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In January last, Professor Caiiipljell, cif tlie Presbyterian College, Montreal, read a paper befoi-e this Institute, in which he seeks to prove the affinity of the Etruscan with the Basque, and nlaims to have found the clue by which he is enabled to read the Etruscan inscriptions. It is an accepted principle that our only hope of deciphering and translating the inscriptions on the monuments of a natiou that has passed away is by means of a bilingual inscription. It was in this way that the hieroglyphics of Egypt, and the cunei- form inscriptions have been read. Any other way than this must be hy[)othetical, and therefore imreliable, for, however ingeniously the researches may be conducted, we cannot accept the results with any confidence. Proceeding on this hypothetical principle it is quite possible, by a mere resemblance in the words, to show with great plausibility the affinity of a language, and consequently of a nation, with any other language or nation. We have not hitherto attached importaJice to Professor Campbell's researches. Any attention we may have given to comparative philology has been because of its historical importance, and, if Professor Campbell derived any satis- faction from his Hittite or Aztec I'eseai'ches, we were not disposed to detract from that pleasure, for neither the Hittiteij nor the Aztecs have contributed nmch to the general development of civilization, and historically considered are unimportant nations. Tho Hittites had relations with Egypt during the Hyksos period, and during the reign of Rameses IT., biit they did not affect to any extent the pro- gress of civilization. But Professor Campbell was treading very different ground when he entered the field of Etruscan research. The Etruscans wei'o a very important people. They at one time occupied the greater part of the Italian peninsula, and largely influenced Roman civilization. They had extensive commercial relations with the inland countries of Europe, and with the Baltic. f ^! i.3 ' m They have been regarded as foreigners on Italian soil, and there has been a very strong desire to read their numerous inscriptions, and to trace their affinity with other nations. It is more than half a century since Niebuhr said that he would willingly give half of what he possessed, if he could possibly obtain a clue to the deciphering of the Etruscan language, but he had come to look on this as utterly hope- less. Undoubtedly since Niebuhr's diy some advance has been made in our knowledge of the Etruscan language- In 1828 appeared the first edition of Ottfried Miiller's " Die Etrusker," and in the second volume of this very learned work the author established the value and power of both the Etruscan and the Umbrian letters. Five years after, in 1833, appeared Lepsius' work, " De Tabulis Eugu- binis," in which he substantiated the results arrived at by Miiller. The subsequent researches of Aufrecht and Kirch hoflf, jf Grotefend and Lassen, of Mommsen and Deecke, of Corsseii and Pauli, of Curtius and Bugge, with those of English, French, Italian, and Swedish scholars, have all tended to support the results arrived at by Miiller and Lepsius, till in the last edition of Miiller's work, edited by Deecke, we have a very valuable supplement, in which there is very clearly and satisfactorily repre.sented, not only the value of the Etrus- can letters, but the changes of which they are susceptible, their possible combinations, the laws of syncope, of inlaut and auslaut, of anlaut and ablaut, in fact a thorough treatise on the subject. Prof. Campbell ignores the results arrived at Yy these scholars, whose names are a sufficient guarantee of the conscientiousness of their labours, of their industry and judgment, their extensive learn- ing, and their sincere love of the truth. Lepsius w^a perhaps better versed than any other in Egyptian writing, and his researches are marked by striking calmness and judgment. Grotefend and Lassen d'jvoted themselves with equal success to the study of the cuneiform inscriptions. Kirchoff and Aufrecht have thrown a flood of light on the old Italian dialects. Mommsen is our greatest authority on Roman history and Roman epigraphy. Why has Prof. Campbell ignored the works of all these eminent scholars 1 He once quotes from Deecke, but it is from that rather meagre article which Deecke contributed to the Encyclopedia Brittannica — an article scarcely in keeping with Deecke's ekudition. These eaiuiest students were obliged to confess their inability to translate the Etruscan inscrip- tions, or to establish the affinity of the Etruscan language. But i 1 A* i *&« § where these men, who spent their lives in such studies, failed, Prof. Oarapbell claims a complete victory. He entere the field, and waves his magic wand, and all is done ; the old Etruscan starts again into life, and gives up its long impenotrable secrets. " Etruria capta est," and he declares : *• I have the honour to report to this Institute, as one of the most important results of my studies in Hittite Palaio- graphy, the solution of the Etruscan problem." Perhaps we are un- fitted for criticising this last wonderful achievement, as we had attached no importance to the results which Prof. Campbell imagined he had reached in regard to other languages, but we were long at a loss to understand, even from his own point of view, what possible connection there could be between Hittite Palaeography and this Etruscan problem. But this present contribution is only a part of a great "Etruria Capta." He promises a fuller work in which he will offer a translation of the Eugubine Tables. "We quote his words : *' Of these Tables, seven only and a part of the eighth are in the Etruscan character, the rest are written in the Roman alphabet, and are' in Umbrian. These Umbrian Tables are being translated and will be shortly pi-esented to the world as the oldest Celtic documents." Umbrian Celtic 1 As well tell us that English is Japanese or Choctaw. But in this promised translation of the Eugubine Tables, will Prof. Campbell kindly begin with the eighth. We have to inform him that there are not more than seven of these Eugubine Tables, and they are all in Umbrian, though five are in the Etruscan characters, and two in the Latin. The Etruscan Tables are much older than the Jjatin, and they prove the early extended influence of the Etrus- cans, and the prevalence of their alphabet. But when in 307 B.C. the Umbrians became subject to the Bomans, they adopted the Roman customs and the Roman alphabet, and so the acts and the ritual of the College of Priests, which had been pi-eviously in the Etruscan alphabet, were transliterated into Latin. Prof Campbell has imagined that Etruscan may be Basque, and he resolves to prove it Basque. He is not the first who has imagined this. Some fifty years ago. Sir Wm. Bethran wrote some articles in " Les Annales de Philosophic Chrdtienne," hi&ving for their object to prove the identity of the Basque and Etruscan. Scholars did not even condescend to I'eview his absurd hypothesis. The only notice we believe the work ever received was in this form, " Cette assert on I T" 6 gratuite ne m^rite pas tie refutation." Mr. Ellis, in one of h\n posthumous works, proposes the same hypothesis. Prof. Campbell, however, approaches the subject from a different point of view — from the supposed syllabic character of the Etruscan. But ho never attempts to prove this syllabic character, he merely supi)08es it to be syllabic, and proceeds to prove its affinity with the Basque. Now there is a very great number of Etruscan inscriptions found, from Capua in the South up in to the Alps in the North. They are for the most part monumental inscriptions, and are there- fore short. Many of them are bilingual — Latin and Etruscan, and it is reasonable to suppose, judging from other bilinguals, that the one will be a literal translation or reproduction of the other. Un- fortunately these monumental inscriptions consist largely of proper names, and can aid us little iu gaining a knowledge of the language ; but there is this advantage which proper names present, and tha is, that they will enable us to determine the charac'^Qr und value of the letters, and some of the grummatical forms ; and it is just this advan- tage which has enabled Lepsius and Deecke to determine so exactly tlie value and power of the letters, and to study the l;ws, which apparently govern their relations, without however gainiag any fuller kno^*ledge of the language. But besides these bilin.^ual inscriptions there are in the writings of Gi-eek and Roman authors some foi'tv or fifty Etruscan words, transliterated into Latin characters. So far as these words go, they are important, and yet they do not throw much light on the construction of the language, and they form a very meagre vocabulary ; but this one thing they do, they confirm the bilingual inscriptions in establishing the chai'acter of the letters. As this is the point which Prof. Campbell pooh-poohs, it will be necessary to consider it for a little, and we shall take one or two examples of bilin^j'Tial inscriptions ; V • LECNE V • PAPIRINAL VEL • LICINIUS VEL ■ PAPIRI NATUS. Now are we Ayrong in supposing that V of the first line corresponds with V of the second line, and the L of the first with the L of the second, and the whole of the word Papiri of the first with the word Papiri of the second 1 But before n in Etruscan the preceding vowel is always syncopated — the Latin Capcna is the Etruscan Capna, the Latin Marcanius the Etruscan Marcna, and so Menelaus = Menle, : : ' f HeriikIeH = Herkle, and here the Latin Licinius is the Etruscan Lf^cne ; tlie / and e being often interchanged. Tlie Hiiflix AL is a xuitsculine genitive termination, and is of constant oceiUTence in the monnniental inscriptions, lus Arnthal of Arnth, Lartlial of Larth, or wm of Larth ; just as in Latin we say Marcus Tullii, Marcus the son of Tullius, and the Papirinal of the above inscription is rende ed in Lutin Papiri natus, and the wliole inscription reads, Velleius Licinius, th«i son of Velleius Papirus. While al is the masculine suffix, the c»rr«'sponding feminine suffix is -alisa, and we liave this inscription, whf-re both the father's and mother's names are given : LARLS FRAUCXE VELUSA f.ATlNIALISA. LARIS FEAUCNE the son of VELUSE and LATINIA. Similar inscriptions are very common, and a number may be found in Prof. Cani))beirs Etrniia Capta. But the Eugubine Tables, being principally in the form of rituals, present .several formulae which ocicur in tho Tables of the Etruscan, and also of the Latin or Uhibrian charactei". Compare the following formulae as they occur iji the Etruscan cliai'acters of tho first Table, and in the Latin char- acters of the sixth Table : Etr. — Vukukum : iuviu : pune : uvef : furfatlx : tref : vitluf : turuf : uiarte : hurce : La I". — Vocucuni • ioviu • ponno ovi ■ furfant • vitlu • torn • trif • fetii • marte . horse ■ fetu : puphiper : tutas : iiuvinas : tutaper : ikuvina : vatuva : ferine : fetu : fetu • popluper • totar ■ iiovinar ' totaper • iiovina ■ vatua • ferine ' fetu ■ puni : fetu : arvia : puni • fetu • arvia • And again a little below in the s ime Tables ; Krr:. — Vukukum : kuretiea : tref : vitlup : turup : hunte : feitu : pupluper : tutas : Lat. — Vocucom • coredier • vitUi • toru * trif • fetu • honde ' fetu ■ popluper • totar • Iiuvinas : tutaper : iiuviua : vatuva : ferine : fetu : arvia : iiovinar • totaper ■ iiovinar ' vatve " ferine * fetu • arvio " It would seem impossible to doubt that in these instances we have a simple transliteration, and that the formulse written in the Eti ascaa characters are literally reproduced in the Latin characters ; and if HO, then they establish the value of the Etruscan letters. This would !^, . i i Si s \ !! 8 n seem almost self-evident, and no one has for one moment doubted it, till Prof Campbell |)ropound8 his hypotheses. Believing that he has solved all other linguistic problems, of the Horites and Hittites, of the Japanese and Aztecs, of the Cyprians and Choctaws, he believes it his duty also to untie the Etruscan knot. He ridictiles all these bilingual similarities, and marks out a certainly original mode of dealing with the subject. He has resolved that Etruscan i« Basque, and Basque he intends to prove it, and all difficulties must give way before this hypothesis. But in choosing the Basque with which he is to prove the affinity of the Etruscan, we think Prqf. Campbell has been very unfoi'tunate. The Basques are a small body of people living on the Spanish and French slopes of the Pyrenees. They number about 700,000, and are the descendants of the old Vascons, They have never played an important part in history, and have contributed nothing to the general development of civilization. They show some affinity with some of the native tribes of North Africa, but perhaps more with the inhabitants of the American con- tinent. We know that at one time Africa was joined to Europe' at the Stmits of Gibraltar, and tV.ore is every probability that in the Miocene i>eriou Europe was connected with America, and the people of America may have crossed over by a great Atlantic bridge, having left however a small remnant in Spain. But, whatever the affinity of the Basques, they have, from a very early period, been largely affected by foreign influences. No part of Europe has .so changed masters as Spain. Phoenicians, Celts, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths, Alans, Mooi-s, and the Romance nations have at one time or other held Spain, and have influenced the Basques, and these lU the present day present physiological characteristics so diversified as to baffle all attem])ts at ethnological classification ; and the Basque language is perhaps the most corrupt of all languages. The writei' of the article on the Basques, in the Encyclopcedia Brittannica, a work Prof. Campbell is fond of consulting, says : " Foreign words are easily assimilated, but with modifications to suit the Basque ear." If Prof. Campbell was resolved on proving the affinity of the Etrus- cans with the Basques, he ought to have positively assured himself, that in using individual words, it was really in each case a Basque word of which he had got hold ; for to prove the affinity of the Basque and Etruscan by means of Greek or Latin, Gothic or Romance words, however perfectly incorporated into the Basque, would be aii 4 * absurdity ; and we shall preflently show that this is one of the absurdities in which Prof. Campbell has rather fi-eely indulged. But thcui is another difficulty. The Etruscan inscriptions are perhaps none of them later than the second century B.C., but the earliest examples of Basque literature are of the ^fteenth century, except a short charter granted to the commune of Daviles in 1150.* Now under any circumstances there must be great diffi- culty in proving the affinity of languages whoso literatures are separated by not less than seventeen centuries, but the difficulty becomes insuperable when it is remembered that one of the lan- guages has been subjected to very great foreign influences. We quote from M. Blab^, the greatest authority on the Basque : — " L'idiome Basque s'est tellement modid^ depuis le XV i^me sifecle- qu'il est toujours trfes dificile, quand il n'est pas ab«olument impossi- ble, d'expliquer les premieres textes ccnnu3 qui remontent k cette ^poque." If the changes have been so great within three centuries, during which time the language has acquired, we should suppose, some degree of fixity through a printed literature, and when it has been comparatively free from foreign influence, what changes must have taken place in the sevent en centuries when the country whs constantly changing masters, and there was no literature to fix the language. M. Blab^ ])oints out that it is impossible, just on account of the mixed character of the language and of the people, to deter- mine the affinity of the Basques or of their language. After a lengthened review of all the sources of information, he says ; — " La toponyuiie ancienne de I'Espagne, la numismatique dite ib^rienne, le droit coi^tumier, et les prdtendus chants h^roiques, ne jettent d< nc, jusqu' au present, aucune lumifere snr I'origine des Basques. Les moyens d'information sont limit^s k I'histoire positive, k I'anthropo- logie, et a la philogogie compar^e. Ces trois sciences constatent unanimement que les Basques sont un peuple fort mdlang^." M. Blab^ plainly points out the great difficulty in determining the * \V« are aware that there are two short poems, the Chant des Cantabres, and th<> Chant d'Annibal, which claim to have been written at a very early period. The Chant des Cantabrex (iloims to have been written in the te\gn of Augfustus, and to commemorate his canipaiRn in the country of the CantabrL It is rejected for the following reasons : -(1). No oriffinal manu- script has been found, but only what purports to be a copy of the original manuscript pub- lished in 1817. (2). It is full of anachronisms, it uses Latin terms only found in the Latin of the Later Empire or the Middle Ages. (3). It colls the Cantabri Bizcayans, bnt this term was not used earlier than the fifteenth cantury. Much the sante criticism may be applied to the Chant d' Annibal /*;■' ■.^■J'i 10 if.: .•'il affinity of the Basques themselves. The undecided reUitions of the Basques and of their linguage has hitherto deterred Etrusco!'^^^^^' and would naturally deter any ordinary scholar ; but Prof. Campbell's ingenuity can adapt itself to the moat advei-se circumstances, r ])er- haps we should be moi-e correct in saying that he is quite unconscious of these difficulties. But he has not only determined that Etruscan is Basque, but also that it is syllabic, and therefore he has found it necessary to reject all the bilinguals. *' The bilingual inscriptions," he says, " present many difficulties. In some cases I doubt their l)eing bilinguals at all, as the Etruscans used characters hardly differ- ing from the Latin." Prof. Campbell is evidently ignorant of the relation between the Etruscan and Latin alphabets. We s'aall pre- sently tell hiiu something about this relation, but in the meantime does he not see that the existence of even only one bilingual inscrip- tion is sufficient to give us the charactei-s of the letters ] How many Rosetta stones, or how many Behistun insciiptions, would Prof. Campbell wish 1 The very scant inscription on the boss of Tarkon- demos, consisting of only seven words, in the bilingual of Hittite and Persian cuneiform, has affiarded Prof. Sayce a key by which he has been able not only to determine the value of the letters, but even to read some of the Hittite inscriptions. Prof. Campbell, if con- sistent, must reject all the bilingual inscriptions. But these Etruscan bilinguals present many difficultie.s to Prof. Campbell, simply because they will not fall in with his hypothesis. He believes that Basque is Turanian, and as he has determined that Etruscan is Basque, it must therefore be Turanian also. But he imagines that the Tu- ranian languages are syllabic, and he ct jludes that as Etruscan is Turanian, it must also be syllabic, and now we begin to catch some idea of his meaning when he says : — " I have the honour to report to this Institute, as oae of the most impoi'tant results of my studies in Hittite Palaeography, the solution of the Etruscan problem." The Hittite is Turanian and syllabic ; the Etruscan he has determined is also Turanian, and therefore syllabic. There can then be no doubt as to the light which his studies in Hittite Palaeography throw on the Etruscan problem. Let us satisfy ourselves of Prof. Campbell's reasoning: Etruscan is Basque, Basque is Turanian, Tuianian lan- guages are syllabic, therefore Etruscan is syllabic also. We are not esponsible for Prof. Campbell's logic, we have only tried to reduce t to the simplest terms; but to himself nothing can be clearer, and all that ia necessary is to illustrate it by examples, and applying this 4lk", *■ V 1 11 key, lie iiuagines that he can unlock all the treasiiros of the Etruscan language. All those bilingual inscriptions are of no value, nay they are deceptive, no doubt intentionallv so, possibly to perplex such men as Miiller and Lejwius, Moinmsen and Deecke. If we are not to accept these bilingual inscriptions as virtually duplicates, then we cannot divine their meaning. In eveiy other case bilingual inscrip- tions have been of the utmost value, have been indispensable, and we cannot underst-and why they should be worthless here. Prof. Camp- bell has however decided that they are worthless, and (hat the door will only open to his key. Now the whole value of Prof. Campbell's researches rests on the syllabic character of the Etruscan language; but we beg to differ fi-om him, and we maintain that Etruscan is not syllabic. But admitting with Prof. Campbell that these bilinguals are worthless, yet apart from these, apart also from the fact that we know the history of the Etruscan alphabet better perhaps than we know the history of any other alphabet, we maintain that every cir- cumstance is against the possibility of the Etruscan being syllabic. Prof. Campbell seems ignorant of the I'.fe and growth of languages, or at least of linguistic symbols. Languages pass through separate and distinct stages in regard to the character and value of the signs or symbols of thought. The first of these stages is the Ideographic, or, asit is generally called, the Hieroglyphic. A man in his barbar- ous state wishes to express his idea of a horse, and he draws the picture of a horse ; of a man and he draws the picture of a man, Thi^ is the earliest form in which man has expressed his ideas, wh -ther for the purpose of communicating those ideai^ to others, or of preserving them, and assisting his own memory. lis figurative wi'iting is presented in the inscriptions of Egypt and of Mexico. But this is an exceedingly cumbersome mode of nxpressing ideas. An almost unlimited number of separate signs would be I'equired. This would be most burdensome to the memory, and be unable to express grammatical relations. With the growth of ideas one sign came to express several ideas by means of determinates, or small dis- tinguishing marks added to the sign itself, somewliat similar to the vowel signs in Hebrew ; but there was a tendency in these original types of figurative writing to become conventional, as in the case of Chipese and the language of the cuneiform inscriptions. Here the signs do not at once suggest what they are intended to represent. They have undoubtedly grown out of iconograj)hic prototypes, but they have lost their resemblance. They ai'e called semeiographs, or iP wr 12 ^■1^ better ideograms. Now these ideograms mark a progress from purely figurative writing to phonetics. Thought and feeling natui'ally express themselves in voice, and a phonetic value came to be attached to the ideogram, and the sign suggested at once an object and a phonetic value. But the representative value of these signs became less and less prominent, and in time they we''e used only to express a sound or combinations of sounds. The name of the object repre- sented a certain sound, at first no doubt the whole name, and then only a part of the name. And in this way arose syllabic writing, which was generally acrological, that is, the initial letter or letters came to express the sound which was itself expressive of an idea. In the case of the Chinese the ideogmm has continued to express only one sound, and not a combination of sounds, and so the language has remained monosyllabic. The sacred books of the Chinese were however accepted by the Japanese, who adopted the characters in which the sacred books were written, but they ascribed to these characters a different phonetic value, while they combined them according to the exigencies of their own national idiom, and to per- mit of certain flexions. But this change, as exemplified in the Japanese or similar instances, marks a change from the ideogram- matic to the syllabic form. But the combination of signs permitted by the syllable allowed a great diminution in the number of the signs. In place of the innumerable signs of the Chinese, the Japanese expressed their vocalization by forty-seven characters wholly borrowed from the Chinese, but having different determinate values. This change of the value of the Chinese characters to the Japanese took place j)robably in the third century, but some five hundred yeara after, the connection of Japan with India led to the formation of a new syllabary, based on the other, but presenting a more cursive form, and reducing the number of syllabic signs. This syllabic state of a language marks a distinct stage in the growth of language, or rather of linguistic symbols. But there is still another stage in which individual signs are used to represent individual sounds, as they are uttered by the organs of speech ; and now there is possible a claasification of sounds, and consequently of letters into vowels and consonants, or into dentals, labials, gutturals, and nasals, and an alphabet is formed. Now this throughout is a gradual development. The figurative writing of the Egyptians was developed into the alphabet of the Phoenicians. The conventional figurative writing of the Chinese was developed into the syllabic of the Japanese, and i i 13 1: if' from that into the alphabet of the Coreans. The writing of the Accadians was developed into the cuneiform character of the Assyrians and the Babylonians, and fiom this passed, on the one hand into the syllabic cuneiform of the Persians, and of the Cyprians on the other. What we wish especially to point out is, that these changes niirk distinct stages in linguistic development, and conse- quently in the development of civilization, for the two are inseparably connected. But Prof. Campbell imagines that the syllabic form is j)eculiar to the Turanian languages. That we may not misrepresent him we shall quote i»is own words. He says : — " The problem there- foi'e is to find the powers of the Turanian alphabet or syllabary, Besides the Cypriote, the Corean of far Eastern Asia has furnished nie with phonetic values of forms belonging to the Etruscan and other old Turanian syllabaries." Again : — " As the syllabic values of the Aztec characters are well known, I gained in them the actual key to the old Turanian syllabaries" With only a passing allusion to the ab.surdity of connecting the Aztec characters with the Cypriote, we wish to lay especial stress on Prof. Campbell's association of syllabism with the Turanian languages. On the other hand we would express our entire divergence from him, and we maintain that syllab'sm is a stage of linguistic development common to the Semitic and the Aryan with the Turanian languages. Take Persian as a type of the Aryan ; Egyptian, or Assyrian, or Babylonian of the Semitic, as well as Japanese of the Turanian. It is quite true that very many of the Turanian languages at the present day are syllabic. The Japanese have only now reached that stage of development in which they tiiid the syllabary inadequate to their growing require- ments, and are adopting the alphabet of the European nations. But we repeat that syllabism is not peculiar to any one class of languages ; it marks a stage in linguistic development. However, Prof Camp- bell has determined that Etruscan is Turanian, and therefore syllabic. This is the result of his researches in Hittite Palaeography, and can- not be doubted, «• e sets about forming an Etruscan syllabary. But here a new - ^ulty meets him in the small number of the Etruscan signs. Simple letters may enter into an almost unlimited number of combinations, but syllables are not so flexible, will not so easily combine, and we require a very much larger number of syllabic signs. Thus the Amharic has thirty-three consonantal signs, each of which may combine with seven vowel signs, and a separate sign is used to denote each of these combinations, so that in the full iiii \ ■ ■ II ifc H m m 14 Ambaric syUabarium there are two limidred ancl thirty-one difFei-ent signs. The Persian, though approaching very closely the alphaltetic form, has thirty -six distinct characters. But Etruscan has only twenty signs. Here too Prof. Campbell's ingenuity does not fail him, and he makes his syllabic signs mean anything, thus : — I = ha he hi ho hu an ou eu oi o u hau. II = ta te ti da de di at et it ad ed id. K = OS ots oz otz us uts tu uz utz hatz hitz hez hots huts. L = so sa su za zo zu as oz, sometimes es ez, also it may denote cho chu cha, and ja jo ju. In other words, the Etiuiscan syllabic signs represent in each case nearly all the vowel sounds in combination with a large number of consonants, so that we uiay make anything we please of these syllabic signs. Prof. Campbell acknowledges this, for he says:- "The poverty of the Etruscan syllabary multiplies the equivocal to such an extent that the context, or even a knowledge of the nature of the document in which the words occur, must decide their value." The signs of this syllabary may mean anything we may choose to make them mean, only we must know beforehand what we expect them to say before we can make them say it. This is certainly very accommodating, but has it not struck Prof. Campbell that it is an insuperable ditficulty in the way of receiving his hypothesis? But his syllabary of such a low order is inconsistent, not only with the evident laws of linguistic growth, but with the known facts of Etruscan civilization. The Etruscans had reached a high degv(e of civilization. At an early period, long before the date of the earliest of these inscriptions, the Etruscans were in close relations, commer- cial and otherwise, with two of th« most civilized nations of the ancient world, the Greeks and the Carthaginians, and among whom the Alphabet had reached the fullest development. It is inconceiv- able, — it is wholly inconsistent with what we know of linguistic de- velopment, that the Etruscans should, alone of these nations, havr remained in the syllabic stage, that while in every other respect they should have been noted for their civilization, — a civilization to which every museum in Europe bears evidence, that yet in their language they should have belonged to a past epoch. In a work of William Humboldt, " Uber die Verschiedenheit des Menschlichen Sprachbaues, und ihren EinHuss auf die geistige Entwickelung des Menschenge- schlechtes," there are such expressions as this: "Tliere is a mutual 15 1 action of lauguiige on the mind and intelligence of a people, and of the mind and intelligence on the language. This is a capital fact. The mind of a nation, and the chai'acter of its language are so inti- mately bound up together, that, if the one is given, the other may be exactly deduced from it." We hold it impossible that a nation which was in u degree of equality with the Greeks,^ — a nation from which the Romans borrowed some of the most prominent features of their civilization, sliould have made no advance in their language beyond the syllalnc state. But suppose we admit Prof. Campbell's assertion, let us see what he makes of it. We have already stated that there are some forty or fifty words occui-ring in Greek and Latin authors, and written in Greek and Latin characters. These words, however, he treats as literal or alphabetic ; but it happens that some of these words oocur in the inscriptions, and here he treats them as syllabic. But so ehuilic in his mode of procedvve that both alike are made to serve his purpose. He says : " Of the Etruscan words furnished by classical authors, many at once reveal their Basque origin. Lar or Lars, as Lars Poi'sena is the Basque larri — Great." This titular prenouien appears to have been one of the most common among the Etruscans, as : Lars Poj"sena, Lai-s Tolumnius, Lars Hi'rminius. Now when it is found in Greek or Latin writers it is allowed to retain its literal form, but when it occurs in the incriptions it is syllabic, and is read Saratuka,and means "engraved." It occurs in an abbrevi- ated form at page 3-t of '' Etruria Capta," and again at page 29, in the feminine. But is difficult to imagine how the same word can be at one time alphabetic and at another .syllabic. This Lars as it occurs as a titular prenomen moans great, no doubt in the sense of famous ; just as we say Charles the Great, or Peter the Great, or Frederick the Great. Unfortunately we can find no such meaning given to larri in our Ba-sque Dictionary. Here it is defined as " un peu gros,"- — somewhat grobs, or rather perhaps fat. Not as if it were Charles the Great but Charles the Fat, Charles le Gros, — whom the Germans called " Karl der Dicke." It is great in the Falstaffian sense. We doubt whether Prof. Campbell will be willing to accept this render- ing. But in our Dictionary larri stands in a very suspicious connec- tion, and has a very Romance look. It occurs as follows : — Largo, ^largii' ; Laninzo, largesse ; Largo, large ; Lar«'i, un peu gros. It is evidently a Romance word accepted by the Basque, and therefoi'e cannot be useil in tracing the affinity of the Etruscan with the Basque. Let us take another example of Prof. Campbell's translations : '''-^': ll 16 Etr.— F. LEONE, F. OA/IIPNAL. Lat. — C. Licinii. C. F. Nigii. Translit. — Age Sanesikane age inorabaiitukarasa. Basque, — Age Zunt-gikin age Maira Baitu sortze. We shall not occupy time with minor criticisms, but " age " does not mean " to behold " ; the proper word for behold is " ictist." But Prof. Campbell says, " The Latin Licinii is a derivative from licium, a leash, a tug, a thread. It corresponds exactly with the Basque zunft, a needleful. The final kane represents egin, to do ; Zuntzegin may be an old name for tailor or weaver. The other proper name translated Nigri is Maira, a Moor or person of dark complexion. The Etruscan adds Baitu, the spotted, fi*om bai, a spot, as the mother of Maira. In Latin her name would probably be read as Varia." This is a very partial instance of the playfulness of Prof. Campbell's fancy. What possible connection can there be between Licium and Licinii ] Licinius was one of the most common of the Roman Gentile cogno- mens. It especially occurs in the Gens of the Fabii, who had other connections with Etruria than the disaster at Veil. But the Licinian Gens, though of plebeian origin, was very influential. It is generally regarded as having come from Etruria, and when C. Licinius Calvus was consul in 364 B.C., mindful of his Etruscan origin, he secured the admission of Etruscan youths to the Roman games. The name occui'S very often in Etruria, but also in Latium ; at Tusculum we have the Porcii Licinii, and at Lanuvium the Murenae Licinii. The form Lecno, and also the feminine I^ecneaa, are very often met with on the Etruscan monuments. Licinius is simply the latinizing ot Lecne, and has nothing whatever to do with licium, and still less with the Basque Zunft. But in this inscription occurs the word, or rather terminal, nal. No form occurs so frequently in these inscrip- tions as this. In the bilingualas it is invariably rendered V)y the Latin natua or filiua. Now, the unifoimity of this rendering evi- dently occasioned some difficulty to Prof. Campbell, and his object is to work in some word which will preserve this signification ; accord- ing to his syllabarium, " nal " reads " karasa," and he says this repre- sents the Basque " sortze ". Now, as Prof. Campbell evidently attributes much importance to these words, and seems to regard *' karasa " and " sortze " as test words, going far to show the connec- tion between Etruscan and Basque, and as his reasoning here presents i 17 m HI a very good example of his reasoning in general, at the risk of being u little tedious, we shall examine it, and shall give his own words. He says, " The Rev. Isaac Taylor and other Etruscologists, while failing to translate these inscriptions, have made some good guesses. Such are their suppositions that the chai'ivcters they have read isa denote a wife, those read aec a daughter, those read al a child. The first is read nare or anre, a wife ; the second, nechi or nesca ; and the third, karasa ; in modern Basque, sortze, natus." Surely Prof. Campbell must be aware that modern Basque can have no beaiing on the present question ; he might as well try to prove the affinity of the Japanese with the old Gauls by means of the present French. However, he proceeds at some length to justify the relation of these two words karasa and sortze. He says, " It has been objected that karasa and sortze are difficult to reconcile ; that nal, ka/rasa means natus, several bilinguals attest." Prof. Campbell's consistency is very wonderful. "The Basque 'natus' is sortze. The only diffi- culty in the words is the replacement of ka by so, after an interval of over one thousand years in the history of the language." We must plead inability to understand Prof. Campbell, but so far as we can make out, he means that one thousand years ago the so of sortze was ka ; and that within the last thousand years it has undergone a change, and kartze has become sortze. What proof can Prof. Camp- bell adduce of this 1 How does he know that a thousand years ago sortze was kartze, when he has no document with which to compai'e it older than four hundred years ago ? He refers to Van Eys's " Tableau des permutations des consonnes dans les mots Basques des diff^rents dialectes." We fail to see what this reference has to do with the question. Van Eye is alluding to the large number of the Basque dialects, and he tabulates these dialects as they at present exist, but this has nothing to do with the historical changes which have taken place in the language, or with its analogies with other languages any more than a comparison of the dialect of Yorkshire with that of Lancashire, or with the London cockney has to do with the old Celtic of the earlier Britons. But Prof. Campbell regards the words karasa and sortze as sd important that he illustrates their relation to one another by their supposed common affinity to the Japanese. He Siiys the Japanese equivalent of the Basque sortze is harama. This Ls very learned, and we feel our inability to follow 2 li' 18 Prof. Campbell ; fortunately, it is not necessary. We suppose he will not requiro to l»e told that the nearest neighbours of the Basques on the north are the Provencal, a people speaking a Romance dialect. But if Prof Campbell will turn to a Romance Dictionary he will find this word sortze not even changed, as the writer in the Encyclo- piedia says, "to suit the Basque ear"; or, better still, if he will turn to Diez's Dictionary of the Romance languages, he will find there aorlze with all its Romance affinities; it is a derivative from the Latin aurgere. This word is not Basque ; it is a Romance word so lately introduced into the Basque, that it is as yet unchanged, and the very learned disquisition about its being kartze a thousand years ago, and about its affinity with the Japanese harama is all thrown away upon us, and we still doubt the Etruscan being syllabic or that it has any connection with the Basque. But further, on page 27 of " Etruria Capta " occur these words Rakora translated " offering," and in each of the next three inscrip- tions occurs the word liako ; so that on the same page Rakora occurs once, and hako three times, and on all these occasions it is a noun and means an offering. These words occur very frequently in " Etruria Capta." So also do Ra and Rano, and at page 69 occurs Rapi, a verb, " to receive," and at page 98 we read " Rako atso Rakone," translated " towards age acknowledging," — and regarding Rakone Prof Campbell says : " The final ne seems to change the post- position rako into a verb," — rather a unique grammatical change, we think unparalleled in the history of language, and surely he forgets that ho has all along translated Rako as a noun and not as a post- position. He continues : *' Here Rakone seems to signify "acknow- ledging," " paying respect to." We very much wonder, that with Prof. Campbell's profound knowledge of Basque, he has not discovered that in Basque no word begins with R. When we began to read Basque " Etruria Capta " we were i-ather surprised at frequently meeting with words beginning with R, and to find even allusions to them in the notes without any apparent consciousness of their irregularity ; we turned over page after page of Basque to find a word beginning with R, but without success. We again consulted our Dictionary, and under the heading R we found the following : " Cette lettre R n'est en usage, au commencement des mots Basques, que pour les noma propres tels que Rome, Rambouillet, et encore dans' le langage familier, les Basques diront Erroma, et non Roma. II est k croire que le suppression de la ^ ♦ 1 / \ 19 consonne K comme initialo des mots a pour cause cortaiiies diificultes que son articulation semble offrir d' abord." Humboldt says : " No word in Basque commences with R. The Bas(]ues always place an e before foreign words of this category, and then double th(! R. And in certain cases, as in the words edastea and erastea, th«iro is a dialectic change of rf and r. But they always say erregue — roi.'' M. Blab^, the moat competent autliority, says : " Je conviens quo le Basque n' a point en propre de mots commen^ants par r et que loraqu' il donne I'hospitalitd dans son glossaire a dos mots ou r est en t6te, il a soin de les faire prdc^der d'une voyelle. Sur le versant Nord des Pyrenees occidentales cette voyelle est iin a — arraya la race, arriahina resine. De 1' autre c6t^ des Pyrdndes les Basques disent aussi arrocher — rocher. Cependant ils pr^fixent j)lus volontiers 1' e — errisina, resine, enabia, rage. PeutStre en bien cherchant trouvera-t-on quelques mots oiu ces prefixes a et e seraient remplac^s par i. Aussi selon les pays, viz. : se dit arrosa ou irrisa." We do not see how we can reconcile Prof. Campbell's constant use of the /i with the plain testimony of these eminent Basque scholars. From the first page to the last of " Etruria Capta." any affinity between languages is based on mere similarity of sound. Prof. Camp- bell never once points to any similarity in grammatical forms ; yet it is on this alone that any such affinity can be proved. Nay, he even makes a virtue of his rejection of grammatical forms, and he says : " I have set forth the fact that, various as are the grammatical forms of Basque, Caucasian, Yeniseian, Japanese, Corean, Iroquois, Chocktaw, and Aztec, they are one in vocabulary, and constitute with many other membeis a linguistic family of no small importance. The parent speech belongs to Syria. West of Syria, iti Asia Minor, Italy, Spain, and Britain, the inscriptions yield Basque." We think we have shown how far Prof. Caujpbell is competent to speak of this. He continues : " East of Syria, in India, Siberia and on this conti- nent, the Japanese at first, and afterwards the Aztec, are the languages set forth." And again : "The threefold Tyi-seni, Tuscer, Naharcer, Japuscer, carry us back to Mesopotamia, the land of Nairi or Nahir- ina, and to the region of Khupuscai, as well as forward to Navafrre and Guipuscoa. The former even takes us to this continent, where the Aztecs or Citin also called themselves Nahuatl or Navetl. Who the Tuscer were it is harder to say, for the final er is a termination ; otherwise the great Basque name Enskara wouhl at ouc(^ «"ggt-'^t itself $ 20 in such a form as the Dioscurias of Colchis, now Iskurieh, near which Chapsoukes or modern Khupuscians and eastern Guipuscoans dwelt." It is hard to characterize this. It is simply philology nin mad. Euskara and Diosciirias connected ! Prof. Campbell knows Greek, and should know that the cities which bore the nanie of Dioscurias, and of which there were several, received that name because they honoured as their tutelar Deities, the twin sons of Leda, Castor and Pollux, the Dioskouroi. Perhaps the leading error into which Prof. Campbell falls is the constant application of the laws which tjovern the Aryan languages to the Turanian also. Grimm's law8, of thu variations of consonants in the Aryan languages, do not hold good in the Turanian. But even in Aryan languages, it is always dangerous to conclude that words which assimilate in sound, or that have the same class of con- sonants, are connected, and much less may such assimilation be trusted in the Turanian languages. Rask, Schott, Castrdn, R^musat, and Boetlingk, — in fact all wiio have written on the Turanian languages, are very particular in guarding \is against depending on the similarity in sound. But they also tell us that it is absurd to expect the exist- ence of the same words running through the Turanian languages as they do in the Aryan. The Turanian languages have not been thoroughly classified, and the difficulty lies not only in the variation of grammatical forms, but quite as much in the vocabulai-y. Speak- ing generally, the Turanian nations have had no literature to fix words, and the consequence is that they differ from one another to a degree of which the Aryan scholar has no idea, and which makes it impossible to compare them in the very loose way Prof. Campbell has attempted. The basis of the classification of the Turanian languages has hitherto been according to the employment of pronominal affixes, but this is an unsatisfactory and very meagre mode of arriving at a classification. Max Mtiller says : "To maintain a word and not to allow it to be replaced by a new expression was possible in the Aryan, that is in a social state of the language, not among nomad tribes, who, living only for the present, were little concerned about the past or futAre, without history, without ambition ; and thus we find that the number of common words is very small." Schott says : " We ought not to despair about the affinity of these languages, the Turanian, although the words for the most necessary ideas in them are so essen- tially different." To Prof. Campbell, however, the Turanian languages 21 pruRoni no difficulty whatever, and he proves their affinity with one another by long lists of words, which he says are identical in Basque and Etruscan, in Japanese and Circassian, in Hittite and Chooktaw, in Iroquois and Aztec. We trust Prof. Campbell will pardon us if we prefer the judgment of Miiller and Schott, and of a score of other Turanian scholars to his judgment, and if we express a very strong doubt as (o the value of his researches and his very retnarkaVile con- clusions. And now a few words regarding the Etruscan alphabet, its origin, some of its peculiarities, and the extent of country over which it pre- vailed, and a short statement of what is generally received concerning the origin of the Etruscans. The town of Chalcis in Eubcea was one of the oldest of the Phoenician colonies, and received from Phoenicia the alphabet, which it adopted with very little change. When Chalcis became an Ionic possession it still retained its alphabet, which is more closely connected with the old Phoenician than any other of the Greek alphabets. Shortly after Chalcis became Ionic it entered into rivalry with Miletus for commercial and colonial supremacy. Miletus acquired a supremacy in Elasteru Europe, in the y^"«an, and the Euxine ; while Chalcis turned to Italy and the Web Cumae was founded by a colony from Chalcis, and became a centre from which Greek learning, Greek culture, and the Greek Chalcidian alphnbet were communicated to the rest of Italy. Etruria early received its alphabet from this source and an examination of the Etruscan letters will at once show their similarity with that earliest Greek alphabet. The Etruscan, the Umbi an iid the Oscan of the Italian dialects approach most nearly in their alphabets to the Chalcidian, and the Latin is the farthest removed. The Etruscan rejects the soft mutes B, G, D, and retains the aspirates th, ph, ch. The Latin on the other hand retains the soft mutes and rejects the aspirates. The Etruscan and the Umbrian alike retain the Sam and the Sigma, the Zain. and Samekh of the Phoenicians. At that early period we perhaps cannot expect exact fixity in the alphabet, and while all the Etruscan inscrip- tions are of the same type, there are yet some minor difierenoes, as we may see by comparing the pure Etruscan alphabet with the Etrua. can alphabet of Campania. This last lying close to the Oscan, seems to have been afiected by it. The influence of the Etruscans was very great in the South, but especially so in the north of Italy, and even in the districts still further north. They ciirried on commerce with ■ i I 22 central Eiiropo, and apparently with the countriea around the Baltic.' Northern wares are frequently found in the tombs, and were also exported from Tarqiiinii, a seaport which rivalled Massilia in the amount of its exports. The result was that the Etruscan alphabet extended iiir into Europe, and from the Jiomana Provincia on the WK-st to the Tyrol and Carinthia on the east. Throughout this ex> tended district the Etruscan alphabet prevailed. But in the north, eastern corner of Italy another element was introduced and another Greek alphabet. That movement which drove the Dorians out of Thessaly to the south seems to have compelled the migration of an- other tribe into north Italy, and this tribe settled about the mouths of the Po and the Adige. Whether these were Veneti or the Euganei, we are not prepared to say. The inscriptions in this alphabet are found principally at Este. With which of the Greek alphabets we are to connect it is still uncertain. Berndorf believes it to be Ionic; Kirchhoff regards it as Locrian ; while the Br'^nze of Tegea would seem to connect it with the Arcadian or the Elean. And now, before we close, a few words regarding the oiigin of the Etruscans. Herodotus tells us that the Lydian natio!i having, from internal difficulties, become divided, one portion emigrated from Lydia under Tyrrhenus, or as he is some times called Tarchon, and that after a time these emigrants settled in Umbria, and by Umbria Herodotus means North Italy. Whatever importance we may attach to this story it must be admitted that there are some facts which seem to lend it plausibility. The sea which washes the west coast of Etruria has, from an early period, been called the Tyrrhenian Sea, and the city of Tarquinii is regarded as having derived its name from Tarchon. That a band of pimtes called Tyrrhenians did long infest the .^gean Sea is well attested, and it seems equally certain that a portion of them settled in Italy. Thucydides speaks of Tyrrhenian-Pelasgians who had originally dwelt in the peninsula of Athos, but were driven from there to Athens or Attica, and finally took refuge in Lemnos. Herodotus adds that these Tyrrhenians drove out the Minyae and held the island for some time but were overpowered by Otanes, a general of Darius Hystaspes. After the close of the Persian wars the Athenians took possession of the island. Both ancient and modem writers identify these Tyrrhenians with the Tyrrhenian invaders of Italy. Niebuhr was the first to point out that the Etruscan was a mixed language, and 23 LepHiiiH believes that with a strong Pehmgic element there \h com- bined an Umbrian and poHsibly a Ch'eek. Without entering into any discussion of these opinions we notice that the identification of the Tyrrhenians of Lemnos with the Tyrrhenians or Etruscans of Italy has been confirmed by the recent discovery on tlie island of Lemnos of two inscriptions in unmistakable Etruscan. These in- scriptions, which seem of different dates, ai'e engraved on two sides of a large block of stone, which evidently formed part of an altar. As read, the altar is called the Altar of the Hephaestii, and is dedi- cated to Zerona, worshipped in Myrina. Hephsestias and Myrina were the two principal towns on the Island. This deity, Zerona of the Tyrrhenians of Lemnos, suggests a connection with the Zirne of the Etruscans, and the Macedonian Zeirei.e, and, perhaps, with the Thracian Zarunthos, -thos being a masculine termination. These similarities would seem to identify the Tyrrhenian-Pelasgians of Etruria with the Pelasgians of Greece. But there is satisfactory evidence connecting this t>tone with the place where it was found. It bears the names of the two towns of the island, and is dedicated to the tutelar Deity of one of these towns, and it must be remembered that the dedication is in the Etruscan language. This new discovery certainly corroborates the information given by Herodotus, by Thucy- dides, Hellanicus, Plutarch and Strabe. But pei'haps this new dis- covery does not determine very much, for the questior. will be asked : Who were these Tyrrhenian-Pelasgians '( But thijj discovery will have the effect of pointing out more definitely in what direction researches ought to be pushed, while it rendei's more probable the finding of some bilingual which may furnish the key to unlock the Etruscan mystery. It does not as yet permit any new solution of the Etruscan problem, it only gives hope of some further light on the subject. ill THB COPP, CLARK COMPANT, LIHITID, OKNERaL PRINTRRS, COLBORNR STRBKT, TORONTO.