that what are called the Second Future and the Second Aorist really form no part of the verbs under which they are arranged in the Lexicon, being derived from a perfectly distinct root. If so, 158 THE GREEK VERB. the Greek verb has clearly no more than six tenses ; and as many grammarians believe that the First Aorist and the Per- fect were primarily identical, the Greek had, whatever it may have now, no more than five tenses, exactly correspond- ing with the Latin, which is precisely what might have been expected ; for as the Latin is said to have been derived principally from ^Eolic Greek, it appears to be older than the other dialects of the Greek language, a conclusion which derives additional probability from its greater simplicity, and, above all, from the circumstance of its possessing no dual number, which all the Greek dialects, except the ^Eolic, have. But while Moor regards verbs in /xt as older than those in &>, he derives sl/jll, sum, from the obsolete sg), which is not very consistent. The real fact is, that they are all equally old, and all formed precisely alike, consisting of an immutable root, joined to one of the forms of the Auxiliary Yerb To be, two of which are become obsolete, and when recovered, or restored, will facilitate the conjugation of the Greek verb in a greater degree than could have been pre- viously conceived. tvtt-scd, i. e. Tup, unvarying root, and the obsolete auxiliary verb Eo, I am, by contraction Tupo. TwrT-o/jLcu, i. e. Tup, unvarying root, T redundant letter, and omai, contracted from the obsolete Eomai, I am. xxx. Imperfect Tense. Syllabic and Temporal Augment. Moor says, " Fuit antiquissimis temporibus aut nullum aug- mentum aut s, tantum, tarn pro syllabico quam pro temporali augmento : sic sfCTTjraL ; ssXtu^ov ; sayov ; soiratpv.^ And Yalpy that s was first prefixed to all augmented tenses for the temporal as well as the syllabic augment, and adds, it has been conjectured that the syllabic augment is formed from the imperfect rjv. Perhaps the Ionic form sa would be a better origin. In the Sanskrit language the same syllabic augment E is prefixed in the formation of the past tense. The Celtic tenses are also formed by prefixes. (Grammar, pp. 48 — 49.) The Greek Grammar of Jones, THE GREEK VERB. 159 says the syllabic and temporal augment are both founded on the same principle. In either case s is prefixed, and in the latter it is contracted with the subsequent vowel : — afcovo) sa/covov 1 crjKovov. spifa sepi&v > contracted^ ^piCpv. opvo-Gco ...sopvcaov J \_copvo-crov. The Athenians preserve the syllabic augment uncontracted : ayco, I break sayov. dSco, delight saSov. And in another passage the same work remarks on the Passive Voice, the old forms must have been rvirT-siiai, srv7rT~s/jbrjv, and not Tvirr-ofjucu, srv7rr-ofji7)v, s being changed into o, as in many other instances (p. 142.), on which I would observe that s is not changed into o, but dropped, the formative of the Present Tense of rviTT-opbai being the ob- solete so/jlcll, I am, and of the Imperfect s-tvttt-ojjltiv, the ob- solete sofjbTjv. Much light is thrown on the formation of the Greek Imperfect Tense, by the analogy of the Sanskrit, respecting which Dr. Prichard remarks in his valuable work on the Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations (p. 143.), " The Imperfect is formed from the Present Tense by prefixing an augment, and abbreviating the personal endings. The aug- ment is the first short vowel a, which, corresponding with the short vowels of the Greeks, might be represented indif- ferently by a, or I. Thus are formed from — tud-ami a-tud-am, tud-asi a-tud-as, tud-ati a-tud-at. In the same way the Greek Imperfect is formed in the Active Voice, by prefixing the E of Eon, the imperfect of Eo, to the immutable root, and affixing On, and in the Passive Voice by prefixing the E of Eomen, the imperfect of Eomai, and affixing Omen thus : — S-TV7TT-OV, S-TVTTT-6/jL7]V. 160 THE GREEK VERB. We find a poetical form of the Imperfect, without any aug- ment, produced by the addition of scr/cov, one of the dialects of rjv, to the immutable root tvttt, thus tvtttsctkov, not a letter of the root, or the auxiliary verb, being changed in either instance." xxxi. The First Future Tense. Moor's Greek Grammar says, " Characteristica temporis est litera terminationi proxima ; et nullam patitur flexionem ; sed manet semper in eodem tempore invariabilis. In verbis non liquidis characteristica Futuri Primi semper est a : sic tl(o rlaco. Xejco . . .XstJQ). povsco, intelligo, is the word (pprjv, mens, and if we write its tenses thus pov-7]Ka, sco appears to be a Present, 7] into a, as we find traces in saraa, fiifiaa, and in the Aorists scrsva, "s^sa, r}\sva. It is indeed probable that in the simplest forms of the language those tenses were similar ; the principle of variety and precision introduced those changes and additions which adorned the luxuriant language of Ancient Greece. That of Modern Greece has returned to the original sim- plicity ; it has only one Past tense, as ypdcfrco, sypaijra ; ttXskco, £7rXsfja; yvcopt^co, iyvcopcaa; ^jrdXXco, styaXa. Valpy also remarks that the Attics change Xs and /us of the Perfect into si, as stXr/fya for XsXrjcpa, and si/xap/xai for /xs/xap/iai, which leads to the conclusion that the formative was the sa, or sia, of the Auxiliary Verb To be ; and that the Perfect Active and Middle of the same verb are seldom both in use. Both the Perfect and Pluperfect Middle of tv7tt(o differ from the Active only by exchanging the aspirate letters for the single. xxxiv. The Pluperfect Tense. There can be little doubt that the terminations of this tense in the Active Voice are formed by adding the Aux- iliary Verb slv to the root, which will be found in the Eton grammar as a poetical form of rjv, the Imperfect of slpX, hsTvcfr-siv. The formative in the Passive Voice is yfArjv, THE GREEK VERB. 165 the Pluperfect of slfu 9 but only in the singular number, the first Person Dual, and the first Person Plural. Valpy remarks, that the Ionic changes siv, sis, sl, of the Pluperfect, into sa, sas, ss, &c, as srsrvfaa, as, &c. But for the augment it would perhaps be more correct to say that it inserts £ before the final a of the Perfect, rsrvcf>a common Greek, rsrvfea, Ionic. So much for the six regular and undoubted tenses of the Greek Verb, and I shall now proceed to say a few words respecting those two hypothetical ones which are denominated the Second Future and Second Aorist, which appear to me to be the mere figments of grammarians, and two others which are so little used as hardly to require a formal enumeration as distinct tenses, the Paullo-Post- Futurum, and Aoristus JEolicus. xxxv. The Second Future. The Greek grammar of Moor says, " Futurum Secundum et Aoristus Secundus optimis Grammaticis nullum in Graeca lingua locum habere videntur. Fut. 2. nihil aliud est quam contractio Attice Fut. 1. Sic ti/7tw formatur a Fut. 1. obsoleti verbi rv7rsco, habentis in Fut. Prim. Tvirscrca, eliso a, tvttso), contracte tvttw" (page 73). Yalpy also says, the Second Future seems to be an Old Attic form of the First, and has consequently the same sense. We might indeed call the two Futures the Common and the Attic. But in another part, Moor says, much more justly, " Futurum Secundum Activum formatur a Prcesenti" (page 152). And the Greek grammar of Jones says, " the Ionians insert s before the pronominal terminations of the Second Future, tvttsco, tvttssls, for TU7rw, tvttsIs, &c. These are contracted and circumflexed by the Dorians (and Attics) tvitw, tvttsIs, tvttov\xsv, &c." (page 161). I experience great difficulty in admitting those arbitrary insertions or rejections of letters, which gram- marians are so fond of supposing. I have little doubt that the oldest form of tvttu} was what is called the Ionic tvtteg), and as little that that word was compounded by adding sco 9 the Present of the Auxiliary Verb To be, to the Sanskrit root tu7t, and its Future by adding saw, the Future of the same M 3 166 THE GREEK VERB. Auxiliary Verb. Ecnw, in some instances contracted to era, is I believe invariably the formative of what is called the First Future of verbs in every instance, except in the fifth conjugation of liquids. The Port Royal remarks that verbs ending in Xco } fico, vco, pco form their first (and only) Future like the Present, except that they make the penul- tima short and circumflex the last syllable, but that in an early stage of the language the termination gco was general for these verbs as well as for the rest, and that the JEolic, the oldest dialect of Greece, continued to retain the use of cr, especially in verbs in pco. The fact appears to be that the o--was dropped in the Future of these liquid verbs, from a supposed regard to euphony, and that from analogy with them the poets first used the Present Tense of verbs ending in mutes in a future sense, being induced to do so for the sake of the convenience or necessity of their art, and finally circumflexed it, and called it a Second Future. The accom- plished translator * of Matthias's Greek Grammar says, " the Second Future which is here spoken of is an imaginary tense invented by the Grammarians, and ought to be ex- punged from the common school grammars." (Vol. i. p. 47, Remarks.) xxxvi. The Second Aorist. Of this tense, the Greek Grammar of Moor remarks, and it appears to me very justly, " Aoristus Secundus est vere Im- perfectum." That of Jones says, "the Second Aorist differs, I conceive, from the Imperfect only as they are derived from different roots ; " and that of Valpy, ts some Grammarians be- lieve that the Second Aorist, when it differs from the Imper- fect, is the Imperfect of an obsolete verb of a kindred form, as stvttov from tvttco, srayov from rdr/co, &c. The latter also remarks of the two Aorists, that they are so similar in signification, that there are few verbs in which both forms are used. xxxvii. The Paullo-Post-Futurum. Respecting this tense the Grammar of Moor observes, " quod autem dicitur Paullo-post-Futurum videtur nihil aliud * The late Rev. E. Y. Bloomfield, M.A. THE GREEK VERB. 167 •esse quam Futurum Primum Medium, Ionice reduplicatum, ut TETvylro/Licu ; " and that of Jones, " the form called by gramma- rians Paulo-post-Futurum is not a distinct tense, but the First Future Middle augmented : ticto/jlcu, TsrlxjofiaL ; Tv^rofiai, TSTvyjro/jLcu." The Port Royal says, " of the three Futures, the last is only for the Passive, and is commonly called the Paulo-post-Future, because it signifies the thing imminent ; but this tense is very little used." xxxviii. Aoristus ^Eolicus Atticis usitatissimus. Moor remarks of this tense, " JEolice, Ionice, et Attice," and the Port Royal says, the " ^Eolic Aorist of the Optative is formed from the Aorist of the Indicative by dropping the augment, and putting si before a, as srvyfra, Tv^sia. The Attics frequently use this Aorist, but then it is only in the second and third person singular, and the third plural." I entertain not the smallest doubt, that the termination of every tense of every verb in the Greek language was pri- marily derived from some form of the Auxiliary Verb To be, which certainly exists in many forms. I have already observed, that many verbs in Greek are so like sl/xl, sum, that there can hardly be a doubt that their tenses have been mixed and confounded, and it is remarkable that sia, which appears to be the formative of the tense in question, is the Perfect Tense, Indicative Mood, Middle Voice of sI/ju, eo, and was, in all probability, at a remote period a tense of the verb To be. It corresponds letter for letter with the termi- nations of rvyjr-sia, except in the third person plural, where the Aorist forms Tvtysiav, and the Perfect of sI/m, to go, sicuti. The First Aorist is said, in the Eton Grammar, to be formed from the First Future, by changing &> into a, and prefixing the augment, and if we exchange the final w of Tm/ra> for sia, we have the Aoristus JEolicus rv^sia. xxxix. Of the Moods. Jones's Greek Grammar remarks, that Verbs conveying a meaning universally and unconditionally true, and as such certain, are used in the Indicative Mood ; while those which M 4 168 THE GREEK VERB. express a conditional or uncertain sense, are placed in the Subjunctive. While the Indicative Mode has four termi- nations in co, ov, a, and ziv, it is remarkable that the Sub- junctive has only one in co, the Optative two in oifit and ai\xi, and the Imperative two in s and ov. I mention this cir- cumstance for the sake of suggesting an analogy with the Sanskrit. In that language the Indicative Mood has six tenses, which is also the case with the Greek, if we reject the Second Future and Second Aorist, as I am persuaded we ought to do ; but the Imperative, the Potential, the Preca- tive, and the Conditional Moods, have only one tense each ; and this was probably the case with the Greek in her early infancy, shortly after she had parted with her Oriental mother. XL. On the Formatives or Terminations of the Greek Verb. This subject could never have remained covered with so thick a veil of mystery, during so long a period, but for three principal reasons : — 1. Because the genuine and simple root of the Greek is hardly ever, in any instance, to be found in Greek, what is called the root being almost invariably a compound word. 2. Because Greek having hitherto been regarded as an original or underived language, few attempts have been made to illustrate it, except from Greek sources, and those by whom the attempts have been made, have been, for the most part, very badly qualified, possessing no comprehensive knowledge of the languages of Asia. 3. Because what is called the Yerb Substantive, To be, in Greek, from which the tenses of almost every other verb are formed, is one of the most irregular verbs in the language, beino- found in three distinct forms as under : — "E&>, sum, Dammii Lexicon in voce. Et/xt, sum, Scapulae Lexicon. "Eo/jlcu, sum, Port Eoyal Greek Grammar, book 3. c. 15. Eton Greek Grammar, p. 67. 'Eyco ("Ew), Pronomen ego, est ab sco, sum, Dammii Lexicon. THE GREEK VERB. 169 This remark, if traced- to its origin, and followed out to all its consequences, is sufficiently important to produce a com- plete revolution in grammar. The difficulty is to begin with the beginning. I believe it to be as under : — An, Time, an hour, Arabic (Richardson). Ana, I, the Personal Pronoun. Ana, Times, part of Time. Ana and Anah, Chaldee, I ; also I am (Gibbs's Gesenius in voce). Ano, Syriac, I; Ano Ano, contracted, Enono, ego sum. Chanan, nos, Chanan, sumus (SchafFs Syriac Lexicon). An, or Ana, Sanskrit, breathe, live; a Dhato, or verbal root written in two ways. (Wilkins's Radicals of the Sanscrit Language, pp. 3 and 4.) Av-co, Greek, Sum, in Compound Verbs, but not found existing in a simple state. All the Persons of the Verb Substantive, then, in some of the Shemitic languages, at least in the Present Tense, are both a pronoun and a verb, and signify either the person that exists, or existence itself. This fact has long been familiar to me ; but the word Ego, in Damm's Lexicon, has made me aware, for the first time, that it was also the case in Greek ; and as the Sanskrit An, or Ana, breathe, live, and the Greek "Avco, sum (in composition), appear to be cognate, not to say identical, with nearly the same word in Arabic, Chal- dee, and Syriac, the line of separation appears to be broken down between the two great families of written languages, the Shemitic and Sanskrit, in a particular which throws much light on the formation and modus significandi of the Greek and indeed all other verbs. If I open a Greek Lexi- con at the word Kaio (Ka/w), I learn that its signification is uro, accendo, cremo. But Kaio does not signify simply to burn, nor does uro in Latin ; but in both instances, I burn ; so that the words, although in the simplest form in which they exist in the two languages, do not appear to be simple, but compound, consisting of a pronoun combined with some unknown root. What is that root ? Europe was both 170 ;the greek verb. peopled and civilised by Asia, and in Asia, if any where, we shall probably find it. If I turn to the Sanskrit, one of the very oldest languages of Asia, I find that the word ka is a noun substantive signifying both the sun and fire, and am consequently led to suspect that the Greek verb kaio, I burn, is compounded of the Sanskrit root ka, fire, and ego, I, the Personal Pronoun ; but as I discover that the Pronoun I, in the dialect of Boeotia, one of the oldest of Greece, was ex- pressed, not by Ego, but Io, by joining the latter word to the Sanskrit root ka, my analysis of kaio becomes complete, and I now know, not only that it signifies I burn, but why and how it signifies I burn. Kaio is explained in Latin by the words uro and cremo, and the Latin language is said to have been chiefly formed from -ZEolic Greek. Are the Latin words simple or compound, and if the latter, whence derived ? I find in Hebrew the word aor, or aur, signifying fire, and suppose the Latin uro to be formed by the elision of the initial a of aur, and the addition of Ego, or Io (Boeotian), contracted to o ; I also find in Coptic the word chrom, or krom, fire, and suppose cremo to be formed in the same way. To try another instance from the Sanskrit. In Greek we find the word oikos, a house, which I have little doubt was derived from the Sanskrit okas, but in Greek we also find the verb oiko (olfcco), I dwell ; and how was that formed ? I believe by the addition of the pronoun Ego, or rather Io, to the simpler form of the Sanskrit oka, a house. But though the Sanskrit and Greek mutually illustrate each other, and we commonly find the roots of the latter in the former, this is not invariably the case ; and we sometimes find the simple root of the verb in Greek in the shape of a noun substantive. For instance daio in Greek signifies I burn, which I should confidently say was derived from the Sanskrit dah, reduce to ashes, did I not find in Greek the word dai a torch, which with the addition of final omega forms the verb. But have we made all the use that we can do of the established fact that the first Person of the Greek verb consists of a simple invariable root, joined to a personal pronoun, and secondly that that personal pronoun is also the Verb Substantive To THE GREEK VERB. 171 be ? Can we discover any thing from the analogy of the Sanskrit, a language cognate with the Greek and Latin, and probably the mother of both? The 13th volume of the Edinburgh Review, in its notice of Wilkins's Sanskrit gram- mar, gives the conjugations of the Verb Substantive asmi, sum, and the verb jivami, vivo ; and if we look at both at- tentively we shall discover that the latter is compounded of the Sanskrit noun jiv, or jiva, life, which never varies, joined to the persons of the verb astun, to be, unchanged except by dropping the letter S, and writing ami instead of asmi. The verb sebami is conjugated in the 33d volume of the Edinburgh Review, in the notice of two works of Bopp, to which the same remark applies, and we may also observe an extraordinarily close resemblance between the Sanskrit Active, and the Greek Middle Voice. But that Middle Voice appears to be clearly the Sanskrit root seb, joined to the persons or terminations of the Verb Substantive To be. But in Greek sebo and sebomai have precisely the same sig- nification, colo, adoro ; how are we to account for this ? The root of both words is clearly the Sanskrit seb, worship, and we may write them in Greek thus : Xs/3' Eg), the obsolete form of eimi, sum, by contraction <7S/3w, literally, worship I am, or worship I. ^sjB-oijlcu, contracted from eomai, another of the obsolete forms of eimi, literally worship I am, or worship I. But as the obsolete forms of eimi perform so important a part in the conjugation of the Greek verb, it will be neces- sary, before we proceed farther, to endeavour to ascertain what they were. XLI. On the Auxiliary Verb — To be. The persons of the Present Tense of this verb are so much alike in all the principal languages of the Sanskrit branch of the great Indo-European family, as irresistibly to suggest the idea of a common origin among all the people that use it. Our examples comprise the Sanskrit, which appears to be the basis of most of the languages still used in the vast conti- nent of India, of three forms of the Persic, of the Slavonic 172 THE GREEK VERB. and Lithuanian, which compose the speech of the principal nations of the North of Europe, of the Greek and Latin, which, w T ith some modifications, still continue to be spoken in the South, and of the Moeso-Gothic, which: is the oldest written form of the Anglo-Saxon, German, and English. Singular. Plural. 1. 2. 3. 1. 2. 3. Sanskrit. Asmi asi asti, smah, or sums stha santi. PersicS JH^ stam lorms. c , (_ Shum ai hasti shui ast, hast, shud, aim hastim shuim aid hastid shuid and. hastand. shund. T . f Esum. Latin ' (Sum es est, sumus estis sunt. Greek, 2 "I ^icr/xl Forms. J el/A k(To\ els earl, i(T/xes ecr/xeu ecTTe eo-Te elcrl. Slavonic. Jesmi jese jesti, jesmi (y) jeste suti. Lithuanian. Esmi essi esti, esme este esti. M. Gothic. Im is ist, siyum siyuth sind. Here we may remark that the Sanskrit verb asmi, and more especially if we restore what Dr. Prichard regards as its oldest plural forms, asmus, astha, asanti, corresponds almost letter for letter with the oldest form of the Greek icr/ju, and that the same verb, as it appears as an auxiliary, and is joined in the process of conjugating to other roots, drops its s for the most part, and approximates to the common Greek form of slfju ; as jiv-ami, I live, seb-ami, I venerate. We recognise the Latin sum in the Persic shum, the Latin sumus, in the Persic shuim, and the Latin sunt in the Persic shund, and may remark that both the old Slavonic and Lithuanian, or Lettish, strikingly resemble the Sanskrit and oldest Greek ; while the persons in the singular number of the Moeso-Gothic approximate very closely to the first Persic form am, ai, ast. The verb substantive appears to have experienced many changes in most languages, and chiefly in the shape of contractions, as that which is most used is naturally most worn ; but in addition to this common source of change, the Auxiliary Yerb, To be, in Greek, seems to have undergone other corruptions, from the circumstance of there existing three or four other verbs in the language so * Prichard on the Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations, p. 97. THE GKEEK VERB. 173 closely resembling it, that their tenses have unquestionably been confounded, and we are under the necessity of casting a glance on them before we proceed with our arduous attempt to restore the obsolete parts of sI/jlL These verbs are sI/jll and lr\\xi eo, vado, itj/ju mitto, is/mai cupio, rj/iat sedeo, sl/uai indutus sum ; and as the Port Royal appears to have paid more attention to these verbs than any other grammar, I shall depend chiefly on its authority. 'EIMI, Sum, I am. From tw, with a smooth breathing comes d/xi acuted. 1. Aorist, ?>?', Poetical. „ „ sov, Ionic (Eustathius), also an Imperfect. Pres. Middle, tfiai. Imp. Middle, ^firjv. T EIMI and "IHMI, eo, Vado. From to) is formed eiw, and thence el/11, vado. Imperfect, siv. 1. Aorist, tlaa. Perfect, eTica. (unusual). 2. Aorist, lov.- Pluperfect, e'Ueiv. Perfect Mid. e la. "IHMI, Mitto, to send. From sio, with a rough breathing, comes fy/n. Future, ??o-w. Perfect, elica for fjica. 1. Aorist, jj/ea for yjact. 2. Aorist Mid. sfjirjv. 2. Aorist, v\v. Pres. Opt. Mid. ei^rjv. "IEMAI, T HMAT, and r EIMAI. From i'u comes 'Ufiai, which, with a rough breathing, expresses desire. From ew to sit, comes likewise ^fiai. Imperfect, r\\x,r]v. 1. Aorist Act. eicra and tWa. Eljuaf, indutus sum. 1. Aorist Mid. dvajxriv and ieaa^v. Future, scra>, or «Ww. Such are the verbs so closely resembling st/xt, to be, in their form, that I entertain not a doubt that many tenses are arranged under them, in all existing grammars and lexicons, which in an early period of the Greek language, perhaps anterior to the general use of alphabetical writing, certainly formed part of the Auxiliary Verb. It may be necessary, however, to premise a few words on the polemical part of my subject, before T enter on that which is purely didactic. 174 THE GREEK VERB. The article, in the 33rd volume of the Edinburgh Review, noticing two works of Bopp, to which I have had occasion to allude more than once, says, the First Preterite (Im- perfect) is formed in Sanskrit by prefixing A to the root, as the Imperfect in Greek is by the augment. Thus the first person in Sanskrit is Asebam, in Greek sosfiov (p. 433). But the First Preterite in Sanskrit is not formed merely by prefixing A to the root, but also by changing Ami, the termination of the Present, into Am, nor is the Imperfect in Greek formed by merely prefixing the augment s, but also by changing the co of the Present into ov, as Sebami, Asebam, Sanskrit; o-sfico, sosfiov, Greek. The root is the same in both instances, and the additions to that root are in Sanskrit Aam, and in Greek Eov. But in Greek sov is a distinct tense of the verb To be, and we find it arranged in the Eton Grammar among the dialects of rjv, eram. In both languages, therefore, the Imperfect is formed by prefixing A or E to the root, and adding Am, or On, as a termi- nation. But sov, the Imperfect of sl/jul, sum, forms sov, sss, hf, according to the Eton Grammar ; the real model of the terminations of this tense, therefore, appears to be iov, the Second Aorist of sl^i, vado, which, in the form of sov, was formerly one of the tenses of the Auxiliary Verb To be ; and if we prefix its s to the root tvttt, and add its termination ov, we shall have s-tvttt-ov, the Imperfect of tvttt, letter for letter throughout all the Persons. If we now turn to s-tvttt-6/jlt]v, the Imperfect of the Passive Voice, as the addition to the root is so/jL7]v, the s being prefixed as an augment, and the o/lltjv an- nexed as a termination, we can hardly doubt that that word is e6/jlt]v, the Imperfect of the obsolete so/iac, which itself in the slightly contracted form of ojnai forms the Present Tense, Passive Voice TvirT-ofjuai. The First Future of all Greek verbs in co, except liquids in \, jjl, v, p, of the fifth conjugation, ter- minates in (76), saco, or rjaco if we resolve the penultimate double letters yjr and £ into their elements its and ks ; and here it appears to me that there cannot be a doubt that the forma- tive is saco, the Future of the obsolete say, sum, added to the root, and generally contracted to aco, as from tvtt, tvtt-gco, THE GREEK VERB. 175 commonly written Tvyfrco, and ?), it is agreed 176 THE GREEK VERB. on all hands that the genuine root is twit, and that the r is redundant. This is admitted in Damm's Lexicon and Thiersch's Grammar, and we find the root twit in Sanskrit, to put the matter beyond all dispute. The first Aorist of tvittco, or rather two), is s-rvir-aa, the addition to the root being sera ; and as we find slcra as the First Aorist of sI/m, to go, and rjaa as the First Aorist of ltj/m, to send, it seems extremely probable to me that one of these tenses formerly stood under the Auxiliary Verb To be, under the slightly altered form of sera ; and that the Aorist, like the Imperfect and Pluperfect, was formed from the simple root tvtt, by prefixing the s as an augment, and adding the era as a termination. With respect to the Perfect Tense, which, in the Eton Grammar, is said to be formed from the First Future by changing its final yjreo into (j>a, and the reduplication of the first consonant of the root or theme with s, we find the prototype of the Greek rs-rvej^a in the Sanskrit tuph, the aspirated form of tup, with precisely the same signification ; so that there appears to be an affix to the root, as well as a prefix, or reduplication ; and I believe the final a in rsrvepa to be a contraction of sa, which we find in the Eton Grammar among the dialects of rjv, eram ; but as that makes ta, srjs, hjv, the model of the terminations of the Perfect Tense appears to be sla, Attic fja, the Perfect Tense, Middle Voice, of sI/m, vado, which makes a, -as, -s. This is the Perfect of the first conjugation only of verbs in eo, and the %a, or tea, of the Perfect of the other fiwe conjugations appears to be a contraction of rj/ca, the First Aorist of Xrjfjbi, mitto ; and as that Aorist, according to the Port Royal, was also rjcra, we have in the same tense the common terminations of the First Aorist and Perfect ; and in an early stage of the Greek language these two tenses are said to have been identical, and must have assimi- lated the Greek verb with the Latin, which is precisely what might have been expected ; for as the latter language is sup- posed to have been derived chiefly from ^Eolic Greek, the farther back we carry the Greek, the more closely it will be found to approximate to the Latin, in having only five tenses and no Dual number. It now only remains to exhibit the ob- solete tenses of the Auxiliary verb To be, which will be found Eo> tig EC. ETOV ETOV. iirov urcv (Attic). Of.it v ete oven. OuftlV UTi Oun (Attic). THE GREEK VERB. 177 to account for the different formations of almost every verb in the Greek language. xlii. The obsolete "E&>, Sum (Dammii Lexicon), Indicative Mood, Present Tense. Singular, Dual, Plural, Derivatives — The Present Tense of all verbs in the Indicative Mood of the Active Voice terminating in w, as tv-kt-eu, tvttt-w, and of the Second Future. Imperfect Tense (Eton Grammar, Dialects of r\v). Singular, Eov eeg ee. Dual, (ETOV EET7JV. Plural, Eojxev eete eov. Derivatives — All the Imperfects of verbs in the Active Voice which form their Present in w, by prefixing the £ to the root as an augment, and adding the ov as a termination, as e-tvwt-ov. Singular, Dual, Plural, Derivatives — All the Futures of verbs in the Active Voice which form their Present in w, except liquids of the Fifth Conjugation, as tvtc- «(tw, ru7T-<7w, rinpw, $r-tj(rw, in some verbs the formative of the Active Future. 1st Future, root rvirr, and by changing the single letters for the aspirate, rv, contracted from syco, and substituting % for 7, a letter of the same organ in the first instance, and in composition k ; thus, ictkco : from htkcd or lg%o>, the Verbal Substantive icryys, robur, and from the latter icryyw, possum. But this is only one of the meanings of the verb ictkco or tcr^co, and in another it appears to be clearly an obsolete form of the Verb Sub- stantive, To be. In Sanskrit, the Dhato or verbal root of the verb, To be (in the Infinitive mood Astun, and in the first Person of the Present Tense Asmi, the prototype of the Greek slfu) is As ; to which, if we add %g), contracted from syco, we shall have acryw, and by changing a into s, and the % into k, scrK(t> or lctkcd, which forms the termination of such verbs as yrjp-aaKco, senesco, ap-scr/cco, placeo, svp-LGKc*), in- venio, ytv-cocrfccD, cognosce Or we may deduce sctkco, sum, from sctkov, eram, a poetical Imperfect of slfu, which is given in the Eton Grammar among the dialects of rjv, by simply changing ov into co ; and it appears to have had a First Aorist, or Perfect, or both, sctkci, whence the formative of the First Aorist, sera, by dropping Kappa, and of the Perfect, skcl, by dropping Sigma. Both rjcra and rjfca are said to be the First Aorist of Iltj/ulc, mitto, and t)kcl also its Perfect ; but one of the forms of the Verb Substantive certainly possessed such a tense at a remote period, which contracted to kcl was the formative of the Perfect. If we take the verb aevsco, laudo, we have in the Present Tense acv-sco, in the Future aiv- scrco and cuv-Tjaco, and in the Perfect tjv-skcl ; and as the terminations of the two first tenses are clearly borroAved THE GREEK VERB. 183 from the Auxiliary Verb, To be ; analogy is in favour of the latter being so also. Again, if we take the verb cppovsco, intelligo, sapio, there can be little doubt that the root is the JSToun Substantive cppyv, mens, sapientia ; and we have in the Present Tense (ppov-sco, in the Future (ppov-scra), and in the Perfect 7rE-(j)pov-r]Ka, a circumstance which leaves no doubt in my mind that the Perfect, like the Present, the Imperfect, and the Future, was formed by the instrumentality of the Auxiliary Verb, To be. xlvii. Jones, in his Latin Grammar, gives the following list of verbs in sco, which he very properly calls Inceptive Verbs, as, though etymologically they do not differ from the corresponding verbs terminating in eo, both being com- pounded from an unvarying root, and the Present Tense of two different obsolete forms of the Auxiliary Verb, To be, both in Greek and Latin Eo and Esco, many of those with the latter termination differ from the former, by signifying em- phatically the beginning of action. Ardesco ere arsi I burn . . . . from ardeo. Calesco ere calui . I grow hot . . n caleo. Erubesco ere erubui o I blush . . . • 11 erubeo. Horresco ere horrui o I shudder . . ii horreo. Hebesco ere hebui . I grow weak . ii hebeo. Hisco ere I gape . . . I cleave, gape. hio,-are. Fatisco ere Scisco ere scivi scitus I decree. Suesco ere suevi suetus I am accustomed. Senesco ere senui senectus I grow old. Nosco ere novi notus I know. Posco ere poposci poscitus I require. Disco ere didici Pasco ere pavi pastus I feed. If we refer to the verb Senesco, in the admirable Dic- tionary of Facciolati, we find it explained, to grow, become aged, yr)pao--/cco 9 senex fio ; whence it is obvious that the Greek and Latin words are formed in the same way, the former from yrjpas, old age, and the Auxiliary Verb s, \a/3co, whence s-Xa/3-ov, called by Grammarians a Second Aorist, but which appears to me to be a regular Imperfect. xlix. 'Aw, Spiro (Sum). I am induced to notice this verb merely for the sake of remarking, that it is probably cognate with, and indeed a Doric form of the obsolete sco, Sum. We find it in Greek as the termination of many compound verbs. L. List of Verbs of the same signification of two, three, four, and five terminations, all of which are different forms of the Auxiliary Verb, to be. The Verb. Signification. Root. Termination. ad-eio placeo . . . ad . ew, Sum. ad-oj .... 5) • 5? • w, contract, of ew. av8-avu) » avd avoj, Sum. aXd-eio augeo aXd ew, Sum. aXS-aivoj 5» 5i avo), Sum. a\d-r](JKOJ 3? •)•) eaicu), Sum. aX-ooj capio aX zoj, Sum. a\-a>fii . 5? )» • eof^ai, Sum. a\-i(ricoj , ■)■> ' » • £»"■•• ii . av(*), Sum. ap-euj placeo . . . ap . . . ew, Sum. ap-SCTKOJ . ,, • . . • 55 " • ' o fovcw, Sum. j3a-it) .... eo .... Ba, or Va, S skrit, go. an- w, contract, of £<*>. (3a-ivoj . 55 55 . avco, Sum. /3i-€a-w . 75 55 . to, contract, of £w. /3i€-?7/xi . !5 # 55 . et/xi, Sum. /3io-a> vivo .... (3lO . . to, contract, of eco. (5i-u)f.a 5) .... 55 eopiai, Sum. j3l-U)(TKii) . »>•••'• 55 . so-few, Sum. (3\ct(TT-£(i) geraiino . . /3\a<7T . 6w, Sum. j3\ct(TT-avi)j . ,,.... 55 . aw, Sum. j3po-(o edo . . . . Ppo . . . to, contract, of tw. /3|0-to/U . ,, . . . . 55 . eopiai, Sum. fip-uxncb) . "1 f3l-€p-(i) propitius sum . ika . to, contract, of £w. iXa-ofjiai . 55 . . • ii . eofxai, Sum. iXa-cr/cojUort . f wkw \ a double 55 • . . 55 \ eofiaij Aux. Verb. fxva-u) in memoriam fiva, Sansk rit, to, contract, of too. revoco. mind. fjiva-ofiai 35 ... 53 . eofiai, Sum. fJllfA,V-r)(JKli) . 55 • • . 55 . eoKU), Sum. oiS-aco tumeo . . . OlS . aw, Sum (Spiro). Old-Sh) . . . 55 • • • 55 • . to;, Sum. oid-avw . 55 * 55 • . avw, Sum. oid-aivd) . f aw 1 a double 55 • 5? • \ avo> J Aux. Verb. Old-lGKh) . 55 • 53 • . fo-Kto, Sum. 0(p\-U) debeo . . . 0(p\ . to, contract, of «w. o . 55 • • 55 • . . w, contract, of £w. 0, Eo/^at, and Eer/ow or Io-kgo ; but what is the simple root Al ? If I turn to a Turkish dictionary, I discover that Al signifies the hand, which explains, in the most satisfactory manner, the meaning of the Greek verb, viz. to take, or lay hold on. The Turks were originally a northern people, and though 188 THE GREEK VERB. their language has borrowed largely both from the Persic and Arabic, its basis is Tartaric, and we may regard Al, the hand, as a Pelasgic or Scythic root, which has no existence in Greek as a Noun Substantive, but is clearly the basis of the verb Alisko in all its forms, and assuming AX-sa) as the Greek theme, what are called the Second Aorists, but which are really the Imperfects, become almost regular, rjkwv common Greek, and saXcov Attic. Alo, or Alisko, is rendered in Latin by Capio ; and what is the etymology of Capio ? We find in Hebrew the word Caph, signifying the palm of the hand ; and rejecting the final aspirate letter, and writing Cap-io or Cap-eo, there can be little doubt that the Latin verb is formed in precisely the same way as the Greek, the Noun Substantive imparting its own meaning to both. The Persians, by prefixing B, and also Y or I to the Turkish or Scythic word Al, the hand, appear to have formed Bal and Yal, words both signifying the arm, and in Greek we find the verb Ballo, jacio, and lallo, mitto ; the Oriental noun again imparting its meaning to the verb, the arm being the principal instrument in the acts of throwing and placing. The Greeks obviously added a redundant Lambda to the Oriental roots in both instances, which was as clearly done with a view to lengthening the Alpha. By joining that root to the obsolete verb Eo we have JSaX-sco, the real Present Tense. BaX-w, the same Tense contracted, and miscalled the Second Future. ~E{3a\ov, its regular Imperfect, miscalled the Second Aorist. And from the Hellenised root, fiaXX-co, Present, e/3aXX-ov, Imperfect. Yal, or Ial, in Persic signifies both the hand and arm, and the verb laXXco in Homer, which he applies to helping one's self at table, appears to signify a laying on of hands with greater animation than is quite agreeable to the precepts of the Chesterfield School, as his heroes seem to have rarely suffered from dyspepsia. In Persic we also find the word Panjah, signifying both the palm of the hand, and THE GREEK VERB. 189 the hand with the fingers expanded. The root is clearly the Persic word Panj, five, which passed into Greek in a modi- fied form, and gave birth to the verb irsfiTra^w, to count by fives, which Homer employs to describe the mode in which Proteus counted his seals. The Greek verbs, the most irregular in their formation, are those in pi, and we shall discover, on close examination, that even in them this irregularity is more apparent than real, and that it arises out of the ambiguous way in which the root was written. If we take TiQr\yn, larrnjut, SiSay/uui, and &vyvv/jLL, the examples in the Eton Grammar, the formative appears to be Et/u, sum ; and if we suppose Itj/uli, mitto, to be in many of its tenses a dialectical variety of the same verb, we shall have all the terminations of riOrjfu letter by letter, the simple root being Th, or the letter Theta, and the initial Ti, a reduplication, the word that approximates to it most closely in Greek being ©£/ Ionic for EXrjcf) 6r)v, acceptus sum. THE GREEK VERB. 191 The Port Royal Greek Grammar appears to regard the M as redundant ; but I have little doubt that we find it in Greek, because it was found in the Sanskrit root Lambhi. There is another remarkable circumstance, that not a trace of the aspirate H, which we may observe in both the San- skrit roots, appears in the Greek. The real fact is, that the Greeks were unable to write it by any contrivance, after they had impoverished their alphabet by displacing the Phoe- nician Heth as an aspirate letter, and converting the form of the letter, the power being lost, into a mere contraction in writing, for expressing two Epsilons, or short vowels, in a single character. Of the twelve aspirate letters, for which we find appropriate forms in Sanskrit, and of which bh is one, the Greeks were totally unable to express the h, after a consonant, except by their three aspirate letters Theta, Phi, and Chi. In the former part of the verb the Port Royal inserts the artificial or conjectural Second Future \a/3a), ac- cording to their views, for the sake of forming the Second Aorist eXafiov; but as Labo has much better pretensions than Lebo to be regarded as the real Present Tense, as it approximates as near to the Sanskrit root Labh, as the Greeks were enabled to write, with their mutilated alphabet destitute of the aspirate letter H, it would be more correct, it appears to me, to call Elabon an Imperfect than a Second Aorist, as it is formed from Labo, in strict conformity with, the general rule ; and, indeed, I do not believe that there is really any Second Future, or Second Aorist, in the Greek language. Ayco, duco. Root Ak, Persic, a master, lord, with co, con- tracted from the absolete Ea>. The Persic Ak is the Turkish Aga, a military officer whom the modern Greeks have had occasion to know too well. Imperfect H70V, commonly called Second Aorist. AfjiapT-avco, pecco. The termination appears to me to be the Syriac Ano, I, or I am, and the common form of the verb to have been AfiapTO) (obsolete), whence the Imperfect ^Hpaprov, commonly called the Second Aorist. 192 THE GREEK VERB. Av^avco, et Av %co, augeo. Here we have the two terminations, the first of which may be called the Syriac, from Ano ; the second the Greek, contracted from the obsolete Eqj. From Auxano, Hvgavov, the Im- perfect, commonly called the Second Aorist. Baivo), vado. There are two Sanskrit roots, from which this verb may probably be derived, Ya and Yi (go), Y and B in that language being exchangeable. Baino appears to be the root Ba, with the Syriac Ano, I ; and the original Present in Greek was probably Ba-co. whence the Imperfect, or Second Aorist, ~H/3t]v. BXaaravo), germino. Termination Ano, Syriac, obsolete Greek form BXacrr-co, whence the regular Imperfect T&pXao-Tov, commonly called the Second Aorist. TtvcocTKco, cognosco. What is called the Second Aorist, E7- vcov, is almost a regular Imperfect, from the obsolete theme, Tvoco, nosco. Acuco, disco. Boot, Daiah (Hebrew), knowledge, with co contracted from the obsolete Ea>. Kkavvco, abigo. Boot, Ila (Sanskrit), go, with co contracted from the obsolete Eg), sum. EXaco (obsolete), EXavco (Doric). Fut. EXaaco. Aor. 1. HXaaa. Pret. HXafca. In the present form of Elauno its termination appears to be Ano (Syriac), I, I am. E^o>, habeo. Most of the tenses are derived from the aspi- rated form by transposition, S%£ft>, whence Ea^ov, which is called a Second Aorist, but is almost a regular Imperfect. ®vr)(TfC(o, morior. What is called the Second Aorist appears to me to be a regular Imperfect, formed from the obsolete (davo), which, when circumflexed, is called the Second Future, which tense, together with the Second Aorist, appear to me THE GREEK VERB. 193 to be the pure inventions of Grammarians, the first being a Present and the second an Imper- fect. From (davco ILOavov, cognate %avaros 9 death. Aayxavco, sortior. Root, Aa^r), sors, obsolete form Aap, whence the regular Imperfect EXa^ov, called the Second Aorist. MavOavco, disco. The root of this verb appears to me to be Mantis, an interpreter, with the Syriac Ano, I ; and in another form we have Mathesis, knowledge, Mathetes, a disciple, and MaOco (obsolete), I learn, whence the regular Imperfect Fj/madov, called the Second Aorist. MeXo), euro. 'E/ulsXov, called the Second Aorist, appears to me to be really the Imperfect. Uivco, bibo. E7JY0V, called the Second Aorist, is really an Imperfect, formed regularly from the obsolete Ulco, which itself was formed from the Sanskrit Dhato, or Verbal root Pi, drink, by the addition of w, contracted from the obsolete Eco, Sanskrit Pi, drink, Greek Pio, I drink. ... "l Tracha, m \ cognate with the rp i l> X a>, curro. | Sangkrit f Traucha, J Trago, signifying to go ; but neither of these roots gives any thing like the etymology of Edramon, which in fact has about as much natural connection with them as the victims of Procrustes with the iron bed on which he laid them, and who indeed appears to have been the prototype of the whole family of Grammarians. In Sanskrit we find the Dhato, or verbal root Drama, go ; hence Apa/A-co, with go, contracted from Eco ; 'E-BpafjL-ov, the regular Imperfect, called the Second Aorist. Ti7 X av«, sortior, from TvyxVi sors (obsolete), and Ano (Syriac) ; from Tvxv> sors, Ti^co, and Eti^ov, the Imperfect, called the Second Aorist. 194 THE GREEK VERB. Qspco, fero. It would be much easier and better to suppose an obsolete Evsyfcco, than to arrange most of these tenses under Phero. From Evsjkq), the Imper- fect Hvsyfcov, called the Second Aorist. ®0avG), prsevenio. If we suppose an obsolete c^dacc, almost all the tenses will become regular; the present termination appears to be the Syriae Ano, I, I am. $>va>, gigno. What is called the Second Aorist, Ecpvov, appears to be the regular Imperfect. 195 CHAP. XVI. ETRUKIA. FUNEREAL, OR BILINGUAL INSCRIPTIONS. Hanc olim veteres vitam coluere Sabini, Hanc Remus et frater : sic fortis Etruria crevit, Scilicet et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma." Virg. Georg. lib. ii. I. The first question to be asked, before engaging in this inquiry, is, — Is there any Etruscan language at all ; that is, a language which was spoken by the people of ancient Tus- cany, and no other people ? or was that language merely a dialect of the Greek or of the Latin, or a compound of both. A peculiar alphabet does not necessarily suppose the existence of a peculiar language, nor on the other hand does a similarity of alphabet, as a matter of course, infer a similarity of lan- guage. The Syriac, the Chaldee, and the Samaritan, are usually written in a character peculiar to each ; yet the first is almost identical with the second, and the third rather a dialect of the Hebrew than a distinct language ; while the Arabic, the Persic, and the Turkish, have very nearly the same alphabet ; languages, which though they cannot be said to have nothing in common, are nevertheless radically and essentially different. The Etruscan, however, cannot be said to have an alphabet peculiar to itself; its alphabet, on the contrary, is almost, if not entirely Greek ; not, indeed, the Greek of the age of Pericles, but as it appears in the oldest existing inscriptions of which Lanzi exhibits five or six fac- similes ; and, though he must have been aware of the fact, I do not remember that he has any where distinctly remarked, that what is called the Etruscan alphabet is really the al- phabet of the oldest Greek inscriptions, as found existing in Greece Proper, and in the colonies planted by her in Asia Minor. ii. A judicious writer in the " Memoires des Inscriptions et o 2 106 ETRURIA, Belles Lettres," has the following remarks on the subject ; — " We have a great number of monuments and inscriptions in the language of Etruria published by the savans of Italy. Of these inscriptions some are in Latin, and some in Etruscan characters ; that is to say, in those ancient characters which the Phoenicians introduced into Greece and Spain, and which are found on the Spanish money published by Count Las- tanosa. Those characters have a close relation with the Samaritan letters, but little resemblance to those which are seen on the medals of Tyre, Sidon, Cadiz, and many other maritime cities. The Etruscan inscriptions in Roman letters are not more intelligible than the others, though we meet with many Latin words disfigured. The interpretations which some learned men have pretended to give of them, are altogether chance guesses, combinations of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew words, altered so as not to be recognised. By re- sorting to the same licence, these inscriptions might be proved to have something in common with any language in existence, the Armorican, Basque, or Mexican. It is worthy of remark, that the authors of those interpretations have made no use of the Etruscan words, of which the meaning has been trans- mitted to us by the ancients. We may observe, in conclusion, that it is anything but proved that these monuments possess the great antiquity ascribed to them. Those which are in Latin letters, judging by their form, must be posterior to the conquest of Etruria by the Romans, and go back at farthest to the time of the first Punic war. (Choix des Memoires, t. ii. p. 103.) III. This statement is not very encouraging it must be confessed, and that of Lanzi himself, in his " Saggio di Lingua Etrusca," perhaps the best work that has yet appeared on the subject, is not much more so. His views are contained in the following passage : " In an orthography which now lengthens and now shortens final syllables, in a language in which we know that Upsilon is substituted for Alpha, but in which we do not know in what words ; IN A COLLECTION OF INSCRIPTIONS SO BADLY PRESERVED, AND SO VARIOUSLY READ, THAT TEN TRANSCRIBERS PRODUCE TEN DISCORDANT FUNEREAL INSCRIPTIONS. 197 COPIES ; whatever degree of diligence may be exerted, it is difficult to ascertain all that might be effected in other lan- guages not encumbered with the same perplexities. Still I cannot but remember that Greek and Latin inscriptions were at one period similarly situated, and that those things are now quite obvious, which in the time of Mazzochi and Cyriaco Anconitano were regarded as mysteries. In the same way, in proportion as the number of inscriptions, and the industry of scholars increase, we may hope that new light will be thrown on Etruscan literature, and that my disco- veries will be regarded at least as a road and a beginning to many others," (Saggio, torn. ii. p. 334.) iv. The instances of Greek and Latin inscriptions, adduced by Lanzi, are hy no means parallel cases. In both we knew what language we were attempting to interpret, and were provided with grammars and lexicons, which not only ex- plained every word, but the mode in which the meaning of that word was modified by its various terminations, and if we had had neither grammars nor lexicons, the difficulties would have been by no means insurmountable to a man of talent and industry, as both the Greek and Latin languages possess a copious literature preserved in books altogether independent of inscriptions ; the only difference would have been, that every individual in his own case would have been obliged to proceed on the principles on which grammars and lexicons were originally formed. But in what is called the Etruscan, we do not even know all the letters, and Lanzi himself has certainly mistaken many. Indeed, so many and so various are those which occur in the course of the work, that it appears to be a grand congress of letters, to which almost all the alphabets of the ancient world have each delegated two or three letters as representatives ; and from my own know- ledge I can mention the Coptic, Hebrew, Samaritan, or Phoenician, the Estrangolo or old Syriac, the common or modern Syriac, and the Sanskrit, together with every variety of form that ever prevailed in the Greek characters, either in Greece Proper, in Asia Minor, or in Magna Grascia. In the next place, when we talk of Etruscan, we do not know o 3 198 ETRURIA. of what language we are speaking, being obliged to include under that term all the remains that have been discovered with legends in Etruscan, or more properly ancient Greek characters, for they are, for the most part, very little more; so that, in undertaking to read Etruscan, we do in fact undertake to read all the dialects or languages that ever prevailed in ancient Italy, of which any monuments exist, as well as the obsolete Greek and Latin with which they are mixed. In the third place, and this is the great difficulty, we are obliged to explain the inscriptions by the inscriptions themselves, as we are so far from having any specimens of the language in books, that I do not believe all the Greek and Latin gram- marians, lexicographers, scholiasts, and commentators, united, could furnish us with a sentence of ten consecutive words, of which we could say that they are certainly Etrurian, that is> peculiar to that people, and that we are at the same time quite certain as to their meaning. Lanzi supposes the Eu- gubine tables to be the production of the seventh century of Rome. The beauty and regularity of the characters, and the extraordinary state of preservation in which they have come down to us, would induce me to fix on a late period of the Empire for their date, and to suppose that they had been re- newed once, or perhaps twice, after all knowledge of the Etruscan language was lost ; the sculptors copying the old tables without understanding them, and of course being unable to restore letters partially erased by time or accident, frequently substituting one for another when they were at all similar in form ; and finally, from not knowing the words, placing the divisions between them arbitrarily and erro- neously, and running them into each other ; to say nothing of the great probability, and almost certainty, that some of them were greatly contracted, as is the case in almost all the re- maining Roman inscriptions. For these reasons I doubt if the Eugubine tables exhibit a specimen of any language that was ever actually spoken or written by any race of mankind, and feel convinced that in the present state of our knowledge, we cannot attempt to explain what are called Etruscan in- scriptions, with any hope of success, unless they are bilingual, FUNEREAL INSCRIPTIONS. 199 that is, accompanied by a Latin translation, as is the case with the greater part of those that are funereal. # iv. The Eugubine Tables were discovered in 1444, and the language in which they are written was at first thought to be Coptic, or old Egyptian. Spanheim denominated the letters primitive or Cadmean Greek, while Reinesius thought they were Punic. They soon began to be called Etruscan, though the language was conceived to be Umbric, and many unsuccessful attempts were made to form an alphabet. (Lanzi, torn. i. p. 9.) In the year 1732, nearly 300 years after the Eugubine Tables had been discovered, Bourguet, a learned Frenchman, nearly succeeded in making out the aphabet by a careful comparison of the Latin with the Etruscan tables. He was followed by Gori in 1737, and Maffei in 1739 ; and the result of their joint labours was the formation of an alphabet, which from that period has been pretty generally acquiesced in, though not without considerable misgivings on some points neither few nor unimportant. (Tom. i. p. 10.) Mazzochi supposed the ex- istence of an earlier and later Etruscan, the former cognate with the Oriental tongues ; the latter preserved in some measure by the remains of art, and having little or nothing in common with the languages of Asia. Bourguet and Gori conceived the Etruscan to be most analogous to Greek, the letters being almost entirely Greek, while Lami, Passeri, and Maffei, on the contrary, thought it bore a much stronger resemblance to Latin. (Tom. i. p. 11.) Maffei, while he combated Bourguet's notion of explaining the inscriptions on the sarcophagi brought to light, by the bassi-relievi attached to them, in which he was probably quite right, ran into as great an error himself by his predilection for recurring to the Hebrew language on every occasion. Lami, whose work appears to be rather ironical than serious, nevertheless threw much light on the subject, which was still more illustrated by that of Passeri in 1737 containing some valuable observations on the Eugubine tables, on the names of the Etruscans, and more especially on the Etruscan epitaphs. (Tom. i. p. 13.) o 4 200 ETRUKIA. v. Under the denomination of Ancient Languages of Italy, says Lanzi, we may include the Euganean, Volscian, Oscan, Samnitic, and Umbrian, in the latter of which the ritual of Gubbio is thought to be written. The letters of all these languages are either nearly or altogether the same as those of Etruria. The words of which we derive some knowledge from books or monuments, are the same ; and the inflexions of those words, so far as we are capable of under- standing them, appear to be the same. (Tom. i. p. 15.) VI. If the information contained in this paragraph be correct, as I believe it to be, Lanzi has unconsciously pro- nounced a censure on the course pursued by himself, as he has devoted one of his four indexes to Oscan, Yolscian, Euganean, &c. words. Such a proceeding is certainly pre- mature under present circumstances, and perhaps desperate under any that are likely to occur in future. To expect to discover books in the Etruscan language is altogether out of the question. We are not likely to make any great addition to our stock of inscriptions; and those which we possess already, instead of becoming more, must be every year less legible, from the operation of the weather, the effects of age, and the injuries of accident. What materials have we for treating of each language in particular ; or how can we expect to establish the dialects of a language, the Etruscan, while we know nothing with certainty respecting the language itself? Surely it is much safer, in the present state of our knowledge, to regard Euganean, Yolscian, Oscan, Samnitic, Umbrian, and the Etruscan itself, as the general language of ancient Italy, and to treat of them in connexion. To use the expression of Mr. Macleod, the sceptical political economist in Miss Edgeworth's incomparable tale of Ennui, " it may be doubted " if we can proceed with much success to form a grammar of any language, until we know all the letters of that language, and such is our position with respect to the Etruscan, to say nothing of its dialects. vii. In the year 1772 a posthumous work of the Jesuit Bardetti was published under the title " Delia Lingua de' FUNEREAL INSCRIPTIONS. 201 Primi Abitatori dell' Italia ; " and he has given the following list of Etruscan words, together with their authorities, — Andas, the north wind Hesychius. Antar, an eagle ........ „ Byrros, a cup „ Camillus, a name of Mercury . . . Servius. Cupra, a name of Juno Strabo. Damnos, a horse Hesychius. Druna, head or chief „ Gapos, a vehicle or chariot .... „ Hister, a player „ Histrio, Latin. Istorio, Italian, a history. Iduare, to divide Macrobius. Induare, Italian, to part in two. Lucumon, a prince Dionysius. Mantus, a name of Pluto .... Servius. Sabulo, a flute player Festus. The same author informs us that Maffei had given a list of sixty -nine, and Mazzochi of sixty -two Etruscan words, but that he had little confidence in either, and perhaps of those he has given himself it would be difficult to prove that a single word was peculiar to the Etruscans. VIII. Explanation of the Funereal, or Bilingual Inscriptions. No. 1. The Etruscan reads L. Cae. Caulias. The Latin has Lart. Caii. Caulias. If I had found the L standing alone in both languages, I should have entertained little doubt that it was an abbrevia- tion of the Latin word Lar used in the sense of house, i. e. Domus (ultima) Caise Caulias. Caulias appears to be a Greek Genitive case of the second declension in the Doric dialect. (Lanzi, torn. ii. p. 341. edit. 1789.) No. 2. Etruscan Senti Filina. Latin Sentia Sex. F I suppose Sentia Sexti Filia. The Filina, however, in the Etruscan is very remarkable, as it looks like the feminine 202 ETRURIA. of the Italian diminutive Figliolino, a little son, making the complete sense to be Sentia, the little or young daughter of Sextus (understood). Perhaps it was not considered ne- cessary to express it, as it was a family vault, and the name written at the entrance. No. 8. Etruscan A. Flave. A. Seisnal. Latin A. Flavius A. F. Caecina nat. Lanzi would read Seisnal, as he does in all similar in- stances ; but I believe the final letter is not an Etruscan Lambda, but a small Greek Nu (V). I also suspect that the I and second S have been transposed ; and with these altera- tions the Etruscan becomes Latin, written in ancient Greek characters, A. Flave A. Cecina n(atus). No. 10. Etruscan Af. Lecu Ril. xxi. Latin Aul. Laeca. An. xix. This is worth transcribing on account of the numbers, which reading from right to left, more Etrusco, agree with the Latin. Any one who has paid much attention to the Roman mode of notation, may, from this circumstance, form some conjecture as to the age of the inscription. No. 12. Etruscan Ls. Flabei Ls. Curia, n. Ril. Latin Lar. Flavius. Laris. F. Curia. nat. An. I believe the inscription was intended for two persons, and that we ought to read as under : — Laribus Flavii. Laribus F Curia, nat. Ann. There certainly can be no great objection to reading the Latin Lar in the same sense as Manes, the ordinary com- mencement of Roman funereal inscriptions, Dis Manibus. No. 15. Etruscan Lari: s: Fecusni : Herinia. n. Latin c . .Lar. Vesconius, Herinia. nat. I believe we ought to read Lari : s : Laribus, in the sense of Manibus — Laribus Yesconii Herinia natus. FUNEREAL INSCRIPTIONS. 203 f This character, which is generally T, and sometimes D, appears to have been used here as P, which, from its simi- larity in sound to F, was rendered in the Latin by Y. No. 21. Etruscan Tana. Titi. Au. Latin Thannia. Titia. Aul. F. I believe the first word is Tana, Italian, a cave, and the meaning of the inscription, the cave of Titia, the daughter of Aulus. In No. 18. it is remarkable that the Etruscan number XT is rendered in the Latin by LX. If the Latin be correct, there is no mode of making the Etruscan agree with it but by reading r as 7T, and supposing it to be a contraction for the Greek word Pentekonta, fifty, a most unusual mode of writing. No. 41. Etruscan Tana Seianti Latinia n. Latin Thannia Sejantia Latiniae nata. That is, the cave of Sejantia, the daughter of Latinia; Tana, Italian, a cave. No. 54. Etruscan Ar. Tins Beletia n. Latin Aruntia Tinii. Yeletiae nata. It is worth remarking that the initial letter of Yeletia in the Etruscan is clearly Beth, the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which has the power both of B and Y, and is rendered in the Latin by the latter letter. No. 55. Etruscan. Fe Tins Beletia n. Latin Yeb. Tinius Yeletia natus. This character O is not the aspirate Theta, or th, but t only, here and in many other instances. Here we have the Hebrew Beth again. No. 188. Etruscan Larthiasses. Latin Larthiaxes. The Latin X, in this place, has obviously the power of double Sigma, and the Romans probably formed it originally 204 ETRURIA. by placing two Sigmas back to back, thus )£ — }£, and the mode in which the Italians write Xenophon, Senofonte, is clearly a vestige of this origin. The Greeks appear to have formed their double letter Xi by placing Kappa > , and Sigma C, back to back, or at any rate such was undoubtedly its power. No. 191. Etruscan Mikalairuphuius. Latin Sum. Callairi. F. The doubt here is, how we are to divide Kalairuphuius. If we place a stop after the Phi, we suppose the name to be Kalairuphus, or Kalairufus, and the third word will be the Greek Uios, written with Upsilon instead of Omicron. And if we suppose an Ei, which preceded Mi, to have been ob- literated, the inscription will be altogether Greek, ~Ei/jU KaXat- pv(f>. Tto9. If, on the other hand, we read the Phi with Uios we must suppose that it is an Etruscan word formed from the Greek Phuo, gigno ; or that the Coptic article masculine Ph stands prefixed to Uios ; unless indeed we prefer regard- ing; the Phi as a substitute for Diojamma. No. 252. Etruscan Lar. Apini Cecu. Latin Lar. Apinius Caecus. I think we may safely read this, Domus (subauditur ultima) Apinii C«ci, or Lar is a contraction for Laribus. No. 253. Etruscan Tana Buisinei Carcu (Hebrew Beth). Latin Thannia Yolsinia Garcia. I have little hesitation in reading this — the cave of Volsinia Carcia. No. 272. Etruscan Larthi Ancarnei Marinas. Latin Lartia Ancaria. Mariae. I believe we must divide Larthi thus, Lar. Thi., and read Laribus Theois Ancharias (et) Mariee. That Iota is equiva- lent to and exchangeable with Epsilon, see torn. i. p. 250. ; nor can there be any doubt about using Lar in the sense of FUNEREAL INSCRIPTIONS. 205 Manes. Laribus Theois is as nearly as possible synonymous with Dis Manibus, the usual commencement of a Roman funereal inscription. If any one should object that Lar is Latin, and Theos Greek, my reply is, that if the language of the Romans was formed, as we are assured by the best authorities it was, from .ZEolic Greek, there must have been a period of transition, when the two languages were mixed, and that this inscription represents such a period. Ancharius was by no means an uncommon Roman name ; and Plutarch mentions a senator of that name, in his Life of Marius, who was killed by his partizans ; and Ancharia was the name of the mother of Octavia, the half-sister of Augustus. No. 297. Etruscan Thannila Upeia Marcnisa. Latin Thanilla. Oppia. Marcanisia. If the word Tana, which occurs so often in the Etruscan funereal inscriptions, be the modern Italian word Tana, a cave, of which I have little doubt, it appears to me next to certain that Tanilla in the present instance should be trans- lated little cave, being the regular Italian diminutive Ella. We had some years ago a carriage called a Sulky, being adapted to carry only one person, and therefore the very reverse of a Sociable, and perhaps Oppia Marcanisia was an old maid, and determined that no one should " seek and share her narrow bed," in life or in death. No. 340. Etruscan Belitta (Hebrew Beth). Latin Velissa. By putting two Sigmas back to back the Romans produced a new character, and read double S as X. This character J is very doubtful in Etruscan. I believe it to be sometimes intended for tt; but Lanzi generally reads it as ss. The substitution of the former for the latter is one of the most striking peculiarities of the Attic dialect. No. 366. Etruscan At. Tite. Ath. n. Latin Att. Titius. Attia n. The final solitary letter in the Etruscan Inscription is not a Lambda, as it is generally read by Lanzi, but a small 206 ETRURIA. Greek Nu (v\ in this instance exactly corresponding with the Latin, and signifying Natus. No. 368. Etruscan Lr. Camas Helia n. Latin Lars Camars Helia natus. Lanzi would read the third Etruscan word Helial; but there cannot be the slightest doubt that it is Helia n., cor- responding with the Latin natus. It is possible that the inscription intends to convey the information that the defunct was born at Helia, or Velia. If so. one would suppose, in the instances of No. 143 and No. 144. that the interred were born at Taormina in Sicily. Page 438. The Latin Lars, in this page, which does not correspond with the Etruscan letters, I believe to be a contraction for Laribus, used as synonymous with Manibus. In two instances, No. 386. and 389., the Etruscan has only L. T. or L. Th., as I believe for Laribus Theois. No. 438. Etruscan Tania or Thania. No. 441. „ „ These words look like the plural of Tana ; and in the first instance we find four and in the second three names, exactly as in our own churchyards, " Here lie the bodies." I suppose the Etruscan to be " The caves, or graves of," &c. No. 458. Etruscan Tular Hilar. Latin Ollarium Hilari. Though the T, in the Etruscan, is well defined, it is not certain that it was not originally used with the power of H, as I find a Roman T occurring two or three times in Lanzi's work in that sense. In these two or three instances the character used primarily, would appear to have been the Estrangolo, or old Syriac He (T) equivalent to the Roman and our own letter H, which, being at all times liable to be confounded with T, was eventually supplanted by it, in a few inscriptions. If we read Tular as Hular, the latter word may be a contraction of Ollarium. FUNEREAL INSCRIPTIONS. 207 No. 461.1 w. T No. 463. J Etruscan Lu P u - Latin Cinerarium. Lanzi says from Lopas, patina, Greek ; and I can suggest nothing better. ix. The Eugubine Tables. In the Eugubine Tables, as given by Lanzi, there can be no more doubt about the Etruscan letters composing the following words, than about the Greek letters in the same number of words, in those exquisite specimens of typography which the Clarendon Press has been producing for many years past. The short extracts I have made will be found in Lanzi (torn. in. p. 694.), and are printed in Roman characters in a work which I have already mentioned, " Bardetti, della Lingua de' Primi Abitatori dell' Italia," at the 255th page. Line 5. Frater. 9. Inumek : Sakre, i. e. Hymnas, k, or que Sacrse. 10. Fratrum. 12. Uvem, i. e. Bacchus, or the grape personified ; the second letter is the Hebrew Beth with the power of V. 13. Kletra, i. e. Anacletra, one of the names of Ceres, from the circumstance of her so often re- peating the name of Proserpine after her rape by Pluto, " Which cost Ceres all that pain, To seek her through the world." Milton. 18. Tris, occurs twice in the same line. 22. Juve Patre, Hebrew Beth with the power of V, in Juve. It appears to me that these words are quite sufficient to authorize us in coming to the conclusion, that the language of the inscription was almost, if not altogether, Latin. I believe all the doubt and difficulty which these tables have produced, arise from the circumstance of their having been 208 ETRURIA. FUNEREAL INSCRIPTIONS. renewed, or copied, perhaps more than once after the Etruscan or old Greek characters had become obsolete, and the Latin was written in those Roman letters, which have been adopted in most of the countries of modern Europe. The original inscriptions, whatever may have been their date, must have suffered from time, or there could have been no inducement to renew them ; and we cannot but suppose that many letters were entirely obliterated, and never re- stored ; many partially obliterated, mistaken, and replaced by others, according to the conjecture and knowledge, or rather ignorance, of the engraver ; and what is of still more consequence, that an erroneous punctuation brought letters together which had never before been connected, and com- posed words which never existed in Latin, Greek, or any other language. Lanzi, in more than one place, speaks of the extreme beauty of these inscriptions, both in Latin and Etruscan characters, which reduces the matter almost to a certainty that they were executed at a late period of the empire ; and if the original tables date from an early age of the Republic, it is morally certain that they must have been renewed more than once, and that every renewal would produce an ample harvest of mistakes. 209 CHAP. XVII. ROME. OLDEST LATIN INSCRIPTIONS. *' The city, which thou seest, no other deem Than great and glorious Rome, queen of the earth, So far renown'd, and with the spoils enrich'd Of nations ; there the Capitol thou seest Above the rest, lifting his stately head On the Tarpeian rock, her citadel Impregnable ; and there Mount Palatine The imperial palace ; compass huge, and high The structure, skill of noblest architects, With gilded battlements conspicuous far, Turrets, and terraces, and glittering spires." Paradise Regained, book iv. I. Steabo remarks of the Albans, that they were originally the friends of the Romans. They spoke the same language. They were, like them, Latins by origin ; and though the two people formed separate states there nevertheless existed be- tween them a community of marriages, of religious acts as to the sacrifices which were made in Alba, and other civil rights; but war soon arose between them, and Alba was entirely destroyed, with the exception of the temple common to all the Latins, and the Albans were declared citizens of Rome. (Strabo, lib. v.) II. Mettius Suffetius is called a Dictator of Alba ; but the second word appears to be a title, and almost identical with the Hebrew Shaphat, a judge, and the Carthaginian Suffetes, whose office was more like that of the Roman Consuls. Again, in the name of Appius Claudius, the founder of the great Claudian family at Rome, who emigrated, or revolted from the Sabines, which was originally written Atta, it appears to be the Moeso-Gothic word Atta, father. We find in Arabic, or Turkish, the word Atabak, which Richardson interprets Lord, father ; but which I rather believe to mean father of the city, from Atta (Moeso-Gothic), and Bak (Cop- tic), city. In Suffetius and Atta we have probably a 210 ROME. genuine Alban and Sabine word, unless the reader prefers calling the latter Trojan ; for that many of the words which we find in the Moeso-Gotkic Gospels of Ulphilas formerly constituted a part of the language spoken in Mysia, the site of the fabulous city of Troy, there can be no doubt whatever. ill. Whatever may have been the ancient languages or dialects of Italy, however, they are almost entirely lost to us, and we do and can know little respecting them, except so far as they were incorporated with and became a part of the Latin tongue, with regard to which Dionysius of Halicar- nassus remarks, that the language of the Romans is neither entirely barbarous, nor altogether Greek, but a compound of both, the greater part being .ZEolic, and that the only disad- vantage they have incurred is, that they do not pronounce all their vowels properly, but that all the other indications of a Greek origin they retain beyond any other colony (lib. i. c. 90.). "Lingua iEoiica," says Chisull, "inter Opicam, Etruscam, Umbram sepulta emersit in Romanam." (Lanzi, torn, i, p. 28.) iv. One proof of the origin of the Latin language from iEolic Greek may be deduced from the circumstance, that the early Romans, like the Dorians and ^Eolians before them, frequently confounded R and S. In another part of this work, I had occasion to adduce the celebrated decree of the Lacedaemonians, made against Timotheus of Miletus, as one of the most remarkable instances. Eustathius says, " that the .iEolians substituted R for S, and wrote Outor instead of Outos, and Ippor instead of Ippos ; " and Festus remarks that the Romans wrote Spusius for Spurius. I find in Lanzi's Collection of Etruscan Inscriptions, a Sanskrit S, so much like a Roman R, that the former must frequently have been read for the latter, and the latter for the former ; but, putting Sanskrit out of the question, no one can look at the small Greek Rho (p), and Sigma (V), without being con- vinced that they were very liable to be mistaken for each other. But letters very liable to be mistaken are mistaken, and when frequently mistaken form a dialect, OLDEST LATIN INSCRIPTIONS. 211 v. The enormous collections of Eoman Inscriptions of Gruter, Graevius, and Muratori, whatever may be their value to the historian and the chronologist, have in too many in- stances tended rather to mislead than direct, to perplex than inform, the philologist and the antiquarian. It appears to be taken for granted, that we have, in every instance, the original inscription; and yet this is so far from being the case, that I believe we possess hardly any of the inscriptions of an early period of the Republic in a genuine state. The best proof that we do not, is the facility with which we read them ; for if they had been written in the age of which they bear the date, it is quite certain that they would have been as unintelligible to us as what are called the Etruscan in- scriptions, which, in a great majority of instances, are as- suredly nothing more than Latin, written in the early, and in many cases, obsolete characters of Greece, which, we are quite sure, were primarily those of Rome also. VI. I must request my readers to peruse very attentively the following extract from Polybius, and then ask themselves what is the probable age of those compositions which we have been accustomed to read as the Laws of the Twelve Tables ? Polybius is speaking of the different treaties between Rome and Carthage, and proceeds to say, " The first was of the age of Lucius Junius Brutus and Marcus Horatius, who were created the first Consuls after the expulsion of the Kings, and who consecrated the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. This was twenty-eight years before Xerxes invaded Greece (a. u. C. 244-245.). I have given the sense of it with all the skill and accuracy of which I am master : for the language that was used in those times is so different from that which is now spoken among the Romans, that frequently the best interpreters, even after the closet application, are unable to explain it." (Hampton's Polybius, vol. i. p. 204.) Such is the passage from Polybius, and of his perfect competency to speak on such a subject, few will be disposed to doubt. He was not only a scholar, but a man of a vigorous and enlarged mind ; and his moral qualities were in no respect inferior to P 2 212 ROME. his intellectual. Indeed so high does his character stand, that it is no exaggeration to say, that among all the writers of antiquity there is not one whose single opinion carries more weight, or is entitled to be received with greater con- fidence and respect. VII. I would next ask my readers, if the following extract from the Laws of the Twelve Tables (as exhibited by Fulvius Ursinus, and translated by Spelman in his Dionysius of Hali- carnassus), has any pretensions to be regarded as a genuine specimen of the Latinity of Rome (a. u. c. 299) ; that is only about fifty-five years later than the first treaty with Carthage, which we have just seen Polybius declaring was hardly in- telligible in his time. Fulvius Ursinus : Sei. in. ious. vocat. nei. eat. statim. encapito antestarier. Spelman : Si in jus vocat, ni eat statim, incipito antestari. Translation : If any one cites another to appear before a magistrate, and he does not go presently, let the other call witnesses (or, more literally, let him begin to call witnesses). (Spelman, vol. iv. p. 329.) Tin. Lanzi, in his Specimens of ancient Latin Inscriptions, in his Saggio di Lingua Etrusca, gives the following as a fragment of one of the laws of the kings : — " Sei Parentem. Puer. Verberit. Ast. Oloe. Plorasit. Puer. Diveis. Parentum. Sacer. Esto. Sei. Nurus. Sacra. Diveis Parentum Esto." (Tom. i. p. 146.) If any one credits what Polybius has written respecting the treaty with Carthage, can he believe for a moment that the above fragment gives us anything more than the meaning of what possibly may have been one of the regal laws of Rome ; but of which the Latinity, with the exception of the doubtful expression Oloe Plorasit, is obviously not anterior to the age of Lucretius (vide Facciolati, Lexicon, in voce Ploro). OLDEST LATIN INSCRIPTIONS. 213 IX. Of the Latin inscriptions given by Lanzi, I cannot find one that has any pretensions to be regarded as of a re- mote antiquity. Putting a few palpable corruptions and errors of transcription out of the account, the Latinity differs very little from that of the perfection of the language in the Augustan age, which is accounted for by supposing that the ancient monuments of Rome required to be renewed from the effects of time or accident, and that as often as they were renewed the inscriptions they contained were modernised, so that, in many instances, those which pretend to be of an early age of the republic, were actually written at a late period of the empire. p 3 214 CHAP. XVIII. ITALY. — ANTIQUITY OF THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE. " Italia ! Italia ! O tu cui feo la sorte Dono infelice di bellezza, ond' hai Funesta dote d' infiniti guai, Che in fronte scritti per gran doglia porte ; Deh fossi tu men bella, o almen piii forte ! Onde assai phi ti paventasse, o assai T' amasse men, chi del tuo bello ai rai Par che si strugga, e pur ti sfida a morte." F'dicnja. " Italy ! Time which hath wrong'd thee with ten thousand rents Of thine imperial garment, shall deny And hath denied to every other sky Spirits which soar from ruin : thy decay Is still impregnate with divinity "Which gilds it with revivifying ray ; Such as the great of yore, Canova is to-day." Byron's Childe Harold, canto iv. I. The Abbe Lanzi, one of the most profound antiquarians and learned philologists of modern Italy, has some observ- ations on the Italian language, in his Essay on Etruria, which do not appear to me to have excited all the attention they deserve, and which are of so important and interesting a nature as to be well worthy of further elucidation. Speak- ing of the Latin language, he says, " that language was not extinguished by the foreign and barbarous languages spoken in Italy, but by a popular language, which had been natu- ralised in the country, and even in Rome itself, from the remotest antiquity, and which, having been kept out of sight during an age of learning, re-appeared in a period of igno- rance, and extending itself and gaining strength by degrees, degenerated or subsided into that which from its origin we may denominate the common or vulgar language of Italy." (Saggio, torn. i. p. 422.) II. This is to me rather a new view of the subject. Almost all the authors who have treated of the Italian language THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE. 215 appear to have taken it for granted that it was formed altogether by gradual changes in the language of ancient Rome, and chiefly by neglecting the declensions of the nouns and the conjugations of the verbs as respected the termi- nations of both, and that modern Italian is merely corrupted or simplified Latin; but, according to Lanzi, the ancient language of Rome did not subside into a new language, of which the Divina Commedia of Dante is almost the oldest written specimen, but was superseded by a language common to all Italy, and perhaps as old as Rome itself. The lan- guages of Hindustan will afford an illustration. Every one knows that the Sanskrit is the repository of literature, science, poetry, and religion ; and that there is another ancient lan- guage, denominated Prakrit, which appears to have been applied to all the ordinary purposes of life. Indeed the signification of the word Prakrita in Sanskrit, low, common, vulgar, is sufficiently indicative of the nature and destination of the language. But if the Italian Prakrit mentioned by Lanzi did not originate in the corruption of a learned lan- guage, what was the antiquity of that Prakrit, and how far is it possible that Latin, the Italian Sanskrit, the language of literature, of the state, and of religion, may have originated from it by elaboration ? in. Lanzi proceeds to remark that the transition from the Latin to the general use of this ancient and vulgar language of Italy was gradual and insensible ; that there was a relapse into modes of speech which had been proscribed by learning and taste ; that certain plebeian words, such as Caballus for instance, which had been banished, returned ; that exchanges were made in letters of the same organ ; that there was a general indifference respecting the termination, and an equal degree of licentiousness as regarded the contraction of words ; and that the result of all these elements of change was the fabrication of an idiom much more analogous to the rustic ancient Latin, than to the specimens of that elegant language preserved in books, and by us denominated classical. (Tom. i. p. 422.) P 4 216 ANTIQUITY OF iv. One of the most accomplished, in every respect, of our English travellers in Italy, Mr. Henry Matthews, in his Diary of an Invalid, — a book which is frequently in my hands, and which I never lay down without feelings of regret that his own journey of life was so short, and that he was so early taken from a world which he was so well fitted to adorn and enlighten, — has the following very striking observations in connexion with this subject : — " The origin of the Italian language has long been a subject of discussion. The literati of Florence are fond of tracing it up to Etruscan antiquity. We know that Etruria had a language of its own distinct from the Latin. This was the language in which the Sibyl was supposed to have delivered her oracles, and in which the augurs interpreted the mysteries of their profession. Livy says, e Habeo auctores, vulgo turn Eomanos pueros, sicut nunc Gra3cis ita Etruscis Uteris erudiri solitos.' This language is by some supposed to have continued to exist during the whole time of the Romans, as the sermo vulgaris, the -patois which was in common use among the peasantry of the country, while the Latin was confined to the higher classes and the capital, to the senate, the forum, the stage, and to literature. This opinion does not seem entirely destitute of probability. We have living evidence in our own island of the difficulty of changing the language of a people. In France too, till within the last half-century the southern provinces were almost utterly ignorant of French ; and even at present the lower classes of the peasantry never speak French, but continue to make use of a patois of the old Provencal language. In like manner it is supposed by many that pure Latin was confined to the capital and to high life ; while the ancient Etruscan, which had an additional support in being consecrated to the service of religion, always maintained its ground as the colloquial patois of the greatest part of Italy. Thus when Rome fell, the polished language of the capital fell with it ; but the patois of the common people remained, and still remains in an improved edition in the language of modern Italy. For if this be not so, we must suppose first that the Etruscan THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE. 217 was rooted out by the Latin, and that the Latin has again yielded in its turn to a new tongue. But innovations in language are the slowest of all in working their way ; and if the pure Latin of the Classics had ever been the colloquial language of the common people, some living evidence of it would surely have been discovered, as we now find the ancient language of the Britons lingering in the fastnesses of Wales and Cornwall; but no information is handed down to us by which we can ascertain when Latin was the common spoken language of Italy, or at what period it ceased to exist." (Diary of an Invalid, 2nd edition, p. 264). v. I am the more impressed with these remarks, because they coincide with and are confirmed by lny own experience. In the bilingual funereal inscriptions, given in the second volume of Lanzi's Essay on Etruria, the word Tana is of very frequent occurrence. That word is not Greek : it is not Latin ; it is not to be found in the copious and admirable dictionary of the latter language by Facciolati, nor in the still more voluminous work of Ducange, containing the Latinity of the middle ages ; but we meet with it in every Italian dictionary, and its meaning is a cave, — a sense which perfectly agrees with the mode in which it is employed in Lanzi. There can be little more doubt about the Etruscan letters, even if they stood alone, than about the beautiful Greek characters which the Clarendon press is so well em- ployed in sending into the world ; and in all these instances they are corroborated by the Latin, although not with minute and scrupulous exactness. If it be admitted that the Etruscan Tana, or Thana, is the Italian Tana, a cave, few will be disposed to doubt that the Etruscan Tannila, or Thanilla, which occurs only once (No. 297.), is an Italian diminutive formed from Tana, and signifies little cave. The reader may call Tana, and Tanilla, Etruscan or Latin as he pleases, and apply to them the epithet quotidianus with Quintilian, or pedestris with Vegetius, or usualis with Sidonius, or rusticus with many other authors ; but I re- gard them as two of the oldest Italian words in existence, 218 ANTIQUITY OF and specimens of a language which probably prevailed in almost every part of Italy, and was older than the Latin itself, whether we choose to denominate that language Etrus- can, or to distinguish it by any other name. (Hallam's Literature, vol. i. p. 27.) vi. Lanzi says that the Etruscans frequently omitted M at the end of a word, and that the same practice was common among the ancient Latins, and quotes as authority for the former the words Screhto est from the Eugubine table. Some forms of H and Ph, in Etruscan, are easily mistaken ; so that screhto may have been Screphto, or Screpto. This is very like the Italian scritto, which we may perhaps regard as a third Etruscan, or rustic Roman word ; while Lanzi's re- mark, if well founded, establishes the remote antiquity of the whole class of Italian past participles. (Tom. ii. p. 254.) vn. The following words from the Sanskrit will be ad- mitted to throw some light on Italian, perhaps on Etruscan etymology ; and it may turn out, after all, that we are better acquainted with the latter language than we gave ourselves credit for, like the worthy citizen in Moliere, who had been speaking prose all his life without knowing if. Sanskrit. Italian. Ita, gone Ito. Gala, to eat Gala, a feast. Jurni, the sun Giorno, a day. Naso, Italian. Nasus, Latin. ido, Italian. idus, Latin. Nasa, a nose -j Nida, a nest < > T . -vt i , f Nave, Italian. Kau ' aboat | Navis, Latin. Pat' ana, a female fiend Puttana, a strumpet. Palala, straw Paglia. {Piova, rain. Piove, it rains. Pluvia (Latin), rain. Prakka, to ask Prego. Bhrija J Mriti, death Morte. Yuvan, young Giovane. ir -J ^ to shine Brace, a live coal. THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE. 219 Sanskrit. Italian. r> • r> • i • f Rege, Italian. Raj, or Raja, a king | Re!, Latin. Rajni, a queen Regina, Italian and Latin. Vaja, to go Viaggio, a journey. -r r . ,1 .-, f Vedova, Italian. Vidhava, a widow | vidua> Latin> Sala, a hall Sala. Gatau, move Gita, a going, a walking. Anthati, lie goes Andata, going. Ganiba, to go Gamba, a leg. Diva, shine, be splendid Dio, God. The Sun was the earliest god of most of the races of mankind. Raja, shine, reign Rege, a king. Riva, flow, move Rio, a stream. T . f Lava, the flowing or moving matter Lvai, go, move j fr0 ' m ft volcan * £^■1* } light, shine Luce, light. ™- -** { lu^S; gf. Chada, ask, seek Chiedere. Yanta, couple, unite Giunta, joined. j" Lutta (Italian), wrestling. Luta, roll, tumble -! Lucta (Latin), wrestling. [ Lucto (Latin), I wrestle. Vaga, go Vagare, to ramble. Vagha, go Viaggiare, to travel. Vargha, go Varcare, to go, to pass over. Vancho, go Yengo, I come, from Yenire. Yaja, go Yiaggiare. Gata, gone Gita, agoing, a walking. Gala, throat or neck { g°^ **Jj£' -^ ., , f Domita, Italian. Damita, tamed ....-{ -p. .. ' T ,. [ JDomitus, Latin. viii. In many of the words of the preceding list, it ap- pears to me impossible not to be impressed with the circum- stance, how much more closely the Italian word corresponds with the Sanskrit, than the Latin does, leading to the con- clusion that the first was Etruscan, and borrowed directly from the second without passing through the medium of the third. For example, in Sanskrit we have Vidhava, in Italian Yedova, and in Latin Vidua, a widow ; in Sanskrit Nasa, in Italian Naso, and in Latin Nasus, a nose ; in Sanskrit Nida, 220 ANTIQUITY OF in Italian Nido, and in Latin Nidus, a nest. There is another striking instance in a proper name, which occurs in the third volume of Lanzi's work, at p. 599. We there read in Etrus- can letters, written from right to left, AV^ Etruscan Kappa, hitherto read as Lambda — together, Chui or Qui vik. (sit) as a contraction for Qui vixit. Even in those inscriptions in which the word that up to this time has been read as Ril appears, as well as Abik, or Avik, I believe the former to be a corrupt reading in conse- quence of the final letter having been turned topsy turvy, and that L (^J) usurps the place of P (l), the genuine one being, in Etruscan letters, 1 1 q, and in Roman R. I. P. as an ab- breviation for Requiescat in pace. I have seen many an " Elegy in a Country Churchyard," the prosody and grammar of which, should the English ever become a dead language, will furnish ample employment to the Bentleys and Porsons of a future age. (Vide Lanzi, torn. ii. 322.) 224 CHAR XIX. ON THE MANTCHOUX, OR EASTERN TARTARS. " As when a vulture on Imaus bred, Whose snowy ridge the roving Tartar bounds, Dislodging from a region scarce of prey, To gorge the flesh of lambs or yeanling kids On hills where flocks are fed, flies toward the springs Of Ganges or Hydaspes, Indian streams ; But in his way lights on the barren plains Of Sericana, where Chineses drive With sails and wind their cany waggons light." Paradise Lost, book iii. I. The nature of my plan would now require me to write three chapters, devoted respectively to the Celtas, the Moeso- Goths, and the Sarmatians or Slavonians, who, with the Greeks and Romans, may be regarded as having given birth to the four great families or divisions of language at present existing in Europe ; but as I have done so in a work recently published*, and should be necessarily led into many useless repetitions, I shall content myself with referring such of my readers as feel an interest in the subject to that work, and proceed to make a few observations on the other great divi- sions of language which remain to be noticed, the Tartaric, the African, and the American. II. The history of the Mantchoux, or Eastern Tartars, has acquired an extraneous and adventitious importance, from its connexion with that of China. Almost all our knowledge of them is derived from the Chinese, and by a singular concur- rence of circumstances it appears probable that they are destined to make the Chinese better known in Europe, as all the most remarkable works of the latter people have been translated into Mantchou, and are thus rendered accessible * On the Origin and Ramifications of the English Language, 8vo, London, 1845, chapters 4, 5, 6. THE EASTERN TARTARS. 225 to the western world, in an alphabetical instead of a real character. in. Some Chinese writers represent the Mantchoux as the descendants of a famous horde, distinguished by the name of Nieutchen, Nieutche, or Niotchere, which resided between the sea of Corea and the river Saghalien, and is recorded as having paid tribute to the Emperor Vou-vang so early as the year b. c. 1122 ; but this statement must be regarded as extremely uncertain, from the very doubtful authenticity of the early Chinese annals. The fact is better established that, in the year of the Christian era, 1115, the Nieutche overran and conquered all the northern provinces of China, and were themselves subdued by the successors of Genghis, in a. d. 1234. In the year a. d. 1644, the Mantchoux, or Eastern Tartars, completely subdued the Chinese empire, of which they still retain possession. They appear to have acted nearly the same part there, as the Saxons did in England when called in to defend the country against the Picts and Scots ; and having expelled the foreign invaders quietly took possession of the kingdom for themselves. (Du Halde, tome i. p. 466.) iv. Since the accession of the present dynasty to the throne of China, the Mantchou has been spoken at court, in common with the Chinese language itself. Two presidents, the one Tartar, and the other Chinese, preside in all the chief courts, and all the proceedings and decrees of the go- vernment are published in both languages. Still, however, the Mantchou tongue, though incomparably more easy of acquirement than the Chinese, which is the predominant one of the empire, was in danger of being lost, but for the steps taken by the Tartars to preserve it after their conquest. Anxious to retain their language, which they naturally preferred to that of the Chinese, they saw with regret that it was gradually declining and likely to become extinct, rather from the circumstance of words becoming obsolete and forgotten than from any mixture of the two languages, as they have so little in common that they absolutely refuse Q 226 THE MANTCHOUX, to assimilate. The old Tartars were insensibly dying off, and their children were acquiring the new language with increasing facility, because their mothers and servants were for the most part Chinese. V. To remedy this inconvenience, in the reign of the first Tartar Emperor Chun-tchi, which extended to seventeen years, they began to translate the Chinese classical books, and to compile dictionaries of the words arranged in an alphabetical order ; but as the explanations and the characters were in Chinese, and as the language of China was unable to render both the sounds and the words of that of Tartary, this labour was productive of very little utility. The Em- peror Cang-hi 5 soon after his accession, was induced to form a tribunal composed of all those who were most distinguished for their knowledge of the two languages of China and Tartary. Some were engaged to labour on such historical and classical books as had not yet been translated ; others, on works of eloquence ; and the greater number, on the compo- sition of a Thesaurus of the Tartaric language. The last work proceeded with extraordinary diligence. Whenever any doubt arose, they interrogated the old men of the eight banners or hordes of Tartary ; and if a more pro- found and accurate research was requisite, they consulted those who were recently arrived from the interior of their own country. Rewards were offered to those who should succeed in discovering obsolete words and ancient forms of expression adapted to enrich the Thesaurus, by means of which they might refresh the memories of such as had for- gotten them, and store the minds of those who had never known them. These translations and literary works, says a very competent judge (Le Pere Amyot), were made by- learned academies, by the command and under the inspection of the different emperors from Chun-tche to Kien-long now actually on the throne, and reviewed and corrected by other academies not less learned, the members of which were perfectly well acquainted both with the Chinese and the Mantchou languages. How immense the difference between OR EASTERN TARTARS. 227 such translations and those made by foreigners ! It may be confidently asserted, that there is hardly a good Chinese book in existence, which has not been translated into Mantchou ; so that this latter language now presents, without any other assistance, the means of penetrating into the labyrinth of Chinese literature of all ages, containing the most ancient written documents in existence. (Langles, Alphabet Man- tchou. Paris 1807.) When the collection of these Tartaric words appeared to be so complete as to leave only a very trifling deficiency, which might easily be added in a supplement, they were divided into classes. The first treats of heaven ; the second, of time; the third, of the earth; the fourth, of the emperor, of the government, of the mandarins, of customs, of music, of books, of war, of hunting, of man, of soils, of silks, of cloths, of dresses, of instruments, of work, of workmen, of barks, of eating and drinking, of grain and plants, of buds, of animals both tame and wild, of fishes, of worms, and of an infinite va- riety of other subjects. Each of these classes is divided into different chapters and articles ; and all the words being thus arranged and written in conspicuous characters, the defi- nition, the explanation, and the use of the word are arranged under each in smaller letters. The explanations are at once clear, elegant, and familiar, and may be regarded as consti- tuting the best model for style. vi. One of the peculiarities of the Tartaric language, according to Du Halde, is that the same verb can never be employed with different substantives, but varies with, and is modified by those substantives in a manner which it is much easier to remark than to account for. He takes as an example the French verb Faire (to make or do), and observes that in that language there is no objection to the expressions to make a house, a picture, a statue, or verses, to do a work, to act a character, to assume the modest, &c. ; but that they exhibit a violation of the laws of Tartaric taste which could not be borne with. The use of the same verb may be par- doned in familiar conversation ; but is never tolerated in Q 2 228 THE MANTCHOUX, elegant composition, or even in common writing. They are not less offended with the recurrence of the same word in the course of two or three lines. VII. Another singularity of the Tartaric is the immense accumulation of terms subservient to the purpose of abridg- ment. This language has no need of the periphrases and circumlocutions which retard the progress and suspend the meaning of discourse, and short terms clearly express that sense which, without their assistance, would require a host of words. This fact becomes obvious when it is necessary to speak of any description of animals, of a dog for instance. Besides the common terms of great and little, mastiffs, grey- hounds, &c. the Tartars have appropriate epithets to distin- guish their age, their hair, and their qualities good or bad, as in the following examples. If they wish to express that a dog has the hair of his ears and tail very long and thick, the word Taiha suffices ; if to say that his snout is long and thick, his tail the same, his ears large, and his lips drooping, all these particulars are conveyed by the single word Yolo. If this dog engenders with a common bitch, which has none of these qualities, the name of their whelp is Peseri. If any dog whatever, either male or female, has two tufts of white or yellow hair above its eyebrows, the circumstance is de- noted by the word Tourbe ; if he is spotted like a leopard, by Couri ; if his muzzle only is marked, while the remainder of his body is of an uniform colour, by Palta ; if his neck is quite white, by Tchacou ; if he has some hairs on the top of his head inclining backwards, it is Kalia ; if the iris of one eye is half white and half blue, it is Tchikeri ; if his form is low, his legs short, his body thick, and his head high, it is Capari ; and so on, in many more instances which it would be too tedious to mention. vni. In whatever direction we look, and whatever tongue we analyse, whether the people speaking it be rude or re- fined, illiterate or learned, we discover that language is not merely the instrument but the image of thought, and that those trains of ideas which are of the most familiar and fre- OR EASTERN TARTARS. 229 quent recurrence, have given birth to forms of expression which answer the purpose of delineating their finest shades and discriminating their minutest differences. The Arabs, for instance, are a nation of shepherds ; and if all the words employed to describe the qualities of the camel literally, and all the figures of which that useful animal forms the basis metaphorically, were extracted from the Arabic Dictionary, they would form a small duodecimo volume. The Tartars, as a people, are one degree of civilisation lower than the Arabs, many of their tribes being merely hunters, and we have seen the number of terms they employ to describe dogs ; while Du Halde says that they have at least twenty times as many applicable to horses. We denominate them barbarous, and in many respects no doubt they are so as compared with the inhabitants of Europe ; but respecting dogs and horses, with which their minds are most habitually conversant, they appear to make more refined distinctions than we do. We may describe their language as narrow ; but with regard to those classes of objects which minister most effectually to their wants and desires, it exhibits a degree of copiousness, of which, prior to examination, we could have formed no concep- tion whatever. But if language be in every instance adapted to the actual situation of the people speaking it, it forms no slight presumption that language itself is a human invention, and that man, being supplied by his benevolent Creator with a mind to think and a capacity of forming articulate sounds to express his thoughts, did the rest himself, and no more required supernatural assistance to build up the fabric of speech, than to erect the rude hut which covered him, after being provided with hands to arrange, and wood and stone for materials. ix. I have made a list of a few Tartaric words, in »o- ing through Langles' Alphabet Mantchou, which will be found below ; as, though they do not suggest many analogies to me, they may to others ; and there can be no doubt as to their authenticity, or their orthography, at least so far as Tar- taric sounds can be adequately rendered by an European Q 3 230 THE MANTCHOTJX, alphabet. I must remark, however, that the difficulties of Mantchou writing have been prodigiously exaggerated ; or, to speak more correctly, have no sort of foundation in fact. The language is commonly said to consist of fourteen hundred syllables, which one is led to suppose must all be committed to memory ; while the real truth is, that these pretended elements have all been analysed by Langles, into an alphabet consisting of twenty-eight characters or letters. Tartaric Words. Analogies. Enie, mother { Am, Hebrew. Arum, Arabic. Itclie, or Itcheu, new. Oren, or Ouren, image. Sain, or Sagnin, good, beautiful. Poo, house. Antcha, plough. Erguen, life, breath, soul. ISTiyaman, heart. Ounoun, burden Onus, Latin. Panin, or Pagnin, character, disposi- tion. Pira, river. Q -,.-,. ,. f Sabe (Coptic) knowing. Sabi, prediction [ Savio (Italian), wise, learned. Sabou, a shoe Sabot, French, Sanguis, Latin. Sengui, blood -I Sangue, Italian. r so \ Sa [ Sa Sang, French. Yaza, eye. Tatan, tent. Totolo, prognostic. Tata, origin, source Tete, head, French. Tetoun, bier. Pitkhe, book. Petkke, the feet. Oleut or Eleuth, name of the king- "1 Ohel, Hebrew, a tent, Hiat, Arabic, domoftheMongoux,orMonguls. J life, (by contraction) Oleuts or Eleuths, i. e. a people passing their lives in tents, like the Arabs and Tartars. Leolen, discourse Laleo (Greek), to speak. Mama o T t\ f Dieu, French. Tieu, Demon | Div, Persic. Siun, Columna Situn, Persic. Ain, Hie. Mi, Unus Mia (Greek), Una. Jerghuou, Duo. Jeriech, Tres. Vart, Rosa Ward, Arabic. Mah, Mors Mawt, Arabic. Hhuoi, Aries. Mard KpIIutti T Marte ( Latln )> AbL of Mars. Mard, Helium | Marte, Italian., Hazz, Panis Kabbaz, Arabic. Zierr, Manus Cheir, Greek. Zett, Oleum Zit (Hebrew), an olive. xr Twr • f Nau, Sanskrit. Nau,Navis | Naus, Greek. Ghin, Mulier Gune, Greek. Pan, Verbum. Archal, Rex Arche (Greek), Regnum. Ierghir, Terra. Ierghin, Coelum. Ouird, Cor. Dzamanagh, Tempus Zaman, Arabic. Dzam, Hora. Uosghi, Aurum. Chini, Vinum Yayin, Hebrew. Dzuov, Mare. Der, Dominus. Or, Dies Aor (Hebrew), light. Ies, Ego. T f Tu, Latin. " Lm)U 1 Thou, English. Ail Alius, Latin. Uor, Qui, Quae, Quod. f Aish (Hebrew), a man. Ais, hie J Is, Latin. [ Os, Greek. Siriem, Amo. Sirim, Amor. ARMENIA. 243 Armenian Words. Analogies. Cham, Yenio I come, English. Iem, Sum Eimi, Greek. Ies, Es Eis, Greek. E, Est Esti, Greek. Amanagh, Tempus With the Arabic definite article Al, Alamanagh ; by contraction, Almanack (English), the Time, i. e. an account of time. r 2 244 CHAP. XXII. AFRICA IN GENERAL. " Th' empire of Negus to his utmost port Ercoco, and the less maritim kings Mombaza, and Quiloa, and Melind, And Sofala, thought Ophir, to the realm Of Congo, and Angola farthest south ; Or thence from Niger flood to Atlas Mount The kingdoms of Almansor, Fez, and Sus, Morocco, and Algiers, and Tremisen." Paradise Lost, book xi. I. The ancients were much divided in their opinions respecting the geographical boundaries of Africa ; for while some regarded the whole of Egypt as forming part of the continent of Asia, others were disposed to include it in Africa; and others again, among whom may be placed Herodotus, considered the Nile as forming the boundary line between the two great continents. ii. Putting Egypt and Ethiopia, which have already been treated of, out of the question, as well as Carthage and Cyrene, which were unquestionably colonies founded by nations who had made considerable progress in civilisation, we hardly meet with an ancient author who is disposed even to speculate on the subject of the original inhabitants of Africa, and much less with one who possesses either in- clination or ability to impart to us any definite information. In a Roman author, who is much more remarkable for the beauties of his style than the closeness of his investigations, or the general accuracy of his narrative, the historian Sallust, we meet with the following observations : — He represents Africa as originally possessed by the Gastulians and Libyans, both of whom he describes as savage and unpolished people, living on the flesh of wild beasts, or feeding on the herbs of the field like cattle ; subject to no laws, discipline, or govern- ment ; without any fixed habitation ; wandering from place AFRICA IN GENERAL. 245 to place, and taking up their abode wherever night overtook them. The death of Hercules in Spain, however, according to the tradition of the Africans, led in a short time to the dispersion of his army, which was composed of a great variety of nations, and influenced by commanders who were actuated by discordant views and conflicting interests. Those that were Medes, Persians, and Armenians, sailed over into Africa, and took possession of that part of the country on the coast of the Mediterranean sea. The Persians, however, ultimately settled nearer the Atlantic, and converted their ships into houses, by turning them upside down, because there was no timber in the country, and they had no intercourse with Spain, partly on account of the distance, and partly because they did not understand the language spoken in that country. These insensibly mixed with the Gsetulians by intermarriages ; and because they were continually shifting from place to place, trying the goodness of the soil, they called themselves Numidians, which Sallust evidently regards as equivalent to Nomades. He concludes by remarking, that the houses of the Numidian peasants, were still like the hulls of ships, of an oblong form, with coverings raised in the middle, and bending at each end. (Be Bello Jugurthino, c. 21.) Y in. The expedition of Hercules into Spain, the foundation on which the above passage rests, cannot be said to possess much of an historical character. As the Grecian Hercules is altogether a creation of mythology, so his exploits are in every respect fabulous. Hercules is unquestionably one among the innumerable Asiatic names of the sun ; and his twelve labours contain some obscure allusion to the passage of that luminary through the twelve signs of the Zodiac. At the same time, the above passage of Sallust, in all probability, darkly em- bodies the historical fact of an emigration from Asia, or an invasion of Europe from that continent. Hercules, or the sun, being put by metonymy for the East, or the sun-rising, in the same way as Cadmus, formed from the Hebrew word Kedem ; and hence in the classical writers Heraclidas and ^ R 3 246 AFKICA IN GENERAL. Cadmeans for Asiatics or Orientals. Indeed we actually meet with such a tradition in history, or that which has hitherto been received as such ; as Megasthenes mentions Sesostris the Egyptian, and Tearchon the Ethiopian, as extending their conquests as far as Europe, Navocodrosorus (Nebuchadnezzar), the most renowned among the Chaldeans as exceeding Her- cules, and carrying his arms as far as the pillars, and subse- quently leading his army from Spain to Thrace and Pontus, while Idanthursus, the Scythian, overran all Asia as far as Egypt. (Megasthenes, Cory's Ancient Fragments, p. 215.) IY. If this army, which Sallust describes as crossing from Spain into Africa, was really composed of Medes, Persians, and Armenians, I should say that it had clearly left a trace of itself in the word Numidia, formed from the Persic Nu or No, new, and Media their original country. The name of the Gaetulians, whom Sallust describes as the original inhabitants of Africa, seems to be formed from the Greek word Ge earth, and the Latin verb Fero, tuli, in the sense of to produce ; Gaetulians, or earth born, corresponding with the Greek Autochthones, and the Latin Aborigines. Herodotus describes the Ausenses as bordering on those Libyans who cultivated the earth and had houses, were distinguished by the name of Maxyes, and pretended to be descended from the Trojans. (Lib. iv. c. 191.) Connecting this with the passage in Sallust, one cannot but conjecture that the word Maxyes may be cognate with the Persic Mazu and Mazah, a harrow, and that the fact of their being agriculturalists was contained in the name. The indefatigable Herodotus also mentions another African word, which is undoubtedly of Asiatic etymology. He says that Zegeries, in the African tongue, has the same meaning with the Greek word for hills, which can hardly be any thing else than the Chaldee Jegar, and the Syriac Jagar, a hill. In the well-known parting between Laban and Jacob, after they had raised a mound of stones, the former pronounced the words Jegar Sahadutha, this heap be a witness, or be this heap a witness. (Genesis, 31—47.) AFRICA IN GENERAL. 247 The name of Mount Atlas in Mauritania, is certainly older than the age of Homer, as it occurs in the first book of the Odyssey, and it is as certainly an Arabic word. I do not mean a conjectural word, such as etymologists are some- times accused of inventing, but one which is to be found, I believe, in every Arabic dictionary. In that of Richardson its signification is a sphere, the heavens ; so that there cannot be a doubt that Atlas was to the early Arabians, and the inhabitants of that part of Africa, what Ouranos was to the Greeks, and Coelus to the Romans ; that is, one of the oldest and most venerable of their deities. v. The languages of Africa are supposed to amount to one hundred and fifty, of which Adelung has given scanty specimens, consisting of a word or two, of about one hundred. But of all these, with the exception of the subdivisions of the Egyptian language, the Coptic, the Sahidic, and the Oasitic, together % with the Punic, there are very few words that I can identify as having the most remote analogy with the languages of Europe or Asia. In connexion with this subject, Dr. Prichard's Work on the Eastern Origin of the Celtse, contains the following curious passage : — " In Africa a remarkable and interesting fact was the discovery of a nation occupying the whole northern region of that continent, to which the Kabyles of Mauritania and the Tuarik of the Great Desert belong, and whose branches extend from the Oasis of Siwah on the eastern, to the mountains of Atlas and even to the Canary Islands on the western side. The Guanches, the old inhabitants of those islands whose remains are said to lie embalmed in the mummy caves of Teneriffe, spoke, as it appears, a dialect of the same language as the Kabyles and Berbers. The Felatahs, who have spread themselves over the interior countries of Nigritia, have been traced, by a similar investigation, to the mountainous districts above the Senegal, where the Foulahs who speak the same language, have long been known to Europeans as a people in many respect distinguishable from the Negroes. To the southward of the equator, a connexion still more extended R 4 248 AFRICA IN GENERAL. has been discovered among the natives tribes, across the whole of the same continent from Caffraria and the Mozam- bique coast on the Indian Ocean, to the countries which border on the Atlantic and form a part of the region termed the empire of Congo." (p. 7.) vi. Park's Travels in Africa contain a tolerably copious vocabulary of the Mandingo language, from which I shall insert a short extract, principally with a view of pointing out the extraordinary fact how very widely the Arabic appears to have been diffused over the African continent from the very earliest ages. Mandingo Words. Analogies. Boulla, the arm and hand Bal (Arabic and Persic), the arm. Kittaba, a book Kitab, Arabic. Ding, a child. Dingding, an infant In Hebrew, the superlative degree is frequently formed by writing the positive twice. In the first chapter of Genesis, we have Tob, good, and Tobtob, very- good. Banko, earth. Lata, glad Lsetus, Lseta, Latin. *".<** { ifne"- Santo, heaven Santo (Italian), holy. Soo, horse Soos, Hebrew. Fato, man Phos, Photos (Homer). Teelee kooneata, noon ; literally, the sun overhead. Sang, sky. Boulla ba, the south ; literally, the right hand. Teelee, the sun. Gee, water. Teelee Gee, the west ; literally, sun water, i. e. where the sun sets. 249 CHAP. XXIII. AMERICA IN GENERAL. " Venient annis saecula seris, Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum Laxet, et ingens pateat tellus, Tethysque novos defcegat orbes, Nee sit terris ultima Thule." Seneca, Medea, 374. Rich Mexico, the seat of Montezume, And Cusco in Peru, the richer seat Of Atabalipa, and yet unspoil'd Guiana, whose great eity Geryon's sons Call El Dorado." Paradise Lost, book ii. I. The above passage of Seneca appears to contain a pro- phecy that new continents would be discovered, and the boundaries of the habitable world be thereby enlarged ; but as most prophecies have been found to be long posterior to the events they pretend to predict, we ought perhaps rather to regard the words of my motto as containing an obscure tra- dition and doubtful knowledge of the existence of a western continent, at the period when the poet wrote. II. The fables respecting the Atlantic island lead us to the same conclusion. Marcellus, as quoted by Proculus, says that such, and so great an island formerly existed, is recorded by some of the historians, who have treated of the concerns of the outward sea (the Atlantic Ocean). For they say that in their times there were seven islands situated in that sea, which were sacred to Persephone; and three others of an immense magnitude, one of which was conse- crated to Pluto, another to Amnion, and that which was situated between them, to Poseidon ; the size of this last was no less than one thousand stadia. The inhabitants of this island preserved a tradition handed down from their ancestors, concerning the existence of the 250 AMEEICA IN GENEEAL. Atlantic island of a prodigious magnitude, which had really- existed in those seas ; and which, during a long period of time, governed all the islands in the Atlantic Ocean. (Cory's Ancient Fragments, p. 233.) The smaller islands may con- tain an allusion either to the Cape Yerde or to the Canaries, in the latter of which some of the ancients placed the Elysian fields; the three larger point to some of the West India islands ; and the Atlantic island to the continent of America itself, which we may suppose to have been accidentally dis- covered by some ship driven far out of its usual course by violent and long-continued easterly winds, and the know- ledge of it lost again in the imperfect state of navigation among the ancients, prior to the discovery of the properties of the magnet, and the invention of the mariner's compass. V in. Indeed there is an account of a geographical discovery by the Phoenicians in Diodorus, which may, by possibility, be that of some part of the continent of America. To the west of Africa, says he, we meet with an island distant many days' sail from that part of the world. Its soil is fertile, its surface varied by mountains and valleys, and in- tersected by many navigable rivers. Its gardens are filled with all sorts of trees, and irrigated by abundant springs of water. It contains numerous country-houses magnificently furnished, surrounded by parterres of flowers and covered walks, to which the inhabitants of the country retreat during the heat of summer, for the purpose of enjoying those blessings which nature has poured forth with such profusion. The mountains of this island are covered with thick forests of fruit trees, and its valleys refreshed by numerous trans- parent streams. The chase supplies them abundantly with various descriptions of animals, so that there is no deficiency in their feasts, with respect either to plenty or luxury. In addition to this, the sea which surrounds this island produces a copious supply of all kinds of fish, which indeed may be regarded as one of its general properties. The air is so temperate that the trees retain both their leaves and fruit during the greater part of the year, and the island altogether AMERICA IN GENERAL. 251 is so delightful that it appears to be rather the abode of gods than of men. Formerly it was entirely unknown, on ac- count of its great distance, and the Phoenicians were the first who discovered it. From a remote period they had been in the habit of trading in those seas, which induced them to establish colonies in Africa and in the western parts of Europe. In the course of this employment they were surprised by a violent tempest, which lasted many days, drove them into the ocean, and finally deposited them in the island which we have described. Having been the first to discover its beauty and fertility, they made them known to other nations. When the Tuscans became powerful by sea, they wished to establish a colony there, but were prevented by the Carthaginians. The attractions of this new country were so great, that they were apprehensive too many of their nation would be induced to emigrate to it ; and on the other hand they regarded it as a secure asylum, in the event of any great and unforeseen reverse happening to the city of Car- thage, when they hoped that their naval superiority would enable them to transfer the seat of empire to this island, while their conquerors, whoever they might be, from igno- rance of its situation would be unable to follow and molest them. (Diodorus, lib. v. c. 15.) \ / IV. There is still another view of the subject. Plato says, that the island of Atlantis was as large as Syria and Asia Minor put together, and situated in the Atlantic, and that nine thousand years had elapsed since the period when it ceased to exist. Nine thousand years carry us back to an era which, if not prior to the existence of the earth itself in its present form, is most assuredly long anterior to all trans- actions which we can identify with any known race of men. We find ourselves among the Praeadamites of the Orientals, the inhabitants of a former world. Sir William Jones, ad- dressing the members of the Asiatic Society, says: "Before you lies that prodigious chain of mountains (the Himalaya) which formerly perhaps were a barrier against the violence of the sea ; and the old maps in Ptolemy's Geography represent 252 AMERICA IN GENERAL. the peninsula of India as united to Africa, and inclosing all the northern part of the Pacific Ocean in a huge mediterra- nean sea. Did the submersion of the southern continent of Ptolemy occasion the retreat of the waters from the peninsula of India as far as the base of the Himalaya ? Was that retreat followed, after a long interval of time, by the descent of the primitive people described by Bailly, from the table land of Tartary? Did the emersion of the present continents of North and South America from the bottom of the ocean by the force of central fire, submerge the Atlantic island of Plato, and form the actual bed of the Atlantic Ocean ? Is the account of the Deluge of Noah, the Indian Satyavrata, the Chaldean Xisuthrus, and the Greek Ogyges, and Deucalion, which is in no sense peculiar to the Jews, a dark tradition, imperfectly preserved, of the wreck and disappearance of a former world, and of the substitution of the present, not from the laboratory of Chaos, but from the bosom of the ocean? As the appearance of the globe proves to demonstration, that our present conti- nents once formed the bottom of the sea, not merely that the sea flowed over them as described in the Mosaic account of the Deluge, — a circumstance altogether inadequate to account for geological phenomena which cannot be disputed for a moment, what is now sea may have been land ; and the spots actually occupied by the great Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, the principal residences of the human race. All the laws of chemistry lead to the conclusion that matter is in its nature as imperishable as spirit, and that what in popular language is called the dissipation or destruction of a sub- stance, is only the liberation of its simple or elementary parts, which must necessarily form new combinations by the laws of the attraction of cohesion or of chemical affinity, and, to use the philosophical language of Ovid, " Omnia mutantur, nil interit." Y. It is undoubtedly true that since the dawn of authentic history, no records have been preserved of nature working on that gigantic scale, which geologists suppose when they AMERICA IN GENERAL. 253 talk of the elevation of continents from the bottom of the sea, by the expansive force of central fire ; but it is equally true that numerous instances, both ancient and modern, are mentioned of nature operating in that mode ; so that if the hypothesis in question should be chargeable with arguing from causes which are inadequate to the production of the phenomena, it at any rate escapes the imputation of reason- ing from causes which have no real existence. Strabo re- lates that between Thera and Therasia, after eruptions of four days' continuance, fires issuing from the sea elevated by degrees, and pushed up from the bottom of the waters, at that time inflamed and boiling, as if by the aid of a machine, an island formed of volcanic matter, which was twelve stadia in circumference. The eruption being over, the Rhodians, who were at that time masters of the sea, had the courage to land first on the spot, and erected a temple to the Asphalian Neptune. The same author also informs us, that near Methone, in the Hermionic Gulf, a mountain of fire seven stadia in height, formed by the eruption of combustible matter, was seen to arise. Inaccessible during the daytime, both on account of its heat and its sulphureous odour ; in the night it diffused an agreeable smell, was conspicuous at a great distance, and gave out so intense a heat as to cause the sea to boil at five stadia distance, while as remote even as twenty stadia the waters were agitated and muddy. Almost the whole of this space was heaped with fragments of rock, equal to towers in bulk. (Strabo, lib. 1.) VI. According to the account of Xanthus of Lydia, a great drought happened in the reign of Artaxerxes, which exhausted the rivers, lakes, and wells. Xanthus pretended to have seen various sea-shells, and petrified cockles, and muscles, at a great distance from the sea, and marshes of salt water in Armenia, Mattiana, and lower Phrygia. From these circumstances he was persuaded that what is now land was once sea. Strabo was of opinion that the Euxine sea had formerly no outlet near Byzantium, but that the rivers which discharge themselves into that sea having 254 AMERICA IN GENERAL. forced the obstacle, and opened themselves a passage, its waters rushed into the Propontis and the Hellespont; and that in the same way the Mediterranean, filled to overflowing by its rivers, broke through the isthmus which closed the Straits of Gibraltar, and by flowing through this new channel left, what had formerly been quicksands, dry land. (Strabo, lib. 1.) Art, empire, earth itself to change are doom'd. Earthquakes have raised to heaven the humble vale, And gulfs the mountain mighty mass entomb'd ; And where the Atlantic rolls wide continents have bloom'd. Beattie's Minstrel. VII. It is time, however, to dismiss these geological spe- culations, which have, perhaps, detained us too long. I was surprised to meet with a passage in the first book of Strabo, which proves, beyond a doubt, that the ancient geographers had formed a clear conception, and attained a decided con- viction, of the practicability of that scheme, which so many centuries later was carried into effect by Columbus. It is as follows : — The inhabited earth, says Eratosthenes, from the laws of nature, must be longer from east to west, than it is broad from north to south, as we have already remarked, because such is also the greatest dimension of the temperate zone. We know that this zone, as the mathematicians say, returning on itself, forms a complete circle ; so that if the EXTENT OF THE ATLANTIC SEA WERE NOT AN OBSTACLE, WE MIGHT SAIL FROM SPAIN INTO INDIA, ALWAYS FOLLOW- ING the same parallel of latitude. This is precisely the plan which occurred to Columbus ; and when he sailed from Palos in Andalusia, on the 3rd of August, in the year 1492, it was with the hope and expectation of reaching the East Indies by holding a westerly course. It is a curious subject of speculation, whether or not Columbus ever saw the above passage in Strabo, and all the certainty we can attain on the point is, that if he ever read it, he must have read it in manuscript, as the Editio Princeps of Strabo was not printed before the year 1516 by Aldus, and then in Greek only, of which it does not appear that Columbus had any AMERICA IN GENERAL. 255 knowledge whatever. There was no Latin translation of which he might have availed himself, earlier than 1549, while the oldest Italian version, that of Buonacciuoli, was not printed until 1562. According to Robertson, Columbus had completely matured his great plan so early as the year 1474, and communicated it to Paul, a distinguished physician of Florence, so that this illustrious navigator appears to be fairly entitled to the honour of having both conceived and executed that daring enterprise which led to the discovery of the new world. viii. There is an apparent coincidence between India and Peru, remarked by Sir William Jones, which is worth noticing ; because, if well-founded, it would almost amount to a proof o'f a common origin between the two people, or a direct intercourse between the countries. The principal festival among the Peruvians was denominated Ramasitoa ; and when we recollect that the Incas pretended to be the descendants of the sun, and find two Ramas among the ten Indian Avatars or Incarnations of Yishnu, and that the name of the wife of one of them is Sita, there certainly is some ground for supposing that the word Ramasitoa combines the names of Rama and Sita. (Jones, 3 — 39.) ix. The article on the Life of Jefferson, in the fifty-first volume of the Edinburgh Review, contains the following inte- resting piece of information : — " Jefferson had collected at one time fifty vocabularies of the aboriginal tribes within his reach, extending to about 250 words ; of these, about 73 words were common to the Asiatic lists of 130 words collected by Pallas. A comparison of languages seems the only chance of furnish- ing something like a key among the hundred theories con- cerning the origin of the Indian tribes. But there was also a stimulating encouragement in the suspicion Jefferson enter- tained, that farther investigations would show a greater number of radical languages among the natives of America, than among those of the other hemisphere." I have not been able to meet with Pallas's list of 130 words; but if, as I 256 AMERICA IN GENERAL. suppose, they were all collected among the subjects of Russia, in the north-eastern countries of Asia, and if 73 words, out of the 250 Indian words collected by Jefferson, coincided with them, and if, further, the degree of this coincidence was so close as to be obvious to the eyes of a common observer, as well as to those of an etymologist, which, like the eyes of a lover are not to be implicitly relied on, as they perceive what no one else can discover, and see " Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt," it appears to me, that the question as to the origin of the North American tribes is set at rest, and that there can hardly be a doubt that they migrated from the North-east of Asia. ~$„ The following passage from Dr. Prichard's valuable work on the Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations is deserving of an attentive perusal : — (i Philologists have sought in vain in the old continent for a nation from whose speech the diversified idioms of America may with any degree of proba- bility be derived; but an examination of the American languages themselves has led to some interesting results. The native races of North America are referred, by a classi- fication of their dialects, to a few great divisions, several of which extend as radii, issuing from a common centre in the north-western part of the continent, where it is divided from Asia by Behring's Straits. The traditions prevalent among the ancient Mexicans seem to have derived credit from the discovery of a chain of mountains, extending almost from New Mexico to Mount St. Elias, in the neighbourhood of the Esquimaux Tschugazzi; their languages, particularly those of the Ugalyachmutzi and Koluschians, bear a curious analogy to that of the Aztecs and Tlaxcallans. Another series of nations, the Karalit or Esquimaux, connected by affinities of dialect, has been traced from the settlements of the Tschuklschi in Asia along the polar zone to Acadia and Greenland. Light has also been thrown in a similar manner on the history of the Lenni Lenape, and the great kindred family of the Algonquin nations, on that of the Iroquois, and likewise of the Floridian and other races of North AMERICA IN GENERAL. 257 America, by a comparison of their national traditions with the indications discovered in their dialects. One circumstance, which is perhaps of more importance than all the preceding, is the singular congruity in structure between all the American languages, from the northern to the southern ex- tremity of the continent." (Prichard, pages 5 and 6.) Z~— - - xi." One of the most interesting and apparently authentic notices of the languages of the North American Indians I have ever met with, is contained in the following extract from a work of Dr. Jonathan Edwards, entitled " Obser- vations on the Language of the Muhhekaniew Indians, COm- municated to the Connecticut Society of Arts and Sciences," published at the request of the Society, and printed by Josiah Meigs, 1788. Dr. Edwards, who was pastor of a church in New-Haven, gives the following account : — "When I was but six years of age my father removed with his family to Stockbridge, which at that time was inhabited by Indians almost solely. The Indians being the nearest neigh- bours I constantly associated with them ; their boys were my daily school-mates and play-fellows. Out of my father's house I seldom heard any language spoken beside the Indian. By these means I acquired the knowledge of that language, and a great facility in speaking it : it became more familiar to me than my mother tongue. I knew the names of some things in Indian which I did not know in English. Even all my thoughts ran in Indian ; and though the true pronun- ciation of the language is extremely difficult to all but them- selves, they acknowledged that I had acquired it perfectly ; which, as they said, had never been acquired before by any Anglo-American. " The language which is now the subject of observation is that of the Muhhekaniew or Stockbridge Indians. They, as well as the tribe at New London, are by the Anglo-Ameri- cans called Mohegans. The language is spoken by all the Indians throughout New England. Every tribe, as that of Stockbridge, of Farmington, of New London, &c, has a dif- ferent dialect ; but the language is radically the same. Mr. s 258 AMERICA IN GENERAL. Elliot's translation of the Bible is in a particular dialect of this language. This language appears to be much more extensive than any other in North America. The language of the Delawares in Pennsylvania ; of the Penobscots bordering on Nova Scotia ; of the Indians of St. Francis in Canada ; of the Shawanese on the Ohio ; and of the Chippewaus at the westward of Lake Huron ; are all radi- cally the same with the Mohegan. The same is said con- cerning the languages of the Otto wans, Nanticooks, Munsees, Menomonees, Messisaugas, Saukies, Ottagaumies, Killistinoes, Nipegons, Alg.onkins, Winnebagoes, &c. That the lan- guages of the several tribes in New England, of the Dela- wares, and of Mr. Elliot's Bible, are radically the same with the Mohegan, I assert from my own knowledge." * ' - The extract concludes with the following very important remark, which throws more light on the nature and formation of language, than can be collected from many treatises called philosophical, contained in ponderous folios. " The Mohegans have no adjectives in all their language. Although it may at first sight seem not only singular and curious, but impossible, that a language should exist without adjectives, yet it is an indubitable fact." (Di- versions of Purley, vol. ii. p. 461.) Of the fact itself I have not the smallest doubt, and be- lieve it may be very easily and satisfactorily accounted for. The reason I conceive to be, that not only in the language of the Mohegans, but in that of all other people that ever existed, nouns substantive were originally descriptive of the nature and qualities of the objects to which they were ap- plied, and that it was not until the primary meaning of proper names was lost in the progress, or confusion, of lan- guage, that adjectives became necessary ; and that in all languages at present, when used with most propriety and correctness, they answer no other purpose than to enumerate or recapitulate the qualities, or in other words to restore the lost signification of the noun to which they are attached, for exemplifications of which I must refer to the chapter on ad- jectives. AMERICA IN GENERAL. 259 xii. During several years past, the remains of architecture and sculpture, discovered in various parts of South America, have induced many to come to the conclusion that they prove the existence of a people who had made greater advances in the arts than the Mexicans and Peruvians. I can discovei no adequate grounds for such an opinion ; but should it be well founded, the probability is, that some inscriptions in alphabetical characters will be found, which will enable us to conjecture, with more confidence, to what quarter of Asia we are to look for the original colonisers of the New World s 2 260 CHAP. XXIV. ON HIEROGLYPHICS. " Quinetiam notissimum fieri jam ccepit, quod in China, et Provinciis ultimi Orientis, in usu hodie sint Characteres quidam Reales, non Nominates,- qui scilicet nee literas, nee verba, sed res et notiones exprimunt. — Adeo ut Gentes complures, linguis prorsus discrepantes, sed hujusmodi Characteribus (qui apud illos latius recepti sunt) consentientes, scriptis communicent : eousque, ut librum aliquem hujusmodi characteribus conscriptum, quaeque Gens, patria lingua legere et reddere possit." — Bacon de Augmentis Scientiarum, liber vi. I. In the whole circle of human knowledge there are few subjects of greater interest and curiosity than to trace the history of the origin and progress of the art of writing. If it be second in importance to any thing, it is only to the formation of language itself, and with this it is intimately connected, borrows light from it, and reflects it back also in no inconsiderable degree. As language appears to have owed its origin to the phy- sical necessities, and its extension to the intellectual powers of the human race, so in the invention and progress of writing man seems to have been stimulated and prompted at every step by his sympathetic affections and social pro- pensities. One of the strongest passions of the human breast is the love of fame, or the desire of being remembered and talked of beyond the transitory and evanescent period of the duration of life, and in proportion to the strength of this desire is its opposite aversion, that of being forgotten. From the operation of this feeling no age or condition is entirely exempt, and those who cannot hope "to command the applause of listening senates," or " to read their history in a nation's eyes," are still anxious to record that they have existed, though the frail memorial which covers their mouldering remains may not have a single sentence to com- municate as to what they have performed. HIEKOGLYPHICS. 261 ii. As a nation is merely a collection of individuals, we cannot be surprised at finding the mass actuated by the same feelings as had distinguished the component parts, and ac- cordingly we discover in every age and country of the world, an extreme anxiety to transmit a record of their proceedings to the latest posterity in imperishable annals. The means resorted to for this purpose have had no limit but the in- ventive faculties of the human mind, all the powers of which have been in succession excited and exhausted. The rude mound of earth (like those which credulity still believes to have covered the remains of Ajax and Achilles in the Troade), the rugged stone which commemorated the parting of Jacob and Laban, the sculptured pillar, the stupendous pyramid, the triumphal arch, the storied urn, the animated bust, the breathing statue and the glowing picture, attest the strong interest man has always taken in futurity, and the immense importance he has always attached to that semblance of life which consists in others' breath. ill. Previously to the invention of alphabetical writing, — so simple when known that we wonder it was not always practised, so complex while in progress that we are equally surprised it was ever perfected, — various modes of picture writing prevailed, which, though mixed in different degrees and running into each other by insensible gradations, may all be comprised under three great heads or classes. 1. Literal hieroglyphics, or simple picture writing. Of this kind almost all the Mexican paintings appear to have been ; and reasoning from analogy it is hardly possible to doubt that this was the first stage of the art, both in Egypt and China. Whether any of the remaining monuments of Egypt are precisely similar to those of Mexico, and to be interpreted merely as pictures, it is extremely difficult to say ; but if they are, the difficulty, already sufficiently formidable, is obviously greatly enhanced, of eliciting any intelligible meaning from them. Perhaps in many instances we have been endeavouring to extract a mysterious and recondite meaning from what is merely a picture, and to be interpreted s 3 262 HIEBOGLYPHICS. as such ; and on the other hand I believe a great deal of the extravagant mythology of India, Greece, and Italy, to have had no other origin than reading hieroglyphics as pictures ; that is, in resting satisfied with a literal and obvious meaning, while the writer intended to convey a figurative and occult one. The description of Berosus of the pictures painted on the walls of the temple of Belus is evidently that of hiero- glyphics, which require to be interpreted on the principle of those of Egypt, as conveying a hidden meaning, and by receiving them literally as pictures, without seeking for such a hidden meaning, we have at once many of the personages of the Greek mythology whose characters are so unintel- ligible, and whose actions are so extravagant. (Cory's An- cient Fragments, p. 23.) 2. Figurative hieroglyphics, which resembled a picture only in form, while its spirit was entirely different, as its object was not so much to represent visible objects as to describe intellectual and moral qualities, express relations, convey the mysteries of religion, inculcate political maxims, and enforce ethical precepts. How perfectly or imper- fectly they answered this end among the ancient Egyptians, we are not informed, but we know too well that they have conveyed very little information of any sort to any other people. The greater part of the Chinese writing is precisely similar to that of ancient Egypt, and is merely a simplified hieroglyphic, in which different combinations of straight and curved lines are substituted for the rude delineation of visible objects. But the principle is exactly the same, both being real characters or the signs of things directly, without the slightest reference to the words or sounds by which those things are expressed in conversation; so that the writings of the Chinese are as intelligible to the Japanese, the Tonquinese, and the Coreans as to themselves, though they speak different languages ; in the same manner as the ciphers said to have been borrowed from the Arabians are intelligible to all the nations of Europe, as long as they continue to look at them, and HIEROGLYPHICS. 263 become the reverse the moment they begin to talk about them. 3. Phonetic Hieroglyphics, or figures of visible objects, which in some instances discharge the office, and approxi- mate to the nature and character of letters or alphabetical characters. It had been long known that something of this sort existed among the Chinese, and was had recourse to when they wished to convey an idea of the names of persons or places; but its existence among the Egyptians was hardly suspected prior to the arrival of the Rosetta Inscription in this country, which being written in three modes, Hiero- glyphic, Enchorial, and Greek, enabled Dr. Young by a rare display of learning, sagacity, and perseverance, not only to read the words Ptolemy and Berenice, but to make considerable progress in a Hieroglyphic or Enchorial al- phabet. I shall now make a few observations on each of these three sorts of Hieroglyphical writing, beginning with Picture Writing. 1. Picture Writing. IV. After the art of painting, or that of representing the form and colour of visible objects on a flat surface, had become generally known and practised, the most obvious idea of preserving and transmitting the memory of any great exploit, was to delineate or paint it ; and this was done by the ancient Greeks, who employed Polygnotus, one of their greatest artists, to represent the battle of Marathon, in one of their porticoes, which from this circumstance obtained the name of Poecile, or painted, The Greeks did not do this from necessity, as they then were and probably had long been in possession of the art of alphabetical writing ; but from being fully aware that painting, though as an art it is incomparably less comprehensive, various, and exact than writing, so far as it goes has many material advantages over it. In the painting in question, for instance, the portrait of Miltiades, as delineated by Polygnotus, conveyed a much more lively idea of him to posterity than any written description could do ; while Herodotus's account of the battle, s 4 264 HIEROGLYPHICS. on the other hand, makes us acquainted with innumerable circumstances, the knowledge of which could never have been conveyed by painting, and is as perfect now as at the moment it was first written ; while Athens and all its monuments of architecture, sculpture, and painting is a heap of ruins. To the Greeks, painting was one of the fine arts, the growth of luxury. Among other nations we find it existing as one of the necessary arts, the produce of con- venience, and such were the Mexicans at the period of the arrival of the Spaniards among them. Being entirely destitute of the art of alj)habetical writing, they had no other means of informing their Emperor Montezuma of the great event which had taken place, than by making pictures of the Spaniards, their ships, horses, arms, clothing, accou- trements, and all the other objects, which struck them as new and singular. In this case, however, the want of alphabetical writing could not have been severely felt, as the messengers who were the bearers of the pictured des- patches were no doubt able to supply the omissions, aid the imperfections, and elucidate the obscurities incident to this contrivance, from their own ocular experience. It is only when we form an idea in our minds of these painted annals some centuries after the events they record, of the pictures without the commentators, or any other extraneous sources of elucidation, that we become fully impressed with a sense of their great, numerous, and necessary imperfections. One of the most elaborate of these paintings was published by Purchas in thirty-six plates, and is divided into three parts. The first contains the history of the Mexican empire under its ten monarchs ; the second is a tribute roll representing what each conquered town paid into the royal treasury, and the third is a code of their institutions, domestic, political, and military. Another specimen of Mexican painting has been published in thirty-two plates by the Archbishop of Toledo, and to both is annexed a full explanation of what the figures were intended to represent, which was obtained by the Spaniards from Indians well acquainted with their own arts. HIEROGLYPHICS. 265 v. One of the most curious circumstances, in the history of almost every art or science, is to trace the slow and la- borious efforts by which they were carried to perfection, to mark the long intervals which separate every advance, and how little was gained by each successive step, to note how the deficiencies of invention are remedied by the efforts of perseverance, and the imperfections of the intellectual atoned for by the excellencies of the moral nature of man. In the paintings of the Mexicans, however, we cannot discover much progress, or indeed that they ever deviated es- sentially from their original character of mere paintings. Dr. Robertson remarks, that upon an attentive examination of the plates alluded to, we may observe some approach to the plain or simple hieroglyphic, where some leading part, or circumstance in the subject, is made to stand for the whole. In the annals of their kings, published by Purchas, the towns conquered by each are uniformly repre- sented in the same manner by a rude delineation of a house ; but, in order to point out the particular towns which sub- mitted to their victorious arms, peculiar emblems, sometimes natural objects, and sometimes artificial figures, are employed. In the tribute roll, published by the Archbishop of Toledo, the house which was properly the picture of the town is omitted, and the emblem alone is employed to represent it. After the material addition that has been made to our hiero- glyphical knowledge, by the instrumentality of the Rosetta Inscriptions, it would be curious to ascertain if all or any of these emblems were phonetic, and contained the Mexican name of the city or town. One of the most obvious modes of designating any particular place, is to delineate the natural production for which it is most remarkable. If a Mexican painter, for instance, had wished to convey an idea of Tadmor in the Desert, he would perhaps have added a palm tree to the character employed to denote city ; but no Roman could have pronounced the name of that emblem, or natural object, palma, without at the same time pronouncing also the second name of the city, Palmyra, and the same observation will apply to a host of other places. The Mexicans appear to 266 HIEROGLYPHICS. have made some advances beyond this, and, in a few particular instances, to have made use of the more figurative and fanci- ful hieroglyphic. In order to describe a monarch who had enlarged his dominions by force of arms, they painted a target ornamented with darts, and placed it between him and those towns which he subdued, but, generally speaking, they made few attempts to convey any idea of qualities, either moral or intellectual, and restricted all their efforts to the delineation of the visible, the tangible, and the material. (Robertson's America, book vii.) vi. To be convinced of the extreme imperfection of this Mexican picture writing, and of the very limited degree of information that is or can in the nature of things be con- veyed by it, we have only to reflect on the restricted powers of the art, in its most advanced state. The imitations of every particular picture, however perfect, are limited to a moment of time, — the necessary consequence of which is, that it conveys a very imperfect notion of the causes which produced, or the consequences which resulted from, the action delineated. The three unities of action, time, and place, which the ancient drama so rigidly prescribed, and the modern has so rarely observed, the painter can never by any effort escape from. He can denote the succession of time, only by a series of pictures, and the number of the latter must keep exact pace with the moments of delineation of the former. Such a series, arranged in a chronological order, may convey some very imperfect idea of the relations of cause and effect; but we can never be quite confident at which end we are to begin, except from some information extraneous to the series itself. If painted in fresco on a wall the arrangement cannot easily be disturbed, until they are cut out of the wall, and transferred to canvas, — a process with which we are now perfectly familiar ; but supposing such a series painted on paper, and arranged in portfolios, the chro- nology of an empire is as liable to be disturbed as the leaves of the Sibyl; and one cannot but conjecture that that of Egypt, India, and China has suffered by some such untoward accident. HIEROGLYPHICS. 267 " Insanam Vatem aspicies ; qua3 rupe sub ima Fata canit, foliisque notas et nornina mandat. Qusecunque in foliis descripsit carmina Virgo, Digerit in numerum, atque antro seclusa relinquit. Ilia manent immota locis, neque ab ordine cedunt. Verum eadem, verso tenuis cum cardine ventus Impulit, et teneras turbavit janua frondes, Numquam deinde cavo volitantia prendere saxo, Nee revocare situs, aut jungere carmina curat." * Virg. JEneid. lib. iii. 443. VII. To be convinced how much previous knowledge the art of painting supposes and requires in the spectator, and how very inconsiderable is the addition made to that stock by the artist, let us consider how much we should have brought away from the contemplation of the Sistine Chapel, the Camere of the Vatican, or the Cartoons, if we had not gone with minds prepared, but trusted entirely to the paint- ings .themselves to tell their own story, and make their own impression; and yet these are unquestionably among the most gigantic efforts and splendid triumphs of art. In an- other instance, how false is the impression conveyed by the last work of perhaps the very greatest genius the art of painting has ever produced, the Transfiguration of Raphael ! If judged of by the three unities of action, time, and place, from which it is as difficult for the painter to escape, as for the dramatist to submit to, the composition is faulty every way ; as there are two distinct actions, the Transfiguration of Christ, and the Miracle of the Demoniac Boy ; two dis- tinct places, the summit of the mountain, and the plain * " The mad prophetic Sibyl you shall find Dark in a cave, and on a rock reclined. She sings the Fates, and in her frantic fits The notes and names inscribed to leaves commits. What she commits to leaves in order laid Before the cavern's entrance are display'd. Unmoved they lie : but if a blast of wind Without, or vapours issue from behind, The leaves are borne aloft in liquid air ; And she resumes no more her museful care, Nor gathers from the rocks her scatter'd verse, Nor sets in order what the winds disperse." Dryden's Virgil. 268 HIEROGLYPHICS. below ; and two distinct times, while Jesus was in the Mount, and after he had descended from it. It is possible, however, to form such a conception of the subject as that the unities shall not be violated. We are informed (Matthew, xvh\ 16.) that the disciples had been unable to heal the boy, and we may suppose that this unsuccessful attempt exactly coincided with the moment of Christ's Transfiguration, that the former took place at the bottom, and the latter at the top of the mountain; and that the artist intended to represent not simply how Christ was employed, but the other nine Apostles also, Peter, James, and John being with him ; "and we preserve the unities, and repel the charge which has been brought against Raphael, that the Transfiguration con- tains two perfectly distinct pictures in the same frame. The probability, however, is, that Raphael was determined to paint the Transfiguration, though perfectly aware, as he could hardly have failed to be, that it was in many respects an unfavourable subject for his art. Unless the top of the mountain had occupied the top of the picture he would have failed in giving an idea of its elevation. If he had confined himself to the representation of the Transfiguration solely, not only would all the light have been concentrated in the top of the picture, but the bottom would have been absolutely without subject, two grievous violations of the great laws of Chiaro-scuro and Composition. The former circumstance was incident to the very nature of the subject, and has always appeared a fault to every judicious critic ; but by introducing the Demoniac Boy, and the other disciples at the bottom of the picture, Raphael redeemed his composition, and by re- garding the moment of the unsuccessful attempt at healing as identical with that of the Transfiguration, which the 16th verse left him at liberty to do, he gave unity to the top and bottom of his picture, and rendered the subject one and harmonious. 2. Figurative, or Proper Hieroglyphics. viii. We have seen the limited range of picture writing, that it could do no more than delineate external events, and HIEROGLYPHICS. 269 that very imperfectly, that is, was incapable of exhibiting their relations and connections, of describing such qualities as were not visible to the eye, and of conveying any idea of the virtues, the vices, or the disposition of mankind; — except so far as they are expressed by the countenance. Warburton regards the Hieroglyphics of the Egyptians as of three kinds, viz. — 1. The first was to make the principal circumstance in the subject stand for the whole, and when they would de- scribe a battle, for instance, or two armies in array to paint two hands, one holding a shield and the other a bow ; when a tumult, or popular insurrection, an armed man casting arrows; when a siege, a scaling ladder. This was very little more than an abridged picture writing, which lost in clearness more than was gained by the saving of time. To those who were not informed of the circumstances to which these contractions alluded they must have been unintelligible ; to those who were informed, useless; and no attempt was yet made to represent any thing beyond external objects, or visible appearances. 2. The second method, was by putting the instrument of the thing, whether real or metaphorical, for the thing itself. An eye, for example, eminently placed, was designed to re- present God's omniscience; an eye and a sceptre to represent a monarch ; a sword their cruel tyrant Ochus ; and a ship and pilot, the governor of the universe. 3. The third method was to make one thing stand for or represent another, where any point of resemblance or analogy in the representative could be collected from their observations of nature, or their traditional superstitions. Of these three sorts of hieroglyphics, Warburton denomi- nates the first Curiologic, the second Tropical, and the third Symbolic. As the classes are not very clearly discriminated, we may reasonably doubt, not merely the accuracy of the division, but whether there are any grounds and materials in existence for making it more so. ix. Of the numerous instances of interpretations, or pre- tended interpretations of the hieroglyphics of Egypt, it may 270 HIEROGLYPHICS. be doubted if one is perfectly correct, unless accompanied and corroborated by an Enchorial translation. Almost all our knowledge of the subject is derived from the Greeks, and there is too much reason for believing that in this, and in- numerable other cases, they substituted plausible conjecture for patient investigation, and confident assertion for rational conviction. Some of the most remarkable hieroglyphic figures were the following. According to the properties which they ascribed to animals, or the qualities with which they supposed natural objects to be endowed, they pitched upon them to be the emblems or hieroglyphics of moral subjects, and employed them in their writing for that end. For instance, ingratitude was denomi- nated by a viper, imprudence by a fly, wisdom by an ant, victory by a hawk, a dutiful child by a stork, a man uni- versally shunned by an eel, which they supposed to be found in company with no other fish ; and sometimes they joined together two or more of these hieroglyphical characters, as a serpent with a hawk's head, to denote nature with God presiding over it. The universe was designated by a serpent in a circle, whose variegated spots signified the stars, and the sunrise by the two eyes of the crocodile, because they seem to emerge from its head ; a widow, who never admits a second mate, by a black pigeon ; one dead of a fever, contracted by the over great solar heat, by a blind scarabaeus ; a client flying for relief to his patron, and finding none, by a sparrow and owl ; a king inexorable, and estranged from his people by an eagle ; a man who exposes his children through poverty, by a hawk ; a wife who hates her husband, or children who injure their mother, by a viper; one initiated into the mysteries, and so under the obligation of secrecy, by a grasshopper, which was thought to have no mouth. The popular super- stition supplied a hieroglyphic in some cases. He, for in- stance, who had borne his misfortunes with courage, and had at length surmounted them, was signified by the hyena, be- cause the skin of that animal, used as a defence in battle, was supposed to make the wearer fearless and invulnerable. (Blair, lecture vii. ; Warburton, book iv.) HIEROGLYPHICS. 271 x. A moment's reflection will convince any person that such a mode of writing never could, by any possibility, have been the vehicle of clear, certain, and valuable knowledge. For instance, if I meet with the figure of a hawk in an Egyptian hieroglyph, how am I to determine whether it signifies the sun, or victory, or a man who exposes his children through poverty? — meanings widely dissimilar, and which, nevertheless, were all occasionally expressed by a hawk, we are informed. Again, if I meet with the figure of a viper, how am I to discriminate if it is the sign of the quality of ingratitude generally, or of a wife who hates her husband, or children who injure their mother, as all these were denoted by a viper ? or how am I to distinguish a viper from a serpent, the latter of which is said to have been an emblem of eternity ? Warburton mentions that celebrated inscription on the Temple of Minerva at Sais, so much spoken of by the ancients, where an infant, an old man, a hawk, a fish, and a river horse, expressed this moral sentence, "All you who come into the world, and go out of it, know this, that the Grods hate impudence ; " and in Enfield's History of Philosophy I read, " Upon a temple dedicated to Neitha (Minerva) at Sais, the chief town in Lower Egypt, was this inscription : f I am whatever is, or has been, or will be, and no mortal has hitherto drawn aside my veil ; my offspring is the sun." If this be the same sentence, thus harmoniously in- terpreted, it appears to me that though reason may not stand aghast, the firmest hieroglyphical faith must be much more than half confounded. This inscription is mentioned both by Plutarch and Proclus, though with some difference of language." (Enfield, book i. chap. 8.) xr. It is quite certain that the authorities, on which War- burton in his Divine Legation of Moses chiefly relied for his Egyptian knowledge, have rather declined than advanced in character since his time. Some, indeed, are fallen so low that they cannot be said to have any character to lose. For instance, he mentions the work of Horapollo in the following terms : " That admirable fragment of antiquity, the hiero- 272 HIEROGLYPHICS. glyphics of Horapollo ; " and again, " that excellent treatise of Horapollo, which consists chiefly of the ancient and proper hieroglyphics ; " and yet of this admirable fragment, this excellent treatise, the respectable work of Enfield re- marks on the authority of Fabricius, " the book De Hiero- glyphicis, under the name of Horus Apollo, is spurious." Another of his authorities, the Isiac, or Bembine Table, has not fared much better. It was discovered in 1630, and presented to Vincent, Duke of Mantua. In this tablet, Kircher discovered sundry religious mysteries favourable to Christianity, and Pigonius found precepts of moral and political wisdom ; while another critic was of opinion that it was a Runic Calendar ; and a fourth attempted to persuade the learned world that these characters described the pro- perties and use of the magnet and of the mariner's compass. Of this, Sir William Jones remarked fifty years ago 3 "as to the table and busts of Isis, they seem to be given up as modern forgeries," and the intelligent writer of the article " Egypt," in the Supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica, expresses a decided opinion that it is a Roman work, as well as the Pamphilian and Barberinian Obelisks, and consequently that the whole possess no sort of value or authenticity. xii. There are strong grounds for believing that, even in the age of Herodotus, the hieroglyphics conveyed little or no information to the Egyptian priests themselves. He informs us that, iu a succession of 330 kings, none but Moeris was distinguished ; and we learn from Diodorus that the de- scendants of Menes, to the number of 52, reigned more than 1400 years, during which period nothing remarkable happened. This is absolutely impossible, and utterly incredible, and can only be accounted for by supposing that their pretended history was no more than a barren catalogue of names, or that the hieroglyph ical characters, intended to convey historical information, were become a dead letter to the priests, as well as to all the rest of mankind. I incline to the former supposition, and believe that Manetho's Dynasties were merely a list of the names of kings, or pretended kings, written phoneticallv like the Ptolemy and Berenice in the HIEROGLYPHICS. 273 Rosetta Inscription. Perhaps it will be asked why the hieroglyphics of Egypt, which were a real character, or the signs of things, should have been susceptible of less perfection than the system of writing of the Chinese, which is also a real character, and which we are quite certain contains many books, as many of them have been read and translated by Europeans, and as it is a fact about which there cannot be the slightest doubt, that among the Chinese we find Grammars and Dictionaries formed on a simple and intelligible principle, by the assistance of which any one may learn the language, perhaps with as little difficulty as Sanskrit. To which I reply, that the cases of Egypt and China are by no means parallel, as there is every reason to believe that the former country possessed a proper alphabet from a remote antiquity, and as it has stronger claims than perhaps any other to be regarded as the inventor of letters. From the moment that alphabetical writing was perfected, there ceased to be any motive for making efforts to improve the hieroglyphical ; and one would conclude that it was abandoned to the priests, and its use confined by them to the ceremonies and mysteries of religion. The objection to this view of the subject is, that no inscription in Egyptian or Coptic letters appears on any of their monuments, and that no one, that I am aware of, has ever seen any specimen of Egyptian writing older than the fragments of the version of the Old and New Testaments. But there is this broad difference between the Egyptian hieroglyphics and the Chinese characters, that the number OF THE FORMER, WHICH HAYE BEEN CLEARLY ASCER- TAINED AND DEFINED, IS UNDER ONE THOUSAND ; WHILE THAT OF THE LATTER IS CERTAINLY UPWARDS OF FORTY THOUSAND, AND SOME ACCOUNTS SWELL THEM TO TWICE AS many. One thousand characters are too many to have been the keys of a real language, as their number would have been unmanageable by the most retentive memory, and we find that the Chinese amount to no more than two hundred and fourteen ; and they are equally too few to have constituted the body of a real language. The inference therefore is, that no system of T 274 HIEROGLYPHICS. real language was ever perfected by the Egyptians, and that their inscriptions were sometimes mere picture-writing, like those of the Mexicans, sometimes each object had a figurative, recondite, or mystic meaning, and sometimes was merely a letter forming part of a phonetic or complex alphabetical system, which was somewhat simplified in the enchorial character, of which we are beginning to understand a little, and shall probably never know much, from want of materials. 3. Phonetic Hieroglyphics. xiii. It is remarkable that one of the six classes under which the Chinese keys are arranged is Phonetic, and that when they write foreign names, they are in the habit of annexing on the left-hand side of the character their mark for a mouth, to give warning to the reader that in this instance their usual system is relinquished, and that he is not to look for the meaning of the character but its sound. The characters for a mouth, both in their old system and in their modern, may be seen in the Supplement to the Ency- clopaedia Britannica, article China, p. 84. May not the latter be precisely identical with the Egyptian cartouche, which answers the same purpose, and was it not intended to represent a mouth ? Clemens Alexandrinus informs us that the Egyptians represented the sun by a circle, and the moon by a half circle. The Egyptian name of the moon is Ioh, and of the Chinese Yue, the sounds of which are very much alike. xiv. The author of the article Egypt, in the Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, says that Serapis was a name of the sun. (p. 42.) If so, the word would appear to be cognate with the Hebrew Seraph, to burn, and Seraph, an archangel. Tacitus says that some regarded Serapis as identical with iEsculapius, some with Pluto, some with Jupiter, and some with Osiris. Agathodemon, Cneph, or Cnuphis, who is figured in the hieroglyphics by a winged globe, appears also to have derived his name from the Hebrew Chanaph, a wing. This word is at once like Cneph HIEROGLYPHICS. 275 and Canopus ; of the latter of whom the Mythologists ap- pear to know next to nothing. The winged globe may be merely Phonetic of the name of Cneph. xy. The Phonetic name of Neith has not yet been discovered, and one of the most likely circumstances to lead to it is its true etymology. The two preceding words, Serapis and Cneph, would induce us to suspect that the ancient Egyptian and Hebrew languages had many terms in common, and we may suppose that Neith was formed from the Hebrew word Aith, time, with the Egyptian prefix or mark of case An, contracted to N, Naith or Neith ; or, with- out going out of Egypt, we have Nei, time, which, with the feminine article Th affixed instead of prefixed, would give us nearly the same letters. Almost all the principal deities of Egypt, India, Greece, and Rome, are ultimately resolv- able into the sun, the moon, the earth, and the sea. Apu- leius, as quoted by Warburton, makes Isis declare that she was Nature, the great parent of all things, and that she was worshipped by different nations under various names ; that the Phrygians called her the mother of the Gods (Cybele), the Athenians Minerva, the Cyprians Venus, the Cretans Diana, the Sicilians Proserpine, the Eleusinians Ceres, some Juno, some Bellona, some Hecate, and some Rhamnusia, while the Egyptians adored her under the name of Isis. It is hardly possible to doubt that the Greeks formed Athene by writing Neitha backwards; that is, reversing the Oriental mode ; and in Arabic we have Nahid, a name of the planet Yenus, which reversed gives Dihan, Greek, in Persic Nihad, nature, which Sir William Jones writes also Nahid. Strabo informs us that the Armenian name of Yenus was Anaitis ; also that Ma was a name of Bellona, which in Sanskrit sig- nifies both the moon and time. In whatever direction we turn, we discover that the deities of Polytheism diminish as our knowledge of language increases, and find reason to be- lieve that the corruption of natural religion was the effect of the confusion of tongues, as a new name gradually produced a new god or goddess. From one or the other of the above T 2 276 HIEROGLYPHICS. names we may certainly form a probable conjecture as to the meaning of the celebrated inscription upon the temple of Neitha, or Minerva, at Sais : " I am whatever is, or has been, or will be, and no mortal has hitherto drawn aside my veil ; my offspring is the sun." If Neit, in the language of ancient Egypt, signified time, I should be strongly disposed to derive our English word eternity from Ter, all, and Neit, time, both Egyptian ; or, rather, to suppose that the Romans formed e terni- tas, as we probably borrowed our word immediately from them. xvi. Almost all the Greek writers are agreed in identify- ing the Egyptian Thoth with their own Hermes, or Mer- cury. One cannot but suspect that the hieroglyphic of a hand, Tot, is Phonetic of his Egyptian name Thoth, and of a tear, Erme, of his Greek name Hermes. Plutarch says that Osiris was typified by a hawk, and denoted hieroglyphically by an eye and a sceptre. The leading idea of Osiris is cer- tainly that of the sun, Phre ; and in Coptic Ave find Thre, milvus, a hawk. It occurs but once in the Old Testament ; and if we were at liberty to suppose that Thre signified a fe- male hawk, a male would be Phre, and very probably sometimes employed as Phonetic of the name of Osiris. One of the Hebrew names of the sun was Baal, and Bal in Coptic sig- nifies the eye. That hieroglyphic character, therefore, may have been Phonetic of Osiris ; and the sceptre typical either of Baal, lord, Nebo, lord, or Moloch, king, all names of the sun. xvn. Arueris is said to have been a twin brother of Osiris, the son of the Sun and Rhea. He was also denomi- nated the elder Horus, and regarded by some of the Greeks as identical with Apollo, while Apopis was also regarded as a brother of the sun. In spite of the uncertainty of etymo- logy, the temptation is irresistible to regard Arueris as formed from the Hebrew Aor-aor, light of light, or sun of suns, and Apopis as its corruption, from the ambiguity of the earliest Greek forms of Pi and Bho, in both instances not the brother of Osiris but Osiris himself. It is remarkable that a sort of ladder is the present hieroglyphic of the sun in China, the ancient being 3 which we find also in Egypt in HIEROGLYPHICS. 277 the same sense. (Art. Egypt, Sup. Encyc. Brit. pp. 44, 45. and 57.) The essential parts of the name of Egypt seem to be the square and the wheel, signifying splendid land. La Croze gives Mares as a name of Upper Egypt, formed, there can be little doubt, from the native words Ma, place, and Re, the sun ; and Chemi and Chora as names of Lower Egypt. The former, Chemi, appears to be the Hebrew Cham or Ham, hot ("Ham, which is Egypt ") ; and the latter, the Persic Khur, the sun. The etymology of Egypt I conceive to be the indigenous words Ei, domus, and Koht (Sahidic), ignis ; i. e. house, or abode, of fire. All these words are allusive to their Sabaism or oldest system of religion, and worship of the sun and moon under the names of Osiris and Isis, and probably a hundred others, many of which are familiar to us. (Art. Egypt, p. 64.) xviii. My readers will, perhaps, expect that I shall not close this chapter without saying a few words as to the progress that has actually been made, and the future proba- bility we may reasonably calculate on of overcoming the difficulties of the Egyptian system of hieroglyphics. 1. The whole number of hieroglyphical characters hitherto observed certainly does not exceed one thousand ; Cham- pollion computing them at 864, and Zoega at 958. The number of Chinese characters has been variously estimated at from 40,000 to 80,000, while their keys, or simple, or ele- mentary characters, amount only to 214. Arguing from analogy, the Egyptian hieroglyphics are incomparably too few to compose a system of real language, while they are too numerous to be keys only, unless we could discover some mode, by similar marks perpetually recurring, of dividing them into clusters or combinations, and assimilating them to the Chinese compound characters. 2. All the arguments which tend to prove that the Egyptian hieroglyphics did not compose a real character which was the sign of things, tend indirectly to prove that they formed a Phonetic system which was the sign of sounds; T 3 278 HIEROGLYPHICS. for they must have been either the one or the other, or we cannot understand how they were anything. But by merely proving that they were not the signs of things, we do not necessarily prove that they were letters, as they may have been Phonetic in another way, and have represented whole words and not the initial letters. 3. Herodotus informs us that Mendes, in the language of Egypt, was the name both of the god Pan and of a goat. Whenever the figure of a goat, therefore, occurs in the hiero- glyphics, by pronouncing its name we pronounce at the same time the name of Pan. Phre was an Egyptian name of the sun, and so was Osiris ; and in Coptic we find Thre, a kite, which it is difficult to distinguish from a hawk, the bird of Osiris. If Thre signified a female hawk, the male would be Phre ; consequently, by pronouncing the name of the hiero- glyphical figure of the hawk, I pronounce, at the same time, one of the. names of Osiris, Phre, Again, the lion was one of the sacred animals of Egypt, and there was a city sacred to it which Strabo calls Leontopolis, the Egyptian name of which was Thmuis. The early Egyptians, like almost all the rest of mankind, were Sabians, sun or fire worshippers ; and in Coptic we find, side by side, the homophonous words Moue, splendour (the sun's), and Moui, lion. The figure of the animal, therefore, was Phonetic of the name of the god. Once more, there was in Egypt a city of Heliopolis, the in- digenous name of which was Ondibaki, from On, the sun, and Baki, city. Bude stones were from the earliest ages sacred to the sun, and so were images. On was the name of the sun ; Oni, written with Omega, signifies stone, and with Omicron, like or resembling. A stone or an image, therefore, in hieroglyphics, would be Phonetic of the name of the sun, and there can be little doubt that the religious character, both of the sacred animals and of many inanimate objects, was derived from this principle of similarity of name or play on words, which in the preceding part of the work I have distinguished by the name of Homonymy. 4. We can carry this principle one step farther, and show the probability that in a compound hieroglyphic, consisting HIEROGLYPHICS. 279 of two objects, both were Phonetic, and the names of both intended to be pronounced at length, and not merely the initial letters. Strabo mentions a city in Egypt of the name of Hermonthis : an eye dropping a tear is of frequent oc- currence in the hieroglyphic figures ; a tear in Coptic is Erme, and an eye Bal, and in Hebrew Baal was a name of the sun, and perhaps in ancient Egyptian also, and syno- nymous with On. We find a Hebrew and an Egyptian word combined in Balbec or Heliopolis, viz. Baal, the sun, and Baki, Coptic, city. Herm-On-this probably denoted that the city was sacred both to Hermes or Thoth, and Osiris or the sun ; and the eye and tear may have been Phonetic of Baal-Hermes. In the Old Testament, a city of the name of Baal-Hermon, occurs more than once. (Vide Gibbs's Gesenius in voce Baal.) 5. Supposing the one thousand hieroglyphic figures to have been all letters, as Champollion is disposed to regard them, such an alphabet is almost as bad as none at all. The Coptic alphabet consists of thirty-two letters ; but of these, seven, Gamma, Delta, So, Zeta, Eta, Xi, and Psi, may almost be put out of the account, as so few Egyptian words commence with them. This will leave twenty-five effective letters, by which number, if we divide one thousand, we shall have forty forms of each letter, an amount which may confidently be pronounced to be unmanageable, except for proper names. 6. Of these thousand hieroglyphic characters, Champollion fancies he has determined the Phonetic value of about one hundred and thirty-four ; but more than one-half appears to be purely conjectural ; so that we cannot be said to know more than about one-sixteenth part of the alphabet (Edin. Review, No. 116, p. 475. Klaproth, &C.); and what possi- bility is there of attaining a knowledge of the remainder, unless we meet with more Trilingual Inscriptions like that of Rosetta ? Is it not more probable that, instead of an alphabet of one thousand letters, the hieroglyphics compose a limited dictionary of one thousand words, which are to be interpreted not by initial letters, except in the single instance of proper names inclosed in a lozenge, but like those puzzles which T 4 280 HIEKOGLYPHICS. amuse children, in which the pronoun 1 is expressed by the figure of an eye ; you, by a yew tree ; the relative ichich, by a witch riding on a broomstick ; the verb tea?*, by the figure of a tear ; and the noun love, by that of Cupid? If the ancient Egyptians were in possession of an alphabet at an early period, as I belieye they were, it is hardly possible that they should have perfected a system of real characters or signs of things, as they could have had no adequate motive to do so. If the whole thousand hieroglyphics are letters, there must be at least forty forms of each letter, a number which no human eye can discriminate, and no human memory retain ; and if they are sometimes letters and sometimes signs, sometimes an alphabetical and sometimes a real character, without any notice to inform us when they are one and when the other, nothing short of an immediate inspiration could enable the most gifted of the human race to make out six consecutive characters with the smallest approximation to truth, or even to probability. -j 281 CHAP. XXV. ON ALPHABETICAL CHARACTERS. " Th' invention all admired, and each how he To be th' inventor miss'd ; so easy 't seem'd Once found, which yet unfound, most would have thought Impossible." Paradise Lost, book vi. I. The origin of letters, like that of many other arts and inventions, is lost in the darkness of antiquity. We possess but little information on the subject, and of that little, the value is very much impaired by the ambiguity of the terms in which it is conveyed. The Egyptians ascribed the invention of writing, as well as of all the other arts, both ornamental and useful, to their god Thoth, or Hermes, while the Greeks attributed it to Orpheus. The first Hermes of the Egyptians appears to have been merely another name of Osiris, or the sun, the earliest god of almost all the nations of mankind, and accordingly comme- morated under one denomination or another, as the founder of civil society, and the inventor of agriculture and all the necessary arts.^Tn many instances, the Egyptian Hermes ap- pears to me merely a personification of the hand, in their OAvn language Tot, which, as the principal instrument in executing all mechanical contrivances, is said, by a slight metonomy, to have been the inventor of them. The Greeks, treading in the steps of the Egyptians, personified both the hand and fingers, and ascribed to the Cheirogasteres and Dactyli, mentioned by Strabo and Pausanias, nearly the same exploits as the latter referred to their Thoth, or Tot. If we do not regard Orpheus as the sole inventor of letters, it appears to me that it would be equally ungrateful and untrue to deny that he had any- thing to do with it, as his name is formed from the Arabic word Harf, a letter of the alphabet with a Greek termination, Orpheus. Herodotus, among other strange circumstances, con- 282 ALPHABETICAL CHARACTERS. nected with Abaris, the civiliser of Scythia, informs us that he made the grand tour of the earth without eating or drink- ing, and that his vehicle, or mode of conveyance, was an arrow. Part of the story has my entire assent ; the other part I must demur to, and my faith, as to his not eating, is quite equal to my scepticism as to his not drinking ; as, if I am not much mistaken, he was of an extremely thirsty nature ; as I take Abaris to be merely the Latin word Jubar, a sun-beam, written in the Oriental mode Aibar, Abaris ; as Iran, the name of ancient Persia, is written Airan. Both Orpheus and Abaris are merely the creatures of etymology, the shadow of a shade, like almost the whole body of the Greek mythology ; and I venture confidently to predict that, in proportion to our real progress in philology, almost all that portion of Greek history which is prior to the age of Herodotus will disappear, and leave hardly a trace of its having existed. . x£ But whatever may have been the period of the origin of alphabetical writing, it appears at any rate to have been prior to that in which the Pentateuch was written. In Exodus, xxviii. 9. Moses is directed to write the names of the children of Israel on two onyx stones. The Hebrew word Phathach, which is rendered in the Septuagint by Glupho, and very properly translated in the English version by Grave, is am- biguous, as such writing was not necessarily alphabetical. The names of the children of Israel might have been and perhaps were written precisely in the same way as those of Ptolemy and Berenice in the Rosetta Inscription. Again, in the 36th verse of the same chapter, he is directed to write " holiness to the Lord " upon a plate of pure gold. The same Hebrew word occurs, which is rendered in the Septuagint by Ektupoo, effingo, and by the English translators Grave ; and the writing might still have been hieroglyphical ; but in the account of the tables of stone, Exodus, xxxii. 15, 16. the Hebrew word Cha- thab is made use of in the original, Grapho in the Septuagint, and Write in the English version. In Deuteronomy, xxviii. 58. we read, "If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest ALPHABETICAL CHAKACTERS. 283 fear this glorious and fearful name of the Lord thy God ; " — in the Hebrew Chathab and Saipher, in the Greek Grapho and Biblios, — in both languages the most literal words that could have been used for writing and a book ; and though books may have been and probably were written by the Egyptians in the hieroglyphical or at any rate in the en- chorial character, in which they may have been imitated by the Israelites, the meaning intended to be conveyed in the above passages clearly is, that the characters or letters em- ployed were alphabetical, and that the writing was essentially the same as that which we should now denominate such. in. We have seen that the progress of the modes of writ- ing which were not alphabetic consisted in — ?1, Simple picture writing, or an attempt to preserve the memory of events by re- presenting them just as they happened. — 2. As this was appli- cable solely to visible and external objects, there were still no means of depicting the operations of the spiritual part of man, of conveying an idea of the thoughts of the mind and the feel- ings of the heart, of denoting that which was unseen and im- palpable, as well as that which was gross and material. As the information was still addressed to the eye, an attempt was made to convey some idea of qualities and moral relations, by depicting some objects in which the quality intended to be described was supposed to be peculiarly inherent, or to exist in a very strong degree. Ingratitude was denoted by a viper, imprudence by a fly, wisdom by an ant, victory by a hawk; and it is probable that the spectator was warned by some sign, quite as intelligible as the Cartouche, within which we find proper names inscribed, that the literal system of picture writing was departed from, and that a metaphorical and mystic meaning only was to be sought after. — 3. As the drawing or repre- senting material objects, however rudely, was found to occupy too much time, and to be altogether inapplicable to the com- mon purposes of life, it was gradually abridged or simplified, and various combinations of strokes supplied the place of figures. As this mode of writing was both more easy, and applicable to a greater variety of purposes, than the hierogly- 284 ALPHABETICAL CHARACTERS. phical or sacred, it appears to have been distinguished by the name of demotic or popular. iv. The Mexicans do not seem to have advanced beyond mere picture writing, in which they attempted, but very un- successfully, to transmit to future times the annals of their country. To this historical painting, of which we find many specimens in Egypt, that ingenious people superadded hieroglyphics strictly speaking, or a system in which they at- tempted to convey a knowledge of the mysteries of religion, the doctrines of philosophy, the laws of nature, and the prin- ciples of government, by certain combinations of visible, ma- terial objects, which, proceeding on principles of which we are now totally ignorant, and which I believe have never been understood by any person not an Egyptian, became the types of the invisible and the unknown. The system which had its origin in Egypt, was perfected in China, where picture writ- ing has entirely disappeared ; the figures of animals, plants, and all other external objects being in every instance repre- sented by combinations of lines more or less complex. All these combinations are susceptible of being analysed or resolved into two hundred and fourteen keys, and the system of the Chinese has so little of mystery, and proceeds on principles so clear and intelligible, that many Englishmen have made them- selves perfectly masters of the language, and been able to read it with certainty, facility, and dispatch. I have stated my reasons in the preceding chapter for believing that the hiero- glyphical system was never perfected in Egypt, because they were in possession of an alphabet from a very early period ; but whether that was the case or not, most certainly the specimens of Egyptian hierogly phical wisdom, whether trans- mitted to us by the Greeks, or brought to light within the last few years, ought to remind us of a truth, which we are per- petually disposed to forget, that we live in the old age of the world, and that the further back we travel the nearer we ap- proach to its infancy ; and in proportion as we find grounds for believing that the great body of Egyptian knowledge is lost to us for ever, the worthless quality of that which has been ALPHABETICAL CHARACTERS. 285 discovered tends to remove all acute anxiety about that which remains behind. v. Hieroglyphical writing has nothing in common with alphabetical, or that is likely to lead to it ; as they are radi- cally different in their nature, and proceed on essentially contrary principles. The first is the immediate sign or re- presentative of things ; the second of sounds. The first, so far as it consists of picture writing, is a natural language, and will be universally understood ; the second is altogether arbitrary, and will be understood no farther than mankind are agreed as to the names or sounds by which they distin- guish different objects. The simplification of hieroglyphical writing, or the substitution of various combinations of lines for the drawings or representations of external objects, was a circumstance so far from leading to an alphabet, that it formed an additional obstacle in its way ; for in proportion as hieroglyphical knowledge was rendered applicable to the common purposes of life, in the same degree was that pres- sure of necessity removed, which in every age and country has been found to stimulate most powerfully the inventive faculty. Various hypotheses have been formed by specula- tive writers, to account for the origin and form of alpha- betical characters. Some have supposed that the classes of letters, distinguished by the name of Linguals, Labials, Nasals, Dentals, and Gutturals, were originally rude repre- sentations of the different organs chiefly instrumental in giving utterance to them. Others (among whom is Mon- sieur Court de Gebelin, in his " Monde Primitif," an ingenious but frequently an extremely fanciful writer,) have taken a great deal of pains to prove that the forms of the letters of many of the most ancient alphabets we are acquainted with, were borrowed from the various members of the human body. Supposing him, however, to have proved this as completely as he appears to think he has done, which many will be disposed to deny, very little addition is made to our knowledge of the subject, — the great difficulty being, not to account for the forms of the letters, (a matter of very subor- 28G ALPHABETICAL CHARACTERS. dinate importance, and apparently of little difficulty, as we have proofs that it has been effected in five hundred ways,) but to ascertain what gave origin to the principle of the invention of the letters themselves, as the signs or represen- tatives of the tones of the human voice employed in speak- ing. The existence of an alphabet necessarily supposes that somebody must have remarked and discriminated those primi- tive or elementary sounds, which, by their combination, compose the body of every language, and into which every language is susceptible of being analysed ; that he must have observed that they were capable of being reduced to a very moderate number, — to fourteen, the amount of the Oighuror oldest Tartaric alphabet, — to sixteen, that of the ancient Greek, — to twenty-four, that of the Roman, — or to thirty- two, that of the Persic and Egyptian alphabets ; and that the idea must have occurred to him of approjoriating a distinct character or letter as the representative or exponent of every elementary sound. This was the first step ; but the second was hardly less difficult, as he must have remarked further that the words which he himself and those around him were in the habit of employing, as the names of external material objects, or in describing the invisible world within, their thoughts, opinions, reflections, and feelings, were not simple or elementary sounds, but combinations or articula- tions comprising sometimes more and sometimes fewer of them ; and he must have perceived further, that by arrang- ing the characters or letters which were the signs of those primitive sounds in the order in which they occurred in speaking, he should form, in the first instance, distinct words; that the union of words would compose sentences, of sen- tences periods ; and that, by the multiplication of the latter, every discourse, however long, might be fully represented ; and that, by the law of the association of ideas, written characters presented to the eyes would revive or recall the spoken sounds which had entered the ears, and become a medium of recording and transmitting to the latest pos- terity the glowing declamation of the orator, or the inspired strains of the poet. We are so familiar with alphabetical ALPHABETICAL CHARACTERS. 287 writing, that it appears to us quite as natural, and as much a matter of course, as speech itself, and it is only by a difficult process of reasoning that we can at all realize to our minds the enormous difficulties which were to be en- countered, and the incomparable simplicity, beauty, and universality of the means by which they were overcome, alphabetical writing being equally applicable to any actual language that has ever been spoken, or to any conceivable one that can ever be formed ; and it is not without reason that one of the greatest and most eloquent philosophers of the ancient world finely observed, " Summas sapientise fuisse sonos vocis qui infiniti videbantur, paucis literarum notis terminavisse." (Cicero. Tusculanar. lib. 1. c. 26.) VI. Hieroglyphical writing is so far from being a step to alphabetical, that in whatever country we find the former completely matured and perfected, we shall discover at the same time that the latter is never had recourse to but from necessity, and that the degree of the use is measured by the extent of the necessity. This is the case in China, where Phonetic characters appear to be very little employed, ex- cept to describe the proper names of persons and places. This was the case also in Egypt, as we have seen. When- ever a proper name occurred in their hieroglyphic writing, the mode by which they represented it was to draw as many objects as the letters of which it was composed, taking care that the name of each object in the Egyptian language should begin with the letter wanted. In writing Ptolemy, for in- stance, they set down in succession pictures of objects begin- ning with the letters P, T, and O, &c; at the same time giving notice to the reader, by inclosing this particular cluster of ob- jects within a cartouche or belt, that they deviated from their ordinary system of writing, and that in this instance it was no longer real but Phonetic or vocal, and that the names of the objects were first to be pronounced, and the initial letters, in the second place, combined to form a word. It has been conjectured that this mode of writing may have suggested the idea, and gradually led to the formation of an 288 ALPHABETICAL CHARACTERS. alphabet. To me however, on the contrary, the practice of it clearly infers, and incontestably proves, the prior existence of alphabetical writing, of which this partial Phonetic waiting was a consequence, and not a cause. In many respects there is a close analogy between the science of chemistry and the art of alphabetical writing, and they differ only as to the subjects or materials on which they are employed. The object of the former is to analyse or resolve all the material substances in nature into those simple or elementary bodies which are incapable of further decomposition, and to ascertain, in the second place, all the new combinations which those simple substances are capable of forming, and the qualities or properties which are the result of their mutual action. When Dr. Thompson published the fourth edition of his system of chemistry, thirty years ago, those simple sub- stances were supposed to amount to about forty-eight ; and a person totally ignorant of chemistry probably would not be more surprised at being told that all the objects he beholds, — animal, vegetable, and mineral, — all the various matter which composes the great fabric of nature, is susceptible of being analysed into forty-eight simple bodies, than a person totally ignorant of grammar would be, at being told that the 44,000 words contained in Scapula's Greek Lexicon are susceptible of being analysed into sixteen letters, or elementary sounds, perpetually recurring, and variously combined. To form an alphabet, is to apply the principles of chemical analysis to language, — to make the ear perform at once the office of acids, and alkalis, of crucibles, and galvanic batteries, on the materials supplied by the tongue, — to continue the process until we arrive at those simple or elementary sounds which are incapable of further division, — to give each a distinct name, and denote it by an appropriate character; and this task, laborious and gigantic as it appears, must have been per- formed by the being whom Homer finely describes as articulate speaking man. To invent sixteen or sixty forms of letters was a mere trifle, not worth naming, compared with what has been achieved by human ingenuity ; but to discover that speech in all its varieties consisted of about sixteen elemen- ALPHABETICAL CHARACTERS. 289 tary sounds perpetually recurring, and infinitely diversified, to conceive of the possibility of finding characters to express each of these sounds, and to perceive clearly, that by arrang- ing those characters in the order of the sounds they repre- sented, we should speak to the eye the language of the ear, and fix the vibrations of the air in imperishable characters, was at once the most difficult and desirable feat which the powers of the human mind have ever accomplished. I want to convey some idea of the sound of one of the names of the Egyptian god Pan, and there is no alphabet. If I draw a goat, the name of which was Mendes, and can succeed in making the reader understand by any conventional sign, that he is now to pronounce the word, and not to look for a re- condite or mystic meaning, my object is accomplished. Again, I want to express the sound of a particular name of the sun. That luminary was worshipped under the name of Baal by the Canaanites, and very probably by the Egyptians. If. it was so, by drawing the figure of an eye, in Coptic Bal, and conveying an intimation that it is to be pronounced, I very nearly accomplish my object. But I want to convey an idea of the sound of the word Ptolemy, and no one or two ob- jects are to be found, the Egyptian names of which, pro- nounced aloud, will give anything like the sound. How am I to proceed ? There is or there is not an alphabet in Egypt. If there is not, I am just as capable of resolving the word Ptolemy into its simple or elementary sounds, as a person ignorant of the first principles of chemistry is of analysing a compound substance ; for in the chemistry of language to analyse is to spell, and to spell a word is to recapitulate the elementary sounds of which it is composed, calling each by its appropriate name. But previously to the invention of letters, I am ignorant of the interesting fact, that all the words of every language are susceptible of analysis into a few sounds ; or if I knew those sounds I could not describe them for want of appropriate names, to give which is to form an alphabet, a task before it is engaged in, apparently the most hopeless of human undertakings, and after it is accomplished the noblest of human triumphs. On the sup- u 290 ALPHABETICAL CHARACTERS. position that there is an alphabet in Egypt, and that its use is familiar, I analyse the word Ptolemy into its letters or component parts, and by drawing objects, the names of which begin with those letters, and arranging them in a proper order, I obtain a sort of acrostic capable of representing, in an imperfect way, the sound of the word Ptolemy. Should it be objected that the Chinese, without having any alphabet of their own, used phonetic hieroglyphics to a considerable extent, I reply, that though they possessed no alphabet, the principle on which alphabets were formed was probably familiar to them from a very remote antiquity, from their in- tercourse with India, where the Sanskrit alphabet certainly appears to be among the oldest in existence. vii. As the history of Hieroglyphical Writing throws so little light on the origin of Alphabetical Writing, and as the principle on which they proceed is so essentially different, the first being the sign of things, directly and immediately, and the second indirectly and through the medium of sounds and words, we must look for information in some other quarter. No one can have been very conversant with the authors of Greece, without remarking the extreme, and as it appears to us the extravagant importance which they seem to have attached to music. According to them, it was one of the chief means, or instruments, employed in the civili- sation of mankind ; and among the qualifications of Linus, Orpheus, Musseus, Thamyris, Amphion, and Pythagoras, their profound knowledge of music is never forgotten. " Silvestres homines sacer interpresque Deorum, Casdibus et victu foedo deterruit Orpheus ; Dictus ob hoc lenire tigres, rabidosque leones : Dictus et Amphion, Thebanas conditor arcis, Saxa movere sono testudinis, et prece blanda Ducere quo vellet. Fuit haec sapientia quondam, Publica privatis secernere, sacra profanis ; Concubitu prohibere vago ; dare jura maritis ; Oppida moliri ; leges incidere ligno : Sic honor et nomen divinis vatibus atque Carminibus venit." * Hor. Ars Poet. v. 391. * " The wood-born race of men when Orpheus tamed, From acorns and from mutual blood reclaim'd, ALPHABETICAL CHAKACTERS. 291 viii. A remote hint, a faint glimmering of light, appears to me to be thrown on the origin of alphabetical characters in the following passage from Enfield's History of Philosophy, which I extract literally. " Some improvement, however, the art of music received from the monks of this period (the eleventh century). Guido Aretine, a Benedictine, acquired great fame by expressing the musical notes in a new scale (Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La,) in order to facilitate the learning of this art. He is said to have taken the words from a hymn of Paulus Diaconus on John Baptist. UT queant laxis RE sonare fibris MI ra gestorum FA muli tuorum, SO lve pollutis LA biis reatum, Sancte Joannes. He made this invention public in his Micrologus, or two books De Musica. After all, this invention was no very material improvement upon the ancients ; for before Guido the musical scale had twenty notes, and the octaves WERE AS WELL DISTINGUISHED AMONG THE EGYPTIANS by seven vowels, or by the method which Pope Gregory introduced, the use of the first seven letters of the alphabet." (Enfield, vol. ii. p. 349.) ix. Although this passage does not mention at what period the Egyptians made use of seven vowels for the purpose of musical notation, and although it should be found impossible to procure any minute and definite information on the subject, as there are few things respecting which we know so little as the music of the ancients, I have no hesitation in expressing my belief that Alphabetical Writing had its origin in music, and that the first and very earliest This priest divine was fabled to assuage The tiger's fierceness and the lion's rage : Thus rose the Theban wall ; Amphion's lyre And soothing voice the list'ning stones inspire. Poetic wisdom mark'd with happy mean Public and private, sacred and profane ; The wand'ring joys of lawless love suppress'd; With equal rites the wedded couple bless'd ; Plann'd future towns, and instituted laws : So verse became divine, and poets gain'd applause." u 2 202 ALPHABETICAL CHARACTERS. letters were musical notes. What does the formation of an alphabet imply, and in what does it principally consist? Must not all the tones of the human voice be remarked, distinguished, and remembered? The most familiar are perpetually occurring in conversation, and the aggregate amount of the whole composes what we denominate speech ; and the fact is now perfectly familiar to us, that most languages are susceptible of being analysed into about sixteen perpetually recurring sounds, which may be expressed by sixteen letters ; for few alphabets, as I have already remarked, contain more than that number of real letters, or the signs of elementary sounds ; all the rest being merely the signs of those signs or contractions in writing. When all the tones of the human voice had been observed and discriminated, the great difficulty and indeed almost the only serious one, in the formation of an alphabet, was overcome ; for the mere figure of the letters is a trifle and a matter of perfect indifference. The principle on which an alphabet proceeds, is, that human speech is susceptible of being analysed into a comparatively small number of elementary sounds; the great task and Herculean labour consists in the analysis itself. When that analysis was perfected by the Egyptians, or whoever were the inventors of letters, and when each sound was denoted by' a distinct character, though the inventors themselves may have been principally or solely anxious about collecting materials to form the basis of a theory of music, it is quite certain that they had accom- plished at the same time one of the most powerful means of human improvement, the ability of constructing an alphabet. These characters may have been regarded by the inventor as musical notes ; but to him who was first conscious of the fact, that, by arranging them in the order in which the sounds of which they were the representatives occurred in conversation, they formed words and sentences, they became alphabetical characters. x. Speech may be regarded as natural music, and music as artificial speech. Some voices and some languages ALPHABETICAL CHARACTERS. 293 are said to be musical, and some the contrary. Prose has its music as well as verse, though the laws by which it is regulated are few, and perhaps not very susceptible of being defined ; and from prose we ascend gradually through the recitative of the Italian Opera, the blank verse of English Tragedy, the rhymed couplets of French, until we arrive at the Greek choral ode in which the time of every syllable was positively fixed and prescribed, not so much perhaps from choice as necessity, as Greek plays were always recited with a musical accompaniment, and in all the lyrical parts the actor was as strictly a singer as at the Italian Opera, a performance incomparably more analogous to ancient tragedy than any play ever exhibited at Covent Garden or Drury Lane. " Of all sounds," says Dr. Beattie in his elegant essay on Poetry and Music, " that which makes its way most directly to the human heart is the human voice ; and those instruments that approach nearest to it are in expression the most pathetic, and in tone the most perfect. The notes of a man's voice, well tuned and well managed, have a mellowness, variety, and energy beyond those of any instrument ; and a fine female voice, modulated by sensibility, is beyond comparison the sweetest and most melting sound in art or nature." (Page 141. 8vo edition.) ^ u 3 294 CHAP. XXVI. ON LANGUAGE IN GENERAL. " Causas rerum naturalium non plures admitti debere quam qua? et verae sint, et earum phaenominis explicandis sufficiant." — Newton. i. The history of language may be divided into two parts, — 1. That which is purely conjectural, and respecting which our present experience furnishes us with no certain data from which to reason. 2. That to which the method of Inductive Reasoning is applicable from the existence of well-ascertained and clearly- defined facts. The first may be regarded as exhausted, the second as hardly commenced. The utmost that we propose to our- selves, under the first division of the subject, is to be able to say, we find such and such contrivances actually existing in various languages, and they were probably attained by such and such successive steps. We find mankind advanced thus far on the journey of knowledge, and it is likely that they reached that point by following such and such paths. In the second instance, beginning with the rudest specimens of language actually existing, we propose to ourselves to trace historically, if possible, every successive addition, until we have accounted for all the parts of speech in the languages the most complex, the most copious, the most artificial, and the most refined — the Sanskrit, the Greek, the Latin, and the Arabic. II. The indifferent success with which the philosophy of language has been hitherto treated, and the inconsiderable advance that has been actually made, must induce us at least to suspect that there must have been something radically erroneous in the course that has been pursued ; nor is it diffi- LANGUAGE IN GENERAL. 295 cult to point out some among the numerous causes of failure. A very large proportion of our present stock of know- ledge was bequeathed to us by the Greeks and Romans, to whom we have incurred the obligation of a heavy debt of gratitude. It is difficult to admire without admiring indis- criminately ; and, together with many opinions of those en- lightened and polished people, w T e have imbibed many of their most noxious and inveterate prejudices; one of the worst of which was, to persist in regarding all the rest of mankind as barbarians, as compared with themselves. This narrow feeling necessarily led to a systematic indifference, or rather contempt, for their languages, which prevailed to so great an extent, that they have transmitted us no specimens of them, except a scanty gleaning of single words, and those for the most part the proper names of persons or places, which, few as they are, are still of inestimable value in en- abling us to trace the affiliations and connections of families and nations, in the absence of all direct historical evidence. A worse effect still has been, that, since the revival of letters, philologists, imitating the example of the Greeks and Ro- mans, have drawn all their materials, and founded all their reasonings, on the languages of Greece and Rome; of all others the least suitable for the purpose, as they are uni- versally allowed to be the most elegant and harmonious the world has ever seen, and they are the most polished, precisely because they have been the most carefully culti- vated and elaborated, or, in other words, changed from their primitive form, by the rejection of harsh and unpronounceable sounds, by the transposition of letters, by the introduction of superfluous vowels for the sake of euphony in some instances, and of redundant consonants to prevent the concourse of vowels in others, contrivances which in many cases have so totally changed the original form of the words, as to set all the efforts of the etymologist at defiance. The Greek and Roman languages exhibit the appearance of a beautiful and magnificent fabric, of which it is difficult to admire too much the adaptation of the different parts, or the harmonious effect of the whole ; but every vestige of the scaffolding has u 4 296 LANGUAGE IN GENERAL. been carefully removed, and every mark it left sedulously filled up and obliterated; but as it is the object of the philosophy of language to trace it from its earliest and most imperfect rudiments, step by step, until it has attained its ultimate refinements, it must be obvious to the philologist at a glance, that the Greek and Latin are not the most proper for his purpose, and will not enable him to attain the end he has in view. III. It may be asserted, without fear of contradiction, that writers on the subject of language have not hitherto made the most of the materials to which they have access. We cannot go back to the infancy of the human race in the abstract, because our historical authorities do not reach more than five or six hundred years beyond the Christian era. We can form no idea of the language spoken in Eden, or of the precise effects produced by the perturbation of lan- guage on the plains of Shinar, because the authority from which we derive our knowledge of the facts contains not a word m the way of explanation. But the narrations of voyagers and travellers exhibit to us various political societies in every state of growth, from infancy to decrepitude, and in every stage of civilisation, from the rudest barbarism to the most perfect refinement. We have no specimen of the primitive language of man ; but we do possees specimens more or less copious of the greater part of the known lan- guages spoken by the human race, which might probably, in every instance, have been less imperfect, if the collectors and reporters had been better qualified to observe, and fully aware of the highly important purposes to which their materials might be made available. Some of these lanffua^es appear to be as barbarous as the natives by whom they are spoken, and to be adapted to their low state of civilisation, whence we cannot but draw a conclusion, that if speech be not a human invention, at any rate the improvements of speech are the effect of human ingenuity, and keep pace with the general advancement of knowledge, and the progress of the human mind. LANGUAGE IN GENERAL. 297 iv. If we dismiss, however, all the conclusions of conjec- ture, and resort to the dictates of experience, the first question that presents itself is, in what manner is the use of language actually acquired ? and I believe the true and only answer will be from Imitation. Those born quite deaf are invariably dumb, though their intellectual powers are in other respects quite sound and perfect ; unless, therefore, the human facul- ties were essentially different from what we experience them to be, the first man, having had no model to imitate, could not have spoken at all ; and if they were essentially different, our present condition supplies us with no materials from which to reason either accurately or conclusively. The origin of language is involved in the same difficulties as the origin of man himself, or the origin of the world he inhabits; and I know not how they can be solved but by the supposition, that the same beneficent Providence which supports individuals is exerted for the preservation of the species ; that the powers and faculties of man are, in every instance, exactly adapted to the circumstances in which he is placed; that instincts which were necessary for his well- being and preservation in a solitary state were gradually withdrawn with the progress of that society to which his lot was ultimately destined, as the senses of savages are said to become less acute with the advance of civilization ; and that the power of inventing and forming languages ceased with the necessity for its exertion, as those passages in the heart which are necessary for carrying on the circulation of the blood in the foetus are closed when it attains a more advanced state of existence, in circumstances altogether new and different. (Paley's Nat. Theol. p. 260.) v. Herodotus relates a curious experiment on the subject of language, made by the ancient Egyptians, in the reign of Psammetichus. Doubts had arisen whether the Egyptians or the Phrygians were the more ancient people, and the king determined to bring the matter to a speedy and decisive issue. Eor this purpose, he had recourse to a contrivance, which would not have occurred to every body. He com- 298 LANGUAGE IN GENERAL. rnitted two new-born infants to the custody of a shepherd, with particular directions never to utter a word in their presence, but to conduct goats to them at proper intervals, whose milk they might suck. This went on for two years, when one day, on opening the door of their apartment, the children eagerly extended their arms to him, as if in the act of supplication, and pronounced the word Becos. He took no notice of the circumstance at first, but after it had oc- curred again and again, he communicated it to the king, and brought the children into his presence, where they continued to repeat the same word. Psammetichus, after very diligent inquiry, ascertained, to his entire satisfaction, that the word Becos was the name of bread among the Phrygians, and to them the palm was assigned of superior antiquity over the Egyptians. The story, if true, proves a great deal more, and establishes beyond all controversy the doctrine of innate ideas, against which some have supposed Locke to argue so triumphantly in the first book of his essay, as the two infants not only clearly intimated that they wished to have some bread with their milk, but called that most desirable article by its appropriate name, though, as they were Egyptians, their fancy for speaking in Phrygian is not a little remark- able. It is equally difficult to account for the origin of the idea in their minds, or of the word on their tongues, and perhaps some who suspect the truth of the story, will still incline to doubt if the Phrygian is the oldest of all languages, and the doctrine of innate ideas one of the soundest in mental philosophy. Dr. Beattie, in his Theory of Language, says, it was once a vulgar notion, that a person, brought up from in- fancy without hearing any language, would of himself speak Hebrew ; a prejudice for which it is difficult to assign any other reason, than that as the oldest traditions respecting the origin of mankind, received by Jews and Christians, are written in Hebrew, therefore the Hebrew itself must be the oldest language, — a proposition the logic of which is not very obvious, as the same mode of reasoning would prove the Sanskrit to be the oldest to the Hindus, and the Arabic to LANGUAGE IN GENERAL. 299 the Arabians ; as the Vedas, Puranas, and Koran are written in those two languages. vi. Some of the leading difficulties connected with the origin of language are very clearly stated by Rousseau in the following passage from his " Discours sur l'Origine et les Fondemens de l'lnegalite* parmi les Homines." " If language," says he, " be the result of human convention, and if words be essential to the exercise of thought, language would appear to be necessary for the invention of language. But when, by means which I cannot conceive, our new grammarians began to extend their ideas, and to generalise their words, their ig- norance must have confined them within very narrow bounds. How, for example, could they imagine or comprehend such words as matter, mind, substance, mode, figure, motion; since our philosophers, who have so long made use of them, scarcely understand them, and since the ideas attached to them, being purely metaphysical, can have no model in nature ? " I stop at these first steps," continues Rousseau, " and en- treat my judges to pause, and consider the distance between the easiest part of language, the invention of physical sub- stantives, and the power of expressing all the thoughts of man, so as to speak in public, and influence society. I en- treat them to reflect upon the time and knowledge it must have required to discover numbers, abstract words, aorists, and all the tenses of verbs, particles, syntax, the art of con- necting propositions and arguments, and how to form the whole logic of discourse. As for myself, alarmed at these multiplying difficulties, and convinced of the almost de- monstrable impossibility of language having been formed and established by means merely human, I leave to others the discussion of the problem 'Whether a society already formed was more necessary for the institution of language, or a language already invented for the establishment of society ? ' " (Dugald Stewart, Pre. Dis. to Enc. Brit. vol. v. p. 120.) vii. The difficulties of the subject, as stated by Rousseau, are greatly exaggerated, from the circumstance of his having 300 LANGUAGE IN GENERAL. confounded the artificial classification and arbitrary divisions of language, as established by grammarians, with the natural and essential parts of language itself. Language, so far as regards the philologist, may be ar- ranged under four leading classes or divisions, one or the other of which will include everything he can possibly have to say on the subject. 1. Etymology, or that branch of language which treats of the derivation of words. Had there been but one language in the world, this branch of it would have had no existence ; as to have recourse to etymology is to seek for the significa- tion of a word in another, and if possible its original lan- guage, the use of which is altogether arbitrary in our own. The Greeks and Romans, who were perhaps the most finished and faultless writers the world has ever seen, were also the very worst etymologists, simply from the circumstance of their knowing no language but their own, — a disqualification which ought to have prevented them from entering on the task in limine. Their etymologies are sometimes utterly ridiculous, generally quite unfounded, and never satis- factory. 2. Prosody, which treats of the quantity of syllables, their combinations into feet, and the arrangement of the feet in lines, so as to form regular metres. What is usually under- stood by the term prosody, as a body or collection of laws, by means of which the length or shortness of every syllable in the language is fixed and determined, is almost peculiar to the Greek and Latin, and has nothing analogous in the lan- guages of modern Europe, in which accented and unaccented syllables are very conspicuous, but in which long and short, in the sense in which those words were used by the Greeks and Romans, can hardly be said to have any existence. Prosody, therefore, in this sense, is not an essential but extraneous part of language, not a necessary but a luxury, and therefore does not naturally form an ingredient in philo- sophical grammar. 3. Inflexion, which treats of the various methods of modi- fying the meaning of that class of words denominated by LANGUAGE IN GENERAL. 301 grammarians declinable, which are the Article, Noun, Pro- noun, Adjective, Verb, and Participle. Inflexion may take place, either in the beginning, the middle, or the end of a word, or, in other words, may be accomplished by prefixes or augments as in the Greek verbs, by infixes as in the Egyptian nouns, or by affixes or terminations as in almost the whole class of declinable Latin words. Almost all these changes are effected in the languages of modern Europe by means of Particles, and therefore cannot be regarded as essential parts of philosophical or general grammar. 4. Syntax, which is conversant with the laws which determine the formation of sentences, and their arrangement in periods, so as to constitute discourse or composition. Syntax decides on the position or collocation in the sentence of w T ords of every class, and consequently of the indeclinable Prepositions, Adverbs, Conjunctions, and Interjections, as well as of the declinable Articles, Nouns, Pronouns, Adjec- tives, Verbs, and Participles. In the Hebrew, the Arabic, and most of the languages of modern Europe, the Syntax occupies but a few pages, in the Greek and Latin a much more considerable space ; but it will not require a very co- pious notice in a treatise on general grammar. viii. If we take a comprehensive survey of the grammati- cal contrivances of some of the oldest written languages, and retrench all those which any particular language is destitute of, we shall have a clearer idea of what really are the essen- tial ingredients, or component parts of language in general, which is the whole that philosophical grammar proposes to itself to give an account of. For instance, the Greek Verb has two Futures and two Aorists in the Indicative Mode ; the Sanskrit two Futures and three Preterites, and the Egyptian Verb three Futures ; but the Hebrew, the Arabic, and the whole class of Shemitic languages have only two tenses in the Indicative, the Preter and the Future. As these, therefore, are all that are absolutely essential, it follows, as a matter of course, that all the rest in every other lan- guage are redundant, not indeed with reference to that par- 302 LANGUAGE IN GENERAL. ticular language, but so far as the actual wants of the species are concerned. ix. Again, as to Moods, in the Greek we have the Indica- tive, the Imperative, the Optative, the Subjunctive, and the Infinitive. For the Optative and Subjunctive, the Sanskrit substitutes a Potential, a Precative, and a Conditional. The Latin rejected the Greek Optative, or rather did not distin- guish it from the Subjunctive, while it retained the name of the Potential like the Sanskrit, without however giving it a distinct form from the Subjunctive. The Hebrew has but three Moods, the Indicative, the Imperative, and the Infini- tive ; and as all the purposes of language have been actually answered by these three, it follows that all the others in every language might have been dispensed with. x. Once more as to Voices, in the Greek we find three, the Active, Passive, and Middle ; the Sanskrit has but two, the Active and Passive, in which it agrees with the Latin ; while the Egyptian cannot be said to have any form of the Active or Passive, as there is no mode of discovering the meaning, except by the context; and precisely the same word is used, sometimes in an Active and sometimes in a Passive sense. The distinction of Active and Passive Voices, therefore, though a beauty, a convenience, and an accuracy in language, cannot be said to be a necessary, as the Egyptians, a great, a polished, and a learned people, did without it. (Scholtz's Grammar, p. 74.) xi. With respect to Numbers, the Greek, the Sanskrit, and the Slavonic have a Singular, a Dual, and a Plural. The Egyptian rejects the Dual, in which it is followed by the Latin ; while the Arabic retains it, and the Hebrew has a Dual form for nouns, but none for verbs. As the Dual form is dispensed with by the greater number of languages, it cannot be regarded as an essential of language in general. xii. As regards Cases, the Greek has five, the Nominative, the Genitive, the Dative, the Accusative, and the Vocative, to which the Latin joins the Ablative. The Sanskrit has LANGUAGE IN GENERAL. 303 eight Cases, adding the Tmplementive and Locative to the Latin. The Slavonic follows the Sanskrit in its Implementive and Locative cases, but rejects the Ablative. With the exception of the German, most of the other languages of modern Europe cannot be said, strictly speaking, to have any cases of Substantives, as their different relations are de- noted by Particles. xiii. One of the most perplexing circumstances to the learner of a new language, is the distinction of genders, which in things without life, and in the very large class of words, significant of intellectual and moral ideas and relations, cannot be said to have any foundation whatever in the order of nature, or to be applicable to them at all without a violent metaphor, with which we should be more shocked if we were not accustomed to it by the ordinary use of language. Gen- der, however, is an adscititious and accidental and by no means an inherent and essential quality of speech, as two of the most beautiful and cultivated languages in the world do without it, the Persic and the English ; the former so remark- able for its softness and harmony that it may be denominated the Italian of Asia, and might induce one to hazard a predic- tion that, if ever the march of intellect should again extend to that vast continent (where, alas ! since the decline of the glories of Bagdad under the Arabian Caliphs, in the begin- ning of the ninth century, there has been no march except in the wrong direction), Saadi, Hafiz, and Firdousi will be- come, to the blue stockings of Asia, what Petrarch, Guarini, and Tasso have long been to those of Europe ; and the latter so conspicuous for its copiousness, clearness, versatility, and vigour as to have proved itself fully equal to the development of some of the grandest efforts of the human mind — the philo- sophy of Bacon, the poetry of Shakspeare, and the oratory of Burke, three names which it would be difficult to parallel in the annals of any age or country. xiv. With respect to what are called the parts of speech, the terms of Noun Substantive and Noun Adjective, employed by the Greek and Latin grammarians, prove that they re- 304 LANGUAGE IN GENERAL, garded them as essentially the same word ; and it is a well- ascertained fact, that many of the Indian tribes of North America have no Adjectives in their language. In the Greek and Latin it is extremely difficult, in many instances, to distinguish the Article from the Pronoun, " as each seems either." The Participle is so clearly a mere modification of the Verb, as hardly to deserve the name of a distinct part of speech more than either of the tenses ; and as to the Par- ticles, or indeclinable parts of speech, it may be easily proved that they differ from the declinable solely in use, and not at all by nature. According to Plutarch, Plato was accustomed to assert, that all language consists of Nouns and Verbs ; and I am disposed to go one step further, and state my opinion, that there must have been a period in human society when the language of mankind consisted solely of Nouns Sub- stantive, and those the names of external objects. xv. Dismissing every sort of hypothesis on the subject, the simplest and least artificial specimens of speech we can be said to be acquainted with, are the Sanskrit Dhatos, or Verbal Roots, and the great body of words composing the Chinese spoken language, which, we are informed by gram- marians, are destitute of case, gender, and number, and may therefore, with propriety, be denominated Abstract Words. xvi. Respecting the former, the literal meaning of the word Dhatu, as explained in Wilson's Sanskrit Dictionary, is a primary or elementary substance, earth, water, fire, air, and Akas, or atmosphere, and, as applied to language in a secondary or metaphorical sense, he says, " Dhatu, a gram- matical root ; in Sanskrit this radical performs no other office, and cannot be used as a word without undergoing some change;" and Wilkins, in the introduction to his Sanskrit Radicals, expresses himself on the subject as follows : — " The interpretations of the roots are given in Sanskrit by nouns put in the locative or seventh case, and in English by the second person of the Imperative, which must be considered as the root of verbs and verbal nouns in our language ; but the student must not conclude from this, that these radical LANGUAGE in general. 305 syllables are either nouns or verbs till they are inflected. The significations attributed to a large proportion of them will be found exceedingly vague and unsatisfactory, as if nothing more were intended than to convey some general idea of the meaning of each root. In the English ex- planations occasional deviations will be found from the Sanskrit. These for the most part have been made upon the authority of commentators." xvii. As regards the Chinese spoken words, we have the following account of them in the article ( China,' in the Supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica: — " The collo- quial language is not less singular than the symbolical cha- racters ; being, like the latter, exclusively their own, having borrowed nothing from, nor lent any thing to the rest of the world. The 330 monosyllables, each beginning generally with a consonant, and ending with a vowel, or liquid, or the double consonant ng, which, as we have observed, complete the catalogue of words in their language, are, by means of four modifications of sound or intonation to each syllable, ex- tended to about 1300, beyond which not one of them is capable of the least degree of inflection, or change of termi- nation ; and the same unchangeable monosyllable acts the part of a Noun Substantive and Adjective, a Verb, and a Participle according to its collocation in a sentence, or the monosyllables with which it is connected. It is neither affected by number, case, nor gender ; mood, tense, nor per- son ; all of which in speaking are designated by certain affixes or prefixes, to mark the sense." xviii. Having traced language by a process of analysis to the rudest state in which we can discover it actually exist- ing, or, at any rate, of which we have any clear and authentic account, a task comparatively easy, I must now proceed in another direction, and endeavour, by synthesis, to build up the vast fabric of language, tracing, if possible, the connecting links, — the gradual changes, — the fine and almost insensible shades which unite the abstract words of the Chinese with x 306 LANGUAGE IN GENERAL. the Orations of Demosthenes and the Poems of Virgil, per- haps the most perfect models of human compositions. Some such attempt as this appears to have engaged the mind of Dugald Stewart when he wrote the following pas- sage: — "I have mentioned but a few of the innumerable topics which crowd upon me as fit objects of inquiry for the rising generation ; nor have I been guided in my selection of these by any other consideration than their peculiar adap- tation to the actual circumstances of the philosophical world. Among these the most prominent is the Natural or Theo- retical History of Language, including under this title written as well as oral language, — a subject which will probably con- tinue to furnish new problems to human ingenuity, in the most improved state of human knowledge. It is not sur- prising that an art which lays the foundation of all the others, and which is so intimately connected with the exercise of reason itself, should leave behind it such faint and obscure traces of its origin and infancy." (First Dissertation, Enc. Brit. vol. v. p. 199.) 307 CHAP. XXVII. ON NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. — EXTENSION OF THE MEANING OF WORDS. I. Locke has remarked in the third Book of his Essay, that the formation of language supposes two indispensable conditions : — 1. A consciousness in man of his power to produce articu- late sounds. 2. A perception of the possibility of those sounds becoming the sis;ns of his ideas. There is every reason to believe that a person born per- fectly deaf, or secluded altogether from human converse, would possess neither the consciousness, nor the perception, as we find from experience, that dumbness is the invariable associate with deafness from infancy, and that gestures and motions are the imperfect substitutes for words. Though a healthy infant, therefore, begins to use its tongue very early, and clearly expects that the inarticulate sounds he utters will be understood by those about him, there are strong grounds for believing that the whole is to be referred to imitation. When his powers of perception and memory are sufficiently developed to enable his ear to discriminate, and his mind to retain the sounds which are addressed to him most frequently, words are gradually substituted for those inarticulate cries he had been in the habit of uttering, which appear to be the only language taught by Nature. She supplies the elements of speech ; but without the assistance of her sister Art the native powers of the human mind seem to be altogether in- adequate either to effect the combination those elements are intended to form, articulate sounds, or make any considerable advance towards the end that combination was destined to accomplish, language. x 2 308 NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. ii. He has also observed, that communication by words has a double use. 1. Civil, or such an interchange of thoughts and ideas as may be rendered subservient to the ordinary business and pursuits of life, in the societies of men, one amongst another. 2. Philosophical, or such a use of words as may serve to convey the precise notions of things, and to express, in general propositions, certain and undoubted truths, which the mind may rest upon, and be satisfied with, in its search after true knowledge. Whatever may be the possible attainments of the human mind, in some future and greatly improved state of society, I must confess that I can form no conception, either of lan- guage or of the use of language, essentially different from what we now experience them to be. That philology will partake of the benefit of the general advance of knowledge, I see no reason to doubt ; but, on the contrary, feel confident that the inductive reasoning of Bacon is as applicable to that as to any other branch of human pursuit, and that our more accurate acquaintance with the various languages of mankind must be beneficially felt as regards language in general ; but, in my most sanguine expectations of the possible improve- ment of language, I must persist in regarding any future change to be produced as one of degree, and not of kind. With the progress of philology the labours of the etymolo- gist will become at once more comprehensive and more certain ; but when every word in every language has been traced to its true and undoubted source, should such a period ever arrive, we shall still be very far from having got rid of all ambiguity in the use of language. Etymology, by ascer- taining the origin, may undoubtedly do much towards de- termining the meaning, and fixing the use of words ; but it must never be forgotten that etymology, in its most high and palmy state, can give us no certain information, except with regard to the past, little as to the present, and abso- lutely nothing as to the future ; that it can only tell us what a word was, not what it actually is, which can be learnt in no other way than by a diligent observation of the various NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 309 modes and different connexions in which it is employed by the best speakers and writers. As the meaning of words can only be acquired by a reference to their actual use, and as the latter varies greatly in every country, not only from century to century, but from generation to generation, it appears to me that the efforts of the philologist, when directed towards the attainment of an immutable signification and use of words, are quite as chimerical and hopeless as the exertions of the political economist to devise an invariable standard of value, or the long exploded phantoms of the transmutation of metals, the elixir vitas, or the perpetual motion. III. The philosophy of language does not pretend to ac- count for the reason why particular ideas, or combinations of ideas, were expressed by particular sounds. If there had been any natural and necessary connexion between things and words, between ideas and the sounds which are the signs of them, there could have been but one language in the world. But there is a well-known volume which contains the Lord's Prayer in one hundred and fifty different languages, and in a general way one may be said to be as good as another, as the leading purposes of speech are answered by all. The con- nexion between words and things, therefore, is not natural, but entirely arbitrary, and any idea may be represented by any sound, when the two have been firmly connected by the mind in the way of association. But while, in this view, lan- guage appears to be the most flexible, in another it is the most intractable of all conceivable subjects. Augustus re- marked very truly, that though he was the undisputed master of the Roman world, it was not in his power to intro- duce a new Latin word into general use, and Claudius was equally unable to give permanence to three new forms of letters, which we find in the inscriptions of his reign. iv. We can derive little or no assistance from the Scrip- tures of the Old Testament, and gain nothing of moment by reverting to the origin of the human race as described by them, as, so far as the subject of language is concerned, all access to the tree of knowledge is closed. Although the x 3 310 NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. great philologists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries appear to have overlooked nothing which this source of in- formation could supply, we find an author of the present day, Mr. Davies, in his Celtic Researches, returning to the charge, and the following are specimens of his mode of philo- sophising. " Let us put the case that Adam, the first man, would inform his new-created bride of the elephant. The character which he had already described in this animal, in the act of naming him, was probably his enormous bulk. Being an inexpert orator he would not trust entirely and exclusively to the powers of his voice ; his arms would be elevated and spread abroad, in order to intimate the comprehension of gigantic space. This descriptive gesture would be aided by an immediate and spontaneous inflation of his cheeks, till his breath would find a passage through his nostrils. This natural description of a huge bulk would produce the sound B — M ; and that sound, rendered articulate by the inter- vention of a vowel, would describe bulkiness, and might be appropriated most happily to the elephant, or great beast." (Edin. Review, vol. iv. p. 398.) Mr. Davies takes upon him to assert that Adam was an inexpert orator, and there is ground for suspecting that he was not a much better Hebrew master to Eve, if he applied the word Bern to the elephant, as his descendants, the Jews, appear to have employed it to denote the hippopotamos. (Yide Gibbs's Gesenius in voce Behaimah.) Or admitting this extremely ingenious theory to be true, it will only ac- count for the Hebrew name of the elephant, leaving his denomination in at least five hundred other languages unex- plained. v. Again, although the account in Genesis informs us that the Lord brought all the beasts of the field and fowls of the air to Adam to see what he would call them, Mr. Davies more than insinuates that they named themselves, as their names were imposed on the principle of imitative harmony, and descriptive of the cries they uttered. ss He (Adam)," says Mr. Davies, " may have described the dove by fluttering NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 311 his hand, so as to intimate the act of the wing in flight, and by repeating the syllable Toor, Toor (Dove). He now walks forth, accompanied by the mother of mankind. The elephant presents his enormous bulk ; the horse flies over the field; the Bern and the Soos (horse) are soon and readily distinguished. They are saluted by the cow, the sheep, and the dove; the Mo, the Ba, and the Toor are immediately recognised. How great must have been their joy to find themselves in possession of a social language ! " (Edin. Re- view, p. 399.) After all, although the animals named themselves, I can- not discover, with any approximation to certainty, that they spoke Hebrew ; if they had done so, I think it probable that the cow would have called itself Pharah, and not Moo, and the sheep Tzon, and not Ba ; at least such were the names by which they were distinguished at long subsequent periods ; and I very much fear that in this degenerate age we know as little about the language, as about the pure, un- alloyed happiness of Paradise. vi. Locke has remarked that there can be little doubt that the oldest words in every language were the names of external objects. It not only is so, but a little reflection will convince us that it could not have been otherwise. We are constrained to illustrate the unknown by the known, to explain the recondite by the familiar, to describe the in- visible by the visible, to substitute the material for the spiritual. From this necessity the poetry of the Old Testa- ment is continually falling into anthropomorphitism, — a thing, of all others, the most abhorrent to its letter and spirit ; and we read continually of the eyes, the mouth, the hand, and the arm of the Lord, — a mode of expression which the writers would most surely have avoided, if they could have devised any other way of describing his providence, and his instruc- tion, his direction, and his power. In the same way the names of almost all the faculties and operations of the mind are metaphorical, and derived from material objects and ac- tions, such as imagination, conception, apprehension, judg- x 4 312 NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. merit, deliberation, acuteness, keenness, and dulness. Among the names of external objects, probably the very earliest were those which denote the parts of the human body, which have been extended so widely by metaphor and analogy, that we are hardly conscious of a figure of speech when we make use of them ; as for instance in the words leg and foot applied to innumerable articles of household furniture, in eye applied to a needle or a bolt, mouth to an oven or a cannon, teeth - to a cog wheel or a saw, arm to a lever, or the yard of a ship. vii. Next to the parts of the human body, probably the relations of kindred, especially those of father, mother, child, son, and daughter, have given birth to more metaphors than any other class of words. This is remarkably the case in the Oriental languages, in which they are still retained, and they prevail in a much greater degree in the Shemitic lan- guages, that is, in the Arabic and its descendants, than in the Sanskrit, and the languages which have been derived from it, that is, the greater part of those of modern Europe. viii. It is remarkable, that amidst so great a variety of languages, the march of the human mind should have been so uniform 3 as we find many of the same metaphors pre- vailing in every part of the world. For instance, in Persic we have Chesm, an eye and a fountain ; in Hebrew Ain, an eye and a fountain ; and probably the Scythian word Spu, eye, mentioned by Herodotus, is cognate with the German Spa, spring. At the first glance the words Chesm and Ain, in the sense of fountain, appear to be primary and literal, and not secondary and figurative words ; and yet there can hardly be a doubt that they are metaphors, and were suggested by the analogy between the tears which burst from the eye, and the waters which bubble up from a fountain. With the extension of our knowledge of languages we shall probably discover that many words, which we now regard as literal, are mere metaphors. In Persic we find the word Chems, eye, which we should be tempted to regard merely as a transposition of Chesm, did we not find in Arabic the word Shems, and in Hebrew the word Shemesh as the literal names NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 313 of the sun ; and did we not know that that luminary, in almost all the languages of antiquity, was denominated the Eye of the World, and worshipped as the greatest, if not sole, presiding divinity. As the Ch in the Persic word Chems is soft, it is the probable etymology of the Arabic Shems, and the Hebrew Shemesh, and the analogy of the Arabic word Ain furnishes no inconsiderable confirmation, as it signifies both -the eye and also the body of the sun and his rays. I shall now proceed to make some remarks on the metaphors derived from the different parts of the body, as one of the best modes of illustrating the extension of the meaning of words. The Head. ix. Sar, Persic, the human head, and by analogy the capital of a pillar. In the following significations we are hardly sensible of a metaphor, — the top, principle, origin, summit, extremity, end, point, great, large, highest, greatest, chief. In the subsequent meanings, that which covers the head is derived by metonymy from the head itself, — a veil, awning, canopy, covering ; but in the following significations we can trace no connexion whatever with the primitive word — the atmosphere, a gentle gale, desire # , longing, wish, love, intention, will, cheerfulness, and consequently the empire of etymology is at an end; while in all the meanings of the Hebrew Sar we clearly trace the extension of the original word by an obvious analogy, — a captain, commander, prince, chief, archangel. In all these the analogy is so close that we are hardly sensible of a metaphor. The same is the case in the Hebrew word Bosh, the literal name of the head. In the sense of beginning^ I believe it enters into the compo- sition of what is called the first word in the Book of Genesis, but which appears to be three words, B (prefix), in, Bosh, beginning, and Aith, time — in the beginning of time God created the heavens and the earth. (Gibbs's Gesenius.) The Face. x. In the Persic word Boy (Boi), face, its primitive meaning never disappears in the whole course of its extension * Ser, Love (Armenian)* 314 NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. to such words as air, mien, aspect, countenance, the surface, appearance, semblance. In the expression, the face of the earth, we are hardly conscious of a metaphor. The various meanings of the Hebrew word Phanim are also easily accounted for by analogy, metonymy, and synecdoche — a face, countenance, appearance, looks, surface, surperficies, the front, or forepart, a mouth, a person, personal appearance. The Ear. xi. In Persic, Gosh signifies not only an ear, but also a hearer, a listener, a spy, an emissary, an informer ; that is, he who uses his ears for the most part in a bad sense. The Arabic Uzn (Azn) signifies an ear, the tip of the ear, and by an extension of the second meaning, a handle — also per- mission, leave, licence, dismission, conge ; or, by a slight figure of speech, that which has been heard. The ear is denomi- nated by periphrasis, in Sanskrit, Sravanapatha ; that is, the road or path of hearing. The Eye. xn. In Persic the word Chesm signifies not only the eye, but a cup, an amulet, or charm against fascination or enchant- ment, and also hope. Though the secondary meanings deviate very far from the primitive, I believe the latter is never" entirely lost sight of. The signification of cup is evidently a metaphor deduced not directly from the eye itself, but from its orbit or bony socket; which seems to be also the case in the eye of a needle, or a bolt. The eye is conceived by the Orientals to be the great instrument in fascination, and we may suspect the signification of hope to be a meta- phor founded on the supposed analogy between that exhila- rating feeling to the mind, and light to the body, of which the. eye is the instrument or recipient. The meanings of the Arabic word Aayn (Ain) are very various. 1. The eye, sight, aspect. 2. A fountain, conduit, flowing water, spring, source, evidently from the analogy between the eye shedding tears, and the earth producing water. NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 315 3. A spy, a watchman, observer, spectator, speculator, all persons whose chief business it is to use their eyes. 4. A small chink, or eye-hole ; a metaphor from the orbit of the eye. 5. An object generally, whatever is seen with the eyes. Besides all these the word has numerous other significations, of the origin of which it is extremely difficult to give any account. Ain, in Hebrew, as has been already remarked, also signifies an eye and a fountain. The Nose. xiii. In Persic Bui signifies both a nose and the beak of a bird. Its reduplication Bulbul is a probable etymology of the Oriental name of the nightingale, from its exquisite notes, in forming which the mouth is the chief instrument. Bui also gives the derivation of our English word Bill, the beak of a bird, and, combined with Istan, of Istambul, the ancient name of Constantinople, from its situation, that is, the place of a nose or cape. There can be little doubt about the latter, as the Persic word Bini denotes both a nose and a promontory, agreeing with the use of Ness in many English compounds. The Arabic Anf is also employed in the same way. In that language we find a metaphor which at the first sight appears violent and almost ludicrous, but which, on a little reflection, is easily intelligible. A prince, or chief, is denominated the nose of his people, by which no more seems to be meant than that as the nose is the most prominent feature of the face, so the prince is the most con- spicuous personage in the body politic. The Mouth. xiv. In Persic Dahan. It supplies innumerable metaphors, being applied to almost every aperture. As applied to the notch of an arrow it signifies merely that which is open, to the edge of a scymetar that which bites. The Arabic Earn, and Fo, are chiefly remarkable for the light they throw on the formation of the Greek Verb Phemi (dico), and Pheme, 316 NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. Greek, and Fama, Latin, that which is spoken or proceeds out of the mouth. The Teeth. xv. We find in Hebrew the word Shain, signifying a tooth, and also the tooth of a rock, a sharp cliff; and in Chinese, as the name of the 46th key, Shan, a hill or moun- tain. I feel confident that the spoken language of the Chinese does not stand so completely alone as has been hitherto pretended, and every analogy with any other lan- guage, however slight, is well worth observing. It is not a little remarkable that we can trace every stage of the gradual transition of the Chinese hieroglyphical character for a moun- tain, into the Phoenician and Hebrew letter Shin. (See Chap. II. sect. 7.) The metaphors from the teeth are innumerable, and so com- mon that they hardly appear to be figures of speech. As the word mouth is applied to almost every kind of aperture, tooth is applied almost as widely to every projection — to the wards of a lock, the cogs of a wheel, the teeth of a saw, of a comb, &c. The Arm. xvi. Bazn, Persic,- the arm, or the upper part of it ; also, by metonymy, strength, power ; the arm being the chief in- strument of conquest and dominion. In Hebrew, Zeroa, the arm, strength, force, help, assistance. In this and in- numerable other instances we perceive that the process of thought has been precisely similar, where mankind have distinguished their ideas by very different names. In many languages the same word signifies the arm, and a measure of longitude, of which the arm was the standard. The Hand. xvu. Dast, Persic, the hand, a cubit. The chief seat of precedency given to the most honoured guests — a cushion on which they sit. (So denominated, in both instances, probably from being on the right hand.) Power, strength, pre- NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 317 excellence, superiority, victory, an occasion, the fore feet of any animal, the end, termination, limit, boundary. The leading significations of the Hebrew word Yad are very nearly similar. Our English word Cubit is derived from the Latin Cubitus, the elbow ; and we have a measure derived from the hand, which is, I think, limited to the de- scription of the height of horses. The Arabic Yad signifies a handle, as well as a hand. The metaphors derived from the hand are too numerous to be particularised, and so obvious that they are hardly remarked as figures, as the hand of a watch, clock, or dial, &c. The Heart. xviii. Dil, Persic, the heart, the mind, the soul, the mar- row, the pith of a tree. Kalb, Arabic, the heart, the mind, the soul, understanding, intellect; the kernel, marrow, the middle; the centre of an army. In Hebrew Laibab, with many of the same significations. It is remarkable that, while in the Oriental languages the heart is regarded as the seat of intellect, in those of modern Europe it is regarded as that of feeling. The metaphors from the heart are very numerous. By our English one of " heart of oak," we intend to express the middle or hardest part of the tree, the wood that has been longest formed. The Foot XIX. Pay (Pai), Persic, a foot ; also a footstep, track, trace, mark, vestige; also a pretence, pretext, false appearance. Pay, Chinese, the foot, a lineal measure. (China, Sup. Enc. Brit, plate 55, key 103.) Kadam, Arabic, a foot, the sole of a foot, the fore foot, a footstep, a step, pace. From a rude and general analogy with the fore foot, or that which precedes, we have the following Arabic words : — 1. Kadem, prior, preceding, superior, more excellent, better. 2. Kidm, antiquity, the former age, ancient times. 3. Kudm, preceding, going before, the being prior in point of time, place, or degree. 318 NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE, 4. Kidman, formerly, anciently, in days of old. 5. Kidam, merit, a virtuous man, preceding in point of time, eternity. 6. Kudm, bold, audacious. 7. Kudum, an intrepid man, excelling in courage. It is difficult to say whether we ought to regard these words as dialects of the Arabic, or merely as the result of an unsettled orthography. I believe the latter view of the subject in this and numerous similar instances to be the most just. We have a curious exemplification of the extension of the meaning of the word Foot in two or three languages. Rat, Coptic, a foot. Rota, Latin, a wheel, or that which supplies the place of a foot to a large class of vehicles. Ratha, Sanskrit, a chariot, or that which supplies the place of feet to those who ride in it. Rheda, Latin, a chariot, in the same signification. Eretmos, Greek, an oar, or that which supplies the place of feet to a boat ; from Rat, Coptic, foot ; and Mos, Latin, manner, in loco aut in modo pedis. The metaphors formed from leg and foot are without nmnber, and applied to a large proportion of the domestic utensils we make use of. The Nails. xx. Naal, Persic, a hoof, and thence by analogy a horse- shoe, a shoe, a slipper, or anything which defends the feet of man or beast, a woman's buskin, and, by a slight extension, a ferrule at the end of a sword-sheath, or stick. It does not mean nails in Persic ; but there can be no doubt that our English word is derived from it, from an obvious similarity in the office of the nails of the fingers and toes, and the hoofs of quadrupeds. In Arabic we have Zifar, a nail or claw, and Zafar, victory, triumph, which is essentially the same word, as those, both to beasts and birds of prey, are the chief means or instruments of victory. * NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 319 The Heel XXI. Pashinah (Persic), Aakab (Arabic), the heel, and, from an analogy with the position of the heel relatively to the foot, whatever comes behind, or the last of any thing, as the rear of an army, a horse running at the heels of another, and, by a change of the vowel point, Aakib, offspring, successors, posterity, the end of a month. We find Aakab also as a particle in the sense of after, behind ; and written Kaab, it gives a probable and almost certain etymology of our English word Kibe : " The toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier he galls his kibe." (Hamlet.) Miscellaneous. xxii. The Sanskrit contains many singular metaphors, and exhibits some curious illustrations of the mode in which the meaning of words is gradually extended, of which my limits will allow me to mention only a few. One of the names of a knife in Sanskrit is Asiputrika, from Asi, a sword, and Putrika, daughter : that is, the daughter of the sword, or an infant sword, from its smallness. We have in English the word Dirk, as the name of a sword of the very smallest de- scription, usually worn by midshipmen, and we find in Persic the same word with the meaning of infant. There can be little doubt that Asiputrika accounts for the application of Dirk. In Sanskrit we find the word Patra signifying lite- rally the leaf of a tree, and by a slight extension the leaf of a book, gold leaf, and, by analogy with the latter, any thin sheet or plate of metal. The example of a leaf flying in the air appears to have extended the word Patra to the feather of an arrow ; thence to the wing of a bird, or that which causes to fly, and from the latter, by a more comprehensive and less close analogy, to any vehicle in general, as a car, a horse, a camel. The leaf of a tree and a camel would appear to have little in common, and yet every link in the chain which connects them is distinctly traceable, nor is the transi- tion in any one of the instances very violent. The Sanskrit word Patrin seems to be almost synonymous with Patra, 320 NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. written Patran (with Anuswarah), and signifies a tree, an arrow, a bird in general, a falcon in particular, a chariot, and a rider in a car or carriage. All these have much in common with the meanings of Patra ; but Patrin also means a moun- tain, in which we miss every trace of the primitive word. It is not undeserving of notice, that Patrin is easily misread Pattin, which latter word appears to be cognate with the Greek Peteinon, volatile, and to prove that it had been so misread by the early Greeks. We find in Sanskrit rather a singular metaphor. A pair of scissors is denominated Sarari- muchi from Sarari, a bird, and mucha, mouth, from a resem- blance between their form and the beak of a bird. 321 CHAP. XXVIII. ON NOUNS ADJECTIVE. I. What is a Noun Adjective ? This is a question much more easily asked than answered. The Eton Latin Gram- mar informs us that a Noun Substantive declares its own meaning, and requires not another word to be joined with it to show its signification; and that a Noun Adjective always requires to be joined with a Substantive of which it shows the nature or quality. There is a mixture of truth and error in both these definitions. A Noun Substantive cer- tainly does not now declare its own meaning ; if it did we might dispense altogether with the use of dictionaries ; but I believe such to have been the case primarily in the infancy of language. And again, if a Noun Substantive fully explained itself, there could be no need of Adjectives at all, as we are totally unable to form the remotest conception of matter in the abstract ; and every substance to us is merely a collection or combination of properties or qualities, inhering in some unknown substratum. As to the real essences of the school- men, or, in the language of Locke, that size, figure, and motion of the insensible parts of things, on which their sensible properties depend, and from which they flow, so far from being able to form any notion of them, we cannot even talk of them without falling into perpetual contradictions. As it is not very obvious how we are to acquire any know- ledge of the external world, except through the medium of our five senses, the size, figure, and motion of the insensible parts of things (that is, those parts which are not cognizable by the senses) appear to stand in the same relation to man as light to the blind, or sounds to the deaf; and accordingly, I be- lieve the real essences are rapidly following the Philosopher's Stone, the Elixir Vitre, and the Perpetual Motion. If the nominal essences were exhausted we might sit down and Y 322 NOUNS ADJECTIVE. weep, like Alexander, because there were no more worlds to conquer ; but in the actual state of our knowledge there is so little cause for apprehension that Ave shall have nothing left to do, that there is much more ground for despondency at finding our limited faculties so inadequate to contend with the grandeur and immensity of nature. When we are fully acquainted with all the substances of which this, our globe, is composed — when we have examined the various strata, their position and proportion with reference to each other, — when analysis has reduced all compound bodies to their simple elements, and synthesis reproduced from these ele- ments all the new compounds they are capable of forming, and diligently ascertained and recorded their properties, — - when we shall have remarked and described every vegetable production on the earth's surface, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop which grows on the wall, and have become familiar with every form of sentient existence to which the teeming earth gives birth and support, — when in short we have exhausted all those materials which the wise and bene- ficent Author of nature has provided at once to stimulate our senses, and reward their activity, — then, and not until then, we mav begin to lament our ignorance of the real essences, the size, figure, and motion of the insensible parts of things. II. But to return from this slight digression. " The Ad- jective," says Dr. Beattie, in his Theory of Language (page 163.), " denotes a simple quality, as brave, cruel, good, swift, round, square." " Nouns Adjective," says Adam Smith, in his treatise on the Formation of Languages, " are the words which express quality, considered as qualifying, or, as the schoolmen say, in concrete with some particular object. Thus the word green expresses a certain quality, considered as qualifying, or as in concrete with the particular subject to which it may be applied. Words of this kind, it is evident, may serve to distinguish particular objects from others com- prehended under the same general appellation. The words green tree, for example, might serve to distinguish a particu- lar tree from others that were withered, or blasted." " Ad- NOUNS ADJECTIVE. 323 jectives," says Dr. Lowth, "are very improperly called Nouns, for they are not the names of things ; " and Mr. Harris, in his Hermes, has the following passage : " Grammarians have been led into that strange absurdity of ranging Adjectives with Nouns, and separating them from Verbs ; though they are homogeneous with respect to Verbs, as both sorts denote attributes : they are heterogeneous with respect to Nouns, as never properly denoting substances." The views of the earlier grammarians were very different, and, I believe, much more just. Scaliger expresses himself on the subject in the following words : " Nihil differt concretum ab abstracto, nisi modo significationis, non significatione." And Wilkins: " The true, genuine sense of a Noun Adjective will be found to consist in this ; that it imports this general notion of per- taining to" And Wallis still more accurately : " Adjectivum respectivum est nihil aliud quam ipsa vox substantiva, adjec- tive posita." " Quodlibet substantivum adjective positum degenerat in adjectivum." " Ex substantivis fiunt adjectiva copias, addita terminatione y," &c. (Tooke's Diversions of Purley, vol. ii. p. 427.) in. So much for the opinion of some of the leading gram- marians. The use of the Adjective may be dispensed with in English by interposing a hyphen between two substantives, as a gold-ring, a brass-tube, a silk-string, a brick-house, a wood-hut, a canvass-tent, in all which instances the first Sub- stantive performs the office of an Adjective, and describes the quality of the second. If we write golden-ring, brazen-tube, silken-string, and wooden-hut, the final en is a mark of the genitive case, and equivalent to ring of gold, tube of brass, string of silk, and hut of wood. In the Shemitic languages the genitive case is expressed, not by a change in the word which, in English, is preceded by the sign of, but in the termination of the prior word. Or the sense of the Adjective in English may in every instance be conveyed by changing the form of the sentence ; and for a brave man, a beautiful woman, a swift horse, Y 2 324 XOUNS ABJECTIVE. substituting a man of bravery, a woman of beauty, a horse of swiftness. Nor will the difficulty be at all increased by the circumstance of there being more than one Adjective. An infinitely powerful, wise, and benevolent God may be resolved into a God of infinite power, wisdom, and benevo- lence. iv. Adjectives, therefore, are not distinct parts of speech, as they have been regarded by the generality of grammarians ; they are merely modifications of the Substantive, and differ from the Substantive, not in essence but in quality, not in nature, but merely in manner. If the use of the Adjective in every sentence may be avoided, merely by changing the form of that sentence, the Adjective cannot be regarded as an indispensable part of speech, and philosophical gram- mar is exonerated from the difficulty of accounting for one important class of words. Adjectives may be regarded as giving copiousness, variety, beauty, and harmony to language, but we must not consider them as constituting an essential ingredient. Hence we ought to regard it as a probable conjecture, reasoning a priori that there must be languages in which there are no Adjectives, and such we find, from un- doubted authority, to be actually the case. In a work, by Dr. Jonathan Edwards, on the lano-uao-e of the Xorth Ame- 3 o o rican Indians, which I have already had occasion to quote, he says, " the Mohegans have no Adjectives in all their lan- guage. Although it may at first seem not only singular and curious, but impossible, that a language should exist with- out Adjectives, yet it is an indubitable fact." (Div. of Purley, vol. ii. p. 463.) v. After all that has been written about Noun Substan- tives and Noun Adjectives, it appears to me that the great, perhaps the only difference between them is, that the former is a word which is susceptible of receiving one gender only in the nominative case, while the latter is susceptible of re- ceiving three genders, and consequently three terminations in the nominative case. Both consist equally of an immu- table root, joined not merely to a Pronoun, but to the same NOUNS ADJECTIVE. 325 In Greek that Pronoun is os, rj, ov } he, she, it, which in Latin becomes us, a, um. In Sanskrit we have the word Dur, hard, which we recognise in French unchanged, but which in Latin becomes Dur-us, Dur-a, Dur-um, and which, if it had been naturalized in Greek, would have been Duros, Dure, Duron. And as these form the three most common terminations of Adjectives in Greek and Latin, so they also form the three regular de- clensions of Substantives. In Sanskrit we find the word Uru, broad, which, assuming Epsilon as a prefix, becomes in Greek an Adjective of three terminations, Eurus, Eureia, Euru. Close to it in the dictionary we meet with the word Urnu, cover, written sometimes with U long, and sometimes with U short. But a long vowel is not only equivalent to, but is, two short ones ; and if we write Uurnu, by reading the initial letter as micron, and adding the usual pronomi- nal termination, we have Ouranos, heaven, sky, firmament, or that which covers the earth ; and perhaps with «, privative, the same root gives the etymology of Avernus, that which is not heaven, or the opposite of heaven. Eurus, in Greek, is said to be an Adjective, and Ouranos a Substantive ; but when we look at the Sanskrit roots, there is evidently no reason, in the nature of language, why the fate of these words should not have been exactly reversed. In Greek we find the word Koilos, concave, convex, hollow, an Adjective of three terminations, Koilos, Koile, Koilon. There is no such Adjective in Latin ; but we find it, as the Substantive Ccelum, heaven, sky, firmament, synonymous as nearly as possible in meaning with the Greek Ouranos, and in form with the Greek Koilon, the terminations Um and On being neuter in their respective languages ; but when the Romans personified heaven in mythology as the father of Saturn, Chronus, or Time, they wrote the word Coelus with a mas- culine termination, like the Greek Koilos ; and when as the celestial Venus, Venus Genitrix, or the mother of all things, they wrote Urania like the Greek Koile ; or in other words Ouranos, which was a Substantive in grammar, became an Adjective in mythology, and differed in no respect from Y 3 326 NOUNS ADJECTIVE. Koilos. In Hebrew we meet with the word Moom, a stain or blemish, a Noun of the masculine gender, to which the Greeks added their pronominal termination Os, and formed the word Mgo/a-os, signifying literally a spot, and figuratively disgrace, or reproach, and to the same Hebrew root they prefixed a, privative, and formed the Adjective a/ico/ios, spot- less. vi. So far as to the nature of the Adjective, and I shall now proceed to say a few words as to its use. Adam Smith, in his short treatise on the Formation of Languages, usually printed with his Theory of Moral Sentiments, remarks that the variation in the termination of the Noun Adjective, ac- cording to the gender of the Substantive, which takes place in all the ancient languages, seems to have been introduced chiefly for the sake of a certain similarity of sound, of a cer- tain species of rhyme, which is naturally so very agreeable to the human ear. (p. 417.) The necessities of language obviously did not require more than the three regular termi- nations of Adjectives, which are the basis of the three regu- lar declensions of Substantives, either in Greek or Latin ; but the desire of variety, and gratification from euphony, soon suggested many more. The terminations of the Greek word Ophis, a serpent, in the singular number appear to be, the Latin pronoun Is, he, — of the Latin words Parens and Serpens, Ens the Active Participle of the Verb Substantive To be, — of the Greek Active Participle Tupton, Tuptousa, Tupton, the Active Participle of the Verb Substantive, On, Ousa, On ; while the terminations of some Greek Adjectives suggest analogies with Eis, Mia, En, one, as Charieis, Cha- riessa, Charien. Eis, in Greek, is a Pronoun signifying Qui- dam ; and as much of the modern Italian appears to be the rustic Roman unchanged, which itself was identical with the Etruscan or general language of ancient Italy, the termina- tion of Chariessa is probably the Italian Essa, she. vn. One of the most striking differences between the Greek and Latin, and the languages of modern Europe, un- doubtedly arises out of the declension of Adjectives, as the NOUNS ADJECTIVE. 327 difference of gender, and variety of termination in the cases, allowed of a separation between the Substantive and its attribute, which in English is directly adverse to the genius of the language, and never practised without producing obscurity and confusion. As Adam Smith justly remarks, we are under the necessity of having recourse to Horace, in order to interpret some parts of Milton's literal translation of the Ode to Pyrrha, being the fifth of the first book, which as a translation is most lame, and as an imitation, most un- like. " Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold, Who always vacant, always amiable Hopes thee, of flattering gales Unmindful." " These are verses," continues Smith, " which it is impos- sible to interpret by any rules of our language. There are no rules in our language by which any man could discover, that in the first line c credulous ' referred to ( who,' and not to e thee ; ' or that i all gold ' referred to any thing ; or that in the fourth line, ' unmindful ' referred to c who ' in the second, and not to ' thee ' in the third ; or on the contrary, that in the second line, f always vacant, always amiable,' referred to f thee ' in the third, and not to e who ' in the same line with it. In the Latin, indeed, this is abundantly plain — * Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aurea ; Qui semper vacuam, semper amabilem Sperat, nescius aurge Fallacis."' viii. This superior freedom in the collocation of words was undoubtedly a great advantage gained to poetry in facility of composition, and variety and harmony of sound, but we shall be greatly deceived if we come to the con- clusion, that personification, or prosopopeia, is more difficult in English than in Greek or Latin, as it takes place probably to the same extent, and in precisely the same way, that is, by the application of the Personal Pronoun to the object intended to be vivified or animated. We have seen that when the Romans wished to describe the material heaven, the sky, or the firmament, they wrote the word Coelum, in Y 4 328 NOUNS ADJECTIVE. the neuter gender, and that when they personified it in my- thology as the father of Saturn, they wrote it Coelus with a masculine termination, or as the Celestial Venus, that they gave a feminine termination to the Greek Ouranos, heaven, or rather Ouranios, and wrote Urania, the final syllable being equivalent to she. In the following fine passage from Para- dise Lost, which describes the effect produced on Satan by the rebuke of Zephon, the personification is produced solely by the application of a Personal Pronoun to an abstract quality, Virtue, and the substitution of her for its. " Abash' d the Devil stood, And felt how awful goodness is, and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely ; saw and pined His loss." ix, Though the Greeks and Romans, from the declensions of their Substantives and Adjectives, possessed in so much higher a degree, and greater perfection, the power of giving variety to the terminations of their words, they appear to have been not less sensible than the moderns to the gratifi- cation experienced by the ear from words beginning with the same letter, or alliteration, which, as I have remarked in another place, forms the basis of the 119th Psalm, in the original Hebrew, regarded merely as a literary or poetical composition. In Virgil, who, while he is second to hardly any poet of ancient or modern times, with respect to genius, perhaps, occupies the very highest place as regards purity of taste, justness of conception, and finished execution, we sometimes meet with a double alliteration in the same line, as " Constitui, et magna Manes ter voce vocavi." JEn. lib. vi. 506. and sometimes three words following each other, beginning with the same letter, as " Appetii, et Veneris violavi vulnere dextram." JEn. lib. xi. 277. Euripides, in his beautiful tragedy of Iphigeneia in Tauris, NOUNS ADJECTIVE. 329 makes the heroine describe her dreary and desolate situation to the Chorus by a line which is all alliteration, "Ayctfxog, anKvog, curoXie, d(pi\og : to the strength of which, perhaps, the nearest approximation we can make in English is by the words " husbandless, child- less, homeless, friendless." Milton, who has frequently rather translated than imitated his darling Euripides, has innumerable passages of this sort, one of the finest of which is devoted to the celebration of the virtue of Abdiel. " So spake the Seraph Abdiel, faithful found Among the faithless, faithful only he ; Among innumerate false, unmov'd, Unshaken, unseduc'd, unterrified, His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal." Paradise Lost, book v. x. Notwithstanding all that has been said about variety of termination in words, Honier, the fineness of whose ear few will be disposed to question, appears to have derived singular gratification from bringing together several words the last syllables of which were precisely similar, such as OvSs icev eg deKcirovg irspireWonsvovg hnavrovg. Iliad, viii. 418. Neque decern vertentibus annis. But we have in our language a splendid example of the felicitous use of Adjectives, and of the powerful effect that may be produced not by the repetition of words with a similar ending, as in Homer, but by the repetition of the same identical word. I allude to the well-known passage in the Elegy on the Death of an Unfortunate Lady by Pope, our English Virgil, which most assuredly will not suffer by a comparison with any thing of a similar kind in the whole range of poetry. " By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd, By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos'd, By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd, By strangers honourd, and by strangers mourn'd ! " 330 CHAP. XXIX. ON PRONOUNS AND ARTICLES. I. The name of the Pronoun is sufficiently indicative of its nature, and shows that it is intended to supply the place and avoid the too frequent repetition of the Noun. In this chapter on Pronouns I shall confine my exertions principally to four objects. 1. To establish the Substantive origin of Pronouns by pointing out such as were originally, clearly, and unequivo- cally Nouns. 2. To particularise such as were so probably, if not cer- tainly. And if much can be firmly established under these two heads, the origin of all other Pronouns, the etymology of which cannot be traced, may be inferred from analogy. 3. To trace the Pronouns of Greece, Rome, and modern Europe to other Pronouns in some Oriental language. 4. To point out some resemblances in the Pronouns of the two great families of written languages, the descendants of the Sanskrit and the Arabic. First. ii. In La Croze's Egyptian Lexicon, at page 7., I find the word Atshi with the signification of Muliercula, a girl. On attempting to analyse it I discover that it clearly consists of two words ; that At is an inseparable negative particle, and that Shi is obsolete as a distinct Egyptian word ; but finding Shimi, a wOman, I can entertain little doubt that Shi is a contraction of it, and that the meaning of Atshi is she who is not a woman, that is, not a perfect or mature woman, or, in other words, a girl. To the Egyptian Shi, a woman, I have not the smallest hesitation about referring the etymology of our English pronoun feminine She. PRONOUNS AND ARTICLES. 331 III. On opening the same Lexicon at page 169. I observe the word Jo, caput, the head, with a remark that it supplies the place of a Pronoun, as Ejoi, in caput meum ; i. e. in ma Recollecting that the whole body of Greek tradition ascribes the civilisation, if not the colonisation, of Greece to Egypt, and finding reasons in Lanzi's invaluable work on Etruria to conclude that the same was the case with Italy, from the simple form of the Egyptian Jo, head, I deduce the Boeotian Io), the Italian Pronoun Personal Io, I, and from the com- pound Ejoi, by cutting off the final vowel, Ego, I, Greek and Latin. But Jo is only one among several words in Egyptian sig- nifying head, among which we find Joj ; and from Ejoji, in caput meum, i. e. in me, we have the Attic form of Ego, Egoge. At page 141. of the Lexicon I find the word Foi, or Phoi, capillus, the hair, and have no doubt it will be readily con- ceded, that by the figure synecdoche it may mean the head. I find reason to believe that the Egyptian letter Fei, and the Egyptian and Greek Phi, if not essentially the same, were interchangeable, and at page 111. I find Phoi as a Possessive Pronoun, with the signification of my; the etymology of which I believe to have been Foi, the hair, the head. With the affixes we have in Coptic : — Phoi ineus (^um)* Phok tuus (^xjok)* Phof ipsius ....(coqV Phon noster ....((joit)- Lanzi, on the authority of Varro, Diomedes, and Salma- sius, says that the .ZEolic Greeks employed the letter Sigma in some instances simply as an aspirate. (Tom. i. p. 84 and 129.) If so, the Coptic Possessive Pronoun Phoi most un- questionably and undeniably is the origin both of the Greek Dual Number of Su, and of the Dual and Plural of Ou, sui, illius : — Phoi, Coptic, with Sigma prefixed, Sphoi, Greek (o-Qeo'i). Phon, Coptic, „ „ Sphon, Greek (acfycov). 332 PKONOUI\ T S AXD ARTICLES . Os, Greek, quis, Pronoun Relative. Os, Latin, the face, put by synecdoche for the person, perhaps an obsolete ^Eolic Greek word, or Aish, Hebrew, a man, by reading the final letter Shin, as Sin. Ais, which approximates still nearer to the Greek. Is, Latin, by dropping the initial vowel. Second. iv. I have devoted this division of my subject to particu- larising such Pronouns as were probably, if not certainly, Nouns. At the 37 th page of Scholtz's Egyptian Grammar, after giving the declension of the Personal Pronouns, he remarks that they are also expressed by means of certain words and particles joined to Prepositions and Affixes. The first in- stance he gives is — 1. Ammo, Ammoi, me, Coptic; the etymology of which I take to be Mo, or Moi, Persic, the hair, by a double synec- doche, first the hair for the head, and secondly the head for the person. The latter is so common in all the Oriental languages, more especially the Hebrew, that it is altogether unnecessary to adduce instances of it. From Ammoi, or Emmoi (Sahidic), milii, we have Emoi, Greek, dative of Ego, i. e. Mihi (i/W). From Amnion, or Emmon (Coptic), nostrum, nobis, nos, we have Emeis, Emon, Emin, Emas, plural of Ego, common Greek ; and Ammes, Ammon, Ammin, Ammas, -ZEolic. 2. Eroi, mihi, Coptic ; root, Ko, Janua, Os, oris ; by a double synecdoche, first the mouth for the face, and next the face for the person. The latter is of very frequent occur- rence in every part of the Old Testament. 3. Antot, Manus mea, i. e. Ego ; root, Tot, the hand, put by synecdoche for the person : " Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might," i. e. whatsoever thou findest to do. 4. Anchet, in me ; root Chet, collum, venter. In the PRONOUNS AND ARTICLES. 333 Old Testament, the belly is frequently put for the person. — Job xv. 2. 35. 5. Anhet, in me, Sahidic ; root, Het, the heart ; vide Laibab (Hebrew), heart, in Gibbs's Gesenius, who says, with suffixes it forms a periphrasis of the Personal Pronouns. 6. Nahrai, unto me ; root, Hra, the face, for the whole person. 7. Ejoi, in caput meum, i. e. in me ; root, Jo, the head, for the person. In the Scriptures there is hardly any considerable part of the body but is somewhere or other substituted for the whole man. Had Blair been as familiarly acquainted with the poetry of the East as he was with that of Greece and Rome, if he had criticised the following exquisite passage from Pope's Eloisa to Abelard at all, it would certainly have been in a very different spirit : — '•'Dear fatal name! rest ever unreveal'd, Nor pass these lips in holy silence seal'd ; Hide it my heart within that close disguise, Where mix'd with God's his lov'd idea lies ; O write it not my hand — the name appears Already written — wash it out my tears. In vain lost Eloisa weeps and prays ; Her heart still dictates, and her hand obeys." Blair observes, that to address the several parts of one's body as if they were animated, is not congruous to the dig- nity of passion, and that although a personified name, and a personified heart may be tolerated, a personified hand is low, and not in the style of true poetry. If the divine had re- collected the following passage from the 137th Psalm, I think the critic would have considerably modified the pre- ceding observations. "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning ; if I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth." Those who are of opinion that this passage of Pope requires any further vindication, will find it in Payne Knight's " Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste," — a work equally remarkable for profound learning, acuteness of re- 334 PEONOUNS AND ARTICLES. mark, and originality and independence of thought. (Page 247.) Third. v. Under this head I shall attempt to trace some of the Pronouns and Articles of Greece, Rome, and modern Europe, to other Pronouns in some Oriental language. First, we have the Greek article in the Dual Number, To, Ta, To; and in the Egyptian Lexicon, at page 21, I find Tha., feminine, " significans aliquid pertinens ad rem de qua agitur." Thai, Egyptian, hrec, ista, Singular ; They, English, Plural. The Egyptian Definite Article Feminine Singular is Th ; to which, by adding a final E, we have the English Definite Article The, of the common gender and of both numbers. Again, we find, in Greek, Ou, sui, illius, Nominat. caret. Ou, Egyptian, Articulus Indefinitus. Ao, or O (Persic), he, she, it. Hie, Haac, Hoc, Latin. These words appear to have an intimate connexion with the Hebrew Pronouns Personal, Hoo, he, and Hi, she, which latter I believe to be modifications of the Hebrew word Chai, life, or living. All will allow that the Hebrew letters Hay and Heth are interchangeable, in fact they are confounded some scores, not to say hundreds, of times in our English version ; and that Wav and Yood, though not inter - changeable, are easily mistaken by the eye from their simi- larity of form. I believe the Latin pronouns Hie, Ha^c, Hoc, to be deducible by changes and transpositions of letters from the Hebrew word Chih (n^n) signifying life, or a living creature. One of the most ingenious and satisfactory chapters in Home Tooke's Diversions of Purley, is on the word That ; and following up the same train of thought I would remark that the Latin Conjunction Et is clearly the Egyptian Relative Pronoun Et, Qui, Qua?, Quod; and that Et and Que in Latin may very well be interchangeable, as both are PRONOUNS AND ARTICLES. 335 in fact Pronouns. Almost all the Antiquaries and Gramma- rians who have treated of the Latin language have agreed that it was derived principally from the -ZEolic, or most ancient form of the Greek ; and if this opinion be just, as I believe it to be, and we had any specimens of the Latin old enough, or indeed any that can be called old at all, we ought to find a mixture of Greek and Latin words, as they must have been used while the .ZEolic was in a transition state ; that is, gradually ceasing to be Greek, and becoming con- verted into Latin. No merely Latin inscription will throw any light on this subject, as I do not believe there is one in existence in regular Roman letters that has the smallest pre- tensions to be regarded as of a remote antiquity. But this is not the case with the Etruscan inscriptions, which, if we could decipher them with certainty, would undoubtedly throw much light both on the Greek and Latin, perhaps more than can be derived from any other quarter whatever. In the Nolan Inscription, as quoted by Lanzi, we meet with the following sentence, " Isai Justai Et," apparently applied to some boundaries of territory. There can hardly be a doubt that Isai is a Plural formed from the Greek Isos, equal ; that Justai is the Latin Justai ; that Et occupies the place of Que ; and that in Classical Latin the phrase would stand Equales Justasque, or Equales et Justse. This in- scription is equally remarkable for the mixture of Greek and Latin, and for exhibiting the Egyptian Relative Pronoun Et, supplying the place of the Latin Conjunction Que, leaving little doubt either as to the nature, origin, or ety- mology of the Roman Et. Fourth. vi. This head will be devoted to pointing out some re- semblances in the Pronouns of the two great families of written languages, the descendants of the Sanskrit and the Arabic, or, in other words, the Indian and Shemitic. Egyptian. Hebrew. Arabic. Chaldee. Anok . I Anochi — Ani Ana Ana. Anthok thou Athtah— Atht Ent Anthah. 336 PRONOUNS AND ARTICLES. Egijptian. Hebrew. Arabic. ChaZdee, Anthof he Hoo, or Hooa Hon Hoo. Anon we Anachnoo Nairn Anachna Anthoten ye Athteni Entom Anthoon Anthoou they Haim Horn Himoon. Sanskrit, Persic. Latin. German. Ah am I Men Ego Ich. Twan thou Tu Tu Du. Sah he Ao or (Jones) llle Er. Nah, ac.pl we Ma ISTos Wir. Vah, ac. pi y e Shuma Vos Ihr. Ishan Illi Sie. These, more than any other class of words, form a line of difference and demarcation between the various languages of mankind. At the first aspect they appear to disagree toto ccelo; but on a closer examination the Pronouns of the languages which differ most widely will be found to exhibit some features of resemblance, and suggest the possibility, not to say probability, of a common origin. vn. Of all the languages I have hitherto examined, the Egyptian only has the Personal Pronoun regular ; more in form than substance perhaps, but still in such a way that it conveys the idea of having escaped the confusion of Babel, while all the rest appear to have experienced it. At any rate, it seems to have been followed by the Hebrew, Arabic, and whole class of Shemitic languages, and nearly to the same extent by the other great division of the Indo-European class, the Sanskrit, Persic, Slavonic, Greek, Latin, and German ; so that it stands in the same relation to both, — a presumption of a very remote antiquity of no common kind. viii. Aham, the first person Singular in Sanskrit, is written in the last letter with an Anuswarah, or point over the line, which, though in this instance it is read as M, as frequently signifies N, and may be regarded in general as expressing any Nasal. Ha, the second letter, is frequently redundant and merely a sign of aspiration, and, as a final, I observe Sir W. Jones omits it more commonly than he writes it. If we retrench the letter Ha (h), and read the PRONOUNS AND ARTICLES. 337 M as an N, with its vowel annexed, we shall have Ana, the first Pronoun Personal in Arabic and Chaldee, while one of the forms in Hebrew is Ani. Again, if we take the Hebrew Anochi, I, and read it in the natural order from right to left, the two first syllables, Ano, are very like the Sanskrit (as explained), the Arabic, and the Chaldee ; while there can be little doubt that the Chi is the Egyptian K, Anochi, Anok. If we read it from left to right, in the European manner, Chi becomes Ich, the German, and probably the English I ; unless the latter should be the Persic I, final, which is an- nexed to nouns as a mark of individuality. IX. The Egyptian first Person Plural Anon appears to be the root of the Hebrew Anachnoo, the Chaldee Anachna, the Arabic Nahn, the Sanskrit Nah (in the oblique case), and the Latin Nos. We recognise the Egyptian second Person Plural Anthoten, in the Hebrew second Person Plural Feminine Athten, and Athtenah. We trace the Sanskrit Twan, thou, in the Persic and Latin Tu, the Ger- man Du, and the English Thou, and the Sanskrit Sah, he, in the Latin Se. The Egyptian Indefinite Article Ou, appears to be cognate, if not identical, with the Persic Ao, pro- nounced O, he, she, it, and the Greek Ou, sui, illius, which is deficient in the Nominative Case ; while the Persic word as pronounced O, is a very probable etymology both of the Greek Article Masculine O, and O, the neuter of the Relative Os ; as the Oriental word, as we have just seen, is common to the three genders. x. As the Pronouns are words of more frequent occurrence, they have probably suffered more by contraction than any other part of speech, — a circumstance which renders any attempt to trace their etymology difficult in the same pro- portion. The first object of speech is the communication of ideas; the second their communication with the greatest possible rapidity. The former led to the invention of words, the latter to contractions of every sort, to enable speech, if possible, to keep pace with the flight of thought, imitating, not the example of Homer's Mercury, who added wings to z 338 PRONOUNS AND ARTICLES. bis shoulders and feet when he wanted to travel with expe- dition, but that of the runners in the Olympic Games, who disencumbered themselves of their clothes. These con- tractions, however ingenious or beautiful in themselves, have, in every language, proved the most fruitful source of change, and the most formidable obstacle to etymology; and the latter traces the former, as JEetes did the flight of Medea, by the scattered limbs of Absyrtus with which she had strewed the way. 339 CHAP. XXX. ON VERBS AND PARTICIPLES. I. In Greek and Latin the Participles have a Gender, which the persons of the Verb have not ; but in the Hebrew and its sister languages, or kindred dialects, the Arabic, the Chaldee, the Syriac, the Samaritan, and the Ethiopic, the contrary is the case. Here, with the exception of the First Person Singular, and the First and Third Person Plural, all the other Persons of the Verb are subject to the dis- tinctions of Gender. Is not this a strange anomaly ? Can we conceive of any practice more contrary to philosophy and the nature of things ? How invest words employed merely to signify action or being with the character of sex ? or how apply to them the distinctions of masculine and feminine by the most remote analogy? The real fact is, that the Hebrew, though not perhaps the oldest language in the world, nor even the oldest written language, is at the same time the , language of which the oldest written specimens have come down to us ; which have also been preserved most carefully, and consequently suffered least by the ravages of time, who is so truly characterised by the poet as " edax rerum." In Hebrew the Substantive character of the Verb, so to express myself, is clearly apparent. The Verb is really a Noun Substantive, with the Personal Pronouns annexed, contracted, and coalescing. The Third Person Singular of the Preterite is said to be the root of the Verb, under which it stands in the Lexicon, and after which follows an expla- nation of the meaning of the different Moods and Tenses. 3! 2 340 VERBS AND PARTICIPLES. Let us take, as an instance, the radical letters Lmd ( with the points Lamad), teaching. Verbal Root. Unaltered Pronoun. Abridged Form. Conjugation. Frey's Gram. p. 40. Ibid. p. 49. Ibid. p. 50. 1. Lmd Aothi, me Thi Lmd-thi. 2. Lmd Atht (fern.), thou T Lmd-t. 2. Lmd Athtah (mas.), thou Ta Lmd-ta 3. Lmd Hia (fern.), she H Lmd-h. 3. Lmd Hoo Root unchanged 1. Lmd Nachnoo, we Noo Lmd-noo. 2. Lmd Athten (fern.), you Ten Lmd-ten. 2. Lmd Athtem (mas.), you Tern Lmd-tem. 3. Lmd Anthoou, they Coptic com. Gender. Ou Lmd-oo. II. It may, and no doubt will, be objected that we do not find the root Lmd, in Hebrew, as a Noun Substantive ; to which I reply, that in many instances, although we cannot find the root of the Yerb in the same language, we can trace it in another, and that in the present instance the Hebrew root appears to be cognate with the Arabic word Lamad, humility, submission. Let us take the Yerb Substantive Hajah, as exhibited in Masclef's Hebrew Grammar, without the points. Root Hajah, or Chayyah, life. (Gibbs's Gesenius, p. 190.) 1. Hih Aothi, me Thi Hiithi. 2. Hih Hiith. 3. Hih Hia H Hith (fern.). 3. Hih Root unchanged 1. Hih Nachnoo Noo Hii-noo. 2. Hih Athten (fem.) Ten Hii-ten. 2. Hih Athtem (mas.) Tem Hii-tem. 3. Hih Anthoou, they Ou Hi-oo. Copt, com- Gen. in. The Arabic is a more polished and cultivated, or, in other words, a more altered language than the Hebrew, and, as a necessary consequence, we cannot trace the Pronominal terminations of the verbs so clearly. The Greek and Latin are, perhaps, the most elegant languages the world has ever seen, and we can harldy trace them at all. VERBS AND PARTICIPLES. 34 i Verbal Root. Unaltered Pronoun. Contracted Form. Conjugation. Nsb, assistance. Savary's Gram. 270. Sav. Gram. p. 38. Dual. Nasar Entoma Plural. Toma Nasar-toma. 1. Nasar Nahn Na Nasar-na. 2. Nasar Entonn (fem.) Tonna Nasar-tonna. 2. Nasar Entom (mas.) Tom Nasar-tom. 3. Nasar Anthoou (mas.) Coptic. Ou Nasar-ou. iv. This principle holds good, then, in the Hebrew and its sister languages, the Arabic, the Chaldee, the Syriac, and the Samaritan. In all these, what we denominate the Verb was primarily a Nonn Substantive, and the verbal terminations are Personal Pronouns; and this circumstance being once per- ceived, we are at no further loss to account for the distinctions of masculine and feminine — at the first sight a strange anomaly to one just fresh from the languages of Greece and Rome. Nor is it only in the Shemitic languages that the Pronominal origin of the terminations of Verbs can be clearly traced. Dobrowsky, in his Slavonic grammar, says, in so many words, those Servile letters, which being added to the Radical syllable distinguish the persons of verbs, are nothing more than Personal Pronouns, either obsolete or such as are still in use, and which may, therefore, justly be called Per- sonal Affixes. (Dobrowsky, Institutiones Linguae Slavics Dialecti Yeteris, Vindobonje, 1822, 8vo. p. 396.) V. There is another distinct family of languages, of which I am at present disposed to regard the Egyptian as the oldest, if, indeed, it be not the mother of the Shemitic also, and consequently the origin of all ; and then the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and Mseso-Gothic, which latter is a sort of connecting link between the dead and living languages of Europe ; all of which, I believe, may be confidently traced to an Asiatic origin. I am forcibly impressed, in my philo- logical inquiries, by observing the uniformity of the march as it were of the human mind, in the composition of words, and in all the contrivances of language ; and find, that although an almost endless variety of sounds has been employed in z 3 342 VERBS AND PARTICIPLES. different countries to express the same ideas, every step of the intellectual process appears to have been the same, and that the minds of men have pointed to a common origin, even when their tongues have seemed most loudly to deny it. If the principle of the Substantive origin of Verbs is sound, as I believe, and if it be true that the latter class of words has only acquired a distinct and apparently totally different character, by the progress of society, the invention of alpha- betical writing, the cultivation of the science of grammar, and the refinements of literary composition, we ought to be able to find traces of this principle in all written languages ; though we must expect to find it less obvious in modern and derivative than in ancient and simple languages. The Greek Verb, both in the active and passive voices, is clearly compounded of a root or noun substantive, in some instances obsolete, and in others not, joined to the auxiliary verb To be. This fact becomes still more obvious when that root is a Latin word, as in Rege, the ablative of Rex, whence Reg-o, &c. Bamj fromBum ' Celtic ' •p x J- i. e. I was a king, or, I had ruled. . And in the Potential Mood Rex Essei Rex ^by changing the first letter of the auxiliary Rex-issem. I the Future of the auxiliary, almost unchanged. The reader will remark that these etymologies do not in every instance give the precise signification ; but the meaning of Rexeram and Rexero was gradually fixed by prescription, as that of the root Rex had been previously ; but about the formation of most of the tenses of the Latin Verb, it appears to me there cannot be the smallest doubt. (See chap, xxxii. sect. 11.) vi. Many terminations of Greek Verbs may be plausibly accounted for in the Oriental languages ; as, for instance, Phemi, I say ; Phom (Hebrew), a mouth. i, Pronominal affix, my, i. e. my mouth. Ago, I lead ; Ak (Persic), a head or chief. o, contracted from Jo or Go, Egyptian J VERBS AND PARTICIPLES. 343 Lambano, I take ; Lambhi (Sanskrit), cause to obtain ; with Ani (Hebrew), I. Ana (Ckaldee), I. Bouloimen, Present of the Optative Mood of Boulomai. Boule (Greek), the will. Men (Persic), I. VII. Enough has been said to prove to my own satisfaction, without a shadow of doubt, the Substantive origin of Verbs, Participles, Adjectives, Pronouns, Articles, and all those va- rying parts of speech to which grammarians apply the terms of Conjugation and Declension ; but as I cannot expect other persons to see with my eyes, this theory will be much more easily received if we can trace, with a greater degree of clear- ness and circumstantiality, the different steps of the process by which Nouns gradually lost or put off their substantive character, and were converted into Verbs. Let us take the Hebrew and Syriac word Bar ; the literal meaning is a Son; but it is applied to such a variety of objects, and by such a multiplicity and diversity of metaphors, that its first and peculiar relation, that of paternity and filiation, disappears, and is exchanged for the more wide and general one of production or causality. In Hebrew we have — Barzel, iron, from Bar, a son, and Tzail, shadow, darkness, from its being dug out of the mine. The son of 500 years, for a man 500 years old ; i. e. the revolution of 500 years having caused him to be what he is. Gen. v. 32. The son of the threshing-floor, i. e. corn. The sons of suretyship, i. e. hostages. 2 Kings xiv. 14. In the three above instances the word Ben is used in the Hebrew text ; but Bar might have been in all. In Schaff's Syriac Lexicon under the word Bar we find some of the following singular metaphors : The son of the roof, a lunatic, because confined to the house. The son of peace, i. e. a man of peace. The sons of a place, i. e. its inhabitants. The sons of the house, i. e. servants. The sons of the state, i. e. citizens. The sons of the kingdom, i. e. subjects. And in Arabic, under the word Ebn, all of which in Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac might have been expressed by Bar : The son of the way, i. e. a traveller. The son of the earth, i. e. a person unknown. The son of familiarity, i. e. an intimate friend. z 4 344 VERBS AND PARTICIPLES. The son of fruitfulness, i. e. a moonlight night, the moon being supposed by the Orientals to exert a great power on vegetation. The sons of the age, i. e. the moderns. The son of evil, i. e. misfortune, sorrow. The son of battle, i. e. a gallant soldier. The son of the sun, i. e. the dawn. The son of clouds, i. e. rain. The son of error, i. e. a worthless man. The son of overspreading clouds, i. e. cold. The son of the scabbard, i. e. a sword. The son of the night, i. e. the moon. Some of the metaphors in Arabic under the word Bint are highly poetical ; for instance we have — The daughter of the sea, i. e. a syren. The daughter of the mountain, i. e. echo. The daughter of the lip, i. e. speech. The daughter of reflection, i. e. prudence. The daughter of the grape, i. e. wine. The daughter of death, i. e. a fever. The daughter of fire, i e. flame. The daughters of the earth, i. e. rivulets. The daughters of the eyes, i. e. tears. The daughters of pastime, i. e. strings of a musical instrument. The daughters of the night, i. e. dreams. The daughters of the deep, i. e. fish. The daughters of the breast, i. e. cares. After the words Bar, Ben, Ebn, and Bint, had been ap- plied to so many purposes, and by so many and widely different metaphors, the first and literal relation of paternity and filiation would disappear, and be succeeded by that of cause and effect. Man can form no adequate idea of creation or the production of something out of nothing, because he sees nothing analogous to such a process in the physical world without him ; nor is he conscious of anything similar taking place in the intellectual world within him. Nor, indeed, has he a clearer idea of destruction or annihilation, than he has of creation, whatever he may fancy to the contrary. In vegetation, for instance, the profusion of verdure, with which the earth is clad at the approach of spring, is called a new creation in popular language, and without any impropriety ; but the philosopher knows that the germ or rudiments of every plant were contained in the bud,- and that they have been developed and matured by the ap- VEEBS AND PARTICIPLES. 345 plication of soil or manure, and the action of light, heat, air, and moisture. There has been a change of form, but no creation of substance ; the seed has become a plant indeed, but it has increased in bulk at the expense of the earth in which it was planted, and of the elementary or gaseous bodies by which it was surrounded ; or, in other words, a certain quantity of raw materials has assumed a new and beautiful form in the great and mysterious laboratory of Nature. And with respect to destruction, if we expose water to a heat of 212 degrees, we know that it is converted into steam, and that if it be exposed to the heat long enough, the whole of the water will disappear, and, in popular phraseology, be destroyed. But it has merely changed its form, which it will re- assume when it parts with its heat, as may be proved by receiving the steam in a close vessel, where, if its heat be still further abstracted, it will become ice. But in all these states we have only a substance which in its middle temperature is water, and which the extremes of heat and cold convert into vapour or ice. Perhaps the most adequate, or rather least imperfect idea we can form of creation, must be collected from generation, over which a veil of darkness rests in spite of the unwearied efforts and researches of physiology, and ac- cordingly we find that many of the ancient philosophers talked about the generation of the world. In Hebrew from Bar, a son, we have the verb Bara, to hew, form, produce, or create. And in Niphal, to be born. And in Syriac, from Bar, a son, Baro, he created. In many of the preceding metaphors we may say that iron is the son (Bar) of darkness, or that darkness (i. e. that of the mine) produced (Bara) iron ; that corn is the son (Bar) of the threshing floor, or that the threshing-floor produced (Bara) corn ; that echo is the daughter of the mountain, or that the mountain produced echo ; that speech is the daughter of the lip, or that the lip produced speech. In all these instances the transition from the noun substantive Bar, to the verb Bara, is so easy that it is almost insensible. 346 VERBS AND PARTICIPLES. VIII. In this way, I conceive, in all languages Verbs were gradually formed from Nouns, and I have shown that, in the Shemitic class at least, the terminations of Verbs were formed by contractions from Personal Pronouns, themselves primarily Nouns Substantive also. After the invention and general use of the art of writing, however, it became a matter of con- venience, not to say necessity, to be able to distinguish, at a glance, Nouns from Verbs, and for this purpose two different sets of Pronouns were connected with them ; thus, — Noun. Nominal Affix. Verb. Verbal Affix. Bar, a son I, my Bara Othi, Thi. Cha, thy Athtah, Ta. Hoo, his Noo, our Nachnoo, Noo. Chein, your (mas.) Athtem, Tern. Chen, your (fern.) Athten, Ten. Hem, their (mas.) Hen, their (fern.) fAnthoou "1 ^ { Coptic) 00 The first set of Affixes are said to be Possessive, and the second, Personal Pronouns ; but it is more than probable that I (my) is the final letter of Aothi, the last syllable of which, Thi, forms the termination of the first person of Verbs Noo, our, and Noo the termination of the first person plural of the Verb, we, are precisely the same, and Bari, my son, Barcha, thy son, might have signified, I created, thou createdst ; in fact, as has already been remarked, Phomi, my mouth, in Hebrew, appears to be the etymology of Phemi, I speak, in Greek. In Coptic we have Jo, the head, a Noun Substantive, and with precisely the same letters, Jo, a Verb, to speak, or tell, almost all the organs of speech being placed in the head. 347 CHAP. XXXI. ON PARTICLES. I. In every language, after having gone through the declinable parts of speech, Nouns Substantive and Adjective, Pronouns, Articles, Verbs and Participles, we come to the indeclinable, the Prepositions, Conjunctions, Adverbs, and Interjections, which are classed together under the general name of Particles. I have long pitied the condition of these unfortunate and ill-used little people, and determined in my heart to attempt to do something for them. One would suppose that the Indian Menu, to whom the division of the community into castes has been attributed, had been the earliest grammarian, and that his example had been universally followed; for while Verbs and Participles may be said to represent the Braminical or Sacerdotal, Nouns Substantive and Adjective the Ksha- triya or Military, and Pronouns and Articles the Vaisya or commercial class ; the unfortunate Particles have been huddled together in the Sudra, or servile class, if they may not with more strict propriety be said to be Parias, or out- casts, who once had a caste but have lost it. To prove that they had one, that they never deserved to lose it, and to restore them to their birthright, is the object of this chapter. Whenever I have contrasted the fortune of the Verb and the Noun, the Rema and the Onoma, the word and the name par excellence and emphatically of the Greek and Latin grammarians, with the degradation of the Particles, I have felt like JEneas at the commencement of his journey in the lower regions. " Constitit Ancliisa satus, et vestigia pressit ; Multa putans, sortemque aniino miseratus iniquamr Lib. vi. 1. 331, 348 ON PARTICLES. Amidst all the instances of ill treatment inflicted on the Particles, perhaps none equals that of Mr. Harris in his Hermes, as recapitulated by Home Tooke, in his Diversions of Purley (vol. i. page 116.). Other, indeed all grammarians, have utterly denied their claims to be treated with any sort of respect or consideration, or, in fact, with common decency; but he has trifled with their hopes and fears with unexampled wantonness, excited expectations only to disappoint them, and raised the cup of bliss to their lips with one hand, merely to dash it to the ground with the other. He began by calling them " sounds significant " which must have filled them with joy, to be quickly succeeded by grief however, for he was pleased to add " devoid of signification;" but, lest they should utterly despair, he subjoined, "having yet some obscure kind of signification," and wound up the whole with an assertion so equivocal that it is extremely difficult to say whether it ought to be regarded as a compliment or an insult, "and serving to link together signification and no signification." It is by no means an easy matter to fix on any definite cause, why the particles from the very beginning of time should have been more cruelly treated than the Indian Parias, the Spartan Helots, the Thessalian Penesta3, the Irish by the English, the Poles by Russia, Prussia, and Austria, and the Africans both by Europe and America. I have some- times thought that, as they never vary their appearance, they may be compared to persons who have only one suit of clothes ; for poverty though not always despicable is always despised. To be sure, If, At, To, and In, are of very diminutive stature, and appear to be incompetent to take their own part, which may have induced some to take liberties with them, as there is a proverb which says, it is useless to attempt to help those who will not help themselves ; but the same objection cannot be made to our i nevertheless' and f notwithstanding,'the French ( jusqu'aceque,' and above all the Italian ' conciossia- cosache,' "which is placed by Corticelli, one of the most accurate of their grammarians, in the list of Conjunctions. A regard to truth, however, obliges me to admit, that the Particles, by pressing it into their service, appear at first ON PARTICLES. 349 sight to have acted with regard to it as gipsies do, who first steal children, and then disfigure them, lest they should be recognised and recovered by their natural parents, for Sia is palpably a Verb, and Cosa no less obviously a Noun. However, I am content to take this word, or rather combi- nation of words, as a type of all the rest, and intend to prove that all the Particles were originally Nouns and Verbs, and that many of them in all languages, more especially the Oriental, are so still. II. Egyptian. Ape, the head (Sahidic), a Noun Feminine. Aphe, „ (Coptic), „ Apa, from, Sanskrit. Apo and Apho, from, Greek. " Armed at point, exactly cap-a-pe." " From top to toe?" " My lord, from head to foot." Shaks. Home Tooke says, From means merely beginning, and nothing else. It is simply the Anglo-Saxon and Gothic Noun Fruni, beginning, origin, source, fountain, author. It is worthy of remark that the Persic word Sar, the literal name of the head, signifies, also, top, principio, origin ; and that Berashith, the first word in Genesis, may be analysed into B prefix in, Rosh, head, and Aith, time, literally in the head of time ; or, giving Rosh its proper metaphori- cal meaning, " in the beginning of time." There is not a shade of diffe- rence in the signification of the English word From, as applied either to place or time. Epi, numerus (Coptic), a Noun Feminine. Epi, Super (Greek), a Preposition. In compositione significat super et sub, augmentum, et dirninutionem ; but it always retains its primitive Egyptian meaning of number, with a subauditur of added to or taken from. The Egyptian word is written with eta ; and if the Greek epi, super, were written with eta, and epi, sub, with epsilon, all ambiguity would be removed. Ouei, distantia, longitudo. A Noun Masculine, Coptic. Item, longe fugere, abesse, distare. Away (English), an Adverb. " We must away all night." — Shaks. Henoufi, abundantia, Coptic. A Noun Masculine. Enough (English), an Adverb. This word is remarkable as exemplifying the tendency of all languages in their progress from rudeness to refinement to drop aspirates. Home 350 ON PARTICLES. Tooke says, in Dutch Genoeg, from the Verb Genoegan, to content, to satisfy. S. Johnson cannot determine whether this word is a Substantive, an Adjective, or an Adverb , but he thinks it is all three. Dr. Johnson explains its meaning as follows: — " 1. In a sufficient measure, so as may satisfy, so as may suffice. 2. Something sufficient in greatness or excellence. 3. Something equal to a man's power or abilities. 4. In a sufficient degree. 5. It notes a slight augmentation of the positive degree. 6. Sometimes it notes diminution. 7. An excla- mation denoting fulness or satiety." In every one of these instances I believe, enough, will be found to be simply the Egyptian Noun, abundance. Nei (Coptic), time. Nun or Nu (Sanskrit), time. Nau, hora (Coptic), a Noun Masculine. Now (English), an Adverb of time. Nu (Maeso- Gothic), now. in. Hebrew. Achor, the back, the hinder part. A Noun. Achor, back, behind. An Adverb. -T..1 t j * j -u r fAith, time. A Noun. Ethmol, yesterday, an Adverb from ( Mol ; before A Preposition. Bain, interval, midst. A Noun. between. A Preposition. Baith, a house. A Noun. inside, within. An Adverb. From Yad, the hand (a Noun), we have Beday, with, by, in the hand of. Ley ad, near, at the side. From Yom, a day (a Noun), we have Biyom, now, i. e. B, prefix in, and Yom, day. Miyom, since, i. e. Min, from, and Yom, day. Yether, superfluity. A Noun. eminently, very much. An Adverb. Yothair, advantage, pre-eminence. A Noun. too much, over much. An Adverb. Yachad, union. A Noun. together, united together. An Adverb. Ad, time, duration. A Noun. unto, up to, even to. A Preposition. Yaan, purpose, aim. A Noun. because. A Conjunction. on account of. A Preposition. Sabib, a circuit. A Noun. round about. An Adverb. Ammah (Amh) union, connexion. A Noun. also, near by, against, over against. Im (Am), connexion, union. A Noun. also, with, together with, in conjunction \§ith. A Preposition. ON PARTICLES. 351 Aith, time. A Noun. a long time. An Adverb. Athi, present. Athah, now. IV. Arabic. Kabl, the anterior part, the front. A Noun. also, before. An Adverb. Fib, the mouth. A Noun. Fi, in, into, among. Akab, the heel. A Noun. after, behind, either as to time or place. V. Persic. Wila, time. A Noun. Wila, Vila, or Bila, time, Sanskrit. While (English), time. A Noun. as long as. An Adverb. Pai, the heel. A Noun, behind, after. VI. Greek, Am, connexion, union (Hebrew and Arabic). A Noun. Ama (Ethiopic), with. Ama (Greek), with. Home Tooke says the English preposition With is the Imperative of the Maeso-Gothic and Anglo-Saxon verb Withan, to join. Eime, Nisi, i. e. Ei, Imperative of Eimi ; Me, Negative Particle, from Ma (Arabic), no, not. Analogies. Aada (Arabic), avert. Aadan (Arabic), besides, except. Except (English), i. e. Ex (Latin), out ; Captus (Latin), taken. vii. Latin. Ad (Hebrew), time, duration. A Noun. (Latin), unto, until. An Adverb of Time. Ad Grsecas Calendas ; i. e. the time of the Greek Calends ; but as there was no such time, it was equivalent to saying a thing would never be done at all. Dam (Persic), time. A Noun. Dum (Latin), while, whilst. An Adverb of Time. " Nee me meminisse pigebit Elisas, Dum memor ipse mei, dum spiritus hos regit artus," — says iEneas ; that is, my gratitude shall last during the time I remember myself, during the time that life animates my body — 352 ON PARTICLES. " Usque ego postera Crescam laude recens, dam Capitolium Scandet cum tacita virgine Pontifex," — says Horace, in the last Ode of the third book. The prophecy was a bold one, but it has been amply fulfilled. " Almighty Rome" is fallen, and the ascent to the Capitol is facilitated by the heaps of the ruins of her " chief relics," which have raised the level of the ground ; the ancient system of faith is passed away, and a very different Pontifex Maximus, with Vestal Virgins of a different order, now ascend the broad stairs ; the language in which Horace wrote is become a dead one, known only to a comparatively small number of scholars ; but the time is not yet arrived for consigning his works to oblivion, or impairing his well-merited fame. 353 CHAP. XXXII. ON INFLEXION. — GREEK AND LATIN NOUNS. — THE LATIN VERB. I. Under this head may be conveniently arranged all the changes made in that class of words denominated by gram- marians declinable, comprising Articles, Pronouns, Verbs, Participles, Nouns Substantive, and Nouns Adjective ; but as one chapter has already been devoted to pronouns and articles, and another to verbs and participles, this will be principally occupied by the consideration of Greek and Latin Nouns. Inflexion, when applied to Verbs, is usually distinguished by the term Conjugation, and when to Substantives and Adjectives, by that of Declension. The etymology of Con- jugation is the Latin verb Conjungo, which signifies a joining together, and the process is very justly denominated, as it always implies the union, or bringing into juxta-position of two different classes of words, in the Arabic family of lan- guage of a verbal root and a personal pronoun, and in the Sanskrit and its derivatives of a verbal root joined to the different moods and tenses of the auxiliary verb To be ; and before this chapter is concluded, my reader will perhaps be convinced that the term Conjugation might have been applied with quite as much propriety to the inflexion of nouns as of verbs, as all their changes and modifications of meaning are produced by the union of a root which never varies, with an article, or pronoun, whichever we choose to call it, which forms its termination in every number and case, letter by letter. II. Though this point may be said to have been susceptible of proof, at any period since the revival of learning and the invention of printing in the fifteenth century, it was only since the formation of the Asiatic Society, by Sir William Jones and his distinguished associates, that the subject has A A 354 ON INFLEXION. been rendered capable of receiving a degree of illustration which disperses every cloud of darkness, and of being ex- hibited with a force of evidence that can scarcely fail to produce conviction ; as, until we were acquainted with the Sanskrit language, we could hardly be said to possess the power of tracing the Greek and Latin to their source. in. The reader will perceive, by referring to the lists of Hebrew, Chaldee, Arabic, Persic, and Sanskrit nouns, con- tained in the introduction, that the Greeks and Romans altered almost all the words which they borrowed from the Oriental languages, and not only this, but that they altered them all in the same way, the former by adding the ter- minations Os, As, E, and On, and the latter the terminations Us, Is, A, and Urn ; as, for instance, Mubhil (Arabic), setting at liberty. Mobil-is (Latin), Masculine and Feminine ; Mobile, Neuter. Nabil (Arabic), great, beautiful. Nobil-is (Latin), Masculine and Femine ; Nobile, Neuter. Parvva (Sanskrit), division. Parv-us, Parv-a, Parv-um (Latin), little, that which is divided. Nu (Sanskrit), Ne-os, Ne-a, Ne-on (Greek), new. Nava (Sanskrit),*] Nu U (2S^' \ ^ ov - us > Nov " a ' No ™ m ( Latin )> new - No (Persic),' j Uru (Sanskrit) ; Eur-us, Eur-eia, Eu-ru (Greek), broad. Dur (Sanskrit) ; Dur-us, Dur-a, Dur-um (Latin), hard. As we find the Arabic Mubhil and Nabil almost un- changed in the Latin neuter genders Mobile and Nobile, we should be led, from the first glance, to suspect that the ter- mination Is was added solely as a distinction of gender; but a more close inspection will convince us, that this at any rate was only one object among many, and that a much more im- portant end was intended to be effected by the European additions to Asiatic roots. The addition of the terminations 09 and 7], to words derived from the Oriental languages into the Greek, is of such frequent occurrence, that there must have been some very special reason for it ; and a little farther examination will induce us to suspect that the cause lay much GREEK AND LATIN NOUNS. 355 deeper than euphony, or a desire to gratify the ear ; or even than analogy, or a wish to indulge the mind in its love of system, order, and uniformity, from the discovery of which it hardly ever fails to derive pleasure, and that the circumstance throws considerable light on the formation and use of lan- guage itself. iv. To pursue this subject farther, with a probability of bringing it to a satisfactory conclusion, we must ascertain if any of these terminations of Greek and Latin nouns and ad- jectives, are to be found existing in the respective languages as distinct words, and there can be little doubt respecting 09, 7), ov, he, she, it. The word bs occurs once in Homer, and once only I believe, as a personal pronoun, where it supplies the place of ovtos, and that is in the triumphant speech of Achilles over the dying Asteropasus, in the twenty-first book of the Iliad. Its meaning in this passage is fully admitted by Matthias, and attested by the Latin translation of Clarke, who has rendered it by Is. ' A\\a Kol oq ctiooiici Aibg /.ityaXoio Kspavvuv. Sed et is metuit Jo vis magni fulmen. 1. 198. And Jones, in his Greek Grammar, says the Attic writers sometimes use 69 for avrbs, he ; 69 scpy, 6s sXsys, he said. If we turn to the Greek declensions of substantives, with a clear knowledge of the simple form of the Asiatic roots, we shall perceive, beyond the possibility of doubt, that these roots never change either their shape or their meaning ; that the different cases are not formed by, but in fact are, letter by letter, this, to a certain extent, obsolete pronoun, and that, as a matter of course, all the modifications of signification are produced by its instrumentality ; in a word, that this pronoun stands in precisely the same relation to the Greek noun, as the auxiliary To be, in its various forms of sat, so/iai, and sl/M does to the Greek verb. v. The Port Royal and Eton Greek Grammars exhibit ten declensions of substantives, five of simple and five of contracted nouns. That of Valpy arranges the whole under three only, answering to the three first declensions of the A a 2 356 ON INFLEXION. Latin, which is also the arrangement of that of Jones. The excellent Greek grammar of Moor has three declensions of simple and three of contracted nouns. My own view of the subject is, that there are but three regular declensions of the Greek noun, and that they are neither more nor less, because the formative pronoun has but three terminations, os, 77, ov, which when we have committed to memory we have ac- quired a large proportion of the terminations of all the nouns in the Greek language, and at the same time have gained a perfectly clear idea of the modus significandi of all the rest ; as reasoning from analogy we cannot but come to the con- clusion, that they are all formed by the instrumentality of pronouns, in some instances partially, and in others totally obsolete. The first perfectly regular declension is of nouns masculine, terminating in os, the second of nouns feminine terminating in 77, and the third of nouns neuter terminating in ov ; and by exhibiting three roots of substantives distinct from their terminations, we shall perceive that the latter are, in every number and every case, the pronoun 09, and its de- rivatives, letter by letter. Ok (Sanskrit), a Biliteral, pronounced Oka, a house. Oik-oq (Greek), a house. Lok (Sanskrit), a Triliteral, pronounced Loka, a letter, an epistle. Aoy-og (Greek), a word. Singular. Dual. Plural. N. oac-og N. A. OlK-it) N. OIK-Ol G. OIK-OV G. D. OIK-OtV G. OIK-OJV D. OIK-d) D. OIK-OIQ A. OIK-OV A. oiK-ovg Kalam (Sanskrit), a Triliteral, pronounced Kalama, a pen, a reed. KaAajiw/, Greek. Samayog (Sanskrit), pronounced Samayoga, an union, an assemblage. Swaywy-?/ (Greek), a synagogue. N. KaXaf-i-T] ~N. A. KaXafi-a N. KaXcifx-ai. G. icaXafJi-rjg G. D. KaXafx-mv G. KaXajx-ojv. D. KaXa}x~i] D. KaXafi-aig. A. KaXajX-r]v to £vXov, wood. A. KaXaji-ag. N. ZuX-ov N. A. gwX-w N. gv\-a G. 'ivX-ov G. D. lv\-oiv G. z,vX-(tiv D. %vX-(x) D, ZvX-oig A. i-vX-ov A. ZvX-a. GREEK AND LATIN NOUNS. 357 In declining the three Noun Substantives, oiko?, a house, KaXafjbr], a reed, and ^vXov, wood, we have written all the Cases of the obsolete Pronoun, os, rj, ov, he she, it ; and in every instance, as often as we have written a case, we have written the root unchanged. This Pronoun differs from the relative 09, only in the neuter gender of the singular number thus (vide Valpy's Greek Grammar, p. 34.; and Vincent's Greek Verb analysed, p. 9.) : — The Pronoun og, v, ov, he, she, it. Singular. Dual. Plural. N. oq i) ov 1ST. A. io a w N. oi at a Gr. ov r]Q ov (jr. D. oiv aiv oiv Gc. u>v cov wv D. w Yj w D. oiq cag oig A. ov 7]v ov A. ovg ag a. VI. As there cannot be a doubt respecting the mode of forming the above Declensions, which may be denominated regular, let us next see if we can throw any light on the for- mation of those which are irregular, or which increase in the Genitive case. The meaning of the Hebrew word Aon, according to Gibbs's Gesenius, is strength, particularly the power of generation, and it appears to be the root both of the Greek Aion, and the Latin ^Evum. We have seen that the Greeks, when they borrowed a word from the Oriental lan- guages, generally added one of the terminations of the Pro- noun Os to it. In the present instance they did not do so, and therefore Os was disposable, and with it they formed the Genitive cucov, atcov-os. In the Hebrew text of Genesis xlix. 5, we find the word Mechairah, a sword or weapon, of the feminine gender, which the Greeks wrote Machaira. Having added no Pronominal termination they nevertheless formed the Genitive in As, ixayaip-as, which may be regarded as a dialectical variety of r\$. To the Coptic Meri, dies, they prefixed Eta, rendered the final Iota by Alpha, and formed the Genitive in As, Tj/juspa, rjfjbsp-as, the Doric form of the word being a/juspa, and the Ionic 7]\xzp7). To the Coptic Keli, the leg, they prefixed the aspirate Sigma, changed the final I into Os, and formed the Genitive in Eos, o-ksX-sos, which appears to be cognate with the Latin Ejus. From the Arabic Fim, the mouth, they formed Pheme, fame, that A A 3 358 ON INFLEXION. which is spoken ; but having added a final Eta to the Oriental word, according to the general rule they formed the Genitive regularly in Es, cfrrj/jL-r], cf>7]/ji-7]9, all the terminations being the cases of the Pronoun rj. In some instances the oblique case of an Oriental word became the Nominative in Greek. In Persic we find Dam, a wife, which was formerly used as an English word in the same sense, Dame, with Pa, the mark of the oblique case Damra. By the transposition of Pa, the Greeks formed Damar in the Nominative, and Damar-tos in the Genitive case. The Tos, in this and many similar instances, appears to me to be the obsolete form of Os, which we know, from the authority of Eustathius, was used by the ancient Greeks. vii. The Eton Grammar gives the word \scos, populus, as an example of the fourth declension; but this form was peculiar to the Attic dialect, and in common Greek was \aos, and made \aov in the Genitive case, like Nouns masculine of the third declension. The fifth declension in the Eton Grammar, is of nouns which increase in the Geni- tive case ; some of which I believe may be accounted for in this way, — that as in the Irregular Verbs we find tenses derived from perfectly distinct roots which have no natural connection, except that they are arranged in the lexicon under one head for convenience of reference, so in the Irregular Nouns, or those which form the Genitive case, by annexing an additional syllable, the different cases are really perfectly distinct words, and may, in many instances, be traced to different languages, of which I shall proceed to give a few examples, which will tend to confirm the view I have taken of the subject, that the majority of Greek Nouns were originally formed from Asiatic roots by the addition of the obsolete pronouns 09, rj, ov, he, she, it, which primarily not only determined the Gender, but, by their changes of termination, produced all the modifications of meaning. For example, in the Chinese spoken language we find the word Pay, a foot, which in Persic is written Pai, and from which, by the addition of the obsolete pronoun os, the Greeks formed GREEK AND EATIN NOUNS. 359 Pous, and the Romans Pes, both substantives of the Mascu- line Gender. But the word for foot in Sanskrit is Pada, and from this, by the addition of the same pronoun Os, the Greeks formed the Genitive case of Pous, Pod-os, and the Romans by the addition of Is, Ped-is. N. 7C0VQ Pes Persic Root. G. 7roS-og Ped-is Sanskrit Root. D. TTOiU Ped-i Sanskrit Root. A. -o?-a Ped-em Sanskrit Root. "V. TTOVQ Pes Persic Root. Ped-e Sanskrit Root. Where we may remark that the Nominative case, or the word which stands in the Lexicon as the root, is never re- sumed except in the Vocative case ; all the other oblique cases being formed from the Genitive. Again, in Greek we find the word Kleis, a key, which, as the corresponding Latin word is Clavis, was probably written primarily KXslFs, with medial Digamma, though the French word Cle, or Clef, appears to exhibit the Substantive root in its simple state, without the Pronominal termination. But the Persic word for key is in radical letters Klid, pronounced Kilid, to which the Greeks added the obsolete Pronoun Os, and formed the Genitive of KXsw, K\sl8-os; and we find, in Greek, verbs derived from both these roots, from Kleis, Kleio, and Klezo, and from Kleidos, Kleidoo. Once more, in Coptic, a lan- guage which certainly throws much light on the etymology of many Greek and Latin words, we find the verb Halai, to fly, a very probable derivation of the Latin Ala, a wing ; from which, by the addition of a Pronoun, we have Al-es, a bird, or that which flies, in which the wing is the principal instrument. But the Genitive of Ales is Alit-is, which ap- pears to be certainly derived from Halet, the literal Coptic word for a bird, and we have with the Pronominal termi- nation, N". Al-es, a bird, from Ala, a wing. G. Alit-is, a bird, from Halet, a bird. D. Alit-i, „ „ A. Alit-em, „ „ V. Al-es. Ab. Alit-e. A A 4 360 ON INFLEXION. viii. There are in Greek many words terminating in R, which form their Genitive case from Nouns in As, among which is cjypsap, a well, in which the final letter is either altogether redundant, or a misreading for another and very different letter. I believe it is the latter ; as in Arabic we find the word Frat signifying fine sweet water, as well as the river Euphrates, the name of which in Hebrew becomes Phrat; and from (j)par } or cfypsar, in Greek, as a Nominative, we have the Genitive psar-09, by the addition of the obsolete Pronoun o$, he. The Oriental etymology of this word is rendered probable by that of a kindred one ; as in Persic we have Dan, or Dana, a reservoir of water, which in Greek, with the usual Pronominal termination, becomes Danaus ; who in their mythology is said to have introduced the use of pumps into Greece, or a contrivance for raising water from wells ; and we recognise the root Dan, with ad- ditional vowels in the verb Diaino, I water. The word Ophis, a serpent, is given in the Eton Grammar as an ex- ample of the second declension of contracted Nouns. We know enough of the etymology of the word to be able to say, that the final Is is a Pronominal addition to some Asiatic root ; as in Arabic we find the word Afai, or Ifai, and in Coptic Haf, and Hfo, a serpent. The Latin Serpens comes from the Sanskrit Sarpa. If we write Ophis, thus, N. o}', of them. D. ocp-eoi „ „ „ (7tv; and that for cra it continued to be permanently among the Greeks, which was the regular Future of Ego, to be, and the formative of all the first Futures of the Active "Voice. xvn. Again, there is an analogy between Fui the Perfect of Sum, and Ivi and Ii, the Perfect of Eo. Ii appears to form Ivi by the insertion of the medial Digamma oFc. The Sanskrit Bhu, be, exist, has the appearance of having sup- plied several tenses to the Latin language, by dropping the aspirate H, and reading B as F, Fu. There was an ancient Fuo, I am, contracted from Fu, root, and Eo, Auxiliary ; Fui, I was, in Ennius Fuvi, from the same root, and the Perfect of the Auxiliary Eo. Fu-eram, Fu-erim, Fu-issem, or Fu-essem, and Fu-ero. The regular formative of the Latin Perfect was Yi after a root (the Imperative) termi- nating in a vowel, as Amavi, Audi-vi, and ui, ii, or i after a root terminating in a consonant, as Mon-ui, Yen-ii (from 368 ON INFLEXION. Veneo to be sold) and Rex-i. In most cases, where the Perfect appears to be formed by si, the S I believe to have been part of an obsolete Present, as Qusero, Quseso, QuaBsivi, and Qusesii, to seek ; Uro, Usso, Ussi, to burn ; Premo, Presso, Pressi, to press ; Hideo, Riseo, Risi, to laugh ; Suadeo, Suaseo, Suasi, to persuade ; Ardeo, Arseo, Arsi, to burn ; or the S has been dropped, for the sake of euphony, from the root actually in use in the Present Tense, and retained in the Perfect. In Mulceo, Mulsi, to sooth, the S of the Perfect represents the C of the Present ; the Roman C soft, having been primarily Sigma, and C hard, Kappa. Mulgeo, Mulsi, to milk, was probably originally written Mulgseo, Mulxi ; the gs being represented in the Perfect by the Roman X, which is here, and in many other in- stances the Greek letter Xi, that is gs or ks ; and when Mulgseo makes in the perfect Mulsi, the g of the root was dropped for the sake of euphony, and the s retained, which adheres to the final I of the Perfect, but is no essential part of it. The Poman G before a vowel sounds very much like C soft, which having been really in the first instance Sigma both in shape and power, the S in the Perfect of such Verbs as Tergeo, Tersi, to wipe off; Indulgeo, Indulsi, to indulge ; Algeo, Alsi, to be cold ; Fulgeo, Fulsi, to shine ; Turgeo, Tursi, to swell ; Urgeo, Ursi, to urge, appears to have been substituted as a letter of the same organ ; and the real forma- tive of the Perfect is not Si, but simply I, the Perfect of the obsolete Eo, to be. Jussi stands in grammars and dic- tionaries as the Perfect of Jubeo, but is really formed from an obsolete Jusso, as well as the Past Participle Jussus, and the Future in Pus, Jussurus. Haareo, to adhere, appears to make Haesi ; but the Present was no doubt originally written Hasso ; for in the early Greek and Poman alphabets, R and S were so inconveniently alike, that hundreds of instances might be adduced, in which they have been mistaken, mis- read, and substituted for each other. Maneo, to remain, appears to make Mansi in the Perfect ; but the existence of an obsolete Manseo is fully attested by the Noun Substan- tive Mansio, a remaining, — a word still in use ; so that the THE LATIN VERB. 369 real formative of the Perfect is not Si, but I. Luceo, to shine, appears to make Luxi in the Perfect ; but as the root of the verb was the Noun, Lux, light, and the termination Eo, I am, the formative of the Perfect is not Xi, but I, the Perfect of Eo. We may say, if we please, that the Present Tense Luceo was formed from the Ablative case Luce, and the Perfect from the Nominative Lux ; but that will rather strengthen than impair my view of the subject. Cingo, to gird, is said to make Cinxi ; but the existence of an obsolete Cinxo is proved by the word Cinxia, an epithet of Juno who was supposed to preside at marriages, one of the material ceremonies of which consisted in investing the bride with a girdle, to be taken off by the husband. B B 370 CHAP. XXXIII. ON THE VOWELS OF THE SHEMITIC LANGUAGES, AS ILLUSTRATING THOSE OF GREEK AND LATIN, AND THE ORIGIN OF THE GREEK ASPIRATES OR BREATHINGS. I. The Vowels of the Shemitic languages, to which I have been led in the course of this work to devote a good deal of attention, induce me to offer a few observations on what, in Greek Grammar, are denominated the Aspirates, or Breathings, in the hope that by treating of the two subjects in connection some little light may be thrown on the latter, of which it appears to stand very much in need. ii. In an elaborate work of one of the most distinguished Greek scholars of our own times, the Analytical Essay on the Greek Alphabet, by Mr. Payne Knight, we meet with the following extraordinary assertion, which proves conclu- sively how slight his acquaintance was with any of the Asiatic languages, and how small a degree of confidence is to be reposed in any of his speculations connected with them. " None of the ancient Oriental alphabets had any Vowels except the Phoenician, and that had properly only two, the Aleph and the Ain." (p. 16.) This assertion, that the She- mitic languages are destitute of Vowels, is totally without foundation, and the exception in favour of the Phoenician is as singular; for unless we identify that language with the Samaritan Pentateuch, we can hardly be said to know any thing about it ; and the Samaritan alphabet agrees letter for letter with the Hebrew, the Chaldee, and the Syriac, as to name and order, and originally, probably, very nearly as to power also. Though the introduction of alphabetical writing into Greece by Cadmus the Phoenician, is pure mythology, the fact is not the less certain, that the Greeks and Romans derived all their letters from different Asiatic nations, VOWELS OP THE SHEMITIC LANGUAGES* 371 most of which may be traced to their origin, almost beyond the possibility of doubt. Many of them have been already pointed out in the chapter on Greece, leaving little to be added in this place beyond a few words respecting the Vowels. in. The Samaritan or Phoenician Aleph is the Greek and Roman A, both as to name and power. The Samaritan He, the fifth letter of that alphabet, as arranged in Masclef's Samaritan Grammar, is the undoubted prototype of the Greek Epsilon, and the Rornan E ; also the fifth letter in both alphabets. It will be recollected, that the ancient Greek name of this letter was not Epsilon, but Ei; and the original Phoenician name was always retained among the Romans, who do not appear ever to have made use of a double system of Vowels, but expressed a long syllable by writing all the common Vowels twice. Masclef, in his Hebrew Grammar, while he identifies Heth with the Greek Eta, regards Hay as having primarily corresponded with Epsilon ; although in the Hebrew language, as existing at present, it has the power of our H. The word ebony, however, is written in Hebrew with the letter Hay, and in Greek with Epsilon, with the Spiritus Lenis sftzvos. (Gibbs' Gesenius in voce.) IV. The Samaritan Heth, the eighth letter of that alphabet as arranged by Masclef, supplied both the name and form of the Greek Eta (in Coptic written Heta), and the form of the Roman H, the eighth letter also of the Latin alphabet ; but we do not find the European form in Masclef, but must refer for it to Dutens' Medals, and Lanzi's Saggio di Etrusca. And here the difficulty and confusion begin; for He and Heth in the Samaritan appear to have been no better defined and discriminated than Hay and Heth in the Hebrew alpha- bet, in which they are so liable to be mistaken for each other, that they have been confounded scores, not to say hundreds of times in the English translation of the Bible. Dutens gives this form H, with much hesitation, however, as one of the Phoenician He, the prototype of the Greek Ei, or Epsilon, and omits it under the letter Heth, where it B B 2 372 VOWELS OF THE SHEMITIC LANGUAGES, ought unquestionably to have found a place. The more common form of the Phoenician Heth, however, is undoubtedly g, which Rose has very properly inserted in his Greek Inscriptions among the ancient forms of Eta, of which letter it assumes the common shape by losiug its upper and lower strokes, thus, — the ancient Eta 0, modern H. V. The common Syriac Yau O became the Greek Omicron, and the Roman O, at first probably with all its powers, that is both of a short and long Vowel, o, oo, and u ; and of a Consonant f, v, and w. The Greek words Oikos and Oinon, were probably pronounced originally like the Latin ones, Vicus and Vinum ; or, in other terms, represented the Con- sonant power of Van. Yau, the sixth letter of the Syriac alphabet, became eventually the Yowel Omicron in the Greek, and O in the Roman alphabet, after they had intro- duced Yau, the sixth letter of the Phoenician, or Samaritan alphabet (the Ou or Digamma of Dionysius of Halicar- nassus), with a Consonant power only ; that of F, in Latin, and of Digamma in JEolic Greek ; to which dialect it ap- pears to have been limited, and in that not to have retained a permanent place. vi. The Estrangolo, or old Syriac Yau A, reversed U Y, became Upsilon in Greek, with all the power of the original letter ; that is, it was both a vowel and a consonant, as Omicron had originally been, the consonant power of which appears to have been denoted eventually by an upright stroke, O vowel, (D consonant, and to have passed into the double letter , Phi. The Romans, with more felicity, appear to have designated the vowel power of the old Syriac letter by their U, and its consonant one by their Y. Ouau, or Yau, the sixth letter of the Samaritan or Phoenician alphabet, passed into F, the sixth letter of the Roman alphabet, re- taining, however, its consonant power only. It passed also into the ^Eolic, or oldest Greek alphabet, in the form of the much disputed Digamma ; but w e cannot say, with the same degree of confidence as of the Latin F, that it retained merely its consonant power. In one part of his work, Mr. ILLUSTRATING THOSE OF GREEK AND LATIN. 373 Payne Knight says, BA^IAEF^, afterwards BA2IAET2 ; but though so differently written it is by no means certain that the pronunciation of these two words was not precisely the same ; for F was primarily Vau, the sixth letter of the Phoenician alphabet, and T, Vau, the sixth letter of the Es- trangolo, or old Syriac alphabet; and both had originally both a vowel and consonant power. But what was the pre- cise power of Ouau or Vau, the sixth letter of all the Shemitic languages, which, under the name of Digamma, has provoked, and continues to provoke, so much controversy ? The Phoenician and Punic have passed away, and left hardly a trace of ever having existed ; the Hebrew is a dead lan- guage ; the Chaldee is a dead language ; and the Samaritan almost a dead language : but the Arabic still continues to be as widely spoken as almost any language in existence ; and of the letter Wau, which was formerly the sixth in that tongue, and still continues to denote six, Richardson, in his dictionary, remarks, that when used as a vowel it may be rendered by u, and sometimes, as in some Persic words, by o, and as a consonant by w, and, occasionally, by v. vii. The Hebrew Yood, which in that language has the power both of I and Y, and in Hebrew and Arabic signifies ten as well as in Greek, became in the Greek alphabet Iota (1) only ; but in the Roman retained both sounds with the additional advantage of being represented by distinct charac- ters, I and Y ; so that the Romans have six simple or short vowels, while the Greeks have only five. It is remarkable, however, that the Roman capital Y is one of the oldest forms of the Greek Upsilon, as given by Rose. viii. In spite of all that has been so often repeated, re- specting the primitive Greek alphabet consisting of no more than sixteen letters, there is every reason to believe that Eta, in its Oriental character of an aspirate, or the Roman H, is as old in the Greek language as Epsilon. Very little direct evidence can be produced on the subject ; but if the Sigsean Inscription is the oldest in the Greek language that can be relied on, as is generally supposed, as we find H as a simple B B 3 374 VOWELS OF THE SHEMITIC LANGUAGES, aspirate in the older part of the inscription in the words Hai- sopos and Hadelphoi, and as a long vowel or a contracted mode of writing two Epsilons, in the more recent, the obvious conclusion is, that during the interval between these two parts of the inscription, whatever that may have been, the Phoenician or Samaritan letter Heth disappeared from the Greek alphabet, except so far as it continued to be repre- sented by the breathings, and was converted into a long vowel, or compendious way of writing two Epsilons ; and we are quite sure, from a fragment of Euripides, that it had be- come a common letter in the Greek alphabet before the archonship of Euclid, the period when it was finally and completely settled, as he has described it as forming part of the word Theseus. The Port Royal Greek Grammar says, ^Hra, Eta, comes from the Old Syriac (Phoenician ?) Hetha, which is the same as Heth, the strongest Hebrew aspiration ; wherefore it signified formerly, as we have observed already, the aspiration in Greek, as H does in Latin. Thus we see HO ESTJN on the two Farnesian Columns, for 6 ianv, quod est : and Simonides is supposed to have put it for a long e for no other reason, but because, being obliged before to write two EE for that purpose, these two letters, turned one to- wards the other, E3j form almost the same figure as H. It is highly probable that the two Epsilons were at first written in this manner, and it is obvious at a glance that when they were written so carelessly as to touch each other, E3, they would no longer be distinguishable from the oldest form of the Phoenician Heth g, and the Greek aspirate H, its repre- sentative, and convenience, not to say necessity, imperatively required some new mark of aspiration, which from this period ceased to be denoted by a letter of the alphabet, and was signified by a contraction of some sort. ix. One of the fragments of Polybius makes distinct mention of the breathiDgs rough and smooth ; it is quite clear, therefore, that in his time they were denoted by ap- propriate characters, whatever those characters may have been, In connection with this subject, Mr. Payne Knight ILLUSTRATING THOSE OF GREEK AND LATIN. 375 says the second Greek character (j-) for this simple aspirate (H) does not seem to have been in use till the other was appropriated to express another letter. An ancient Scholiast, cited by M. de Villoison, says that when the H became a vowel, it was divided into two letters, the first of which |- was employed to signify the aspirate, and the second H the slender or simple vowel sound. Quintilian and other old grammarians seem to have held the same opinion; so that there can be no doubt but that these marks were so em- ployed in the manuscripts of their times. There is, however, no instance of the ^ in any ancient manuscript now extant, or in any manuscript anterior to the ninth century, though the h occurs upon the medals of Tarentum, Heraclea, and Lesbos, and also on the Heraclean tables, and an earthern vase published with them by Mazochi, who has conjectured, with much ingenuity and probability, that these two notes were first employed in opposition to each other, to signify the thick and slender enunciation of tone by Aristophanes of Byzantium, the inventor of the accentual marks. The presents notes (') and (') are corruptions of them, which were gradually introduced to facilitate writing. (Greek Alphabet, p. 9.) And again, the ancient scholiasts and grammarians, indeed, who wrote so many ages after the two vowel aspirates had been both dropped from the alphabet, and the one wholly obliterated and disused, finding that which was retained in pronunciation signified, when signified at all, only by the inverted comma ('), confounded it with the accentual marks, and established certain whimsical rules of their own for af- fixing or omitting it. (Greek Alphabet, p. 41.) x. The excellent Greek Grammar of Moor says, " Spiritus Lenis tantum notat non adhibendum esse Asperum," which is repeated in that of Matthias, which on the whole must be regarded as one of the highest authorities in existence, and which says, " the spiritus lenis was an invention of the gram- marians. It denotes nothing more than the absence of the spiritus asper. The ancients used this latter, but not the B B 4 376 former." (Remarks, p. 42.) If this account of the Spiritus Lenis be well founded, its own absence is most devoutly to be wished, as it greatly increases the expense and labour of printing Greek Books, and is worse than useless, as it tends to confuse and fatigue the eye. But the whole account of the aspirates is a jumble of contradictions from first to last, and not to be relied on in the smallest degree. In Lanzi's Saggio di Lingua Etrusca, he calls |- an Oscan I, as well as -1, and the two characters would appear to have precisely the same value, and to differ only as the direction of the writing is from right to left, or from left to right. Thiersch says, originally the rough breathing alone was marked, and even this not always. On the other hand, upon vases of Magna Grascia are seen l-HPA, rHPAKAEHX ; and so hHPAKAEIAAS HSTIEIO in an inscription discovered in Calabria. Hence it appears that, by the Italian Greeks, \- 9 the half H, was used as the mark of the aspirate. The grammarians added the other half -|, as a mark of the smooth breathing, and \- -{ passed through the forms L J into c ', after the twelfth century. (Page 45.) I cannot but express my conviction that the aspirates, as at present used in Greek Books, are equally useless and unmeaning. In "Gruter's Inscriptions " I find what appears to be the Roman name Herennius, written thus — 2ERENNL If this character -\ was the Roman H, what was f- ? (Tom. ii. p. 539.) xi. The mode of writing all the Shemitic languages, is indeed a contracted one ; but that contraction does not arise from necessity but from choice ; not from the want of vowels, for they have the same vowels and all the vowels of the European languages, as has been shown in this chapter, but from the idea that more is gained by rapid writing than is lost by imperfect expression, — a most fatal error, and per- haps decisive of the degree of civilisation to be attained by the race. Knowledge is power, and experience is the foun- dation of every thing deserving the name of knowledge. The results of experience cannot be preserved and trans- mitted, unless they are recorded in writing ; and accordingly ILLUSTRATING THOSE OF GREEK AND LATIN. 377 we find that savage nations, who possess no mode of writing whatever, continue in the same condition, as to knowledge, century after century, and even from thousand years to thousand years. Hieroglyphics are very imperfect writing, but better than none at all, and they have enabled the Chinese to attain the rudiments of civilisation, but to make no considerable advances. To write the consonants of a language, omitting the greater part of the vowels, is a con- siderable improvement on hieroglyphics, but falls infinitely short of alphabetical writing as perfected and practised in Europe ; and accordingly we find that not one of the Shemitic nations has ever attained a high degree of learning and re- finement, and perhaps no nation professing the religion of the Koran at the present day can be compared with the Arabians of Bagdat under the Caliph Haroun Al Raschid, who was contemporary with Charlemagne. Not one literary work of the whole race has ever been generally read in Europe, with the single exception of the Old Testament of the Jews, and that from causes totally independent of its merits as a composition, and chiefly because it is the pre- cursor, and to a very considerable extent the foundation, of the Christian religion. 378 CHAP. XXXIV. ON PROSODY. — THE GREEK DRAMA. " Thence what the lofty grave Tragedians taught In Chorus or Iambick, teachers best Of moral prudence, with delight received In brief sententious precepts, while they treat Of Fate, and Chance, and Change in human life, High actions and high passions best describing." Paradise Regained, book iv. I. The subject of Quantity and Accent forms one among a very large class of questions which I have never ceased to regret was not brought before Sancho Panza for adjudication during his government of the island of Barataria, as I now see hardly a chance of its ever being satisfactorily settled. Always shrewd, sagacious, and sententious, I know of no governor of whom mention is made either by history or tradition, whose faculties experienced so prodigious an ex- pansion with an accession of dignity ; so much so that he ap- pears to be not merely "a most just judge," but "a second Daniel come to judgment," whose decree admits not of a shadow of doubt, and from whose decision there is no appeal. Most of the dissertations on Quantity and Accent, on the contrary, have been as unsatisfactory and interminable as the same Sancho Panza telling a story in his very worst vein. " I say, then," quoth Sancho, " that in a certain country town in Estramadura there lived a certain shepherd — goatherd, I should have said; which goatherd, as the story has it, was called Lope Huyz ; and this Lope Ruyz was in love with a shepherdess, whose name was Toralva ; the which shepherdess, whose name was Toralva, was the daughter of a wealthy grazier ; and this wealthy grazier " " If thou goest on at this rate," cried Don Quixote, (t and makest so many needless repetitions, thou wilt not have told thy story these two days." Fully conscious that I can add little ON PROSODY. — THE GREEK DRAMA. 379 on this subject to what has been said already, I can only engage in the present chapter to be more influenced by the caution of the knight than the example of the squire. ii. If we were to judge solely from the present state of classical learning in Europe, and more especially in England, we should be obliged to come to the conclusion that there was something in the languages of Greece and Rome diffe- rent from every other language ever spoken or written by any other race of men — a consequence which it becomes con- tinually more and more difficult to admit, in proportion as our knowledge of languages is extended, and we observe the broad and close analogy which obtains throughout them ; for in no languages but the Greek and Latin does the prosody bear anything like such a relation to the whole body of the grammar, and in no other is the difficulty of acquiring an accurate knowledge of the meaning of the words of that language, as nothing, compared with the greater difficulty of remembering the quantity of all the syllables of which those words are composed. in. I shall, in the first instance, say a few words respect- ing the prosody of a few of the languages which have been most cultivated, and contain the greatest number of poetical compositions. Sir William Jones, whose authority on this subject few will be disposed to deny, informs us that the modern Persians borrowed their poetical measures from the Arabs, and that those of both nations have much in common with those of the Greeks and Romans. " As to their prosody," says he, " nothing can be more easy and simple ; their vowels Elif (a), Vau (o and u), and Ya (i and y) are long by nature ; the points which they commonly suppress are naturally short ; and every short syllable that ends with a consonant is long by position ; but the Persians, like other poets, have many licences; they often add «a short vowel which does not properly belong to the word, and they also shorten some long syllables at pleasure by omitting the vowels Elif, Vau, and Ya." (Persian Grammar, Works, vol. v. pp. 300. and 305.). 380 OX PROSODY. Most of my readers are aware that the vowels are only partially written in most of the languages of Asia ; for it is equally a mistake to suppose that those languages contain no vowels, and that they are never written. The substance and general tenour of the above observations is, that when the vowels are understood in Persic they are short, and when expressed long ; but in either case there is never any difficulty about the quantity. iv. In the Sanskrit, which has much more in common than the Persic with the Greek and Latin, and has supplied both languages with an immense number of words, the pro- sody is so obvious, that, in Wilkins' Grammar no chapter is devoted to the subject, and if every thing connected with it was collected and concentrated out of the 662 quarto pages of which it is composed, I do not believe it would occupy six of those pages. Wilkins says, " the letter A (short) never makes its appearance but as an initial ; for when the sound of it is required after a consonant as a medial or final, it is pronounced with it as in the alphabet ; it being an invariable rule that every open consonant not followed by another vowel, must be pronounced as if A were written after it. A (long) should have the same sound as is given to the former, held twice the length." (Grammar, page 4.) The substance of this passage coincides in the main with the preceding extract from Sir William Jones that A, when understood, is always short in Sanskrit as well as in Persic ; but the Sanskrit has further done that regularly and com- pletely which the Greek at present attains only partially and imperfectly, and the Latin does not even attempt. It has two distinct sets of vowels, long and short ; so that there can be no more doubt about the quantity of a syllable than about the letters of which it is composed. v. There is another ancient language much nearer that of Greece than the Sanskrit ; I mean the Egyptian, which has as yet by no means excited the attention it deserves, and the scanty remains of which, if I am not much mistaken, outvalue all the hieroglyphics, that were ever carved on granite, a THE GREEK DRAMA. 381 thousand times over. This language is written, for the most part, in Greek characters, as it contains the twenty-four Greek letters, with eight additional, many of which are peculiar to itself. Both in Egyptian and Sanskrit so many words are written indifferently either with the long or short vowels, as to raise a suspicion at least, whether or no, in the Greek and Latin, every word and every syllable had a determinate quantity long, or short, which never varied, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, except in poetry ; and that suspicion is increased in my mind by a passage in Cicero to the fol- lowing effect : — • VI. " In versu quidem theatra tota exclamant si fuit una syllaba brevior aut longior. Nee vero multitudo pedes novit, nee ullos numeros tenet ; nee illud quod offendit, aut cur, aut in quo offendat, intelligit : et tamen omnium longitudinum et brevitatum in sonis, sicut acutarum graviumque vocum, judicium ipsa natura in auribus nostris collocavit." (Orator. c. 5 ] .) Which may be thus translated : " At a dramatic repre- sentation, the whole audience will exclaim if a single syllable of any species of verse be made too long or too short. The multitude, however, knows nothing about poetical feet, or poetical numbers ; it neither understands what offends, nor why it offends, nor in what respect it offends; but nature herself placed in our ears the perception of all that is long and short in sounds, as well as of what is acute, or grave, in words." VII. If the multitude, that is the great majority of the audience, neither knew what offended, nor why it offended, nor in what respect it offended, why and at what did they exclaim? We must remember that Cicero is describing the most palmy state of Rome, at a period when knowledge had attained its maximum, and taste had not begun to decline ; and if, as we have been led to suppose, the quantity of every syllable in the Latin language was fixed, and either long or short, and if that quantify was matter of notoriety to every Roman, and regulated his pronunciation in common conver- 382 ON PEOSODY. sation and the every day business of life, the obvious answer would be, that the audience was offended because the actor had been guilty of a false quantity by pronouncing as long a syllable that was short, or the contrary; but in that case Cicero could not have said that they did not know why they were offended, as the meanest individual in the audience could have stated the cause of offence in a single word. A Roman audience then, whatever may have been the case with a Greek one, had no such knowledge of prosody as we have been in the habit of ascribing to them, and the solution of the question is by no means so obvious as at first sight it appears to be, and cannot be adequately answered without reverting to the nature of the Roman, and casting a rapid glance on the origin of the Greek drama. viii. In no department of literature did the Romans dis- play so little originality as in their drama. They have left little worth reading, except the comedies of Terence, which if not a translation are at any rate a close imitation of those of Menander; and we cannot but come to the conclusion that with the substance they adopted also the forms of the Greek stage, to which we must repair for further infor- mation. Perhaps no subject can be mentioned which so finely illus- trates the progress and the powers, the greatness and the littleness, the strength and the weakness of the human mind, as the Greek drama ; when we consider its humble origin, its slow and gradual advance, and its ultimate perfection, and contrast the Sons; of the Goat, and the moveable theatre of Thespis (in no respect different from the stage of an English mountebank at a fair), with the Agamemnon, the Antigone, the Medea, and the other glorious master-pieces which suc- cessively delighted the ears, and captivated the hearts of the Athenians. ix. That humble origin, however, was completely decisive of the nature and form of the subsequent entertainment. The drama of Thespis was acted on an uncovered stage in THE GKEEK DKAMA. 383 the open air, which precluded all shifting of scene and elabo- rate decorations ; and unity of place became one of the leading- conditions of the drama. If the stage was left empty for a moment, the amusement of the spectator was at an end, and hence the necessity of unity of time ; and as every thing was exposed to view, the scanty resources of the theatre, by rendering all intricacy of plot and complexity of component parts impossible, at the same time rendered unity of action imperative. The oldest tragedy was the Song of the Goat. The enter- tainment was essentially a musical one ; that chorus which we sometimes feel disposed to quarrel with as unnatural, and always to dismiss as unnecessary, as it was primarily the sole, invariably constituted a most important part of the business of the stage, and if we wish to understand what Greek tragedy in its most perfect state was, we must form our notions of it, not from Covent Garden, Drury Lane, or the Theatre Francais, but from the Opera House in the Hay- market, FAcademie de Musique at Paris, or the still more magnificent Scala at Milan.* x. Greek Tragedy, in fact, was the entertainment which we know by the name of Opera. The dialogue was the modern recitative, and the choral odes corresponded with the concerted pieces of the modern theatre, while such recitations as the following, in the Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides, probably produced as great an effect and of the same kind as the solos of Pasta and Malibran. * " Phrynichus, says the Scholiast on this place, had a mighty name for making of songs ; but, in another place, he says the same thing of Phry- nichus, the son of Polyphradmon , who, according to Suidas, was Thes- pis's scholar. He was admired, says he, for the making of songs ; they cry him up for the composing of tunes, and he was before JEschylus. And can it be doubted then any longer but that the same person is meant? 'Tis a problem of Aristotle's, why did Phrynichus make more songs than any tragedian does now-a-days ? And he answers it ; was it, says he, because at that time the songs (sung by the chorus) in tragedies were more than the verses spoken by the actors f " (Bentley on Phalaris, vol.i. p. 311.) 384 ON PROSODY. " Iphigenia. Ah, thou beaming lamp of day, Jove-born, bright, ethereal ray ; Other regions me await, Other life, and other fate ! Farewell, beauteous lamp of day ! Farewell, bright ethereal ray ! " Potter's Euripides, 1. 1672. xi. There is good reason to believe, that during the whole time of the performance of Greek and Koman tragedy the music was never silent, and that even the dialogue was de- claimed in measured time, and to some breach of time BETWEEN THE WORDS AND THE MUSIC I TAKE ClCERO TO ALLUDE IN THE PASSAGE I HAVE EXTRACTED, — a vio- lation which would be perfectly perceptible without a know- ledge of prosody, which he denies the audience to have possessed ; and if they did not possess a knowledge of long and short syllables, their pronunciation in common conver- sation could not by any possibility have been regulated by quantity, and must have been governed by accent as our own is, and that of all the rest of mankind ; as I feel an invincible repugnance to believe that any people ever spoke in recitative, except on the stage, — that in utterance one long syllable occu- pied precisely the time of two short ones, neither more nor less, and that, like a witch in one of Mr. Southey's poems whose name I have forgotten, " their speech was ever song." xn. We are assured that Homer and all the early Greek rhapsodists sung their compositions to the accompaniment of a rude and simple lyre, and, according to my idea, if there had been no music there could have been no prosody. This notion is supported by the common etymology of the latter word from Pros and Ode, song; theme, aeido, I sing. Prosody then is nothing more nor less, than a collection of those laws by the instrumentality of which, the length or duration of syllables is accommodated to the length or duration of musical notes. What was the Licentia Poetica, as prac- tised by Homer and the earliest rhapsodists? It must be remembered that their compositions were sung or recited to the accompaniment of a lyre, or some other musical instru- THE GREEK DRAMA. 385 ment, and I believe the poet had the option of pronouncing all the vowels long or short as suited his convenience, to make his verse harmonize with the tune he was singing. Does not every singer still take the same liberty with every language spoken in Europe ? The words of a song with a musical accompaniment are hardly intelligible, because the accent and usual pronunciation are completely changed, the language being subordinate and a slave to the music. xiii. There are few subjects respecting which we are so completely ignorant as about the music of the Greeks ; for though we find whole pages in ancient authors filled with declamation, they convey very little real information. There is nothing definite *, nor am I aware that any specimen of musical notation of great antiquity is in existence. We hear indeed of the Phrygian, Lydian, and Dorian modes, without being much the wiser; but it appears to me im- possible to doubt that the different poetical measures were so many musical tunes*, of which, in the Heroic or Hexa- meter, the Dactyl and Spondee in the fifth and sixth places represented the general law, and the ad libitum in the first four feet the variations. Music is a sweet and fasci- nating but at the same time vague and indefinite language, which, though it possesses the power of exciting feelings, and determining their nature, whether gay or grave, lively or severe, never suggests distinct and continued trains of thought * " It was a good while after the invention of comedy and tragedy before that measure (the Iambic) was used in them. Aristotle assures us of this, as far as it concerns tragedy. The measure, says he, in tragedy, was changed from Tetrameters to Iambics. For at first they used Tetrameters, because the Trochaic foot is more proper for dancing. And the same reason will hold for comedy too ; because that as well as tragedy was at first nothing but a song performed by a chorus dancing to a pipe. It stands to reason, therefore, that there also the Tetrameter was used rather than the Iambic, which, as the same Aristotle observes, was fit for business rather than dancing, and for discourse rather than singing." (Bentley on Phalaris, vol. i. p. 249.) And again, " The same story is told by Jamblichus, who supplies us too with another, — that a young man of Taurominium being drunk, Pythagoras played him sober by a few tunes of grave Spondees.'''' (Bentley on Phalaris, vol. i. p. 233.) C C 386 ON PROSODY. except when associated with words. All accounts concur in assuring us that the early Greek music possessed great power over the passions, which gradually declined in proportion as it advanced in refinement. As the earliest music was in- variably associated with words, we cannot but suspect that in this instance Polyhymnia has decked herself with the wreath to which her sister Poetry was fairly entitled. The characteristic of the infancy of music is sweet and simple melody ; of its maturity, elaborate and complicated harmony. The former easily allies itself with poetry, and imposes few restraints on the enthusiasm of the poet ; while the latter demands from the author such a minute and scrupulous attention to sounds, as to leave his mind little freedom to attend to things. No difficulties connected with the music could make such men as .ZEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides write nonsense ; but it had the effect of obliging them in their choral odes to resort to such inversions of language, and deviate so widely from the ordinary collocation of words, as to produce no inconsiderable degree of obscurity. ^SfTT The history of Greek poetry is, to a great extent, the history of its music also. It is generally admitted that the poems of Homer, Hesiod, Archilochus, Terpander, Simonides, and Pindar, were sung or recited to a musical accompaniment ; and as to Tragedy it was altogether a musical entertaiument originating in a song in honour of Bacchus, and always retaining so much of its primitive character, that the dialogue, which on the French and English stage constitutes the very essence of Tragedy, on that of the Greeks, even in the age of Pericles, was regarded as no more than an accessory; Greek Tragedy and the Italian Opera being formed on the same model, as I have already remarked. Putting out of the question the miracles ascribed to the music of Orpheus, Amphion, and Linus, and consigning them to that mytho- logy of which they form a part, a considerable proficiency in music is attributed to many of the early Greek poets and legislators, — to TyrtaBus, to Archilochus, to Terpander, and to Solon. Polymnestes, Melanippides, Cinephias, and above THE GR.EEK DRAMA. 387 all Timotheus of Miletus, who died two years before the birth of Alexander the Great, are mentioned by some with dislike as the innovators and corrupters, and by others with admiration as the inventors and improvers of Greek instru- mental music. (Barthelemy, Voyage d'Anacharsis.) xv. Regarding the principal Greek metres as so many musical tunes, I conceive that the great body of their prosody was formed by and proceeded pari passu with their music. It was not until a late period in Greece that instrumental music, independent of poetry or song, had any existence. In the early ages they were inseparable ; and indeed the very term lyrical poetry, or -that intended to be sung to the ac- companiment of a lyre, which comprehends so large a pro- portion of the whole body of Greek poetry, attests the closeness and universality of their union. When the poetical foot, known to us by the name of dactyl (from dactylos a finger, because it consists of one long and two short syllables) had been long associated in musical recitation with one long and two short notes, the length, or quantity, or time of its syllables was fixed or determined ; and in all subsequent musical compositions there was not the smallest hesitation about uniting such a poetical foot with such a musical com- bination. The anapaest, the very reverse of the dactyl, re- quired to be united to two short and one long musical notes ; the trochee to one long and one short musical note; the iambus the contrary ; the spondee to two long musical notes in succession ; the pyrrichius the reverse. The quantity of the syllables of all the words which had frequently formed part of musical compositions was fixed and determined ; their time being that of the musical note with which they were joined in singing or recitation ; and this quantity, once de- cided, was not suffered to be lost : indeed, as long as music continued to be the invariable associate of poetry, there was no chance that it should be so ; and even after the existence of instrumental music in Greece in a separate state, though lyrical poetry might be, and no doubt was, sometimes writ- ten without any immediate reference to a musical accom- c c 2 388 ON PROSODY. paniment, it must have been obvious that it was susceptible of receiving such an accompaniment ; nor could there have been any hesitation as to the sort and character of the music, which any particular species of poetry was adapted to.* xvi. The two grand essentials of music are tune and time. By the former we understand that succession and combination of simple sounds which constitute the elements of the art, and by the latter their duration with reference to each other. The former is denoted by notes, which are read horizontally, and the latter by bars which are drawn perpendicularly. Any change in the time affects in the same degree the character of the tune, and any alteration in the order of the notes destroys the tune itself. Music, therefore, is essentially in- tractable ; and of any two things which do not assimilate, and must be made to agree, if the one cannot change, it is obvious that the other must. If the subject of the alliance between poetry and music had been brought before Sancho Panza while he w T as governor of Barataria (for there is hardly a question which, by the aid of those fictions in which the law delights, may not be brought into the judgment hall), that * " Having now examined the two species of the drama, comedy and tragedy, under different heads, we will next consider them under the general name of (what may be termed) orchestic poetry, or poetry ac- companied with dancing. For while all poetry which was necessarily attended with music was called lyric, that which was sung to accompany dances, frequently of large chorusses, has been called the Doric lyric poetry ; to which appellation it appears to be justly entitled, as in its various forms it always partakes more or less of the Doric dialect. Hence the terms Doric and Choral poetry may be used as synonymous, as generally songs for choral dances were composed in the Doric dialect ; and whenever the Doric dialect occurred in regular Lyric odes, they were generally for choral dances. Thus, for instance, Pindar, the master of the Dorian Lyric poetry, composed Scholia ; which, unlike the poems sung at feasts, were accompanied with dances, and contained more of the Doric dialect. Thus the dithyramb, so long as it belonged to the Doric lyric poetry, was also Antistrophic ; i. e. in a Choral form, or one adapted to dancing ; but after being new modelled by Crexus, Phrynis, and others, it ceased to be acted by Cyclic Chorusses, and its dialect, at the same time, underwent a total change. Chorusses were sung in the Doric dialect in the midst of the Attic drama, so peculiarly did the Choral dances seem to belong to the Dorians." (Muller's Dorians, vol. ii. p. 380.) THE GREEK DRAMA. 389 model for the viceroys of all islands would probably have dis- posed of the matter in a twinkling, by observing that if two people ride upon the same horse, one of them must neces- sarily ride behind, and have supported this observation by at least one hundred other proverbs, all equally pithy and applicable. xvii. In the struggle between music and poetry there can be little doubt as to which has been riding behind; for in spite of all that has been said of the humanizing effects of the former, nothing can exceed the barbarity she has displayed towards her unfortunate sister, With a degree of violence and cruelty greater even than that attributed to Procrustes she has extended her on her iron bars, lengthened some syllables, and shortened others, dismissed vowels, changed consonants, and been guilty of so many mutilations, that she is frequently hardly recognizable as the same person. We have seen it was lamented in Greece, that with the progress of music she had gradually lost her power of impressing the mind, and touching the heart. That power, I believe, was derived, almost entirely, from the poetry with which she was associated ; for there cannot be the slightest doubt, that, in proportion as music becomes more complex, the greater will be the difficulty of writing a poetical accompaniment ; so much so, that every thing like poetry first disappears, and next every thing like common sense. The Italian is the most flexible language of Europe, and yet Italy has had no writers of operas of any reputation since Metastasio, and probably no man with poetical feelings would choose to com- pete with the difficulties of modern Italian music. xviii. I cannot refrain from saying a few words on the actual condition and future prospects of the English opera. During the last twenty-five or thirty years the drama has been declining, and the popularity it enjoyed in this country, from the times of Shakspeare to those of Sheridan, inter- rupted only by the temporary ascendancy of the Puritans, appears to have been transferred almost entirely to music. If the latter had gained what the former has lost, there c c 3 390 ON PROSODY. would have been less to regret ; but tbis does not appear to have been by any means the case. Why is this? I fear the answer must be that the extensive prevalence of music in England, at present, is rather a fashion than a taste, — more a custom than a feeling ; and that while an Englishman re- pairs to the opera to lounge, to gossip, and to yawn, an Italian or a German visits the same place to listen, to compare, to appreciate, and to enjoy. Accordingly we find that this extraordinary patronage of music, as it is called, has exerted little beneficial effect on the art itself, that we have produced no great native composers, and that nothing de- serving the name of an English opera can be said to exist. One cause of this is, that music has been at once too am- bitious and too jealous; has dissolved that alliance with poetry, without whose assistance her triumphs at no time have ever been very splendid, and by engaging in efforts beyond her power, has been rewarded by success below her deserts. No musical opera can produce much effect on the public mind, unless it be founded on a play which possesses some dramatic merit, and is at least readable as a literary production; and I fear almost the last of this class was Sheridan's Duenna. The English composer for the stage, however, first produces his music, and then gets some very inferior writer to invent a story and write words for it ; and the execution is, as a matter of course, so wretched, that it would totally destroy the interest and attraction of music much finer than any that has ever been produced in this way. Many a composer, perfectly competent to produce beautiful music, has no poetical imagination to conceive an interesting story, and still less talents to adapt it to the stage. Music is an exquisite but ambiguous language, and should therefore be content to receive its form and colour from poetry, instead of attempting to impart them to the latter, and submit to be led without being ambitious of leading. Supposing the composer to commence his task with a well- written opera before him, his own imagination would be roused, his feelings excited, and his taste exerted to adapt sound to sense, melody to sentiment, and develop all THE GREEK DRAItfA. 391 the resources of imitative harmony ; and the term English opera would cease to designate a composition only remark- able for the total absence of all the qualities which constitute dramatic excellence, — plot and character, nature and proba- bility, wit and humour, sense and sentiment. Another great defect of the composers of English operas is, that they have looked too much at the present low state of music in Italy, and trusted too little to their own feeling and invention ; and the consequent result has been an imitation of Italian rnusic with sufficient resemblance to preclude novelty, but not close enough to produce distinct character. I cannot but repeat the inquiry of the poet : — " O ! Music, sphere-descended maid, Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid ; Why, goddess, why, to us denied, Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside?" Collins'* Ode. With three or four theatres occasionally open in London for promenade concerts, it can only be by the extremity of bad management that there is as yet no theatre devoted ex- clusively to the English opera. Supposing a great native composer to arise, I believe the finest of the Greek tragedies, which are extremely well translated, might be produced on the English stage with splendid success. The management of the chorus would undoubtedly be a great, but not I think an insuperable, difficulty ; and, by dividing the piece into acts, room would be afforded for those changes of scenery which modern taste requires. Supposing any sort of equality to exist between the music, surely there could be no com- parison between the vapid and unmeaning trash commonly represented at the Italian Opera, and the best productions of .ZEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. As the English drama is unattractive, and the Italian opera unmeaning, the Greek tragedies, finely set to music, would perhaps exhibit that union between sound and sense, which would satisfy specta- tors of all classes, and give that stimulus to the stage of which it appears to stand in need. c c 4 392 ON PROSODY. xix. Cicero, in the passage extracted from him, appears to be of opinion that nature herself has placed the power of distinguishing between long and short syllables, and grave and acute sounds, in the ears of mankind. If it ever was so, while we admire her liberality to ancient, we cannot but regret her parsimony to modern nations; for, according to the observations of a judge, whose competence to give a de- cisive opinion will be generally acquiesced in, such a faculty is very rarely to be met with at present. To avoid all chance of misrepresenting him I will quote his own words. "In the accentual pronunciation of the different languages of modern Europe, each pronounces the Greek and Latin words accordingly as words of the same number of syllables are usually pronounced in their own respective languages. Thus an Englishman pronounces the first syllable of the verb Cano, and of the adjective Canus, equally long ; and a Frenchman equally short ; though it be invariably long in the latter, and invariably short in the former. In conformity to the idiom of our own language we also arbitrarily alter the quantity of the first syllable of a word, when another is added to the end of it ; as in virum and virus, which are always pronounced as trochees ; while virumque and virusque are as invariably turned into amphibrachys. The first of the one is, however, uniformly short, and of the other uni- formly long. And again, Englishmen know the respective quantities of every word in the language, and of every foot in the verse ; and, therefore, immediately perceive a syllable out of its place ; but this perception is the result of acquired knowledge, and not of organic refinement. I remember a copy of Latin verses being shown to some learned men, in which the word gladius was employed as a dactyl; and they all instantly exclaimed against the writer as having no ear ; at the same time that each of them pronounced the first syllable of the word longer than almost any in the language. Had they accused the writer of want of know- ledge or memory, and themselves of want of ear, their censures would have been just." (Knight on Taste, pp. 131. and 134.) THE GREEK DRAMA. 393 xx. Whatever may be thought of the origin of long and short syllables, and I believe that they derived their quantity from the musical notes with which they were associated in singing or recitation, (what are called the poetical metres being tunes, and prosody being a collection of those laws by means of which language was made to harmonise with music,) a more interesting because a more practical question to us is the most ancient mode in which the Greeks and Romans wrote, or expressed those long and short syllables. All accounts I think concur in representing the Greek alphabet as consisting primarily of sixteen letters only, — a statement which we can feel no difficulty about admitting, as it in fact never at any time contained more ; the double letters, the aspirates, and the long vowels, being merely contractions in writing, and adding nothing to, nor making the slightest alteration in, the powers, that is the vocal sounds of the language. Fully impressed with this conviction, we may dismiss the silly story of Palamedes and the siege of Troy without dwelling on it for a moment ; nor is that of Simonides and Callistratus of Samos entitled to much more attention, not because it is altogether without foundation, but that w T e have much better evidence ; for an observation of Plutarch, in his life of Aristides, would lead us to conclude that the Athenian alphabet was not finally settled by public authority until the Archonship of Euclid in the 94th Olympiad. The changes in the original sixteen letters were probably intro- duced gradually, and we have no means of tracing them. Mr. Payne Knight has taken a great deal of unnecessary pains to prove that Euripides used Eta, because he has de- scribed the form of the letter in a fragment of his Theseus. (Vide Euripidis Opera Omnia, Glasguas, 1821, torn. vii. p. 677.) For what interest can we attach to this, when we know that the whole body of existing Greek literature, contained either in books or inscriptions, including the works of Homer and Hesiod, is written with the long vowels. There is, however, one exception; for in the Amy clean inscription, copied by Fourmont, and exhibited and commented on bv Lanzi in his Etruria, we find Epsilon written twice instead 394 ON PROSODY. of Eta. The small Omega is palpably two Omicrons ; and if we had more Greek inscriptions of a remote antiquity there can be little or no doubt that we should find Alpha, Iota, and Upsilon written twice to express a long syllable, as well as Epsilon and Omicron. Their very Dames as short vowels necessarily infer the existence of long ones, Alpa, Sanskrit, little, Iota, Latin, a point or dot ; and U, with the Greek epithet, or adjunct, Psilon, little, or single. Lanzi says that the Etruscans expressed a long syllable by waiting a short vowel twice, and their example is almost conclusive as to the ancient Romans, of whom we have not a single inscription of a remote age in a genuine state, the existing Duilian one, according to Lanzi, not being older than the age of the em- peror Claudius. xxi. We have seen that in Persic and Sanskrit there is no more doubt about the length of a syllable than about the letters of which it is composed. The same certainly was the case with the ancient Greeks and Etruscans, and probably with the Romans. To express a short syllable they wrote a single vowel, and a long one two vowels; and when this mode of writing fell into disuse there can be no doubt that some other, quite as unequivocal and more expeditious, was resorted to. Let us just see what we do, or what we pretend to do. It has been calculated that a good Greek lexicon con- tains at least thirty thousand words, and Latin probably not fewer. To commit the meaning of all these to memory would suffice to gratify any ordinary ambition ; but not satisfied with this, we attempt to remember the quantity of all the syllables in both languages, amounting, probably, to thrice the number of words. As soon as the Greeks and Romans opened a book, and saw the letters of which a word was composed, they saw at the same time its quantity ; but we, disdaining all such assistance in a dead language, are referred in the first instance to Scapula's Lexicon, for the meaning of a word; next to Morell's Thesaurus, for the quantity of syllables of which it is composed ; and finally to Herman de Metris, to ascertain why they are long or short. THE GKEEK DRAMA. 395 And what do we gain by all this at last ? When we know that a syllable is long or short, we only know that it was sung or recited with a long or short musical note in Ancient Greece, of which musical notes we neither know the names, nor, if we saw the characters themselves before our eyes, should we have the remotest ideas of the sounds they were intended to express. Prosody may by possibility be the most valuable of any species of knowledge ; I am very far from thinking that it is so ; but if it be, why not make every Greek and Latin book we open a memento of it, by placing the quantity of the syllables continually before our eyes by an improved method of printing, as is done in other ancient languages ? Why make the Esoteric part of Greek learning consist in a knowledge of that to which no such importance could by any possibility be attached, but for the contracted and imperfect mode in which Greek books have been printed since the revival of literature? When I reflect on the present advanced state of knowledge, which is becoming daily more and more disproportionate to the shortness of life, and recollect that six or eight years are devoted by the English aristocracy to acquiring a thorough acquaintance with long and short syllables at Eton, and that what is called the critical study of the Greek language, by a singular anomaly, in a great majority of instances, prevents the possi- bility of an intimate and comprehensive knowledge of Greek authors, I cannot but be of opinion that the most formidable idol which has been set up since the days of Lord Bacon is the idol of prosody, which I would gladly see consumed in the flames of the myriads of reams of paper which have been covered with nonsense verses, and deposited on its altar as votive offerings. xxii. It now only remains to add a few words, and adduce a few examples respecting the anomalies of prosody, for the purpose of confirming the view I have taken of the subject in the present chapter, tending to show that Prosody has ITS FOUNDATION, NOT IN THE NATURE OF LANGUAGE, but of Music, and that as none of the music of the Greeks 396 OX PROSODY. and Romans has come down to us, and as syllables were long or short because they coincided, or were expressed, with long or short musical notes, the whole is matter of fact or authority, and not of nature or reason ; and that there is really little more to be done than to write in such a way that the quantity of all syllables may be discerned at a glance, which the Greeks and Romans did as long as their respective languages were living languages, but which all the nations of Europe, since the revival of learning and the invention of the art of printing, have perversely refused to do ; thereby entailing on themselves the necessity of com- mitting to memory the quantity of all the syllables of all the words in Greek and Latin. xxiii. The twenty-eighth chapter in Thiersch's Greek Grammar, entitled, " On the Measurement of Syllables," which coincides in substance with the first four rules in the prosody of the Eton Latin Grammar, really contains almost all the light that can be thrown on the quantity of syllables by considerations deduced solely from the nature of language; and few as those laws are we shall discover that the practice of the poets is almost as much an exemplification of their violation as of their observance. 1. In the measurement of a syllable regard is had to its vowel and to the following consonant or consonants. The nature of syllables, in respect of length or shortness, is called their quantity (TrocroTqs, quantitas). 2. A syllable is short when its vowel is single, or short (a, c, v, s, o,) and has a single consonant or no consonant following it ; sXl7tov, 66sv } 6 TroXvfyaros. 3. A syllable is long by nature when its vowel is double ; i. e. either a long vowel (?7, co, a, I, v,) or a diphthong ; iroldv rj ravrdv r\ Kslvdv arsl^aj. 4. It is long by position when it has a short vowel, but followed by more than one consonant; aakirh/^, 6%6o?, ~%6po9. Thus a syllable acquires length always by means of something double or two-fold. Obs. The cases in which two consonants (a mute and a ON PROSODY. 397 liquid) do not produce position, belong rather to the con- stitution of verse (music?), than of speech. They vary according to age and dialect, and for this reason appertain to the usage of the poets in respect of quantity and language. xxiv. From this luminous statement of Thiersch, let us turn for a moment to the excellent grammar of Valpy. He says, a syllable, in which a short or doubtful vowel precedes two consonants or a double letter, is long in every situation, and adds in a note, the exceptions to this rule take place when the latter consonant is a liquid (or in other words when the second consonant is not a consonant at all. In Sanskrit, L and K are regarded as vowels as well as con- sonants). He proceeds to remark, however, a short vowel is some- times made long before a single consonant, 'particularly before a liquid; as iroXXd \lcto£ sips?, Theocritus : and Matthiae, that long vowels and diphthongs of every kind are shortened by the epic and lyric writers, and by the tragedians in lvric passages ; and even that syllables in the same word are used both long and ON PROSODY. 401 short in close connection, of which he adduces various examples from Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes. Matthias makes the following singular admission, which I shall give in his own words: — " As it is scarcely credible that poetic licence should have extended to the arbitrary lengthen- ing of syllables to suit the metre, among a people possessed of so fine a sense for harmony and rhythm as is manifest even in the Homeric poems, it is not improbable that in the oldest times the quantity of the vowels, not only (a, i, u,) but also the E and O sounds (s and rj, o and «), was still inde- terminate IN ORDINARY PRONUNCIATION ; SO THAT THERE WAS NOTHING REMARKABLE IN THE POETS USING THE SAME SYLLABLE SOMETIMES AS LONG AND SOMETIMES AS short. This is the more conceivable in an age like that of Homer, when the use of writing was very confined, and before the short and long E and O sounds had been denoted by separate Jetters," (p. 53.) xxyii. If it were possible that we could recover contem- porary copies of the Iliad and Odyssey as sung by the Rhapsodists, together with the tunes to which they recited them, and be able at the same time completely to understand the musical notation, I have not the slightest doubt that the existence of one law at least would be clearly demonstrated ; and that is, that a long musical note was invariably accom- panied by a long poetical syllable, and a short musical note by a short one ; and I believe that in a great variety of instances it is utterly hopeless to endeavour to seek to dis- cover why particular syllables are long or short, from consi- derations deduced from the nature of language, as the cause was altogether extraneous to language, and depended solely on the musical accompaniment, which has perished for ever. But in every branch of human learning and attainment we shall discover that long and sonorous words abound in the inverse ratio to clear statements and conclusive reasonings ; and in none do we meet with more than in prosody, which, like the noise and smoke of pieces of artillery, when they do no execution, at least tend to disguise the defeat, and cover the retreat of a discomfited army. The accomplished editor D D 402 ON PROSODY. of Matthias remarks as justly as forcibly in connection with other branches of grammar, in language which it would be equally injustice to abridge, and presumption to alter: — " We are still obliged to have recourse, in the way of explanation, to many gratuitous suppositions and unphilosophical shifts, for which grammarians have invented fine names that serve as circumlocutions to express our ignorance of the real causes and reasons of the peculiarities which we would explain. We meet with a dative case where the laws of construction require a genitive, and it is considered to be a sufficient account of the matter, if we say that it is per schema Colo- phonium. A word is used in a way that violates the analogy of language ; we satisfy ourselves with remarking a cata- chresis. For unaccountable changes in the form of words, metaplasmus is the panacea. It is scarcely possible to cal- culate the mischief which has been done to knowledge of all kinds by the invention of technical terms. In the first instance they facilitate the acquisition of a science ; but afterwards they have a natural tendency to stop the progress of research and improvements, because men are generally disposed to acquiesce in an established nomenclature, without considering the principles upon which it was originally formed. Thus even the necessary terms of grammar, which we imbibe almost with our mother's milk, become so familiar to our ears, that we are seldom led to investigate, by the philosophy of language, their precise signification, or the justice of that classification of which they are the generic expressions." (Editor's Preface, p. 11.) xxviii. I shall close this chapter with a few forcible re- marks of Thiersch on the subject of the Greek accents. He says, with regard to reading by accent, the greatest obstacle to this practice appears, when the acute, by the increase of a word, is shifted from its place, and transfers the tone marked by it to a short syllable ; so that the pronunciation would oppose the rhythm both of the Roman tongue and of poetry. Can we believe that the Greeks pronounced Socrates, De- mosthenes, Cicero, {%03KpaT7]s, Arj/jLoaOsvr)?, Kucspcov), while the Romans certainly said Socrates, Demosthenes, and ON PROSODY. 403 Cicero ? Moreover it seems quite impossible to preserve quantity according to this method, as in TVkayyBr) ItteI Tpoirjg iepov 7rro\U6pov 'i-rrepasv. Od. i. 2. where in the first half of the line, indeed, the rhythm of accent coincides with the rhythm of the verse ; but in the latter position just as far recedes from it, — giving the tone ptoliethron epersen; whereas the verse requires ptoliethron epersen. This difficulty brought even Valck- naer, who was frequently partial in his views and opinions on elementary subjects, to the judgment that, although accents must be retained on account of their usefulness in discriminating the meanings of words, not a single verse of a poet, nor a single sentence of an orator, could be read according to them. (p. 87.) In conclusion, I would observe that as we know what syllables were long, and short in every species of Greek and Roman verse, from the laws of the different metres, which are in fact the musical time or quantity, while the marks (" w ) by which that time is at present denoted were in all probability originally so many musical notes, it would be wise to write them long and short as the Greeks and Romans did, which might be easily done, without altering one jot or tittle in our present mode of printing, by merely adding a dot, of the nature of the He- brew Dagesh, under every syllable that is actually long in the position in which we find it ; and if it were done in red ink the eye would immediately be able to find that which it is in search of; and every page of every Greek book printed in this way would be converted into a perpetual Thesaurus. As we know what syllables were long, why not write them long ? and as we do not, and in many in- stances cannot possibly know why they were long, why should we persist in devoting to this branch of grammar more attention than to all the rest put together? If the time now devoted to the study of the quantity of syllables were transferred to the investigation of the accurate meaning of words, I believe that, while little would be lost to the cause of taste, much would be gained to that of solid and valuable knowledge. D D 2 404 CHAP. XXXV. ON INITIAL ASPIRATES. THE ^OLIC DIGAMMA. " There shalt thou hear and learn the secret power Of harmony, in tones and numbers hit By voice or hand: and various-measured verse, iEolian charms, and Dorian lyrick odes, And his who gave them birth, but higher sung, Blind Melesigenes, thence Homer called, Whose poem Phoebus challenged for his own." Paradise Regained, book iv, I. One of the most perplexing questions, in the whole range of philology, is the origin, nature, use, and application of what is called the iEolic Digamma. The dispute commences in limine ; for some deny altogether that it was peculiar to the .ZEolians ; and the term Digamma, while it describes only- one of its forms, and it has as many as Proteus, certainly conveys a very false impression of its power, or sound ; which, whatever else it may have been, had unquestionably nothing analogous to that of G, in any known language. Marsh, in his Horae Pelasgicse, observes, "the character which distinguishes the .ZEolic dialect might properly be called the Pelasgic Digamma. The whole of Greece, as we have already seen, was once called Pelasgia: and that the use of the Digamma was not, in ancient times, confined to a particular race of Greeks, appears from the manner in which Dionysius of Halicarnassus describes it. He speaks in general terms of the Digamma, as of the custom of the ancient Greeks, whence we may consider the Digamma as the pristine character of the Greek language. And again, the difference, therefore, which afterwards subsisted between the ^ZEolic and the other dialects, was not occasioned by an in- sertion on the part of the ^Eolians, but an omission on the part of the other Greeks," (p. 50.) ii. If this dispute is ever to be brought to a satisfactory ON INITIAL ASPIRATES. — THE ^EOLIC DIGAMMA. 405 termination, it can only be accomplished in one mode, by bearing constantly in mind that the alphabets of the Greeks and Romans were not invented by themselves, but borrowed from the Eastern nations ; and that, therefore, unless we re- vert to the languages of Asia as the fountain-head, include a greater variety of materials within the circuit of our inquiry, deduce our conclusions from a wider survey of facts, and at the same time argue the various divisions of the subject more closely, there is no chance of dispelling those clouds of ob- scurity in which the question has always been involved, and with which it is still beset. in. Fortunately for us, so far as the present inquiry is con- cerned, one of the very oldest languages of Asia may also be said to be that with which we are the most intimately ac- quainted ; I mean the Sanskrit, the close resemblance of which, both to the Greek and Latin, is too obvious to be overlooked, and too strong to be denied. I begin by re- marking, that, in the progress of all languages from rudeness to refinement, there is a tendency to drop such sounds as the organs of speech experience a difficulty in pronouncing, or which offend the ear when pronounced, and that these sounds chiefly consist of aspirates and gutturals. This may be regarded as the general law ; but it is not a little curious to observe the variations in the application of it in some examples supplied by the Sanskrit language. The letter H, in that language, appears to have the same power as in the Latin and the English. Greek. In Sanskrit we find the word Hili, the sun, whence the Greeks borrowed Ele and Elios, writing them in both instances with the spiritus asper, which is merely a con- traction for their own obsolete letter H, which was sometimes the Phoenician Heth, and sometimes the Hebrew Hay, as I shall show presently. In Sanskrit we also find the word Hyas, yesterday, which the Greeks adopted, writing, it how- ever, with the stronger aspirate Ch, Chthes. D D 3 406 on initial aspirates. Latin. In the words which the Romans borrowed from the Sanskrit they appear to have uniformly rejected or dis- continued the aspirate H, as is proved by the following list. Sanskrit. Latin. Hansa, a goose, a gander, a swan ... Anas. Haya, a horse Equa, a mare. Hayanah, a year Annus. Hita, gone Itum. Hitan, by reason or cause of Ita, therefore. Hvada, to go, to move Vado. For ourselves we appear in two instances to have rejected the Sanskrit H, and in two others to have converted it into G. Sanskrit. English. Hrisha, to go Eush. Hvi, to emulate Vie. Hlada, joy Glad. Hladin, happy Gladden; i. e. to make happy. In the word enough, which we borrowed from the Egyptian Henoufi, abundance, we also rejected the Aspirate. iv. After these preliminary observations we are better prepared to attend to all the authentic information we can obtain respecting the Digamma. I shall no longer denomi- nate it .iEolic, as it does not appear to have been peculiar to the ^Eolians, and the use of no word is a matter of perfect indifference, for whatever does not inform is not merely useless but tends to mislead. The following passage, from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, is that to which most importance is attached, which I give from the translation of Spehnan, the accuracy and correctness of which are universally ad- mitted. " To this purpose they (the aborigines) entered into an alliance with the Pelasgi, and granted to them such of their lands as lay near the holy lake, of which the greatest part were marshy, and which, according to the ancient style of their language, are now called Felia : for it was the custom of the ancient Greeks generally to place before those words that began with a vowel the syllable Ou, written with one letter : this was like a Gamma, formed by two oblique lines joined to one upright hue, as Felene, Fanax, Foicus, and Faner, and many such words." (Spelman, vol. i. page 46.) THE ^EOLIC DIGAMMA. 407 v. Such is the account of the Digamma, ascribed to Dionysius of Halicarnassus. I say ascribed, for I am strongly disposed to regard the whole as the interpolation of some later and very inferior grammarian, which first made its appearance as a marginal note, and finally obtruded itself into the text. My reasons for thinking so are, in the first place, the singularly abrupt and inappropriate manner in which a piece of philological information is thrust into the middle of an historical narrative, and, secondly, the gross and palpable inaccuracy of the information itself. The passage says IT WAS THE CUSTOM OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS GENERALLY TO PLACE BEFORE THOSE WORDS THAT BEGAN WITH A VOWEL THE SYLLABLE OlJ WRITTEN WITH ONE LETTER. If this were true, we should have found hardly any words in the Greek language beginning with a vowel, but all, on the contrary, with the anomalous letter or character described ; but this is so far from being the case, that the whole list of digammated words given in Valpy's Grammar, disputed and undisputed (for nothing connected with the subject is very clear), does not amount to more than one hundred and twenty. As at the period Dionysius wrote the Roman alphabet was completely settled, while that of ancient Greece had never, nor has it since, been clearly defined, was he not much more likely to have said F, the sixth letter of the Roman alphabet ; and more especially as he wrote at Rome, and chiefly with a view to the Romans, as is proved conclusively by the subject matter of his history, the Roman antiquities. vi. Being of opinion that this account of Dionysius requires confirmation, I am induced to look in other quarters for it, and discover, in Marsh's Horse Pelasgicas, the following quotation from Priscian, a distinguished grammarian of the sixth century. Speaking of the Latin V, he says, " Unde a plerisque ei nomen hoc datur, quod apud >ZEoles habuit olim F Digamma, id est Vau, ab ipsius voce profectum, teste Varrone et Didymo, qui id ei nomen esse ostendunt," (page 104.) In the fragments of Yarro the following short notice of the subject occurs. " Hanc literam (Digamma) Terentius Yarro dum vult demonstrare ita prsescribit Yav. Cassio- D D 4 408 ON INITIAL ASPIRATES. dorus de Orthographia." (Yarro de Lingua Latina, Bipont. 1788.) vn. The next question that presents itself is, do these de- scriptions of the Digamma by Dionysius and Priscian, enable us to fix on any letter in the alphabets of Asia, so as to be able to say confidently, here we have, without the possibility of being mistaken, the origin or prototype of the Roman F. We have two circumstances to guide us, the name and the form of the character. The syllable Ou was written in one character, or, in other words, Ou was the name of a letter in some Oriental alphabet, which, when we have discovered, we may dismiss the syllable Ou as of no further use, as it merely describes the name of the letter and not its power or sound. Greek and Roman tradition was fond of tracing the intro- duction of letters into Europe to Cadmus the Phoenician ; and this circumstance may reasonably induce us, in the first in- stance, to give a preference to the Phoenician or Samaritan alphabet ; but we cannot stop short with that, but must re- collect that it was a Shemitic language, and that there are many other languages of the same family with which we are well acquainted, the Arabic, the Hebrew, the Chaldee, the Syriac, and the Ethiopic. vni. On turning to the Samaritan alphabet in Masclef's Grammar, I am not long in discovering the letter I am in search of ; as I find that the name of the sixth letter is Ouau. The form, however, is by no means so conclusive as the name ; and it is not until I have examined many modes of writing it that I am quite satisfied it is the letter described by Dio- nysius of Halicarnassus. "K Form in Masclef's Samaritan Grammar. *Form in Spelman's Dionysius of Halicarnassus, on the authority of Montfaucon's Palasographia Grgeca, from the character in which however it differs a good deal. *Form in Marsh's Horse Pelasgicae, page 106., which is the nearest approximation to the Roman F. We must not forget, however, that Priscian, on the authority * I cannot give these forms of Digamma, as they do not exist in type. THE ^OLIC DIGAMMA. 409 of Varro, had called the name of Digamma, not On, nor Ouau, but Yav ; and, on opening Erpenius's Arabic Gram- mar, I find a letter by him written Waw, and by others Wau and Vau, and in Masclef's Hebrew Grammar Ouau, by others written Wav ; and in his Syriac Grammar Ouau, by others written Van. I am quite sure of the identity of these letters with the Samaritan Ouau, as they not only occupy the sixth place in their respective alphabets, but the numerical value of all is six. The result of this examination is, that the Roman F and V were primarily perfectly identical, or at any rate only differed, so far as the former was the sixth letter of the Samaritan, and the latter the sixth letter of some other Shemitic alphabet. ix. There is another Shemitic language, however, too im- portant to be altogether overlooked in this inquiry, which is the Ethiopic, and which, so far as regards the language itself, appears to me to be little more than a dialect of the Hebrew, but of which the characters or letters may be regarded as possessing a great and indefinite antiquity, as Sir William Jones fancies he has traced them in some of the cavern inscriptions of Hindustan. In that alphabet I find a letter Wawe, which, there can be no doubt, is identical with the Phoenician or Samaritan Ouau ; and also a letter of the name of Af, which induces us to suspect that, if not the original, it must at any rate have much in common with the Roman F. (g Af. If we abstract the bow at the back of the letter we shall have the Roman F. If we add it on the other side, the Greek Phi. ^ j- Wawe. Two forms. It is not a little remarkable, that the first is the Etruscan, or old Italian, and the second the common Greek form of the double letter Phi, leading irresistibly to the conclusion, that the Roman F and Y, and the Greek Phi, were primarily perfectly identical, being derived from, and merely different forms of, the sixth letter of various Shemitic alphabets. 410 ON INITIAL ASPIEATES. x. There appears to be still another letter identical with the three above, F, V, and Phi ; and that is the letter Beta. Its name, in the Egyptian alphabet, is Yida ; its power, in the Hebrew, that of both B and Y. In the Ethiopic alphabet, the form of Bet is Q 3 and in the Estrangolo, or Old Syriac, I find A as a form of Yau, and feel disposed to believe that they passed into the Greek alphabet as different forms of Upsilon, and into the Roman as forms of u and v. Plutarch frequently uses B to express the Latin Y, and we are in- formed by Yarro that the Ionians wrote Ber instead of Yer, spring. (Marsh, p. 117 — 119.) xi. The various forms of this sixth letter of the Shemitic languages have been productive of much obscurity and con- fusion in everything connected with the subject of the Di- gamma ; and the perplexity has been not a little augmented by the indefinite nature of the letter itself, which is not merely both a vowel and consonant, but, according to circumstances, different vowels and different consonants. Of Ouau, Mas- clef remarks, that it is always a vowel ; but all the gramma- rians who adhere to the vowel points give it also the power of Y and W in all the Shemitic languages, — in Arabic, in Hebrew, in Chaldee, in Syriac, and in Samaritan. Ac- cording to the generally received system, 1 Wav, in Hebrew, without any point, is a consonant, Y or W. ■j with Cholom above the letter, it is O. ^ with Shooraik by the side of the letter it is 00, or U. All these characters of doubt and ambiguity accompanied this letter in every stage of its progress in the Greek and Latin Alphabets, as may be rendered obvious by a few examples. xii. The Greeks did not borrow their Omicron either from the Phoenician, or the Hebrew alphabet, but from the sixth letter of the Syriac, Yau o 5 and until the introduction of Upsilon, which was probably borrowed from another form of the Estrangolo or Old Syriac, Yau A, reversed v> it answered the purpose both of O and U. Marsh remarks, THE ^OLIC DIGAMMA. 411 that Upsilon was introduced at a comparatively late period of the Greek alphabet (page 105.) ; and certain it is that in one existing Greek inscription, the Amyclean, which has many strong claims to be regarded as much older than any other, not only the long vowels are not written, but the same character supplies the place both of O micron and Upsilon, (Lanzi, tomo i. page 100.). According to Plutarch, the Egyptian priests pronounced the name of Osiris, Usiris ; and Ovid informs us, that the name of Orion was sometimes written Urion, but that the former was the more ancient sound of the letter (Vau .?). " Hunc Hyrieus, quia sic genitus vocat Uriona, Perdidit antiquum littera prima sonum." Fast. lib. v. As we cannot do with Digamma it would be well if we could do without it; and we might do without it, if we could in every instance account as clearly for the conversion of Greek into Roman words as in the following cases : — Syriac Vau o, primarily in the Greek language both Omi cron and Upsilon, and possessing the powers of O and U, V and W. Oinos, Ace. Oinon, wine. Yinum (Latin), by reading the initial O as V, and the final as U. Wine (English), by reading the initial O as W. Oikos (Greek), a house. Vicus (Latin), a street, by reading the initial O as V, and the final as U. The reader will observe, that in these instances there is no necessity for supposing that any letter, line, or dot has either been added or omitted. I only suppose that the Greek Omicron was derived from the Syriac Vau, that its powers in the language into which it was adopted were the same as in that from which it was borrowed, neither more nor less, and that the Greeks used it in its vowel, and the Romans in its consonant, character. xni. If we now select a few words in the middle of which Omicron or Omega in Greek (which is merely two Omicrons) becomes V in Latin, the change is equally obvious, and easily accounted for. 412 ON INITIAL ASPIRATES. Greek. Roman Letters. Latin. Aioju Aion JEvum. "Aco Ao Aveo. Bioo Bioo Vivo. B6eg , Boes Boves. Aibg Dios Divus. Div, Persic. Deva, Sanskrit. Koto) Kao Cavo. Aawg Laios Laevus. AsTog Leios Levis. Mdopog Maoros Mavors. 'Qov Oon Ovum. Aion is written with Omega. ; Omega is merely two Omicrons, and Omicron was the Syriac Vau ; by reading the first O as V, I have iEvum, Latin ; the same in Ao, Aveo. In Bioo the initial letter in Hebrew is B or Y; and the Omicron in Syriac is V; hence Vivo, Latin. In Laios, Leios, and Maoros, we have only to suppose a slight transposition in forming the Latin word from the Greek, and to recollect the conso- nant character of the Syriac Vau, the prototype of the Greek Omicron. xiv. Again, the Digamnia has been supposed to account most easily and naturally for the formation of such words as the Latin Ver, spring, from the Greek Er, or Ear. The latter appears to be the Hebrew Aor, the sun, used, by a slight metonymy, for the season in which the sun begins to exert his power ; and by reading the second letter of Aor as the consonant V, with a transposition, we have the Latin Yar or Ver ; the Romans (as in the instances before noticed of Yinum from Oinos, and Yicus from Oikos,) reading the Oriental letter Yau or Wav as a consonant, while the Greeks read it as a vowel. It is not necessary, however, to have recourse either to the Hebrew Aor, or the Greek Ear ; for the Latin Yer, as a much more obvious etymology, pre- sents itself in the Persic* Bahar, by contraction Yer, which the Ionians or Asiatic Greeks wrote Ber, approximating still more nearly to the Persic. Again, the Greek word Aion appears to have been derived by transposition from the Arabic Anu, or Ano, time ; and the Latin, in the same way, reading the Wav as a consonant Avn, iEvum. * In Anquetil du Perron's List of Pehlvi, or Ancient Persic words, it is written Vahar, torn. iii. p. 457. THE MOLIC DIGAMMA. 413 xv. In reading Lanzi's Saggio di Lingua Etrusca, and, indeed, the whole body of ancient Greek inscriptions, various characters occur of so equivocal a nature as to render it a matter of considerable difficulty to assign them their true power or sound. For instance, at page 106 of the first volume, I read, in Greek letters, A&uov, FAEto>N, CASIHN, OAEIX1N, with a remark, that the characters F and C placed before A, appear to denote the spiritus lenis written in a different mode. And again, at page 141. of the same volume, Lanzi says, Gori remarks, that in the Latin tables of Gubbio the word Erunt is written in three ways — ERIHONT, ERAFONT, and ERIRONT. I only notice the very different ortho- graphy at present, for the purpose of remarking, that I believe the characters F, C, and H to be essentially the same letter, and that, therefore, the preceding words do not differ so much as at first sight they appear to do. Hebrew Hay, n, and Roman F (Digamma). xvi. I have no hesitation in expressing my entire con- viction, that the character which has been denominated Digamma by Bentley and his followers, is, in a great majority of instances, merely the Hebrew letter Hay (H) malformed, or, in other words, placed in a perpendicular instead of a horizontal position. The Greeks denominated a columnar inscription Kionedon, and one such I find in Lanzi, tomo ii. page 546., which he reads Mercurfei ; but which, I believe, ought to be read Mercurhei, and from which any one, who knows the Hebrew letters, will perceive at a glance that, by placing Hay n, in a perpendicular position, we have at once the far-famed Digamma F, or Roman F. In the words in the preceding page, the character in Faxion and Erafont is the Hebrew Hay (H), and simply an aspirate, the C, Hay or Heth, in a perpendicular instead of a horizontal position, and the H, in Erihont, a Phoenician Heth (H). The Roman*, in the following words, appear to have changed 414 ON INITIAL ASPIRATES. Hay into Digamma, or F ; while the Spaniards have retained the true reading of the Oriental letter. F n Roman Words. Spanish Words. Farina Harina. Faba Hava. Fibra Hebra. Formica Hormiga. Marsh's Horce Pelasgicce, p. 51. Hebrew Bayth n b, or v. TX , , l in a natural position. ■ Heth n ch J r ■ 2 m a perpendicular one. xvn. There are two or three other Hebrew letters, which I find in Lanzi's Essay, obviously very liable to be mistaken for each other, and which I believe have actually been mis- read by him and others. In vol. iii. p. 602, is the inscription VN3TID written from right to left, with a head of Italy; and regarding the initial letter as one of the forms of Di- gamma he reads Yitelia. The letter may be a Hebrew Bayth ; in which case his is the true reading ; but it is more probably Hay or Heth in a perpendicular position, and merely a sign of aspiration, which will make the true reading Hitelia. In another part of his work he quotes a remark of Apollodorus, to prove that Italus, in the language of Etruria, signified a bull ; but there can be little doubt that it was preceded by one of the dubious characters which signified H, V, or F ; and was either Hitalus or the common Latin word Yitulus, a calf. d({ Sanskrit, Hv. ^ Sanskrit H in Wilkins. TT Digamma, Tacitus cura Brotier, v. torn. Londini 3 1812, (Valpy). xvin. I find, in Lanzi's Work on Etruria, two forms of S, which I believe to have been borrowed from the Sanskrit ; one of them so peculiar that I do not think it could have come from any other quarter, and which was certainly read by the ancient Greeks and Italians in some instances as R, THE iEOLIC DIGAMMA. 415 which it very much resembles. This circumstance renders it probable that other Sanskrit letters may have been current in Italy at a very early period, and among them one of the above characters. We have seen that the Hebrew Hay n, placed in a perpendicular position F, is naturally read as Di- gamma or Roman F ; that the same Hebrew letter Hay, a little altered in its form, and placed in a reversed position 3, is equally liable to be confounded with the Hebrew letter Bayth ^, which had also the power of V, F, or Digamma. And again, we find another source of possible and probable error between the Samaritan or Phoenician Ouau, or Yau the prototype of the Roman F and the Sanskrit H. All these numerous sources of mistake must have been largely assisted by the primitive Greek mode of writing, which they denominated Boustrophedon, from its resemblance to an ox ploughing, or alternately from right to left, and left to right. The most ancient mode of writing in Italy appears to have resembled the Oriental, and to have been from right to left, as is proved conclusively by the work of Lanzi. But putting out of the question the mistakes likely to have been produced, from the circumstance of two characters closely resembling each other, the single compound Sanskrit charac- ter Hv, if it could be proved to have had a general circula- tion in Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy, would of itself almost settle the dispute ; for as it might have been read either as H, V, or F, we have only to suppose that the first reading was uniformly preferred by the Dorians, lonians, and Attics, and the latter by the .ZEolians, in which they were followed by the Romans, and we shall have very nearly accounted for the actual state of things. xix. But as there can be little doubt that both H and F were used as aspirates by the ancient Greeks and Italians, it is by no means an uninteresting subject of inquiry to en- deavour to ascertain, if we can, which was the more ancient of the two. All I believe are agreed in regarding Estia, the Greek name of Vesta, as a word which takes the Digamma. That word occurs in Herodotus, and in his Ionic Dialect is written Istie with the spiritus asper, and would no doubt 416 ON INTTIAL ASPIRATES. have been written Histie, if the H had not disappeared from the Greek alphabet. Had that word to the ears of Herodotus had any sound approximating to that which the school of Bentley ascribe to Digamma, he could not have experienced any difficulty in rendering it ; for though it should be objected that the Greek alphabet never contained the letter F, and that Upsilon had lost its consonant character, and could not be used as V, still he had the command of the letter Phi, and could have written Phistie, This brings me to the etymology of Yesta. In Coptic we find Phas, urere, of which I believe the primitive meaning was Ignis, while Eustathius informs us that Tos was the oldest form of the Greek article. Hence with — Pie, prefix. Phas, fire. Tos, ancient form of the Article, we have Hephaistos, Yulcan, or the God of Fire, the type or personification of the sun. Dropping the prefix, the feminine of Phastos is Phastia ; and hence Vesta, Latin. "Nee tu aliud Vestam quam vivam intellige Jlammam" says Ovid, in the sixth book of his Fasti. Here I must request my reader particularly to remark that Yesta is merely the Roman form of the Egyptian word, and that the Y, or Di- gamma, so far from being a letter used or laid aside at plea- sure, is an essential component part of the root Phas. We want no Digamma to account for the formation of the word Yesta, which would probably have been precisely as we find it, though no such language as the Greek had ever existed. There can be little doubt that the Egyptian word is the root both in Greek and Latin ; but in adopting it the Greeks dis- liked the initial aspirate Phi, and wrote Estia, while the Romans retained it, and wrote Yesta. xx. Again, in Ovid's Fasti we meet with the following very remarkable distich : — " Venerat Atrides fatis agitatus Halesus, A quo se dictam terra Falisca putat." Lib. iv. p. 73. We have seen, in the preceding paragraphs, that there are several Oriental letters with the power of H, extremely THE ^EOLIC DIGAMMA. 417 liable to be confounded with the Roman F, or Digamma, the Hebrew Hay and Heth, the Sanskrit Ha, and compound character Hv. When the Romans finally settled their al- phabet, and adopted the Phoenician Heth as their letter H, the other characters for H would naturally be disused, as unnecessary, and as peculiarly liable to be confounded with the Roman F ; but there can be little doubt that, while the Roman alphabet was in progress, the characters for H, V, and F, were frequently confounded, which will account for the above etymology in Ovid of Falisca from Halesus. xxi. Aristotle calls Italus king of the GEnotrians ; and as the etymology of the latter word is Eneh, time, and Ter, all, both Egyptian, in the sense of Aborigines, there can be little doubt that that of Italus is Hit (Arabic) time, and Ail (Hebrew) God, merely another name of Chronos, or Saturn, by whom Italy is said to have been peopled, or civilised, and by whom it would appear to have been also named ; and we have CEnotria from the Egyptian, and Hitalia, or Italia, from the Arabic name of Saturn. In vol. i. p. 327. of his work, Lanzi is disposed to read Vitelia ; but I believe the initial letter to be a Hay or Heth in a perpendicular position, and that the true reading is Hitelia. xxii. As this question of the greater antiquity of H or F as an aspirate, is a highly curious one, my readers must pardon me for treating of it with some degree of detail. " Oppidum Helia quae nunc Velia," says Pliny, lib. iii. cap. 5. (Lanzi, ii. 291.) I shall next quote a passage from Servius, which forms a comment on the extract from Ovid's Fasti, in paragraph 20. : — " Faliscos Halaesus condidit. Hi autem immutata H in F, Falisci dicti sunt sicut fibris dicitur quae ante Hebris dicebatur, Formiae quae Hormiae airo tt)s opixrjs. Nam pos- teritas in multis nominibus F pro H posuit." (Lanzi, torn. ii. p. 65.) On the other hand, Lanzi, on the authority of Priscian, adduces a passage to the following effect : — " Ubi antiqui F litteram posuerunt, nos H substituimus ; ut quod illi Fordeum E E 418 ON INITIAL ASPIRATES. dicebant, nos Hordeum, Fariolum quern nos Hariolum, Fedum quern nos Haedum." (tomo i. p. 129.) xxiii. These accounts are diametrically opposite, and ap- parently utterly irreconcilable, and the only question seems to be which we will adopt, and which we will reject. At the first view the authorities in favour of H against F appear to preponderate so greatly as to leave hardly any room for hesitation, as we have Herodotus, Ovid, Pliny, and Servius, a grammarian of the fourth century of the Christian era, against Priscian, a grammarian of the sixth ; except that the passage from the latter seems to be founded on, and little more than a repetition of, the well known one in the first book of the Roman Antiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnassus ; if, indeed, we could suppose that that passage was altogether an interpolation, or that it had been corrupted by the care- lessness of some transcriber, or perverted by the ignorance of some later grammarian, and that Dionysius wrote not On, the name of the sixth letter of the Phoenician alphabet, but He, the name of the fifth, which has the power of H, and very nearly the form of F ; — if we could not reconcile all these contradictions we should at least perceive in what manner many of them had arisen. 3 form of He (H) in Masclef s Samaritan Grammar. If written from left to right, its form would of course be precisely the reverse. * H form of He in Dutens's Phoenician medals. H form of Digarnma, or Initial Aspirate, in the Sigean Inscriptions, in the words Haisopus and Hadelphoi. It is obvious that the Phoenician He, in some of its forms, may easily have been mistaken for a Roman F, and if Dionysius wrote He, and not Ou, as the name of the letter, as a matter of course he also wrote Helene, Hanax, Hoicus, and Haner as exemplifications of its power. This change would render the whole passage much more consonant with the actual state of the Greek language, as it is known to us. It is not true, so far as it appears to us, that the Ancient * Doubtful, and much more probably a form of Heth. THE iEOLIC DIGAMMA. 419 Greeks ever prefixed the anomalous character, distinguished by the name of Digamma, generally to every word beginning with a vowel, as is asserted by Dionysius ; as all the industry of modern philologists has not been able to discover more than about one hundred and twenty digammated words ; but it is true that an aspirated letter has disappeared from the Greek alphabet, leaving no traces of itself except in the two breathings. It is probable that that letter was H ; and it is quite certain that many words written in Greek with those breathings are written in Egyptian with the letter Hori, which has the power of our English H. xxiv. Marsh, in his Horae Pelasgicse, speaking of the Elean Inscription says, no proof can be necessary of the existence of the Digamma in this inscription, as it occurs not less than seven times in ten lines. This inscription, therefore, is of very great importance in the history of the -ZEolic Digamma. It was not only found in a country where we know that the Digamma was constantly used, but it further exemplifies the application of the Digamma to words of which we had no evidence before. We know that in various instances, where the other Greeks used the aspirate H, the JEolians used F. But the .ZEolians did not always use F where the other Greeks used H. That the Pelasgi who brought letters into Latium, used both H and F appears from the Latin alphabet, which contains both of these letters, (p. 68.) I merely notice this passage to remark that I believe the learned writer has been making a distinction without a difference, and describing essentially the same letter, H being Heth, the eighth letter of the Phoenician, and F being Heth, the eighth letter of the Hebrew alphabet in a perpen- dicular instead of a horizontal position and to be read as H, in every part of the Elean Inscription. Many early Greek Columnar Inscriptions were read from top to bottom. The Hebrew letter, in its natural position, could only be read as n Heth; but suppose the column fallen, or placed in a horizontal position, and the same character becomes Digamma F, and Roman F. E E 2 420 ON INITIAL ASPIRATES. xxv. After all that has been written on Digamma, and however curious that character may be, as the subject of antiquarian inquiry, it is of little practical importance to the philologist, except in the degree to which it enables him to account for the anomalies of Homer's versification ; and how far does it do so ? So far is this character from removing all difficulties, and clearing up all obscurities, that it is perhaps not too much to assert, that it has hitherto acted the part of Chaos in Milton, " and by decision more embroils the fray ; " for philologists are not agreed among themselves whether it is a vowel, or a consonant, or both, or a simple aspirate; while Homer, for whose sole benefit it was contrived, in many instances, with a singular degree of perversity refuses to avail himself of it. (Marsh, p. 97. note.) xxvi. Marsh says the Greek F was a constituent part of the primitive Greek alphabet. [Regarding this character as the Hebrew Hay in a perpendicular position, I have no objection to admit it ; as that letter had precisely the same power and very nearly the same form as the Phoenician Heth H, which, in the final settlement of the Greek alphabet, subsided into capital Eta, — a contracted mode of writing two Epsilons ; but the learned author appears to regard the character F as equi- valent to the Roman F ; and in this sense the opinion expressed appears to be almost peculiar to himself: he pro- ceeds to say,] It corresponded as well in form as in alpha- betic order to the sixth letter of the Phoenician or Samaritan alphabet. The sixth letter of the Samaritan alphabet, as it still appears in the Samaritan manuscripts of the Pentateuch, is a double Gamal, as the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet was a double Gamma. The difference, therefore, which afterwards subsisted between the .zEolic and the other dialects, was not occasioned by an insertion on the part of the ^Eolians, but an omission on the part of the other Greeks, (page 50.) xxvu. On the other hand, Dunbar, in his " Dissertation on the Versification of Homer," says, those marks which are found on ancient inscriptions, and have been supposed to indicate THE ^EOLIC DIGAMMA. 421 the iEolic Digamrua, or, according to Dawes, the Ionic Vau are the indications of that rough breathing which was at first perhaps wholly guttural, but afterwards softened to the breathing of the letter H (Phoenician Heth and Roman H), and lastly to the spiritus asper, which succeeded it. Even the changes which the form of that character underwent are sufficient proofs of its nature and use. The aspirate was ab- breviated into the form of F, the half of the H (H), for the sake of dispatch ; it afterwards assumed a crescent shape, €, and lastly was diminished to the small figure of the spiritus asper, e . But even though the Digamma or Ionic Vau had been used by the Greeks, still I assert that it must have dis- appeared before the time of Homer; because it is evident, as has been already stated, that his language has every mark of high cultivation, and of a systematic endeavour to exclude a multiplicity of consonants. As many vowels appear to have been brought together as was consistent with the harmony of sound; and in several instances, particularly in some com- pound words, they were embodied so close, by the elision of consonants, as to render it difficult, if not impossible, to dis- cover the component parts. From this studied harmony, the result of many changes and improvements in the structure of the language, arose that sweet and flowing tone of the Ionian dialect, so conspicuous in Homer and Herodotus. It is altogether at variance with its character to suppose the Di- gamma was ever used but as a vowel sound. To introduce it as a consonant either with the power of F or V, would be, in my opinion, to barbarise the language, and, instead of re- presenting it in the state which Homer used it, to bring it back to those rude and harsh sounds which probably charac- terised it when first introduced into Greece, by the wandering Pelasgi, from their Scythian deserts, (page 12.) xxvin. After all our pains to ascertain the origin and power of Digamma, the uncertainty attending its use is not a little remarkable. Marsh says, at what period the Greek F began to be omitted, or exchanged for H, by the Dorians, Ionians, and Athenians, is a question which we have no data to de- ls E 3 422 ON INITIAL ASPIRATES. terming and, regarding both characters as the same letter H, (the former being Hebrew, and the latter Phoenician or Samaritan,) I cannot but be of opinion that the decision is of very little consequence. He proceeds to say: that it had fallen into disuse among the Ionians when Herodotus wrote, can admit of no doubt ; but had it fallen into disuse among them when Homer composed his Iliad and Odyssey ? Pro- bably not. (page 50.) And again, if it be objected that the iEolians could not have used FVIOZ, where the other Greeks used HVIOZ (now written viof), because the versi- fication of Homer would not allow of that form, I answer that the versification of Homer will no more allow the use of Faner and Fandros, for Aner and Andros, than of Fuios for Uios. Yet Dionysius of Halicarnassus positively asserts that the most ancient Greeks did write Faner for Aner, as well as Fanax for Anax. (page 97.) xxix. We are once more arrived at the passage of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, from which we started, and in our long ex- cursion have been able to collect but few facts respecting which there can be no doubt. If any portion of the subject, however, connected with the inquiry into the origin and power of the Digamma, can be regarded as certain, it is, that the oldest aspirate in the Greek language was neither F, nor partaking in the remotest degree of the sound of F, but a strict and proper H, as may be proved by the concurrent testimony of all the highest authorities. These authorities are actual inscriptions ; for there is little reliance to be placed on the testimony of the whole tribe of grammarians, lexi- cographers, and scholiasts, most of whom were very easily misled themselves, very indifferent about misleading others, and the works of many of whom are in such a state of hope- less corruption, that it is no longer possible to determine what they wrote. There is, I believe, no complete Greek inscription in existence which does not exhibit traces of the last state of the Greek alphabet as it was settled in the Archonship of Euclid, and as we find it in all the existing copies of Homer. The Amyclean alone and part of the Sigean do not contain the long or double vowels ; and in both THE ^OLIC DIGAMMA. 423 we find H used as an aspirate. In the former, the characters M0 are found near each other in the second or oldest part, which Lanzi and Barthelemy are disposed to read as a number ; but the Mu has all the appearance of having formed the last letter of a word which has been effaced ; while the p should certainly be read with the following word. fflsva\ia Lanzi, tomo i. page 96. That the initial letter is an aspirate, and that that aspirate was simply H, appears to be confirmed beyond the power of doubt, by the mode in which we find Hercules written in different parts of Lanzi's Etruria. H^^VA Erchul, with Eta. Tomo iii. page 599. €DKV£ Erkle, with Epsilon. Tomo ii. page 206. 0€DKV€ Herkle, with aspirate Phoenician Heth, Tomo ii. page 206. * S€DIV>lflfln Paakul, or Paculus, from an Oscan stone, tomo i. p. 245. 428 ON INITIAL ASPIRATES. And, with regard to the Romans, Lanzi says, they doubled the vowels to express a long quantity like the Ancient Greeks ; and from existing medals we have (tomo i. p. 120.) VAALA FEELIX for Felix. EII for Ei, in Plautus. JYVS for Jus, in Mazzochi. MAIIA for Maia, in Cicero. POMPEIIVS for Pompeius, in Cicero. So that in this paragraph we have examples of all the five vowels a, e, i, o, and u, written twice to denote a long syllable.* 4. In the first or oldest part of the Sigean Inscription, as given by Lanzi, the long and the short vowels do not appear to be discriminated ; but this is probably appearance only ; for as the Greeks borrowed their letters from the Asiatics, it is impossible to say how much of their system of writing they borrowed at the same time. In the Hebrew we find at present a simple dot denominated Dagesh, which, appended either to vowels or consonants, shows that they are doubled, and consequently converts short into long syllables ; but we have no positive evidence that Dagesh is older than the vowel points, and it may have been borrowed from the Arabic Teschid, at the same time with them ; but on the other hand it may by possibility be as old as the Hebrew letters themselves. The Greek language exhibits something of the nature of Dagesh ; as in their numerical system a dot below Alpha converts it into one thousand, its value without the dot being one; and as they resorted to so simple an expedient to augment the value of Alpha as a cipher, they may also have appended a dot to it as a letter, to show that it was doubled in reading ; and as it is quite certain that a dot would disappear before a letter, this may account for * In the second volume of Conyers Middleton's Miscellaneous Works we meet with a tract, entitled " De Latinarum Literarum Pronunciatione Dissertatio," which contains the following passage : "Pro A longa duplicein persaepe positam videmus, ut Paastores, Faato, qua? omnia non nisi toni dilationem quandam significare videntur — Faato Naatam." (p, 446.) THE ^EOLTC DIGAMMA. 429 some apparent anomalies in Greek Inscriptions. In Dutens's medals I find Omega written thus O, which is clearly Omicron, with a mark to show that it was doubled or long ; and this form is as clearly the prototype of the capital Omega 12, the small being merely two Omicrons joined. This line — in prosody is still used to denote a long syllable ; and as we find it in this way appended to Omicron, is it not almost matter of certainty that the same system of writing was carried out in some way or another, and that the Greeks annexed the same, or an equivalent mark, to Alpha, lota, Upsilon, and Epsilon, before the introduction of Eta, to express a long syllable ? 5. Prosody, or a knowledge of long and short syllables, may by possibility be the most important branch of human learning, as it is conceived to be at Eton, and our English Universities, and have a more powerful tendency than any other to refine the taste, invigorate the understanding, and improve the heart. In the present paragraph I will suppose that it is so. But if it be so, it is impossible that we can have too much of it, and it ought to be to us what the words of the law were to the Jews : " And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." (Deu- teronomy, 6, 7.) The mode of teaching, however, is by no means a matter of indifference, and, prima facie, one cannot but be disposed to doubt if the best method of acquiring a thorough knowledge of the languages of ancient Greece and Italy, is by dispensing with those aids which the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans, thought necessary. They, as we have just seen, wrote in a mode, so as that the quantity of every syllable was obvious at the first glance. We print their works in such a way, that Greek books convey little, and Latin absolutely no information to the eye as to the quantity of the syllables; and in reading we are referred first to a Lexicon for the meaning of the word, and secondly to a The- saurus, or Gradus, for the much more important information of the quantity of the syllables. To the Greeks, Etruscans, 430 ON INITIAL ASPIRATES. and Romans, these languages were living languages, and all the sounds from their fellow creatures around them tended to refresh the memory and augment its stock of knowledge. To us they are dead languages which we rarely hear spoken, and which, when we do, convey hardly any information as to the quantity of the syllables, as we do not even attempt to give the time of the syllable, and never distinguish a long from a short one, except by laying the accent on it. Without omit- ting one jot or tittle from our present manner of printing, a simple dot, of the nature of the Hebrew Dagesh subjoined to a vowel, might denote that it is doubled, or long ; so that on opening a page of any classic, Greek, or Latin, we should be instantly aware of the quantity of all the syllables it con- tains. 6. Though it should be admitted that the acquirement of languages is the best possible elementary discipline for a young mind, and also that the Greek and Latin languages contain some of the most polished and perfect models in al- most every species of composition that the world has ever seen, — in epic poetry, in the drama, in oratory, and in history; — and, further, that the study of the ancient classics could not be neglected without serious injury to the cause of taste, of knowledge, and perhaps even of liberty, the love of which, the animated struggles related in the Greek and Roman pages have most assuredly a strong tendency to foster, — still all these concessions in favour of classical literature consti- tute no sort of apology for the mode in which it is studied, or the exclusive spirit in which it is pursued. If we did not affect to understand the languages of Greece and Rome better than they were understood by the Greeks and Romans themselves, by persisting in writing them in so imperfect a manner as to entail the necessity of committing to memory the quantity of every syllable in both languages, all the verse- making at Eton might be dispensed with, and the time so misspent be most advantageously devoted to acquiring an intimate knowledge of the principal authors of Greece and Rome, to penetrating to their inmost sense, instead of resting satisfied with empty sounds. There would be ample time for THE iEOLIC DIGAMMA. 431 this, and a great deal more, if we once relinquished the imagined necessity of getting by heart the quantity of all the syllables of all the words in Stephens's Thesaurus and Facciolati's Lexicon. The years usually spent at Eton and our other great schools would suffice not only for Greek and Latin but for other languages. To mention no others, the Arabic is the key to the great family of the Shemitic lan- guages, — one of those languages being the Hebrew, the original of the Old Testament, and another the Syriac which contains perhaps the best translation of the New Testament in existence. The imperfection of our present system of University education, in not making a knowledge of Hebrew an indispensable condition to ordination, has been long felt and acknowledged. And what the Arabic is to the theo- logian the Sanskrit is, in some measure, to the man destined for active life. It is universally acknowledged to be the basis of all the languages of India, — a country which contains twice or thrice as many millions of English subjects as Great Britain, and opens an unbounded field for the exertions of manufacturers, merchants, soldiers, diplomatists, legislators, and statesmen. If languages so copious in themselves as the Arabic and the Sanskrit were included in the usual course of an English academical education, not only would new lights be reflected on the Greek and Latin, and an un- bounded field for analogies and comparisons be opened, but materials would be provided for that insight into the nature of language itself, to which the philosopher looks forward as the most secure and solid basis of the great fabric of human knowledge. THE END. London : Spottiswoode and Shat New-street- Square. 645 * ** v '\ -"'« A, aV