MITHRIDATES MINOR; 
 
 OE, 
 
 AN ESSAY ON LANGUAGE, 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY WELSFORT), ESQ. 
 
 Eirrl yap ov6na.ro. trap eKatrrois 
 
 Avvafuv iv TfAcTowV fyfarov $x ovra - PSET.LUS, 7. 
 
 LONDON: 
 LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, 
 
 PATERNOSTEB-KOW. 
 1848. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 SFOTTISWOODE and SHAW, 
 New -str eet- Squ ar e. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Pae 
 
 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 Hemsterhuys 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, -17, -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 Verb 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 - t'J. 
 
 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 - - - xJvi 
 
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 - , V - - 40 
 
 xn. Greek Iota, and Lambda, confounded ^ - - 41 
 
 xin. Etruscan Phi, and Chi, confounded - - - - 42 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 ON THE SPOKEN LANGUAGE 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 - - - 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 
 
 vii. Two spoken Languages in China, one of which may be denomi- 
 nated the Literary The 330 Chinese words, and 300 Greek 
 
 roots - 48 
 
 vni. 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. 
 
 xm. Adjectives , -r - 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 SAHLDIC. 
 
 i. The Egyptians claimed the honour of being the inventors of 
 
 Letters - - 53 
 
 n. Memnon the Egyptian Cecrops the Athenian Linus the 
 Theban Palamedes the Argive Assertion of Josephus 
 that Homer left no written works - - 54 
 
 ni. Singular fact that no Egyptian Monuments prior to the accession 
 
 of the Ptolemies contain Alphabetical Inscriptions - - ib.. 
 
CONTENTS. vii 
 
 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. 
 
 v 11. Abstract of Coptic Grammar That Language has much in com- 
 mon with the Shemitic Class - - - - 59 
 
 vin. 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. 
 
 xn. Formation of the Preter-pluperfect Tense - 62 
 
 CHAP. VII. 
 
 ON THE HEBREW LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR. 
 
 i. Age of the Hebrew Alphabet - - 63 
 
 n. Probable date of the composition of the Book of Psalms - 64 
 
 in. Hebrew Nouns - - - ib. 
 
 iv. Adjectives - - - ib. 
 
 v. Verbs - - 65 
 
 vi. Tenses of the Verb - - - ib. 
 
 vii. List of Hebrew words with their Analogies - - - ib. 
 
 CHAP. VIII. 
 
 ON THE ETH1OPIC LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR. 
 
 i. Ethiopia was one of the countries designated in the Old Testa- 
 ment by the name of Gush - ... 69 
 ii. Herodotus's account of the Ethiopians - - 70 
 in. That of Diodorus - . . 71 
 rv. 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 
 vni. Many of their Verbs derived from Nouns - , - ib. 
 ix. List of Ethiopic Words - - 75 
 x. The Language a Sheraitic one, and little more than a Dialect 
 
 of the Hebrew, or Chaldee - - - -76 
 
 A 4 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 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 - - u ' : ' - 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 - '/"' " ' ^ 
 
 n. Herodotus's account of their origin - - ib. 
 
 to. 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 
 vn. Diodorus's account - - - - - - 86 
 
 vin. 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 
 
 n. The letters actually in use derived from the Cufic - - ift. 
 
CONTENTS. IX 
 
 Page 
 
 HI. Arabic nouns ..-- - 92 
 iv. The signification of Arabic verbs modified without the use of 
 
 prepositions and adverbs - - - - - ib. 
 
 v. Examples of that modification .... ft. 
 
 vi. Conjugations of the Arabic verb - - - - 93 
 
 \ii. Arabic causative verbs formed by prefixing A to the root - ib. 
 
 viii. by prefixing T to the root - 94 
 
 i\. List of Arabic words with their analogies in other languages - 96 
 
 CHAV. XII. 
 
 ON THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR. 
 
 i. Remarks on alphabets in general - - 101 
 
 n. 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 - n - ib. 
 
 v. Mr. Halhed the first European Sanskrit scholar His account 
 
 of the language - - - - - ib. 
 
 \ i. Literal meaning of the word Sanskrit - 104 
 
 vn. Sanskrit Nouns - 105 
 
 vin. Pronouns - - - - -106 
 
 i\. Verbs **"- '" - - ib. 
 
 x. Moods and Tenses - - - - 107 
 
 xi. Origin of the Sanskrit verb - - 108 
 
 xii. The account examined and refuted - - 109 
 
 xni. 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 
 
 xvu. The Greek and Latin derivations from the Sanskrit Dhatos 
 prove that they must be coeval with the great body of the 
 language , - - - - 115 
 
 xvin. 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 .ll"!i< Digamma in Hindustan - - ib. 
 
 xxi. The Doric R, redundant - - 118 
 
 xxii. Anomalies in the Sanskrit as numerous as in Greek and Latin ib. 
 xxni. Grammar in Hindustan, while it pretends to be a revelation, 
 
 has assumed the appearance of an occult science - -Hi) 
 
 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 FARSI. 
 
 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 - v -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 
 vm. List of Persic words with their analogies - ib. 
 
 CHAP. XV. 
 
 GREECE. THE GREEK ALPHABET. THE GREEK VERB. 
 
 i. Alpha - 137 
 
 ii. Beta - - 140 
 
 in. Gammma - - - 141 
 
 iv. Delta- - 142 
 
 v. Ei (Epsilon) - - ib. 
 
 vi. Zeta - - 144 
 
 vn. Eta - v -^ - 145 
 
 vm. Theta - 147 
 
 ix. Iota - - - ib. 
 
 x. Kappa - ib. 
 
 xi. Lambda - 148 
 
 xn. Mu - - ib. 
 
 xin. Nu - - ib. 
 
 xiv. Xi - . - ib. 
 
 xv. Ou (Omicron) - ib. 
 
 xvi. Pi - - *r * - . - - 151 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 Page 
 
 \\ii. Rho - - 151 
 
 \\iii. San (Sigma) 152 
 
 xix. Tau' - - - i*. 
 
 xx. Upsilon ----- - ib. 
 
 rxi. Phi - ib. 
 
 xxn. Chi ... - 15.1 
 
 xxin. 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. 
 
 xxvu. On the verb Tupto - - 155 
 
 \\MII. 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 
 
 xxxn. The First Aorist - - 162 
 
 xxxni. The Perfect -" -163 
 
 xxxiv. The Pluperfect - " - 164 
 
 xxxv. The Second Future - 165 
 
 XXXVL The Second Aorist - - 166 
 
 xxxvu. The Paullo-Post-Futurum - ib. 
 
 xxxviii. The Aoristus ^Eolicus - - 167 
 
 \\xuc.OfiheMoods - - i*. 
 
 XL. On the formatives or terminations of the Greek verb - 168 
 
 xix On the Auxiliary Verb To be - - 171 
 
 XLII. The obsolete "Ew, Sum - - - - 177 
 
 XLIII. The obsolete *Eo/iai, Sum - 178 
 
 XLIV. The obsolete Tenses of Ei>i, Sum - 180 
 
 XLV. The Imperative Mood and the Participles - 181 
 
 XLVI. The obsolete E<rrw, Sum - - 182 
 
 XLvn. List of Latin verbs in Esco >;-- ..*< - 183 
 
 XLVIH. The obsolete Avw, Sum - - 184 
 
 xi.i \ . 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. 
 
 ETBURIA. FUNEREAL, OR BILINGUAL INSCRIPTIONS. 
 
 i. How far was the Etruscan a distinct Language - -195 
 
 n. Doubts as to the extreme antiquity of the remains of Art ib. 
 m. 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. 
 
 vii. List of Etruscan words from Bardetti - . -\ - ib. 
 
 vin. Explanation of the Funereal or Bilingual Inscriptions - - 201 
 
 ix. The Eugubine Tables - - 207 
 
 GHAP. xvii. 
 
 ROME. OLDEST LATIN INSCRIPTIONS. 
 
 i. Intimate Union between Rome and Alba - 209 
 
 n. An Alban and a Sabine word - - ib. 
 
 m. Language of the Romans s ^ - . . 210 
 
 iv. The Latin originated in ^olic Greek - - ib. 
 
 v. We possess few Ancient Roman Inscriptions in their original 
 
 state --"". - 211 
 
 vi. Proved conclusively by a passage from Polybius - - ib. 
 
 vii. Extract from the Laws of the Twelve Tables - 4 - 212 
 
 vin. 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. XVIII. 
 
 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. 
 
 VHI. 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 - * ' f , / w ..." - 219 
 
 ix. Perhaps the Bilingual Inscriptions ought rather to be denomina- 
 ted Biliteral Ril not a genuine reading Explanation of 
 that word, and Leine - - . . ,j +' -220 
 
CONI!\I Xlli 
 
 CHAP. XIX. 
 
 Olf THE MANTCHOUX, OB EASTERN TARTARS. 
 
 Pg* 
 
 i. Reasons for not treating of the Celtic, Mceso- Goths, and Sarma- 
 
 tians or Slavonians, in this Work - - 224 
 
 n. Connexion between the Mantchoux and Chinese - ib. 
 
 in. Account of their origin .-. . , , - - - 225 
 
 i \ . 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 OUIGOUK 
 LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR. 
 
 i. The Ouigour the oldest dialect of the Turco-Tartaric - - 232 
 
 n. 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 GRAMMAB. 
 
 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 III GENERAL. 
 
 i. Geographical boundaries of Africa - 244 
 
 n. How peopled - - , . . - ib. 
 
XIV CONTENT?. 
 
 Pago 
 
 in. Hercules Cadmus Sesostris Tearchon Navocodrosorus 
 
 Idanthursus - - - 245 
 
 iv. African Words - 246 
 
 v. African Languages - - - - - - 247 
 
 vi. List of Mandingo Words - - 248 
 
 CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 AMERICA IN GENERAL. 
 
 i. Prophecy of the discovery of America - - 249 
 
 ii. The Atlantic Island - " - ib. 
 
 m. 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 AVesterly course Columbus - 254 
 
 vin. 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 
 
 xn. Remains of Architecture and Sculpture in South America - 259 
 
 CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 ON HIEROGLYPHICS. 
 
 i. Connexion between Hieroglyphics and the art of writing - 260 
 
 11. Stimulus of posthumous fame - - - - 261 
 
 m. 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 The Camere of the Vatican The Cartoons 
 
 The Transfiguration - -267 
 
 vm. Warburton's division of the Hieroglyphics of Egypt - - 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 
 
 xn. 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. ThothTot Phre - - - 276 
 xvn. 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 
 
 11. 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 
 vn. 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. 
 
 DI. 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 - th. 
 
 1. Etymology -* ^ lr - 300 
 
XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 Pago 
 
 2. Prosody - - FC*' - ib. 
 
 3. Inflexion - v! *. ; . ib. 
 
 4. Syntax - 301 
 vm. Object of Philosophical Grariimar Tenses - - ib. 
 
 ix. Moods t;*; '!- - ' *v ' >.-. -302 
 
 x. Voices -- - - " '-'. - * ;s - t&. 
 
 xi. Numbers --- .- - -T * *'- - &. 
 
 xii. Cases -^ - -- " -* ; t&. 
 
 xra. Genders - 't - 303 
 
 xiv. Parts of Speech > - ib. 
 
 xv. Simple or abstract words - - - 304 
 
 xvi. Sanskrit Dhatos - - ib. 
 
 xvii. Words of the Chines^ 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 
 
 ii. 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 - - 77;. 
 
 ix. The Head Extension of its meaning Metaphors borrowed 
 
 from it - - 313 
 
 x. The Face - - ib. 
 
 xi. The Ear -, - 314 
 
 xii. The Eye - - ib. 
 
 xra. The Nose - - 315 
 
 xiv. The Mouth - - ib. 
 
 xv. The Teeth - - 316 
 
 xvi. The Arm - . - . *.r - ib. 
 
 XVIL The Hand - nf< - ib. 
 
 xvni. The Heart - - 317 
 
 xix. The Foot - - . ib. 
 
 xx. The Nails - <; . - - 818 
 
 XXL The Heel - -v - 319 
 
 xxn. Miscellaneous - -, - ^ - - ib. 
 
CONTENTS. XV 11 
 
 CHAP. XXVIII. 
 
 ON NOUNS ADJECTIVE. 
 
 P-ge 
 
 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 Ccelus and Cceluin, Latin Ouranos, Greek 
 Urania, Latin - ib. 
 
 vi. The gratification the ear experienced from euphony, led to va- 
 riety in the termination of words - 326 
 MI. Which again permitted a greater liberty of choice in their collo- 
 cation - -', '* ' *' * ' * ' ib. 
 vin. 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 - - . - - - 835 
 
 vn. Regularity of the Personal Pronoun in Coptic - 336 
 
 vin. 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 
 ii. The Hebrew verb Hajah ^ -340 
 
XV111 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 in. The Arabic Verb Nasar - , - - - 340 
 
 iv. The Verb may be analysed into a Noun, and its Terminations 
 
 into Pronouns Personal - 341 
 
 v. Uniform inarch 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 
 vni. The essential difference between Hebrew Nouns 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 - 347 
 
 n. Egyptian Particles - - - - - 349 
 
 in. Hebrew Particles ------ 350 
 
 iv. Arabic Particles - ^ - - - - - 351 
 
 v. Persic Particles - - - - - - ib. 
 
 vi. Greek Particles - - ib. 
 
 vii. Latin Particles - - - - - - ib. 
 
 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 Nouns - . - ib. 
 
 vi. The Irregular Declensions analysed - - - - 357 
 
 vii. 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 Nouns Their Terminations formed by the Pronoun Is, 
 
 Ea, Id - 361 
 
 x. Derivation of the Verb Substantive To be - - 362 
 
 xi. The Latin Verb Its Formatives - ib. 
 
 xn. On the obsolete Latin Verb Eo, To be Its Analogies - 363 
 
 xni. Its Conjugation The Indicative Mood . - 364 
 
CONTENTS. XIX 
 
 fkfi 
 
 xiv. Its Conjugation The Potential Mood - - . 365 
 
 xv. The Romans appear to have employed Sum chiefly aa 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 
 
 n. Extraordinary mistake of Mr. Payne Knight - - - ib. 
 
 HI. 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 
 
 vin. Greek Eta primarily an Aspirate with the power of II, 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 - - - * .' t&. 
 
 iv. Sanskrit Prosody - - - - 880 
 
 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 - 881 
 vn. From which the necessary inference is, that their Speech was 
 
 regulated by Accent, like that of all the rest of Mankind - ib. 
 vin. Origin of the Greek Drama - - i\^2 
 
 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 - 383 
 a 2 
 
XX CONTENTS. 
 
 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 - - 385 
 xiv. Intimate union between Greek poetry and music - - 386 
 xv. Greek Prosody was formed by and proceeded part 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 
 XVHI. 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. We 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 
 xxin. Abstract of the rules of Prosody from Thiersch - - 396 
 
 xxiv. Observations from Valpy ----- 397 
 xxv. Extract from MatthiaB . * - - - - 398 
 
 xxvi. Matthias supposes that Homer and the eatly Greek poets had 
 the power of making all the vowels either long or short, as 
 suited the measure of their verse - - - - 400 
 
 xxvii. 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 JKOLIC DlGAMMA. 
 
 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 Varro, Didymus, and Priscian ib. 
 vii. Inquiry into the origin of the Roman F^ * * * 408 
 
CONTENTS. XXI 
 
 MIL Was certainly derived from Ouau, Vau, or AVav, the sixth 
 
 letter of the Shemitic 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 - . fa 
 xn. Origin of the Greek Omicron and Upsilon - ~ ib. 
 xin. Words in which O in Greek becomes V in Latin - -411 
 xiv. Latin words commencing with V accounted for without 
 
 the Digamma - - -412 
 
 rv. Various forms of Digamma -413 
 
 xvi. Hebrew Hay (H) and Roman F (Digamma) - ib. 
 
 xvii. Hebrew Bayth (B, or V,) Hay and Heth - - 414 
 
 xvin. Sanskrit Hv, Sanskrit Ha (II) and Digarama (F) - - ib. 
 
 xix. Inquiry whether II 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. 
 
 xxin. 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 Horae Pelasgicse - - ib. 
 
 xxvii. Opinion of Dunbar in his Dissertation on the versification of 
 
 Homer - - - * - - ib. 
 
 xxvm. 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 - 4-J4 
 
 xxxi. Era of Homer, or rather of his works - ' ib. 
 
 xxxu. Probability that in the early ages of Greece the Licentia 
 
 Poetica extended to the lengthening of all vowels - 425 
 
 xxxin. 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 " Wilkyison" rtad " Itawlinson." 
 249. line 12. from bottom, for " Proculus" read " Proclus." 
 342. last line, after " Egyptian," for " J" read " I." 
 418. line 11. from 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 languages 
 in existence than the Greek and Latin, or at any rate as if 
 they were the only ones deserving the notice of scholar?, 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 ip 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 ^ellus' 
 
 Japhet, the son of Noah { 
 
 Caiph, a rock Keph-as, Peter (New Testament). 
 
 Moom, a stain, blemish { ** 
 
 Lo-Moom, spotless A-Mum-On (Greek), blameless. 
 
 Ereb, the evening { Erebus, son of Chaos and Darkness. 
 
 Peleg,abrook (that which divides) | p^us, } thc 8ea< 
 
 S* sackcloth { ~ 
 
 Mot, a moving or shaking Mot-us, Latin. 
 
 m , f Taur-os. 
 
 Tor > abuU I Taur-us. 
 
 Arabic and Persic Roots. Greek and Latin Derivatives. 
 
 Bal, the heart, mind, soul Boul-e, council, Greek. 
 
 Jawan (Persic), a young man Juven-is, Latin. 
 
 Chugh (Persic), a yoke Jug-urn, 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 { g 
 
 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. 
 
 Nau, or Nav (Persic), a boat { ^ 
 
 Nabil (Arabic), great, noble Nobil-is, Latin. 
 
 Sif (Arabic), a sword Xiph-os, Greek. 
 
 f Amar (Doric), a day. 
 Amar (Arabic), time (in general) ... < Emer-e, Ionic. 
 
 I Einer-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 Shemitic languages, widely as these languages are 
 diffused 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 
 Um. 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 Shemitic 
 languages, the Arabic, Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Samaritan, 
 
INTRODUCTION. ^ XXV11 
 
 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. 
 
 Atnu, the sun Atrvai-oc, son of Prometheus. 
 
 Al ^B m .! h " . f } **""* a name of Cybele. - . 
 ^f\ \ 4^ Ara, the planet Mars ... A/o-/c, Mars. 
 
 Udu, water Yfl-oc, water. 
 
 Ulva, the womb Al v-us. 
 
 ^\ jc^ Oka, a house Otr-of. 
 
 Karpasa, cotton Carbas-us. 
 
 Kalama, a pen, or reed 
 
 |Cj>iJ Kriya, the sign Aries ... 
 
 _ Kha, sky, ether, va- j 
 cuity J 
 
 ^cj ( IJ| Grini, the sun rpwvu-cc, an epithet of Apollo. 
 
 Trikona, a triangle Tptyutv-o?. 
 
 Diva, a deity, a god .... Div-us. 
 
XXV111 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 
 
 Dru, a tree ............... <Apv-. 
 
 Nava, new ................ Nov-us. 
 
 Nasa, the nose ............ Nas-us. 
 
 ETida, a nest .............. Nid-us. 
 
 rf !N"u, a boat 
 
 r\\ Noma, a portion 
 
 Nau, a boat ............... Navis. 
 
 Pithah, the sun .......... UvQi-oQ, an epithet of Apollo. 
 
 Phinah, froth, foam ..... Venus, born from the foam of the sea. 
 
 Rajni, a queen ........... Regin-a. 
 
 Loka, a letter, an epistle Aoy-o^, a word. 
 cj j^-| Vata, air, wind ........... Vat-es, a prophet, a poet. 
 
 ^*C| -3J Suasru, a mother-in-law Socr-us. 
 
 Sanhati, an assemblage Senat-us 
 
 { Samayoffa, an assem-1 _ 
 
 blage ... ............. I Swarwy-U- 
 
 (^j W Swasri, a sister .......... Sosor, Old Latin. 
 
 Haya, a horse ............ Equ-us. 
 
 Hayanah, a year ......... Ann-us. 
 
 Hili, the sun ............. H/\t-of. 
 
 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 Shemitie 
 languages. We are now quite certain, that some cause for 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXIX 
 
 these changes, so systematically produced, must exist deep hi 
 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 meaning 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 elists ; 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. (Kees'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 what extraneous, what is radical and what adscititiouf, 
 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. For 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 (Ot*oy), 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- 
 09), word, also a Noun masculine of the same declension, 
 which 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 6*. If we 
 take the Sanskrit wprd Samayog, an assemblage, write it in 
 Greek characters and add a final Eta, we shall have 2wa- 
 70)7-7;, a synagogue, a Noun feminine of the second de- 
 clension ; and if we 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 17. The 
 
XXxii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 same may be remarked of the Sanskrit word Kalam, a pen 
 or reed, in Greek Ka\a/A-rj. And if again we take a Greek 
 Noun Substantive, of the neuter gender and third declension, 
 5iA,ov, 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 or, 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). 
 
 Q Astarte of her Of Astarte. 
 
 Astarte to her To Astarte. 
 
 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. 
 
 RAJNI, a Queen, Sanskrit. 
 
 REGIN-A, Latin, by transposition, and a final A. 
 
 Regin-a, a Queen Regin-ae, Queens. 
 
 Regin-ae Regin-arum, of Queens. 
 
 Regin-33 Regin-is, to Queens. 
 
 Regin-am Regin-as, Queens. 
 
 Regin-a Regin-se, O Queens. 
 
 Regin-a Regin-is, Uy 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 li, 
 letter by letter. In the third, fourth, and fifth declensions, 
 the resemblance is less close, and we must suppose that the 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXlll 
 
 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 (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 Roots. Greek and Latin Derivatives. 
 
 Ag, m ove 
 
 Ad, eat ......................... Edo, I eat. 
 
 Ay, move, go .................. Eo, I go. 
 
 Arha, be able ................. Apr-iw, Sufficio. 
 
 ^U m Ap, possess .................... Hsbeo, I have. 
 
 ?- Go ............................... I, go thou, Imp. of Eo. 
 
 It, go, move ................... Ito, I go often. 
 
 * For further elucidations of this subject, see Chapter XXXII., On 
 Inflexion. 
 
 b 
 
XXXIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Sanskrit Roots. Greek and Latin Derivatives. 
 
 ^7\ Id > see .......................... Ei-w, Video. 
 
 i^^ Ir, move ........................ Ire, the Infin. of Eo. 
 
 5^ Ir, irritate ..................... Ira, anger. 
 
 ^<C| Uk, move ...................... QK-U?, Velox. 
 
 IJ?" Und, make wet ............... Undo, I overflow. 
 
 stock Rich-ha, grow hard, congeal Piyo-w, Rigeo. 
 
 yra- Gal, ooze, run out ............ TaX-a, Lac. 
 
 ^JXf Ta P> warm, heat ............. . Tepeo, I am warm. 
 
 pm* Tu P> kil1 Tu P ati > 
 
 ^J y Tup, injure, kill 
 
 Tuph, injure, kill ............ 
 
 .. f Tfp7r-o>, Delecto (by transpo- 
 
 Trip, please, gratify ......... | gj^ 
 
 Triph, be satisfied ............ T-/o0o. 
 
 Til, make smooth ............ TtXX-u>, YeUico. 
 
 Ba, give ........................ Do, I give. 
 
 Dan, give ...................... Dono, I give. 
 
 Das, give ....................... Aoxr-w, Dabo, Fut. 1. of Didomai. 
 
 Dad, give ...................... At^-p, Do. 
 
 Dam, be tame ................. A/za-w, Domo. 
 
 x-w, Curro (obsolete). 
 Dram ' S .................. 1 E-opa/i-ov, Imperfect. 
 
 ^TS[[ Dans, bite ..................... Dens, a tooth. 
 
 rf* Pi, drink ....................... TIi-w, Bibo, inusit. pro 
 
 ^ Pani, drink .................... IIw-w, Bibo. 
 
 Pard 
 
 f UepS-u, Pedo. 
 1 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXV 
 
 Sanskrit Roots. Greek and Latin Derivative*. 
 
 f JTAt-w, navigo. 
 Plav, float ...................... J nx*r-u>, with medial Di- 
 
 [ gamma. 
 
 *T Bhu, exist, be, become ...... ( *"-" Sum ' 
 
 ;A I Fv-o, pro Sum (Facciolati). 
 
 Man, know, understand .... Mi/vv-w, Declaro. 
 
 Mna, study, practice, learn f Mva-w, in memoriam revoco. 
 by heart ..................... \ Mi/ a -o/ia, 
 
 Man, fix, stop ................. Mtv-w, Maneo. 
 
 Ray, go ........................ Pt-w, Fluo. 
 
 Rav, go ......................... PIF-W, with medial Digamma. 
 
 Riv, flow ...................... PF-W, ; 
 
 TH" Rah, go, move ................ P<H-W, with medial II. 
 
 Li, embrace ................... Aw, Volo (Doric). 
 
 Lok, speak, or tell ........... Aty-w, Dico. 
 
 Lambhi, cause to obtain .... AapG-avujj 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 avo) AJ/W, Sum. 
 
 Root, Ana, Sanskrit, breath, exist. 
 in jut, is a contraction of E(/n, Sum. 
 
 Passive and Middle Voices, Indicative Mood, Present Tense. 
 The terminations are contractions of the obsolete * Eo^ta/, 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. 
 
xxxvi 
 
 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 ab 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 universal?, 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 
 
XXXVlll 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 Rome, 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 anotlu r 
 department of the art of government, that of Political Kcu- 
 noiny, 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. AVdl- 
 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 w- 
 revert to the history of Astronomy, we m:iy :i>k what h:i 
 
 * Alison's History of Europe, vol. ii. p. 35. 
 b 4 
 
XI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 become of the system of Ptolemy, " with its cycle on epicycle, 
 orb on orb." The theory, or hypothesis, which pretended to 
 account for the motions of the celestial bodies has 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 
 YYerner. 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, lie con- 
 trived to make organic remains the teat 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 Coc- 
 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, unl. -- 
 founded on facts, and that the knowledge possesses a charac- 
 ter of solidity and permanence in proportion as the facts are 
 numerous and well defined, 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 
 
xliv 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 powers 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. xlvii 
 
 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 waggons 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 Elephant a, 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. New 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 1'Instruction Publique, as 
 quoted in Dugald Stewart's Philosophy of the Human 
 Mind, vol. i. p. 222.) 
 
MITHRIDATES MINOR; 
 
 OB, 
 
 AN ESSAY ON LANGUAGE, 
 
 CHAPTEK 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 Lett, book ir. 
 
 I. THE Book of Genesfs, 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 PRIMITIVE 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 Me." 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. 3 
 
 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, Ramao (Coptic), rich. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 PRIMITIVE 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 
 in tents, 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 Vossius 
 (Facciolati). 
 
 Euphrates, Eu (Greek), good. 
 
 Frat (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- Tar taric. 
 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 
 gays 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 Ammjm, 
 
6 PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE 
 
 (Hebrew) people, i. e. people of the earth, or earth-born, 
 (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 
 
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. Ma3so-Gothic, Mysian, Phrygian, or Trojan. 
 
 14. Anglo-Saxon and English. 
 
 15. Frankish 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 upon 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. 9 
 
 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.) 
 
 vin. 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 five 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 Koman 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 ANT EXISTING ALPHA- 
 BETICAL CHARACTERS. 
 
 T. 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 Beckman, 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 Lntium by the Pelasgi. 
 (C. Plinii Nat. Hist. lib. vii. c. 56. cum notis yar.) 
 
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 
 
OP LETTEBS. 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 
 lose six of these twenty-two letters in his short passage across 
 the ^Egean, and to arrive in Greece with only sixteen? 
 Cadmus, as we have seen, is merely a creation of mythology, 
 or rather a personification of the sun, of the east, or of Asia ; 
 and the real fact is, that as the Greeks have no veracious 
 history before Herodotus, so they have no genuine antiquities ; 
 
16 OLDEST NAMES AND FORMS 
 
 all their pretended archaiology being comparatively modern 
 inventions, created in the full blaze of their civilisation, by 
 the fictions of poetry and the exaggerations of national 
 vanity. I believe, notwithstanding, that there was a Cadmus, 
 although not from Pho3nicia. A Cadmus of Miletus is re- 
 corded, who is said to have written a history of Attica in six- 
 teen books. Were these sixteen books distinguished, like 
 those of Homer in their present state, by so many letters of 
 the Greek alphabet ? I believe they were, and that this is 
 the sole historical foundation of Cadmus and his sixteen 
 letters ; but this by no means proves that there were no more 
 letters to be used if they had been required, but only that 
 there were no more books to be numbered. 
 
 4. The works of Pliny have suffered so much by the 
 ravages of time, that there is hardly a passage in them on 
 which we can place implicit confidence. This is more espe- 
 cially the case with regard to the numbers. When he says, 
 therefore, that the Babylonian astronomical observations 
 were 720 years old, the most obvious meaning of the words 
 is 720 years before his own time ; but he is much more 
 likely to have had in his mind the 721 years B. c., fixed on 
 by Ptolemy at a subsequent period as the date of the earliest 
 recorded eclipse of the moon. Berosus is said to have lived 
 and written in the age of Alexander. Lempriere fixes on 
 the year B. c. 268 ; and if to this we add the 480 mentioned 
 by Pliny, we shall have within a year the astronomical era of 
 Nabonassar (B. c. 747), which, we know, was used by 
 Ptolemy. Pere Amyot in his celebrated letter from Pekin 
 says, and the coincidence with European chronology is not a 
 little curious, the Chinese astronomical observations com- 
 mence B. c. 722, while the era of Nabonassar, which was 
 the basis of those of the Greeks, commenced B. c. 747, on the 
 26th of February. 
 
 5. Other coincidences between China and Europe will be 
 found to exist, or I am much mistaken, in subjects more 
 interesting than chronological dates or astronomical obser- 
 vations ; and I think it may be proved almost to demon- 
 stration that that country and ancient Egypt have two 
 
OF LETTER-. 17 
 
 hieroglyphics in common, proving conclusively an intimate 
 intercourse between the people, if not primary identity of 
 race, and that the Coptic alphabet has derived one letter, the 
 Hebrew three, the Phoenician or Samaritan two, the Estran 
 golo or Old Syriac, and the common Syriac, one letter each, 
 from Chinese hieroglyphics. Pere Amyot, in his Letter 
 from Pekin, already mentioned, informs us that there are five 
 different kinds of writing in China, of each of which he 
 presents us with specimens. The most ancient is the Kou- 
 ouen, which has been obsolete for centuries, probably for 
 more than two thousand years, and of which very scanty 
 vestiges remain in existence. He gives a specimen of it, 
 Plate 5.. which may also be found in the Philosophical Trans- 
 actions, vol. lix. tab. 24., and at page 84., art. " China," in 
 the Sup. to the Ency. Brit. 
 
 The second is the Tchoang-tsee which succeeded the Kou- 
 ouen, and lasted until the end of the Dynasty of the Tclicou. 
 This was in use during the life of Confucius who was born 
 about 551 years before Christ. 
 
 The third, or Li-tsee, commenced under the reign of Chi- 
 hoang-ti, founder of the Dynasty of the Tsin, and the great 
 enemy of learning and its professors. 
 
 The fourth, or Hing-chou, according to the learned Father 
 was devoted to printing, like the round and italic characters 
 among ourselves. 
 
 The fifth, or Tsao-tsee was invented under the Dynasty of 
 Han, and appears not to have been extensively prevalent. 
 (Lettre de Pekin, page 17. Bruxelles, 4to, 1773.) 
 
 vi. Among these Kou-ouen, or ancient characters (Kou in 
 spoken Chinese signifying antiquity), we find Ge or Jee, the 
 Sun 0, and Yue, the moon (art. " China," page 84. Sup. 
 Ency. Brit.) ; and on turning to Plate 74. art. " Egypt," we 
 discover the hieroglyphics for Phre, the sun, to be 10. 
 Phre I believe to be a compound word resolvable, in Coptic, 
 into the definite article Ph, and Ho a contraction for Ouro 
 (Scholtz, Gram. p. 17 21.), in which case the perpendicular 
 line may be the representative of the article, while the O re- 
 presents the sun, or the king of the host of heaven, as in the 
 
 c 
 
18 OLDEST NAMES AND FORMS 
 
 Chinese ; and as Du Halde informs us that the Chinese can- 
 not express the letter R, their Ge or Jee may have been the 
 nearest approximation they could make to Ro or Re, the 
 name of the sun in the language of Egypt, without the 
 coalescing article. In the same plate we find loh, the 
 moon, the Chinese hieroglyphic being, a half moon and 
 the name Yue ; so that both the hieroglyphics, and names 
 of the sun and moon, in China and Egypt, if not perfectly 
 identical, approximate so closely that there can be little 
 doubt of the derivation of the one from the other. 
 
 vn. In the plates representing the 214 Elements or Keys 
 of the Chinese Language, in the Supplement to the Ency- 
 clopedia Britannica, we find, 
 
 No. 45. Che, with the signification, a bud, grass, plants. 
 The name of a bud in Persic is Cheh. 
 
 oj Schei. The name of the twenty-fifth letter of the 
 Coptic alphabet, in Scholtz's Grammar of that language. 
 This is one of the eight letters which the Coptic has added 
 to the common Greek. 
 
 Shan, a hill or mountain in the Kou-ouen, or oldest 
 Chinese, whichqs genuine picture-writing. (Ency . Brit. p. 84.) 
 
 Shan, a hill or mountain. No. 46 of the 214 Keys, or 
 common Chinese, which is demotic, or simplified picture- 
 writing. 
 
 # Shin, the twenty-first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. 
 The word in that language signifies a tooth, or sharp cliff, 
 agreeing with the Chinese. 
 
 \tf Sin, the twenty-first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, 
 with the position of the point altered. 
 
 in Schin, the twenty-first letter of the Phoenician or 
 Samaritan alphabet, from Dutens's medals. 
 
 Yen, Chinese, the eye, seen in front Kou-ouen. 
 (Ency. Brit. p. 84.) 
 
 y Ain, the sixteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, being 
 half an eye, or the eye seen in profile. Ain in Hebrew 
 signifies the eye, as Yen does in spoken Chinese. 
 
 Ain, the sixteenth letter of the Phoenician or Samaritan 
 alphabet, from Dutens's medals. In Masclef's Samaritan 
 
OF LETTERS. 19 
 
 Grammar ^7, but both figures arc rudo representations of 
 half the eye. 
 
 Ain, the sixteenth letter of the Estrangolo, or old Syriac 
 obsolete. 
 
 L Ain, the sixteenth letter of the common Syriac, still in 
 use. 
 
 vin. So much for the letters derived by the Coptic and 
 Shemitic languages from the real character of the Chinese. 
 We are informed by Du Halde, and have just seen with our 
 own eyes, that the earliest attempts of the Chinese in the 
 art of writing, were precisely similar to those of the Mexicans, 
 and consisted simply of pictures, and that they had no other 
 means of conveying to others their ideas 011 the subject of a 
 mountain, a tree, or a bird, than by a rude delineation of 
 their figure. This was the Kou-ouen ; and we learn from 
 the Supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica, that enough 
 of it still remains on ancient seals, and vases for sacred pur- 
 poses, to show the original state, or very nearly so, of the 
 Chinese characters, and to trace the changes which have 
 taken place from the picture to the present symbol. Fere 
 Amyot himself is disposed to believe that even of the Kou- 
 ouen many of the characters are not of a remote antiquity ; 
 and adds, with the characteristic caution of his order, that he 
 would not give a guarantee that any of them were as old as 
 the age of Harnesses or Sesostris (page 44. note) ; and I feel 
 as little disposed to take guarantees for any thing connected 
 with the age of Ramesses or Sesostris, as the learned father 
 \vas to give them. With a chronology so uncertain as that 
 of China, it is very difficult to settle dates ; but one thing 
 appears to me to be absolutely certain, that the period at 
 which the Kou-ouen, or picture-writing, was exchanged for 
 the demotic or simplified, must have been anterior to any 
 known specimens of alphabetical writing existing in Europe, 
 as the oldest alphabets we are acquainted with have borrowed 
 several letters from the real characters actually in use in the 
 Chinese Empire. 
 
 IX. The preceding are the only letters that I have hither- 
 to succeeded in tracing directly to hieroglyphics, but there 
 
 c 2 
 
20 OLDEST NAMES AND FORMS 
 
 are many reasons which induce, me to belie ve^ that the Runic 
 alphabet is Oriental, and of a very remote antiquity, or at 
 any rate some of the sixteen letters of which it is composed. 
 Sir William Jones, in his Discourse on the Tartars, informs 
 us, on the authority of Arabshah, the author of the Life of 
 Tamerlane, that in Yaghatai, the people of Oighur have a 
 system of fourteen letters only, denominated from themselves 
 Oighuri, and that those are the characters which the Mongols 
 are supposed by most authors to have borrowed. Abul- 
 ghazi tells us only, that Chingiz employed the natives of 
 Eighur as excellent penmen ; but the Chinese assert that he 
 was forced to employ them, because he had no writers 
 at all among his natural-born subjects ; and we are assured by 
 many that Kublaikhan ordered letters to be invented for 
 his nation by a Tibetian, whom he rewarded with the dignity 
 of chief Lama. The small number of Eighuri letters, con- 
 tinues Sir William Jones, might induce us to believe that 
 they were Zend, or Pahlavi, which must have been current 
 in that country, when it was governed by the sons of Feri- 
 dun ; and if the alphabet ascribed to the Eighurians by M. 
 des Hautesrayes be correct, we may safely decide that in 
 many of its letters it resembles both the Zend and the Syriac, 
 with a remarkable difference in the mode of connecting them ; 
 but as we can scarce hope to see a genuine specimen of them, 
 our doubt must remain in regard to their form and origin : 
 the page exhibited by Hyde as Khatayan writing, is evidently 
 a sort of broken Cufic, and the fine manuscript at Oxford 
 from which it was taken, is more probably a Mendean work 
 on some religious subject, than, as he imagined, a code of 
 Tartarean laws. (Sir William Jones's Works, vol. iii. p. 82.) 
 x. In connection with this subject, Mallet, the author of 
 the History of Denmark, or rather Bishop Percy, his judicious 
 translator, says : What are we to think of those inscriptions in 
 the Runic character, which travellers assure us they have 
 seen in the deserts of Tartary ? Tartary has never yet been 
 converted to Christianity : from this and the circumjacent 
 countries issued those swarms which peopled Scandinavia ; 
 nor have the Scandinavians ever made any expedition into 
 
OF LETTERS. 21 
 
 their mother country since they embraced the Christian 
 faith. If, then, the account given us by these travellers is 
 true, we must necessarily conclude that the Runic writing 
 was an art which had its rise in Asia, and was carried into 
 Europe by the colonies who came to settle in the north. 
 This is also confirmed by all the old chronicles and poems 
 which I have so often quoted. They universally agree in 
 assigning to the Runic characters a very remote antiquity, 
 and an origin entirely Pagan. They attribute the invention 
 of them to Odin himself; who, they add, was eminently 
 skilled in the art of writing, as well for the common purposes 
 of life as for the operations of magic. Many of these letters 
 even bore the names of the gods, his companions ; and in a 
 very ancient ode quoted by Bartholinus, the poet thus speaks 
 of the Runic characters, "The letters which the Great Ancient 
 traced out, which the gods composed, which Odin, the sovereign 
 of the gods, engraved." (Northern Antiquities, vol. i. p. 371.) 
 xi. It is quite clear to my mind that no human being of 
 the name of Odin ever existed, and that the name of the 
 Northern Woden is derived from the Indian Budha, by 
 reading the initial letter as V or W, and adding a final N ; 
 which in Sanskrit is frequently Anuswarah, a mere dot. 
 Much of what is related of Odin is explicable from Indian 
 sources, and made up of Indian ideas. There are said to 
 have been two Odins, and we also find two Budhas in the 
 Hindu my thology. The name of one of them is said to have 
 been Sigge ; and Sakya, or Sacya, is one of the Hindu names 
 of Budha, a very probable etymology of Saxons in the sense 
 of his worshippers or followers. Odin is described as having 
 one eye, and the Arimaspians mentioned by Herodotus were 
 probably some of the most devoted of his adorers ; not that 
 they had fewer eyes than their neighbours, but that they 
 worshipped Budha, or the Sun, under the name of the Eye of 
 the Universe. The Indian Budha was the son of Maia, and 
 the regent of the planet Mercury ; and the Greek Mercury 
 was also the son of Maia, and the inventor of letters, a bene- 
 fit to mankind which we have just seen was also ascribed to 
 the Northern Woden. 
 
 c 3 
 
OLDEST NAMES AND FORMS 
 
 xii. To return, however, to the Runic letters. In the 
 fourth volume of Conyers Micldleton's Miscellaneous Works, 
 we find the representation of a gem bearing the effigies of a 
 monarch, said to be Parthian, with an inscription in characters 
 which no one hitherto I believe has succeeded in decyphering. 
 I will first translate what he says on the subject, and then 
 make a few remarks on the legend. The third gem, says he, 
 exhibits the likeness of some king of the Parthians, adorned 
 with the dress and ornaments with which we usually find 
 those princes engraved, as well on gems as on medals. I re- 
 mark that Bandelet has already brought to light another 
 gem resembling, and almost identical with ours, engraved on 
 agate, with an inscription in Parthian letters, made in the 
 form of a ring, which he declares to have been among the 
 most valuable and beautiful he had ever seen of that descrip- 
 tion. It is a well-known fact that the kings of the ancient 
 Medes and Parthians were more delighted with the splendour 
 of royal robes, and a minuteness of decoration, almost femi- 
 nine, than any other race of monarchs. For we read that 
 they were accustomed to paint the face and eye-lids, to wear 
 false hair, twisted into innumerable curls, together with ear- 
 rings, necklaces, and bracelets. Thus Xenophon describes 
 the Mede, Astyages ; and Plutarch Surena, the Parthian 
 leader, adding that the Parthians had contracted their taste 
 for such ornaments from the Medes. That the effigies of the 
 Parthian kings were frequently engraved on gems, and in the 
 very dress which they really wore, we learn from Pliny; who, 
 writing to Trajan from Bithynia, says that he had with him 
 a slave who had deserted from Pacorus, king of the Parthians, 
 bringing with him a gem engraved with the likeness of 
 Pacorus, in the royal insignia which he commonly wore; that 
 the gem had been abstracted from the slave by force, or 
 fraud ; and Pliny says, that he was making diligent inquiries 
 for it, that he might transmit it to Trajan. Thus our gem, 
 adds Middleton, appears to be valuable, not so much for the 
 beauty of the engraving, which nevertheless might fairly 
 constitute a theme for praise, as from its extreme rarity, 
 when we remark that Roman proconsuls were anxious to pro- 
 
OF LETTERS. 23 
 
 cure such, and regarded them as presents worthy of the 
 emperor. (Works, vol. iv. p. 153, tab. 21.) 
 
 Now, two of the letters in this legend, or inscription, 
 appear to me to be Runic, and one Phoenician, or Samari- 
 tan. 
 
 ^ Tyr, the letter t. (Mallet's Northern Antiquities, vol. i. 
 p. 370.) 
 
 rh Yr, power yr. (Ibid.) 
 
 Samech s. (Dutens's Phoenician Medals, second form of 
 the letter.) 
 
 If the letter Tyr had formed the commencement of the 
 inscription, it would have been highly probable that the 
 whole name was Tiridates, as there were several kings of that 
 name. But it does not do so, being preceded by two other 
 characters, one of which is partially obliterated, and the 
 other of them I cannot decypher ; and until the whole inscrip- 
 tion is made out, we cannot be certain as to the power of the 
 letters, and the above must be regarded as merely conjectural, 
 and I offer it as such. It is remarkable, however, that Parthia 
 has an historical, or at any rate traditional, connection with 
 Scythia. Justin commences the 41st book of his History by 
 saying: "The Parthians, in whose hands the empire of the East 
 is at present placed, as if they had divided the globe with the 
 Romans, were originally Scythian exiles, as indeed is proved 
 by their name, for, in the language of Scythia, Parthi is 
 equivalent to exiles." Whatever may be thought of the His- 
 tory, I feel strongly disposed to contest the etymology of 
 this passage, believing the name of the Parthians to be essen- 
 tially the same as that of the Persians, the latter being the 
 Hebrew word Pharash, a horseman, and the former the 
 Chaldee form of the same word, changing sh into th, accord- 
 ing to the general rule ; and it is clear from history, that both 
 were originally Nomades, and nations of cavalry, and indeed 
 the Parthians were hardly ever anything else. My own 
 opinion is, as I have explained at greater length in another 
 work, that the earliest seats of civilization must be sought for in 
 the southern countries of Asia, China, Hindostan, Persia, and 
 Assyria ; whence the original inhabitants were constrained to 
 
 c 4 
 
24 OLDEST -NAMES AND FORMS 
 
 emigrate, in a northerly direction, by the pressure of popula- 
 tion against the means of subsistence, the great instrument in 
 covering the face of the earth with inhabitants. The emi- 
 grants, no doubt, carried with them whatever arts and sciences 
 they had acquired ; and if we could find indubitable proof of 
 the existence of the Runic letters in Persia, or Parthia, it 
 would hardly be possible to doubt that they were carried 
 into the north of Europe in the course of those emigrations 
 which are ascribed to Odin. 
 
 xin. There is another strong presumption of the Asiatic 
 origin of the Runic alphabet, as the names of two of its 
 letters are Persic words ; I do not mean conjectural words, 
 such as etymologists are so much in the habit of dealing with, 
 and which they are often accused of manufacturing, but 
 words which are to be found in every dictionary of the lan- 
 guage. 
 
 In the Runic alphabet we find 
 
 f Tyr, the name of the letter t. But Tir in Persic sig- 
 nifies an arrow, and we have only to look at the Runic 
 form of the letter, to be convinced that it forms a con- 
 necting link between hieroglyphics and alphabets, and 
 that it is one of the very oldest among the elements of 
 the latter. In the northern mythology we also find a 
 god Tyr, about whom their authors can relate little, 
 except that he was a military deity ; and as Tir in Persic 
 is the name of the planet Mercury, as well as of an 
 arrow, Tyr was probably another name of Odin or 
 Woden himself. 
 
 & Biarkan, the name of the letter b. Barkhanah in Persic 
 signifies a tent, and it is quite clear that two are re- 
 presented, so that it is at once an hieroglyphic and a 
 letter. It may perhaps be analysed into Bar, son, and 
 Khanah, house, a tent being a small house. The Runic 
 is the oldest form of the Greek Beta in Dutens's medals, 
 and also in a modern work of high authority, Inscrip- 
 tiones Gra3ca3 Vetustissimae, by H. I. Rose, M.A. 
 It is remarkable that in many of the Shemitic lan- 
 guages, Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac and Samaritan, the 
 
OF LETTERS. 25 
 
 name of the second letter is Beth, whence the Greeks 
 derived their Beta ; and almost all who have paid any 
 attention -to these languages must have remarked, that in 
 none of them does the form of the letter bear the least 
 resemblance to a house, which the word Beth signifies. 
 In the Runic only the form agrees with the name, and 
 carries us back to hieroglyphics, the precursors of 
 letters, and to a tent which is the house of a Nomadic 
 people in the very infancy of civil society. 
 
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. AT the first view of the subject, and before we have had 
 time to collect the results of experience by the aid of memory, 
 and deduce logical conclusions from them by the exercise of 
 the reasoning faculty, the art of alphabetical writing appears 
 to be calculated to fix the sounds of language beyond the 
 possibility of mutation or accident ; and yet on a close and 
 attentive examination, we shall find reason to believe that 
 the most rude and unwritten languages have experienced 
 fewest and least changes, and the most polished and early 
 written, the most numerous and greatest ; in short, that refine- 
 ment in language is almost another word for revolution. 
 Almost all must have remarked the changes produced in lan- 
 guage by the dropping of superfluous letters, by dismissing 
 clusters of consonants, by the elision of vowels, and by the 
 rejection of aspirates, initial and medial ; in some instances, 
 to assist the hand in writing, to keep pace with the speed of 
 thought, and, in others, to gratify the ear by the charms of 
 harmony, and add new attractions to the declamation of the 
 orator, and the song of the poet. Instances of this sort are 
 familiar to the minds of most well educated men ; but perhaps 
 it has occurred to few, and even when pointed out, will not 
 be readily believed, that large classes of words have had their 
 origin in, and been created by the art of alphabetical writing 
 itself ; and that if that art had never been invented, the proba- 
 bility is, that many words which we now find in the diction- 
 aries of the oldest written languages would never have existed. 
 
DIVERSITIES OF LANGUAGE. 27 
 
 II. There are three leading modes or divisions in the art of 
 writing, whether in hieroglyphics or letters ; in a real cha- 
 racter the sign of things, or a vocal character the sign of 
 sounds. The Chinese, who, as my readers are well aware, 
 use a real character, write from the top of the page to the 
 bottom, in which they are followed by the Ceylonese, and 
 many other Oriental nations who use an alphabetical cha- 
 racter. The great family of the Shemitic, or Arabic class of 
 languages, the Hebrew, the Chaldee, the Syriac, the Samari- 
 tan, and of course the Arabic itself, have from time imme- 
 morial been written from right to left ; while, on the other 
 hand, the Sanskrit, or Indian class of languages, compre- 
 hending the Sarmatian, or great Slavonic family, together 
 with all the languages of modern Europe, are now written 
 from left to right. But this was not always the case, for a 
 few of the oldest Greek inscriptions, denominated Boustro- 
 phedon, from their supposed resemblance to the action of an 
 ox ploughing, are written in lines running from left to right, 
 and from right to left alternately. This mode of writing 
 may be regarded as a connecting link between the two great 
 families of languages, of which the Arabic and the Sanskrit 
 may be regarded as the keys ; but there are grounds for sus- 
 pecting that, at a still earlier period, the Greeks wrote entirely 
 from right to left like the Phoenicians, as by far the larger 
 part of the inscriptions denominated Etruscan, but which are 
 really little more than the remains of the Greeks settled in 
 Italy, are written in that manner. 
 
 ill. I shall begin with the names of some of the gods, 
 commencing with the Chinese, as there are strong grounds for 
 believing that their monosyllabic language, if not the oldest, 
 is at any rate among the oldest spoken by mankind. In that 
 language we find the word Tien, heaven, which is personified 
 as a god, and appears to correspond as nearly as possible with 
 the Ouranos of the Greeks, and the Coclus of the Romans. 
 If we reverse Tien, or read it from right to left, we have 
 Neit ; and if we repair to Sais in ancient Egypt, we find the 
 temple of Ncitha with the following inscription, as given in 
 Enficld's History of Philosophy : " I am whatever is, or lias 
 
28 DIVERSITIES OF LANGUAGE 
 
 been, or will be, and no mortal has hitherto drawn aside my 
 veil; my offspring is the Sun." Neitha was certainly either 
 Heaven personified, like the Chinese Tien, or Eternity, or at 
 different periods both. Greek tradition brings Cecrops and a 
 colony of Saites to Athens, and if we reverse Neitha again, 
 drop the i, and add a final Eta to the word, we shall have 
 the name of their tutelary goddess Athene ; and the elder 
 Minerva, or Metis, has much in common with Urania. In 
 other words, the Greek Athene is etymologically the Chinese 
 Tien, with a prefix and affix; while, mythologically, the 
 Chinese worship a goddess, to whom they give the name of 
 Tien-Heou, or Queen of Heaven. 
 
 IY. Again, if we take the Chinese word Tien, heaven, and 
 recollect that d is a letter of the same organ with the initial 
 t, we have Dien. In Sanskrit we find Tihan, a bow, and 
 shall perhaps see reason to believe that the oldest Grecian 
 Dihan or Diana, was the concavity or expanse of heaven 
 personified. Diana, the goddess of hunting, is clearly the 
 mere creation of poetry of a comparatively modern age. If 
 we reverse Dihan, write Nahid, and open a Persic dictionary 
 at the word, we shall find that it signifies the planet Venus, 
 and a girl with a swelling bosom. If we prefix a to Nahid, 
 and change the final d into Tis, we shall have Anaitis, which 
 Strabo will inform us was a name of Venus in Armenia, and 
 Pausanias of Diana in Lydia ; while Pliny doubts if the 
 worship offered by the Armenians was directed to Venus or 
 Diana. Again, if we will take the trouble to open a Persic 
 dictionary at the word Nihad, or Nahid transposed, we shall 
 perceive that it signifies nature ; and we discover in the Greek 
 mythology ample reasons for believing that some of the 
 goddesses, worshipped under the name of Diana, were merely 
 so many personifications or abstract ideas of nature, as our 
 common mother. The Arabic name of nature is Tabiat ; 
 and Herodotus informs us, that the name of Vesta, or the 
 Bona Dea among the Scythians, was Tabiti, which is doubtless 
 the same word. Many of the Scythian words mentioned by 
 Herodotus are unquestionably Arabic and Persic, having 
 been carried into that bleak region by emigrants from the 
 
PRODUCED BY MODES OP WRITING. 29 
 
 countries of Southern Asia, impelled by the operation of the 
 principle of population. 
 
 v. Again, we learn from Herodotus, that Mitra was the 
 name of Venus among the ancient Persians. Written with 
 the aspirate Theta, Mithras, or Mithres, it was undoubtedly 
 a name of the sun, their principal god. The same author 
 informs us, that the name of Venus among the Scy- 
 thians was Artimpasa. Artim is certainly Mitra reversed, 
 and Pasa may be the Sanskrit word Bhas, shine ; and the 
 name will apply either to the planet Venus, or the moon. 
 The Egyptian Isis was the moon, the Syrian Ashteroth or 
 Astarte was the moon, or the queen of heaven ; and Cicero 
 says that Astarte was the name of Venus in Assyria. Some 
 authors inform us, that Mithras or Mithres was the name of 
 the sun among the Persians, and Mithra of the moon. Be 
 that as it may, the Greeks formed their Artemis by reversing 
 Mitra, and indeed appear to have borrowed both the word 
 and the worship from the Scythians. The Tauric Diana 
 was the tutelary goddess of Sparta, and Artemis reversed and 
 transposed produces something like Misitra, the modern 
 name of the city, but which is probably really as old as 
 Sparta itself. 
 
 vi. If we open Wilson's Sanskrit Dictionary at the word 
 Rama, we shall perceive that one of its meanings is the deity 
 of love, Kama ; and if we reverse the word, or write it from 
 right to left, we shall have Amar, and by changing the a into 
 o, Amor, love, or the god of love ; but as the verb, which is 
 unquestionably cognate, is written Amare, it may be fairly 
 doubted if Amar is not an older reading than Amor. Again we 
 find the Sanskrit word Dipaka, with the signification of kind- 
 ling or inflaming, as another of the names of Kama, or love. Sir 
 William Jones says the word is frequently written incorrectly 
 Dipuc, and, reversing that form of it, we have the Latin 
 Cupid, letter for letter, and the adjective cupidus. We have 
 just seen that Kama in Sanskrit signifies love, and in Arabic 
 the radical letters Rhm, pronounced Rahni, signify the womb, 
 matrix, compassion, mercy, which, reversed Mhr, in Persic 
 signifies love and the sun. There can be little doubt that 
 
30 DIVERSITIES OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 the Linga in Hindostan, and the Phallus in Egypt and 
 Greece, were sacred to the sun, as a type of his germinative 
 or creative power. The radical letters Rhm also signify to 
 love, in Hebrew and Syriac. 
 
 vn. Sometimes the same word is written from right to 
 left, and from left to right in the same language ; that is, in 
 languages which differ so little from each other, as the 
 Hebrew and the Chaldee, and which are written in pre* 
 cisely the same character. In Hebrew, Laib, the heart, 
 radical letters Lb; and in Chaldee, Bal, the heart, radical 
 letters Bl. We are not so much surprised at finding the 
 word heart expressed in Arabic, both by Lubb and Bal, as 
 the latter word came from the Persic ; which, though written 
 like the Arabic, from right to left, since the period of the 
 Mahometan conquest of Persia, was probably at an earlier 
 period written like the Sanskrit, with which it has so much 
 more in common. The radical letters Lb, with some modi- 
 fications, appear to signify the heart in all the Shemitic 
 languages, Arabic, Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, and Ethiopic, 
 and to have passed into the Gothic languages in the word 
 love, of which the heart is the supposed seat; while the 
 Persic Bal appears to supply the etymology of the Greek 
 Boule, the will, and Boulomai, I will. The Persic word 
 Dil, the heart, formed the Latin Diligo, I love, and its 
 compounds. 
 
 vin. The Persic word for head is Sar, which reversod 
 becomes Ras in Arabic, Rosh in Hebrew, Raish in Chaldee, 
 Rash in Samaritan, and Ryas in Ethiopic. In Arabic, we 
 find the word Kid in the sense of rule, regulation, article of 
 agreement, obligation, which reversed, with the addition of 
 final Eta, becomes in Greek Dike, justice. In Coptic, we 
 find Chlom, a crown, which, reversed, becomes in Hebrew 
 Moloch, a king, or he who wears a crown. 
 
31 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 ON DIVERSITIES OF LANGUAGE WHICH APPEAR TO HAVE BEEN 
 PRODUCED BY THE SUBSTITUTION OF ONE LETTER FOR ANOTHER. 
 ORIGIN OF DIALECTS. 
 
 I. ONE of the best modern grammars (Noehden's) of the 
 German language gives a synopsis of the letters which are 
 most alike, and most liable to be mistaken for each other, 
 and it is much to be wished that other works of a similar 
 nature had done the same. Up to this time it does not 
 appear to have occurred to philologists, or at any rate I have 
 not seen it remarked and applied to any practical purpose, 
 that letters which are liable to be confounded now, must 
 have been liable to be confounded always ; that letters liable 
 to be mistaken for each other, must actually have been 
 mistaken ; and that where they are frequently mistaken, an 
 erroneous reading becomes permanent, and a dialect is 
 formed. Noehden begins by remarking that B and V, in 
 German, are two of the characters most liable to be mistaken 
 for each other ; and it is deserving of notice that the same is 
 the case in Sanskrit, which perhaps has a stronger claim 
 than any other single language to be regarded as the mother, 
 not merely of the Greek and Latin, but of most of the 
 languages of modern Europe ; while in many of the Shemitic 
 languages, Beth, the second letter of the alphabet, has also 
 the power of V, and as the Roman F was derived from the 
 Phoenician Vau, we find B, V, and F, discharging the 
 office of initial aspirates, more frequently than any other 
 consonants in the Greek and Latin, the latter character 
 being the celebrated Eolic Digamma, about which so much 
 has been written, and so little understood. 
 
 n. From the confident tone with which philologists, in 
 their etymological speculations, pronounce on the power and 
 
32 SUBSTITUTION OF ONE 
 
 changes of letters, one would fancy that the present order of 
 things had existed for ever, and that the oldest books extant 
 had been stereotyped as soon as written, and duly entered at 
 Stationers' Hall ; and yet it is matter of notoriety, that 
 alphabets were not produced, like Minerva, from the head of 
 Jove, at once mature and perfect, but were the slow growth 
 of centuries ; and that even after the number and power of 
 the letters had been settled, their form continued to vary so 
 essentially, that inscriptions, two or three centuries old, 
 became nearly unintelligible. According to Greek tradition, 
 on which however, as I have already remarked, little or no 
 reliance is to be placed, alphabetical characters were invented 
 in Egypt by Memnon, B. c. 1822, and brought into Greece 
 by Cadmus, B. c. 1493 ; and yet we are quite certain that 
 the Greek alphabet was not finally settled until the archon- 
 ship of Euclid at Athens, during the Peloponnesian war, 
 when in all probability it assumed very nearly the form in 
 which it is at present known to us. Let any one attempt to 
 deduce the twenty- four letters of the Greek alphabet, from 
 the twenty-two of the Phoenician or Samaritan, and next the 
 Roman letters from the oldest forms of the Greek, and he 
 will have some idea how many unrecorded attempts must have 
 been made, and how numerous the failures that must have 
 occurred ; how difficult it was to dismiss the old characters, 
 after all were sensible of their inconvenience, or to introduce 
 the new after all became convinced of their superiority, so 
 powerful is the influence of habit, and so weak that of reason, 
 on human aifairs ; and we shall easily conceive that the old 
 letters refused to be laid, and continued to rise, like the ghost 
 of Banquo, " with twenty mortal murders on their head," 
 while the new, like the spirits of Glendower, refused to come 
 " when they did call for them." Philologists, acquiescing in 
 Greek tradition, have rarely pursued their researches beyond 
 the Greek alphabet itself; while the real fact is, that the 
 single work of Lanzi, his Saggio di Etrusca, contains such 
 a variety of characters, that it has the appearance of being a 
 grand congress of letters, to which all the ancient alphabets 
 of Asia have sent two or three representatives, Sanskrit, 
 
LETTER FOR ANOTHER. 33 
 
 Phoenician, Syriac, Hebrew and Coptic. In the present 
 Chapter I shall show, that, in many instances, precisely the 
 same forms had at different periods very different powers, 
 before the old became finally obsolete and the new were 
 completely established. 
 
 ill. Hebrew Daleth, T (D), and Raish, 1 (R), confounded. 
 
 In the 10th, or genealogical chapter of Genesis, at the 
 4th, verse, we read, <r And the sons of Javan ; Elishah, and 
 Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim." Instead of Dodanim, an 
 edition of the Septuagint before me, printed at Glasgow, in 
 1822, and which professes to be founded on the celebrated 
 Vatican MS., reads Rodioi, Rhodians, clearly by mis- 
 taking the Hebrew Daleth for a Raish. By mistaking the 
 second D of Dodanim in the same way, they would have 
 formed something very like Dorians, Doranim. Elishah is 
 very like Ellas, the common name of Greece, while Dodanim 
 reminds us of Dodona. (Vide Gibbs's Gesenius in voc. 
 Alishah and Dodanim.) 
 
 iv. Hebrew Samech, D (S), and final Mem, D (M), con- 
 founded. 
 
 In 2 Kings, xix. 37., we read, " And it came to pass, as he 
 (Sennacherib) was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his 
 god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him 
 with the sword." The word Nisroch occurs but this once in 
 the Old Testament, and is unintelligible from a double cor- 
 ruption. It consists of two distinct Persic words, Nim, half, 
 and Roz, day, or the meridian, and by omitting the diacritical 
 point in the final letter of Roz it becomes Rod, and we have 
 Nimrod, the sun. 
 
 V. Hebrew final Caph, 1 (Ch), and Daleth, 1 (D), con- 
 founded. 
 
 This forms the second syllable of Nisroch, the true read- 
 ing of which should be Nimrod. In Richardson's Persic 
 Dictionary, we meet with the phrase Sultani Nimroz, Sultan 
 of the Meridian, as an epithet of the sun ; and by turning 
 to the sixth volume of Sir William Jones's Works, which 
 contains his Commentary on Asiatic Poetry, at pages 113. 
 
 D 
 
34 SUBSTITUTION OF ONE 
 
 and 114., we shall perceive that Nimroz is actually written 
 Nimrod, both in the Persic and the Latin translation, " Nunc 
 cum tulipa ardet igne Nimrodi," where by Nimrod we must 
 necessarily understand the sun. 
 
 vi. Arabic Eej (R), and Ze j (Z), confounded. 
 
 In Genesis, at chapter xxv. verses 17, 18. we read, " And 
 these are the years of the life of Ishmael, an hundred and thirty 
 and seven years : and he gave up the ghost and died ; and 
 was gathered unto his people. And they dwelt from 
 Havilah unto Shur, that is before Egypt, as thou goest 
 towards Assyria: and he died in the presence of all his 
 brethren." It is quite certain that there is but one way of 
 going from Egypt to Assyria by land, and that is by the 
 Isthmus of Suez ; and if we suppose the word Shur to have 
 been inserted in the Hebrew text from an Arabic MS., 
 where it w T as written Shuz, we shall be very near the pre- 
 sent name Suez. There is less difficulty in this, than in 
 supposing Frat and Hiddekel, the modern Arabic names of 
 the Euphrates and Tigris, to have been known in Paradise. 
 The passage quoted from Genesis, xxv. 18., renders it highly 
 probable that Havilah was the name of the north of Arabia, 
 from the Isthmus of Suez to the river which is called Pison, 
 Genesis, ii. 11., and which probably designated one of the 
 branches of the Frat or Euphrates. Havilah appears to be 
 cognate with Hivites, and both words with Havvoth, tents, 
 (vide Gibbs's Gesenius in voce), Hvi, Hebrew, a tent, and 
 Hiat, Arabic, life, Hivites, shepherds, or men dwelling in tents. 
 Hvi, Hebrew, a tent, and Layah, Sanskrit, place ; Havilah, 
 place of tents, or land of shepherds ; the etymology of Palestine 
 itself being Pali, shepherd, and Istan, place, both Sanskrit. 
 
 vii. Sanskrit TEf (S), and Kornan H (R). 
 
 In the third book of his History, Livy says, " The next 
 consuls were Aulus Postumius Albus, and Spurius Furius 
 Fusus (A.U. 290, B.C, 462). Some have written the Furii, 
 Fusii ; and I mention this circumstance lest any one should 
 fancy that there was a difference in the persons when it 
 existed only in the name." As s and r, to use the language 
 
LETTER FOR ANOTHER. 35 
 
 of grammarians, are not letters of the same organ, but, on the 
 contrary, as distinct in sound as any two in the alphabet, 
 there must of necessity have existed some cause of a very 
 peculiar nature, to produce and account for the confusion of 
 these letters. If the mistake had been limited to a single 
 proper name, like that of the Furian or Fusian family, the 
 circumstance would not have been worth investigating ; but 
 this is so far from having been the case, that we find a large 
 class of words enumerated by the writers on Roman 
 antiquities, distinguished by the same ambiguity. Varro, in 
 the sixth book of his work De Lingua Latina, says : " In 
 multis verbis in quo antiqui dicebant s, postea dicunt r, ut in 
 carmine Saliorum sunt haec : cosauli (chorauli), dolosi (dolori), 
 eso (ero), post melios (melior), foedesUm (foederum), plusima 
 (plurima), asena (arena), janitos (janitor)." (Lanzi, Saggio, 
 torn. i. p. 126.) I would begin by remarking that in attempt- 
 ing to throw light on the archaisms of any language, it does 
 not appear to have occurred to antiquarians, that the first 
 step should be to recur to the most ancient alphabet of that 
 language, and endeavour to ascertain its gradual formation 
 and successive changes. They appear to have regarded alpha- 
 bets as something as fixed and permanent as language itself, 
 as if they were altogether the work of nature, and not, on the 
 contrary, the contrivance of art, in some cases more, and in 
 others less, perfect ; and yet almost all scholars must be aware 
 of the common tradition, that the Greek alphabet consisted 
 primarily of only sixteen letters, and that the oldest Roman 
 alphabet was as narrow. A cursory inspection will convince 
 us, not merely that many of the most ancient characters have 
 entirely disappeared, without leaving a trace of themselves 
 in the alphabet as finally settled (a circumstance which would 
 merely incapacitate us for reading the ancient inscriptions, in 
 which those characters occur), but, what is found to be a 
 source of incomparably greater confusion and difficulty, that 
 precisely the same form has, at different periods, been appro- 
 priated to different letters, so that the power being changed, 
 while the appearance remained the same, the nicest scrutiny 
 of the eye produced no other effect than that of misleading 
 
 D 2 
 
#6 SUBSTITUTION OF ONE 
 
 the ear. Among the characters which have entirely disap- 
 peared from the Greek and Roman alphabets, are two Sans- 
 krit S's, one of which is also Phoenician, and respecting each 
 of them I shall have a few words to say. I must commence, 
 however, with giving the forms accurately. 
 
 S[T Sanskrit letter Sa, from Wilkins' Grammar. 
 2 Phoenician Samech, from Dutens' Medals. Third form in 
 the alphabet given by him. 
 
 The reader will remark, that the square frame work is no 
 essential part of the Sanskrit letter, and that in both instances 
 the genuine character is the European figure of 2, for which 
 we are said to be indebted to the Arabians. I now proceed 
 to give two exemplifications of its occurrence in Lanzi 
 
 I3MI2 W^, Tomo ii; p. 370., inscrip. 113. 
 
 The letters are an Etruscan Chi, or Roman Q, intended as 
 an abbreviation for Quintia ; then follows the name at length, 
 Vesinei ; a Hebrew Beth, with the power of v, a Greek 
 Epsilon, a Sanskrit or Phoenician s, and the other characters 
 too plain to be mistaken 
 
 2 MflV^ Tomo ii. p. 389., inscrip. 181. 
 
 Ruapis, with the Sanskrit or Phoenician s, occurring as a 
 final : here there is not the smallest doubt about the Etruscan 
 letters, as we find them in common Roman characters beneath. 
 
 Having given the other Sanskrit s at the commencement 
 of this paragraph or section, I have only to exemplify its 
 use by Lanzi. He, of course, reads and prints it like a 
 Roman capital R, though he is perfectly aware that the 
 words require an s; I, on the contrary, give the words as 
 I suppose them to have been originally written. 
 
 Tianus ~| , ... ..- . ir . 
 
 _ j- torn. 111. p. 600., inscrip. 10. 
 
 Teanus ) 
 
 Akurunnias, torn. iii. p. 604., inscrip. 26. 
 
 The oldest form of the Greek Rho was <, and the next 
 with the perpendicular stroke a little lengthened, and the 
 oldest existing instance, according to Dutens, of the lower 
 
LETTER FOR ANOTHER. 37 
 
 stroke being added, which converted it into a Roman R, 
 is in the Nointel inscription, B.C. 450; and until about that 
 period there was, probably, no ambiguity between S, and R ; 
 but from that time the mistakes became so frequent, as to 
 occasion this form of S, ^ET, to be entirely discontinued at the 
 final settlement of the Roman alphabet. Being discontinued, 
 it was, as a matter of course, completely forgotten ; and when- 
 ever it occurred in inscriptions of great antiquity, like the 
 above three, it was read as a capital R, the only letter in the 
 settled Roman alphabet to which it bore the least resem- 
 blance, as has been done by Lanzi. 
 
 viii. Among the most celebrated of all the Roman in- 
 scriptions, is that of the Duillian column, erected to per- 
 petuate the memory of the first naval victory of the Romans, 
 obtained by the Consul Duillius over the Carthaginians, in 
 the year of Rome 494. The original column, however, has 
 not come down to us, that in existence being supposed by 
 Lanzi not to be older than the reign of the Emperor 
 Claudius. Indeed, a circumstance is mentioned in Brotier's 
 supplement to Tacitus, which, if well founded, must induce 
 us to regard the whole body of Roman inscriptions with 
 extreme suspicion, and, at any rate, teach us a lesson of 
 caution. He says, " The records of the old republic, and all 
 the valuable monuments of antiquity, had perished in the 
 flames of the capitol, not less than three thousand brazen 
 tablets, on which were engraved the decrees of the senate 
 and the acts of the people, were destroyed in that dreadful 
 conflagration. To repair the loss as well as might be, 
 Vespasian ordered diligent search to be made in every 
 quarter, for the copies that were known to exist ; and, after 
 due examination, he deposited the same in the public archives. 
 He rebuilt the capitol ; promoted arts and sciences ; en- 
 couraged men of genius ; and, though his avarice in many 
 instances was little short of rapacity, he spared no expense 
 to restore the buildings which had been destroyed by Nero's 
 fire, and in general to improve and adorn the city." ( Valpy's 
 Classical Library, vol. xv. p. 64.) Be that as it may, I have 
 
 x> 3 
 
38 SUBSTITUTION OF ONE 
 
 little hesitation in expressing my opinion that the inscription 
 which has come to us, contains various readings, which 
 never were, are now, nor ever will be, Latin, in spite 
 of all the efforts of the most accomplished scholars to ex- 
 plain them ; and I adduce them as another instance of the 
 anomalies arising out of the use of the equivocal characters R 
 and S, in the early Roman alphabet, and which may be 
 accounted for from that circumstance. In the early part of 
 that inscription as given by Lanzi, we read Lecioneis, 
 Maximosque, Macistratos, Casteris, so that there can be no 
 doubt that the plural number was formed by the addition of 
 S, in the usual manner ; while in the latter part we read 
 Praesented, Maxumod, Dictatored, Olorum In Altod Marid 
 Pugnandod. Both readings cannot by any possibility be 
 genuine. Which is the true one ? I believe the Sanskrit S 
 was written in the original inscription 3rf. This, in the 
 course of time, was entirely laid aside, as being inconveniently 
 (like the Roman capital R, as originally) written from right to 
 left H. The S was forgotten, and in the age of Claudius, 
 when the inscription was renewed, being desirous to retain 
 some portion of its archaism, they wrote the ancient Greek, 
 or Etruscan O (R), instead of the Sanskrit S, which they 
 read as R. In deciphering any very ancient inscription, the 
 great point for consideration is, not what the characters 
 actually signify to us, the readers, but what they did signify, 
 at the period they were written, to the persons who wrote 
 them. I cannot believe for a moment, that Latin plurals 
 ever terminated in Delta, the fourth letter of the Greek 
 alphabet ; and could as easily credit the existence of Arimaspii 
 or Blemmyes, Centaurs or Cynocephali. 
 
 ix. The substitution of R for S is said to be a Doricism, 
 and one of the leading peculiarities of the Doric dialect ; and 
 few facts appear to be better established, or supported by 
 more numerous instances. I venture to suppose, however, 
 that this peculiarity is not older than the art of alphabetical 
 writing ; and the direct consequence of the existence of two 
 ambiguous characters, of which we find many instances in 
 
LETTER FOR ANOTHER. 39 
 
 Italy, and which in Greece was preserved in a permanent 
 dialect. If we receive the common account, that the use of 
 alphabetical characters was brought into the former from the 
 latter country, there is no violation of probability in supposing 
 that this character ^f, Sanskrit S, existed in Greece as well 
 as in Italy. The oldest form of the Roman R, however, !?, 
 which is so much like it, is found in the Nointel, or Bandelet 
 inscription, brought from Athens by the Marquis de Nointel, 
 and which Dutens supposes to be as old as the year B. c. 450. 
 Lanzi says, that in the Latin tables of Gubbio we meet with 
 many words terminating in R, which 'in the older Etruscan 
 inscriptions terminate in S. (Tom. i. p. 258.) All these 
 instances are clearly so many misreadings of a letter, and not 
 to be regarded as changes of dialect. Eustathius calls this 
 substitution of R for S an ^Eolicism. It is more commonly 
 regarded as a Doricism ; at any rate, one of the most remark- 
 able exemplifications of it on record, is the celebrated decree 
 of the Spartans against Timotheus the Milesian. It was 
 first quoted in the History of Music by Boethius, who wrote 
 in the sixth century ; and though full of errors of all sorts, in 
 a "more especial manner substitutes R for S, in a degree 
 which it is impossible to account for, except by supposing 
 misreadings of an ancient and obsolete Greek character. It 
 is published in the Memoires de P Academic Royale des In- 
 scriptions et Belles Lettres, in a paper by Monsieur de la 
 Nauze, " Sur 1'etat des Sciences chez les Lacedemoniens," 
 in Maittaire, De Dialectis Grrccis, and in the appendix to 
 Rose's Inscriptiones Gracse Vetustissimoe. Monsieur de la 
 Nauze very truly describes it as " plus quo Dorien," and 
 Toup still more justly, as " corrupto corrupt ius." 
 
 x. Alpha (a), and 4 Rho (r), from the Amyclean In- 
 scription. 
 
 Strabo, describing Eretria in the island of Etiboea, says, 
 we ought, without doubt, to ascribe to a colony of Eleans, in 
 their city, the custom they have contracted, and for which 
 they are ridiculed in the Comedy, of placing an R not only at 
 the end but also in the middle of words (Liber 10). R 
 
 D 4 
 
40 SUBSTITUTION OF ONE 
 
 placed in the middle of a wor.d could be considered only as 
 redundant ; and Strabo appears to have regarded the Doric 
 final R in the same light. This, in some measure, illustrates 
 the singular Spartan decree respecting Timotheus the Mi- 
 lesian, noticed in the preceding paragraph ; and I will en- 
 deavour to illustrate it still farther by an example from the 
 Persic. In that language Ner signifies male, masculine, 
 membrum virile, and, with Alpha prefixed, appears to supply 
 the etymology of the Greek word Aner. The poetical form 
 of the word in the Accusative Case is Anera, and the Accu- 
 sative, and indeed all the oblique Cases, are formed in Persic 
 by adding the particle Ra to the Nominative, or Root. May 
 not the Doric final R, redundant in many instances, be ac- 
 counted for by this Persic particle ? But, whoever will look 
 attentively at the forms of Alpha and Rho from the oldest 
 inscriptions, and recollect that in Boustrophedon writing both 
 letters are reversed every line, will perhaps come to the con- 
 clusion that I have done, that the pretended Rho was in 
 many instances an obsolete Alpha, and, instead of being an 
 aspirate, or redundant, was really the Doric characteristic 
 letter. 
 
 xi. A, Delta (D), and A, Lambda (L), 
 SS, the Greek Letter Xi, and the Roman X. 
 Lanzi, on the authority of Marius, says, that D and L 
 were interchangeable among the ancients, as in the words 
 Dinguam and Linguam, the tongue, Capitodiurn and 
 Capitolium, the capitol ; also on that of Festus, that 
 they said Sedda for Sella, a saddle, and Impelimenta 
 for Impedimenta, obstacles. (Tom. i. p. 126.) No one can 
 look at the Greek letters, which were also the early Roman, 
 without perceiving how liable they were to be mistaken for 
 each other, or misread ; and if this is true of printing, it must 
 have been still more the case in writing, where the characters 
 are not so accurately formed. A stroke added at the bottom 
 of Lambda converts it into Delta, and a stroke taken from 
 the lower part of Delta converts it into Lambda. Hence, 
 they must frequently have been mistaken for each other 
 
LETTER FOB ANOTUER. 41 
 
 in time-worn inscriptions and faded manuscripts, though 
 the sounds of L and D are as perfectly distinct as those 
 of any two letters in the alphabet. Omicron and Upsilon 
 appear to have been confounded by the ancient Greeks 
 and Romans ; and they may very well have been so, 
 as the former was the Syriac Vau, which, if its power cor- 
 responded with the Hebrew letter of the same name, is 
 sometimes a long vowel, sometimes a short one, and some- 
 times a consonant. We have seen that D and L were inter- 
 changeable ; the Roman X was originally two Sigmas placed 
 back to back, or Kappa and Sigma, and sounds so different 
 to the ear as Oclusse, the Greek name of Ulysses, or Ulysse, 
 or Uluxe, his Latin one, may have been read from precisely 
 the same characters. We are sure that the Greek letter Xi 
 is merely a contraction for KS, or Kappa and Sigma, as 
 those letters actually supply its place both in the Aroyclean 
 and Nanian inscriptions. We are also sure that the Roman 
 X was not only the same letter, but the oldest form of it, 
 and the Etruscan inscriptions enable us to account for its 
 origin and formation. 
 
 > . Kappa in voce Akile (Achilles), Lanzi, torn. i. p. 247. 
 
 3. Kappa in voce Hevcle (Hercules) - 244. 
 
 3. Sigma in voce Seisna, 302. 
 
 The Port-Royal Greek Grammar resolves Xi into Ks, and 
 says, further, that the .^Eolians 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 
 Kscnophanes ; in Italian, dropping the Kappa, Senofane, and 
 Senofonte, where it is worth remarking that the Greek Phi 
 was derived from the Ethiopic Vau, and the Roman F, or 
 Digamma, from the Phoenician or Samaritan Vau, 
 
 xn. 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 LETTER 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, andXwhen 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. 
 
 xm. Greek Phi (ph); Greek Chi CD (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 eram, quae Flora vocor, corrupta Latino 
 Nominis est nostri littera Graeca sono." 
 
 The "Graeca littera," however, may have continued to be 
 precisely the same after it was ' f corrupta Latino sono," 
 which is the account the goddess gives of it. 
 
43 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 ON TJlE SPOKEN LANGUAGE OF 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 fonner 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 monosyllabic." (Article China, p. 83.) 
 
44 THE SPOKEN LANGUAGE 
 
 IT. 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 Rainayana, which is supposed to be the most 
 ancient poetry in the Sanskrit language, Und 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 and 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- 
 guages. 
 
 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 ~| rp /T > x 
 
 any thing !.... | ( Persic )> cream, the fat of broth. 
 
 9 Jin, a man, mankind Jan (Sanskrit), man individually, or 
 
 collectively. All Nouns Ethnical 
 terminating in ian. 
 
 10. 
 
 14. Mee, to cover, the roof of a 
 
 house. 
 
 36. Sei, the evening 
 
 Jihan (persic)? the world 
 
 May, or Mo (Persic), the hair of the 
 
 head. 
 
 Sayah (Persic), a shade or shadow. 
 Siyah (Persic), black. 
 
 Skia (Greek), shadow. 
 
 37. Ta, great, gross Ta (Persic), multiplicity. 
 
 38. Neu, a virgin Nau (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 slm-ld. 
 
 (used as a pro- 
 note'Thet 
 future. 
 65. Chee, the branches of a tree... Chah (Persic), a bud. 
 
 67. Wan, fair Wan (English), pale. 
 
 --, T n ., fGaw (Persic), the sun. 
 
 72. Jee, or Ge,the sun | Giun (Turkish), the sun. 
 
46 THE SPOKEN LANGUAGE 
 
 Chinese Words. Analogies. 
 
 72. Ge, ancient Chinese '.) Phre, the sun, Egyptian |0. 
 
 73. Yue, to speak, to name ......... Hue and cry, English. 
 
 {Uh (Sanskrit), the moon, 
 loh (Egyptian), the moon. 
 Ai (Turkish), the moon. 
 82. Mau, the hair Moy (Persic), the hair. 
 
 84. Kee, living principle Chai (Hebrew), life. 
 
 85. Shwee, one of the elements ... Shuway (Arabic), a small matter. 
 87. Chau, nails Claw, English. 
 
 ("Kuon, Greek. 
 
 94. Koon,adog -I Canis, Latin. 
 
 [ Chien, French. 
 
 102. Tien, a cultivated field Tin (Chaldee), clay. 
 
 103. Pay, the foot Pai (Persic), the foot. 
 
 106. Pee, white, clear, pure Bi (Persic), privative, without. 
 
 117. Hee, to erect, to build High, English. 
 
 132. Tse, self, himself. Se, Latin. 
 
 146. See, west ("Sayan (Persic), a shade, or shadow 
 
 147. Kien, to see Ken (English), to see. 
 
 m ' 
 
 " } Ta ( Persic )' to ' until > so far - 
 
 176. Mien, the face ..................... Mien (English), look, manner. 
 
 189. Kau, high, eminent, noble ...... Koh (Persic), a hill, a mountain. 
 
 194. Quoi, a spirit, a ghost ......... Khoi (Persic), oneself. 
 
 203. Shee, black, dark 
 
 211. Tehee, the teeth ... ............ . { ILf (Sicf' } 
 
 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! 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, dragon's eye ............... Ain, the eye, Hebrew and Arabic. 
 
 Mo, negative particle ............... ... Ma, Persic and Arabic. 
 
OF CHINA. 47 
 
 Chinese Word*. Analogies. 
 
 Mou, mother ........................... Mau, Egyptian. 
 
 Mou-Sing, the planet Jupiter 
 
 Mmi-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, l)u llalde 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 
 X an thus, which the latter denominated Scamander ; and 
 ascribed to Myrinna, the tomb known to mortals as that of 
 Batcia. 
 
 Ti, emperor. 
 
 Tiao, honour paid to the dead ... 
 
 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. 
 
 ' Gehen and 
 
 vi. From the Index to De Guignes, Voyages a Pekin, *c. 
 3 tomes, Paris, 1808. 
 
 Chinese Words. Analogies. 
 
 Chang- ty, the Supreme Being 
 CIte-kia, a name of Budba, \ 
 
 .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." 
 
 VII. 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 
 
01 CHINA. 49 
 
 which, however, is vurinl alm.-t indrtiuitely by accentuation ; 
 and as the Greek language is said to be derived from about 
 three hundred roots, or primitive words, perhaps this appa- 
 ivnt 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. 
 
 viu. The following abstract of Chinese grammar is chietly 
 borrowed from the work of the younger De Guignes, who 
 resided several years in the country, and was well acquaint CM! 
 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 varietie- "i 
 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 expn 
 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- 
 
 
 
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 lame 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. 
 
 xni. 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 Xan Jin, a man ; Xuu-Jin, a woman : 
 in Persic, Sheeri-Ner, a lion ; Sheen- 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 all 
 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 
 
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 
 8AHIDIC. 
 
 M 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'* 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 
 
 i s 
 
54 THE LANGUAGE OP 
 
 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 ot 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 
 write, 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 writing, 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 which he states 
 in so confused a way, viz., that the ancient mode of writing of 
 
 B 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), Hori 
 (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, ") Q , /T , r , > 
 
 negative particle, and Shi, a ' I |he (English), pronoun personal. 
 
 woman, she who is not a woman, fc^A SVv 
 i. e. who is a girl. Derivatives, J Sl ( Gothlc )- 
 
 Ash, quis, who... .. (f is , h ^ ew V T"' 
 
 ^Asher (Hebrew), who. 
 
 f Ebion (Hebrew), poor, needy. 
 
 Ebien, 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, quae, quod Et, and (Latin). 
 
ANCIENT EGYPT. 57 
 
 Coptic Words. Analogies. 
 
 The, qua?, articulus relativus fcem. The (English), definite article. 
 
 .. f Tomb (English), place of burial. 
 
 lll(>ms ' se P elire ........................ 1 Entomb, to bury. 
 
 f I, go (Sanskrit). 
 |l, 
 
 ,>>re, venire ............................ l,to(Latm). 
 
 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, it. ruin ................................. Kai (Greek). 
 
 Ket, aedificare ............................ 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, RcTffp ................... The Greeks evidently read the final 
 
 R as P, and formed 
 
 Koh, a rock. 
 
 Koh (Persic), a hill. 
 Koh (Chinese), high. 
 Less (English), that which is made 
 
 Les, confringere, to break in pieces \ L "( Engli8h)> 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. 
 
 n, f Maa (Sanskrit). 
 
 Mau ' mater JMa (Greek), isch. Supp. 897. 
 
 M ; 1 1 1 . implere Maha (Sanskrit), increase. 
 
 M . ,. fEmera (Greek), a day. 
 
 en ' dies lEmera (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, EnjrlMi 
 
58 THE LANGUAGE OF 
 
 Coptic Word. Analogies. 
 
 Ouom, to eat; Ouom-anhet, to "| This illustrates an expression of 
 grieve ; literally, to eat the V Homer's, who, describing the me- 
 heart. J lancholy end of Bellerophon, says 
 
 ^Hroi 6 KOTTTreS/oj' rb 'A\-f)iov o?os a\a.To, 
 
 "Ov Svfj.6v KaTfScav, TTO.TOV OLvQp&iTwv aXttlvwv. Iliad, vi. 201. 
 
 " Qui miser in campis mcerens errabat Aleis, 
 Ipse suum cor edens, hominum vestigia vitans." 
 
 CICERO, Tusc. Quasi, iii. 26. 
 
 Pe, sum .................................... Pelo, and Pelomai, Greek. 
 
 ,, , /Root (English), i.e. the foot of the 
 
 uat ' P 68 " 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. 
 
 Rinii, 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. 
 
 Phat, pes ................................. Foot, English. 
 
 " Bat, lingua Bali quae est lingua erudita Sinaensium." (La Loubere.) 
 
 Phro, hyems, with Re, Sahidic, fa- f ^ an ? * oze \ L >^ sh ' . * hat 
 ' * -{ which is the effect of winter. 
 
 I 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 Thork, and by the insertion of a vowel, 
 Thorax, Greek and Latin. 
 
 Chrof, dolosus ........................... Craft and crafty, English. 
 
 Chrom, ignis .............................. Crerao, Latin to burn ; in tin- infini- 
 
 tive mode cremare, from Chroin, 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. 
 
 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 
 (D 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 180. 
 " 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 Haya, ahorse, Sanskrit. 
 
 Tpolis, a city, with the Egyptian 1 Hence by transposition we have the 
 fern. art. t prefixed and coa- \ 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 
 juxta-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 Nymphae crudeli funere Daphnim 
 Flebant," 
 
ANCIENT EGYPT. til 
 
 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 tin; 
 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 
 Damma, 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-Masoriets deny the antiquity of Piel, 
 Pual, and Poel. (Masclef, torn. i. p. 80.) 
 
 xu. 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, Fuerain ; 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 Lott, book xii. 
 
 j. 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 
 119th 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 Ixxii 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 
 Bonification: Paul or Kal, 1'iail and Iliphil are active; 
 Niphal, Pual, and Hophal are passive; and Hithpuel is both 
 active and pa.--i\e. 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 cuse 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: - 
 
 44 In all the days of Past and Future, for 
 In life there is no present" BYBON'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 pa*t signification, with much of the character of 
 the Greek aorist, or time indefinite. 
 
 vn. 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 \\ith the words of 
 such other languages as I am aequainted with. 
 
 F 
 
66 THE HEBREW LANGUAGE 
 
 Hebrew Words. Analogies. 
 
 T ^ ^ 1 .LI f Angarah (Persic), a writing. 
 
 Igereth, a letter, epistle { An^areion, Herodotus, viii98. 
 
 Adam, proper name of the first man.. Adima (Sanskrit), first. 
 Aaamab, earth, ground .{ " th token " 
 
 Aon, first begotten { 
 
 Acharon, hinder, following, fu- "1 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 Plebrew 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, a line, 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 Englisli, gold of so many carats, 
 
 i. e. the pure gold independent of 
 the alloy, which is of no value. 
 
 fChrysa, a name of Apollo. Sophocles. 
 Chrysa, also a city dedicated to him. 
 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. 
 
 Metallon, Greek. 
 
 Metil, a forged, or wrought bar 
 of iron 
 
 Ma iflu the womb. 
 
 Mar, bitter 
 
 Mctallum, Latin. 
 
 Metal, English. 
 
 Mai (Coptic), love. 
 
 Mau (Coptic), mother. 
 
 .Man (Sanskrit), mother. 
 
 Ma (Greek), mother. 
 
 Mare (Latin and Italian), the *ea. 
 
 Mer (French), the sea. 
 
 Amarus (Latin), bitter. 
 
 Amaro (Italian), bitter. 
 Amer (French), bitter. 
 Nut, to shake, to tremble ............ Nuto (Latin), to nod. 
 
 Naitsach, the juice which spat- "INisaeus (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, to load, lade a beast of burden.. Amass (English), to heap together. 
 Anak, the progenitor of a race of "1 Anax, the son of Ccelus, and Terra. 
 giants ........................ . ..... J (Pausanias.) 
 
 evening ............. . .......... { Er D^S' *" *" * ^ 
 
 " From Night the Day sprang forth and shining air, 
 Whom to the love of Erebus she gave.'' HESIOD'* Tlteogony. 
 
 
 Airabon, a pledge .................. 
 
 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, Juvcncus ...... 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 
 Hercules, 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 Words. Analogies. 
 
 Tsar, an enemy. V 
 
 Tsarar, to be hostile. The second word appears to be formed 
 
 from the first, by the addition of the Coptic verb, Er, esse, 
 
 facere. 
 Kol, a voice ............................ *.. Call, English. 
 
 Katanga,,, y ou,, S ............... {l^Sf 
 
 Rechush, substance, goods, pos- t Eiches , English 
 sessions .............................. J 
 
 Raphai, Rephaim, 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 (Terras 
 Filii) referred to the antiquity of particular races of men, as 
 Autochthones, or Aborigines, or coeval with the earth which 
 they inhabited. InPsalmlxxxviii.il. 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. 
 
 G , . ,.. f Sud (Turkish), milk. 
 
 Sud, to whitewash .................. { 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. 
 
 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 
 Shernesh, 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 iv vtitavi TrovToiropoim, in sea-crossing 
 ships. 
 
69 
 
 CHAP. VIII. 
 
 ON THE ETHIOPIC LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR. 
 
 " Nor where Abassin kings their issue guard, 
 Mount Amaru (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. THERE 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. Cush 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 Cutliah 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 
 
72 THE ETHIOPIC LANGUAGE 
 
 s \viftly 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 we 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 ine 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 
 
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 we 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 GBAMMAK. 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, Jind 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 loss 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 
 Newton in his Optics. 
 
 VII. " To the Ethiopia 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. 
 
 vin. " In the Lexicon," says Ludolph, " 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 word?. 
 
 Ethiopic Words. Analogies. 
 
 Hagary, Urbs, Ci vitas .................. Agar (Sanskrit), a bouse. 
 
 Lelity, Nox .............................. Laylat (Arabic), night. 
 
 Elkyly, Ager .............. . ............ Hakl (Arabic), a field. 
 
 1 1 at at, Quujsivit ........................ Aiteo (Greek), to seek. 
 
 Mah y2 an y , Matrix ............... -{K^Ltopt^Infan, 
 
 NOTE. JVIa 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. 
 
 Marar, A_ esse ........... i. .. 
 
 Marya, Nuptiae ........................... Marry, English. 
 
 Mawaz, Fructus ......................... also Arabic. 
 
 Majy, Aqua , 
 
 Magabi, Pnefectus Quaere 
 
 Mysyraky, Oriens, i. e. 
 
 Ma (Arabic), water. 
 
 Mayim, Hebrew. 
 
 The Maccabees, f. e. Commanders, 
 
 Judas Maccabaeus. 
 Ma (Coptic), Locus. 
 
 Saryky, Ortus (Solis), Ethiopic. 
 
 Mashrak (Arabic), the east. 
 
 Hasan, Ignescere Roshan (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 Canarab, 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 lelt 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 ETHIOP1C LANGUAGE 
 
 Ethiopic Words. Analogies. 
 
 Am, Cum Ama (Greek). 
 
 Amiry, Dies Emera (Greek). 
 
 Arab, Occubuit. 
 
 A raby , Occasus Soils { 
 
 Dabela, Taurus Jeremiah, xlviii. 22. Beth-Dibla- 
 
 thaim. 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. 
 
 Ph gtrl?^ P !!!l^ Pola ' a cit ? of Istria ' 
 
 Polas inde Colchi vocarunt urbem tyvyaduv. Strabo, lib. i. 
 Hadasy, Nova Chadashah (Hebrew). 
 
 Hadasa, Esther, i.e. Nova (Sponsa), 
 Esther, ii. 7 
 
 Waal, diem transegit 
 
 Atossa, Herodotus and JEschylus, if 
 Ahasuerus is Darius Hystaspes, 
 as I believe. 
 
 Wila (Persic), time. 
 
 Wilah, or Vilah (Sanskrit), time. 
 
 . While (English). 
 
 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 Shernitic, 
 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 .^Ethiopica 
 lingua Chalda3a 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 
 
AND GRAMMAR. 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 Chaldce 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 Chaldee. 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: " 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 Hebra3us, 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 which occurs, 2 Kings, xviii. 17. 
 When Sennacherib the king of Assyria invaded Juda?a 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 Rab- 
 saris, and Rabshakeh, 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., Rab-saris together 
 with Rab-mag. The signification of Rab -saris is great, or 
 chief eunuch ; of Rab-shakeh, great, or chief elder ; and of 
 Rab-mag, great, or chief Magian. In Dariel, i. 3., Rab 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., 
 Rab-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, 
 
TUE 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-shakch 
 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, Tiber inaque longe 
 Ostia, dives op'um, studiisque asperrima belli ; 
 Quam Juno fertur terris magis omnibus iinaiu 
 Posthabita coluisse Samo. .... 
 
 Dux foemina facti. 
 
 Devenere locos, ubi nunc ingentia cernes 
 Moenia, surgentemque nova} Carthaginis arcem : 
 Mercatique solum, facti de nomine Byrsam, 
 Taurino quantum possent circumdare tergo." 
 
 VIRG. JEneid. i. 1216. 365369. 
 
 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 which 
 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 Phrcnicians 
 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 PIICENICIAN AND PUNIC LANGUAGES. 83 
 
 Stana (Sanskrit), a place*; and if this be admitted, it can 
 hardly be denied, that the PhilUtincs 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. 
 
 ill. 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 IB 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 monarch* 
 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. 
 
 IV. 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 bis 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." 
 
 o 2 
 
84 ON THE PHCENICIAN 
 
 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 (Qoivig) was peculiar to, or at any 
 rate the produce of, their country ; or because Edom in 
 Hebrew and Phosnix 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 ansvyered 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 
 Rodioi, Rhodians ; 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 (d and r) are easily mistaken for 
 each other, as I have already remarked ; and the Septuagint 
 have so mistaken them by reading llodioi 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 MasclePs grammcir. Herodotus is, 
 perhaps, our best authority, and what he says on the subject 
 is far from being conclusive. He informs us that the Pho> 
 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 
 die 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 Ismcniun Apollo at Thebes of Bceotia, 
 
 o 3 
 
86 ON THE PHOENICIAN 
 
 Cadmean letters inscribed on some tripods, and having a near 
 resemblance to those used by the lonians (Herodotus, lib. v. 
 cc. 58, 59.). 
 
 vii. 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. 
 
 vin. 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 lonians 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 Sigajan, 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 hia 
 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 
 
 o 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 languages 
 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 secondly 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 Chadath (Chaldee), new ; which is very little like the 
 Latin Carthago, and very near to the Greek Karchedon, if 
 we could account for the change of the final th of the Chaldee 
 word, into the n of the Greek. I believe Carthage to be 
 
AM> PUNIC LANGUAGES. 89 
 
 simply the Hebrew Kirjiith, 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 
 Pho3nicians 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, i.< the 
 Persic Nu or Nou, new ; and Carthage, the Hebrew Kir- 
 jath, with the second syllable transposed Carthage, the city 
 emphatically, or the metropolis ; Ctirthagena or Carthage, 
 No or Nu, the New City founded in Spain by Asdrubal. 
 
 XI. Kirchadashah. 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. 
 
 j) Kappa (K), Ancient Greek, Dutens; and no doubt 
 Phoenician also. 
 
 p Rho (R) 
 
 Q Pleth (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 
 lleth (Ch). The Syriac form of the word, however, Chanono, 
 
 * The Greeks appear to have denominated Cartilage, Karchedon 
 (Hapxnt>) New City, with reference to Tyre, the metropolis, or 
 mother city, and the Carthaginians thrmsclvos to have named Carthagena 
 with reference to Carthage. " Etiuin alteru Carthagine, qua* Nova apjK 1- 
 lata cst," in sinu marls juxta portum amplissimum, et satis coiiuundiiiii, 
 mm lit a. (Frcinshem. Sup. ad Liv. Ilist. lib. \\. 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 Niebuhr 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. 
 
 ill. 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 Klif 
 (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. (Gram- 
 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 Schultcns, 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 vn-l> 
 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.) 
 
 vin. But 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 power 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. 
 Tadakhkhul, 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 Hishmia, 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, t. e. to cause or prove to be 
 
 truth, cognate with the Hebrew Tsedek, truth. 
 Tasaid, raising up. Root, Saad, high. 
 Tasghir, 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 Ghiind, a sheath, t. e. to cause to cover. 
 
 Tafrih, rejoicing. Root, Farah, gladness. 
 
 Tafhim, teaching, instructing. Root, Fahra, understanding. 
 
 Takbir, causing to bury. Root, Kabr, a toiub ; Hebrew, Keber, a grave ; 
 
 * 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 Taluiid, a scholar. Root, Lumad (Hebrew), to learn, in 
 
 Hiphil, 1 1 il mid, he caused to learn, i. c. 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. 
 Tuhlil. 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 lie*, tlu> 
 
 * The numerical value of this letter is five, which is precisely that <>f 
 Hay in the Hebrew. There ean be Hi tie 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 words 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 
 Quam quse sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus." 
 
 HORAT. De Arte Poetica, 180. 
 
 In every thing connected with language, I believe the eye 
 has 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. 
 
 Abtd, sempiternal, durable Abide, English. 
 
 Aajara, a Persian Ogham, ancient Irish writing. Sir 
 
 William Jones says it has been observed that the writing afc 
 
 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. 
 
 {Bursa, the citadel of Carthage. 
 ii;;"; atBabjlon ' 
 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 UltAMMAIl. 97 
 
 Arabic Word*. Altai- 
 
 Samrat, one fruit The Aral. 5<- final T, as the mark of 
 
 individuality, appears to be j>erfectly identical with tin* IVrsic I. 
 See Jones's Gruiuuiar, pages 205 and 335. Perhaps there was a 
 period when the t\v I-IIT- \vciv pn ciM-lv 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 Ilebrew Chu/.ab, 
 
 with a change of the diacritical points. 
 
 Jahjab, a prince, a chief. Has this word any connection with 
 
 the Ilebrew Jehovah which is sometimes written Jah, as a con- 
 traction? 
 
 Julus, the accession to the throne.... This appears to be the etymology of 
 lulus, the second name of Ascanius the son and successor of 
 JEneas, 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. 
 
 Rumraan, the pomegranate Rummanat, one pomegranate. In 
 
 Hebrew, Kimmon, which is also the name of a celebrated god of 
 Syria. If lacchus, 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 lak, Kimmon 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 Riinmon, simply from hoiuonymy, or Miuilarity 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 uncl< an 
 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. \ S.xrtore, Italian. 
 
 Sunnat, institution, law {^ade llw^^' 
 
 Sharif, noble Sheriff, English. 
 
 II 
 
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 
 
 Sakaa, the sun. 
 
 sun worshippers. 
 
 Odin, or Woden, the son of Sigge, in 
 
 the Northern Mythology. 
 L 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 | A { { } f ^ gister . 
 
 Aammu, a paternal uncle J 
 
 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 haj'e 
 been both before and since. 
 
 Ghars, plant Grass, English, by transposition. 
 
 Fajir, the dawn In the Hebrew Scriptures Baal-Peor, 
 
 t. 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 Quasre, Pharisee, as affecting a parti- 
 cular attachment to the law of Moses. 
 
 "Phemi (Greek), dico. 
 Pheme (Greek), fama, i.e. ea qua3 
 
 dicta est. 
 
 'Phi (Hebrew), a mouth. 
 Phe (Ionic Greek), dixit. 
 I believe this word with a final Eta 
 to be the origin of the Greek Cybele, 
 
 Firo, the mouth... 
 
 Fih, the mouth 
 
 Kubal, the fore part. Pudenda 
 viri vel foeminse 
 
 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 Word*. Analogic*. 
 
 is Bhagab. It is probable that the above Arabic may be com- 
 pounded from two Ik-brew words, Kobali, matrix, vulva, and 
 Ail, god, by contraction, and with a final Eta, Kubelc (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. 
 
 Kara, a horn, the top of a moun- \ Quaere, Cairn (Scottish), a barrow, 
 tain, a tumulus of sand, J or monumental tumulus. 
 
 Kasrn, division .......................... Chasm, English. 
 
 reed .............. 
 
 Kamis, a shirt ........................... Chemise, French. 
 
 Kaas, or Kas, wine "1 f One, or both of these words arc related 
 
 Katt, 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. 
 
 } Kerchief, EngHsh. 
 
 { } 
 Uwt, bedaubing with ,nd ....... ( ^ ( 
 
 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, 
 
 Madk, breaking a stone 
 
 Midakk, an instrument with which 
 any thing is broken 
 
 Marsh, ground levelled or reduced 
 to a pulp by the rain 
 
 Mannar (Pers. and Arab.), marble 
 
 Maddock, or Mattock, English. 
 
 Marsh, a meadow, English. 
 
 Marmor, Latin. 
 Murmaros, Greek. 
 
 Maskin, a miserable wretch Meschino, Italian. 
 
 Mashin, villainous Mediant, 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 Artaxerxejs King of Persia, which the Greeks not umler- 
 
 n 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 Lem- 
 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. 
 Hence Nail (English) of the toes and 
 
 fingers. 
 
 Mar (Hebrew), bitter. 
 Mare (Latin), the sea. 
 Mer (French), the sea. 
 Als (Greek), salt. 
 
 Nass, elevating, moving the nose. 
 Nassas, drawing up the nose 
 
 Naal, a hoof; any thing which de- 
 fends the feet of man or beast... 
 
 Nawfal, the sea. 
 Nawfalat, salt, saline 
 
 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 AVater (English), in the 
 
 sense of pure, an element. 
 Wadd, AVid, or Wad, love, friend- 1 w , E lish 
 
 ship J 
 
 Washi, painting, dyeing A Wash, in the language of painters. 
 
 Waad, promising Wedding, in the sense of avow or 
 
 contract. 
 
 Wafl, small, few miming (English), trifling. 
 
 Walk, active, nimble Walk, English. 
 
 Wann, weakness, languor Wan (English), languid of look. 
 
 ^ , . / Wae, Scotch. 
 
 Wah ' ^ ief i 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. XIL 
 
 ON THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR. 
 
 44 Ye orient realms, where Ganges' waters run ! 
 Prolific fields ! dominions of the sun i 
 How long your tribes have trembled and obey'd 1 
 How long was Timur's iron sceptre sway'd ! 
 Whose marshal I'd hosts, the lions ofthe plain, 
 From Scythia's northern mountains to the main, 
 Raged o'er your plunder'd shrines and altars bare 
 With blazing torch and gory scymitar, 
 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 Drama's children perish'd for his name ; 
 The martyr smiled beneath avenging power, 
 And braved the tyrant in his torturing hour ! " 
 
 Pleasure* 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 
 cars 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 lambulus 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 GBAMMAU. 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, lleland, 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., 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 SANSKRIT 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 UUAMMAR. 105 
 
 Florence, says Hallam, resounded with the praises of Petrarch. 
 A few seceders from this body established the more cele- 
 brated Academy della 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 ia 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 San.-krit 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, primd 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.) 
 
 vni. 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 GUAMMAK. 107 
 
 Hebrew root, Shamar, he remembered. 
 
 Hiphil, 1 1 Ulnnii-, be 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 sibilan t 
 letter before the termination. 
 
 Verbs have two voices, active and passive. There arc 
 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 actionern agent is 
 in se ipsum " (Masclef, torn. i. p. 113.); and with the Greek 
 middle voice " Quaedam sunt sensu vere medio, quae 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 precativc, 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 writ ton 
 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 SANSKRIT 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 (Yopadeva) 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 Vishnu. It is 
 worthy 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 <De Emendenda Ratione 
 Graecaj 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. Hi. p. 474.) 
 xn. 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 
 
 " Quern 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 were so also. 
 
AND GRAMMAR. Ill 
 
 Nmtn*. Vert*. 
 
 Archa, the sun Archa, to worship. 
 
 Kisa, the sun Kusha, to shine. 
 
 Krawa, a foot 
 
 Grini, the sun 
 
 Grynaeus (Greek), a naim> of 
 
 Krama, to go, to walk. 
 Khiram, Persic. 
 
 Grina, to shine. 
 
 Pada, a foot Pada, to go, to move. 
 
 Patha, a road Patha, to go. 
 
 Puma, a leaf Parna, to make or be green. 
 
 Phala, fruit Phala, to produce fruit. 
 
 Bandha, a tie, or fetter Bandho, to bind. 
 
 Baha, the arm Baha, to endeavour. 
 
 Mriga, a deer iMriga, to hunt. 
 
 Yudh, war, battle Yudha, to fight. 
 
 Ranga, paint, colour 
 
 Rang (Persic), stain, die 
 
 Raj, a king (the sun, the king of 
 the host of heaven) 
 
 Ruch, light 
 
 Ran] a, to die. 
 
 Raja, to shine. 
 
 Ragha, to shine, perhaps from Rex, 
 
 or Regus, Latin. 
 Rucha, to shine. 
 Ru-u, to shine, perhaps from Roshan 
 
 (Persic), splendour. 
 Rupa, form .............................. Rupa, to form. 
 
 Rij, Agni, or fire ........................ R'ja, to shine. 
 
 Varsha, rain, raining .................. Varsha, to be wet. 
 
 Vaha, any vehicle ..................... Vaha, to carry. 
 
 Vina, Brahma (the sun) ......... (Vina, to ^o (from the sun's apparent 
 
 L motion^. 
 
 Brahma, the sun .. .. / Bhrama *> move 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. 
 
 Swita, white ........................... Swita, to be white. 
 
 Shura to 
 
 Sambha, water .......................... % Sambha, to go (like a stream). 
 
 Sura, the sun ........................... Sura, to shine. 
 
 Stoma, praise ........................ 1 
 
 Stoma (Greek), the mouth ...... J- Stoma, to praise. 
 
 Stonian (Sanskrit), the head ...... J 
 
 Haya, a horse ........................... Haya, to move. 
 
 Ilaya, Indra (the sun) ............... Tlavu, t> worship. 
 
 Hrada,alake ......... . .............. ll * C llc t 11 ^ thc watore 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. 
 
 Pullus (Latin), a sprout or bud... J 
 
 Pushpan, a flower Pushpa, to expand, flower, blossom. 
 
 Grasa, a mouthful Grasa, to eat. 
 
 Ghars (Arabic), a plant 
 
 Pithah, the sun 
 
 Pythitis (Greek), a name of 
 
 Isa, Siva, god, lord (the sun) 
 
 Grasa (Sanskrit), to eat. 
 Graze (English), to eat grass. 
 
 Putha, to shine. 
 
 Apollo 
 
 "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 Arena, 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. 
 
 xv. 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 GUAMMAR. 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 Vina, 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 Haya, a horse, Haya, 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 Kudah, 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 ((5%), a wild beast of any kind, 
 Thera (r}pa), hunting, and Therao (r)pda>) 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- 
 j ect 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 GKAMMAR. 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. 
 
 Ida. to see I Eido ' Greek ' 
 
 da|tc ** .............................. \ Video, Latin. 
 
 Gna, to know ............................ Gnoo, Greek. 
 
 I >:ih:i. 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 flow. 
 
 Ila, go ..................................... Elauno (Greek), I go. 
 
 Lambhi, cause obtain .................. Lambano (Greek), I take. 
 
 Tracha 1 
 
 Traucha [-go ............................ Trecho (Greek), I run. 
 
 Traga J 
 
 -D f Psao (Greek), I crush, or break in 
 
 8a * eat ................................. I pieces. 
 
 Bru sneak .. .. I Bl T ho < Greek )> I &**& the 
 
 I 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 Lain- 
 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. > V 
 
 Cushi (Turkish), handsome Ghushi, make bright, or beautiful. 
 
 C Juna, go. 
 Giun, the sun -! Ghuna, go round. 
 
 [ Ghana, shine. 
 Sud (Turkish), milk Sudan, clean, whiten . 
 
 xvin. 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 Vakra into Greek, we could 
 not render it more literally than by the word Agkulos ; and 
 'A.y/cvXofjbrjTrjs, crooked-counselled, is Homer's most ordinary 
 epithet of Saturn. Again, in Sanskrit we find the compound 
 word Trivikrama as a name of Vishnu, 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 
 
 AVTIKO. $' 
 
 Kpaiirva Troai 7rpoia' rptpt & ovpea fiaKpa Kal v\ij 
 
AND GRAMMAR. 117 
 
 lloooiv vir uBavarrnai \loon?atiii'0 6vrof. 
 
 T/Jl'f pj' npi^tr' ItilV Ti> tt TlTpdTOV 'iKtTO TtffHttp 
 
 Alydf. 
 
 " 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 JSgae 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 Digamina, 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 Phrenician or Samaritan Vau, and gave birth to the 
 Greek Phi, and the Roman F. For instance, we find in the 
 Sanskrit, the verbal root Hi, go, whence the Greeks formed 
 their Reo, I flow, of which Payne Knight, in his Analytical 
 Essay on the Greek Alphabet, supposes the ancient form to 
 have been Refo (PEFfl), of which we find the prototype in 
 the Sanskrit, in the root Riva, flow. The same distinguish^ d 
 scholar also supposes the oldest form of Pleo, navigo, to have 
 been Plefo (riAEFH), of which we find the prototype in the 
 
 i s 
 
118 THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE 
 
 Sanskrit Plava, float. The Hindus appear to have had their 
 jEolians 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 ; Vaja and Vraja, 
 go ; Yana and Vrana, 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 R 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. 
 
 xxn. 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 Didoraai, 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 Dadaini, Dadasi, Dadati, and in Greek 
 in the same way in the passive voice, Didomai, Didosai, I )i- 
 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 N, 
 and accordingly the next word is the root Dans, bite, cognate 
 with the Latin Dens, a tooth. 
 
 xxin. Although grammar in Hindustan is r. garded 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, Vas, 
 
 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 Amip, 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. Dual Plural. 
 
 1 . Asmi Sum Svah Smah Sumus 
 
 2. Asi Es Sthah Stha Estis 
 
 3. Asti Est Stah Santi Sunt; 
 
 and the scheme of terminations 
 
 1. Ami Avah Amah 
 
 2. Asi Athah Atha 
 
 3. Ati Atah 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 Aracbosia, 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, 
 Zendish. -j Spereze Heaven, Sky. 
 
 Za, Zao, Zemo, Zemeno Earth. 
 
 Tsherk, Shmeha, Seper Heaven, Sky. 
 
 Pehlvish. 
 
 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 Ra, the mark of the oblique case, and a Greek 
 
THE MEDIAN LANGUAGES. 123 
 
 termination, would produce something very b'ke 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 
 A vesta, 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. 
 
 A* A KO : / Ast > P ers i c - 
 
 *** he 1S 1 Esti, Greek. 
 
 Astern, the bones Atsem (Hebrew), bone. 
 
 Aspo, ahorse Asp, Persic. 
 
 A kf* * i,* / Ashta, Sanskrit. 
 
 Aschte, eight | Hisht ^ Pergic 
 
 Bakhsched, he gives Bakshid, Persic. 
 
 Besch, two Bis (Latin), twice. 
 
 Bamie, fertile laud Bum (Persic), earth. 
 
 Khschethro, a king Shah, Persic. 
 
 {Dogdo, the mother of Zoroaster, 
 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. 
 
 ., 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. 
 
 father.. ......................... { 
 
 Goschte, ear .............................. Gosh, Persic. 
 
 ,, , f Mead, honey-wine, English; from 
 
 d0 ' w ie ............................ \ Madhu (Sanskrit), honey. 
 
 Meschio, man ............................ Maschio (male), Italian. 
 
 Ma, no ..................................... Ma, Sanskrit and Arabic. 
 
 Manm, mo ................................. Man Am (Persic), I am. 
 
 Mrete, mortal ............................ Mriti, Sanskrit. 
 
 f Nar, Persic. 
 Na, male ............................... -j Kara, Sanskrit. 
 
 [ Aner (Greek), a man. 
 Veheschtem ............................... Behesht (Arabic), Paradise. 
 
 Veedem, intelligent ..................... Vidaii (Sanskrit), knowing. 
 
 Vatem, wind .............................. Vatah, Sanskrit. 
 
 Jekere, the liver ......................... Jecur, Latin. 
 
 Hapte, seven .............................. Heft, Persic. 
 
 Houo, himself ............................ Hooa (Hebrew), he. 
 
 jare ........................................ Year, English. 
 
 m i , /. f Chatur, Sanskrit. 
 
 Tchetvere,four ........................ ' 
 
 , , f Patha, Sanskrit. 
 
 Petho ' road ........ ' ................... 1 Path/English. 
 
 T, , f . f Pada, Sanskrit. 
 
 Pade ' foot .............................. | 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-rsix values, consisting of twenty- one con- 
 sonant and five vowel sounds. (Tom. iii. page 426.) 
 
THE MEDIAN LANGUAGES. 125 
 
 Pehtvi Words. Analogies. 
 
 led em an, the hand ..................... Yad, Hebrew aiid Arabic. 
 
 t , . f Ast, Persic. 
 
 Ast, he is .............................. 1 Est, Latin. 
 
 Bandeh, a slave ......................... Bandha, bind, Sanskrit. 
 
 Sosia, ahorse ............................ Sus, Hebrew. 
 
 Ascht, eight .............................. Hesht, Persic. 
 
 Anhouma, the planet Jupiter. 
 
 Lab, lip .................................... Leb, tersic. 
 
 Bahar, spring .......................... Ber (Bijp), Ionic Greek. 
 
 Vahar, spring ........................... Ver, 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 2Eolic Digamma to account for the formation 
 of the Latin Ver from the Greek Ear or Er ; and, as the Greek 
 Omicron appears to have been derived from the Syriac Vau, 
 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 OIKOQ and Oii>of, 
 like the Latin Vicus and Vinum, without supposing the exist- 
 ence of any extraneous character like the JEolic 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. 
 
 Dehorn, 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 ............... Zamn, Persic. 
 
 Zamestan, winter ........................ Zamistan, Persic. 
 
 A u- j f *u f Ab, Hebrew and Arabic. 
 
 Ab,der, father ......................... 
 
 Gaiomard .................................. Kaiomorts, the name of the first man. 
 
 Madeh, female ........................... Maid, English. 
 
 Meh, great ................................. Maha, Sanskrit 
 
 Pirouzgar, victonou, ................ { 
 
 - 
 
 Sanat, Arabic. 
 Shanah, Hebrew. 
 
 I /ami, Persic. 
 Djanouh, knee ........................ | Genu ; Latin 
 
126 
 
 THE MEDIAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 Pehlvi Words. Analogies. 
 
 Anita, myrtle, sacred to Venus, from Homonymy, 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). v - 
 Dihana and Dihan (Greek), from the two above words reversed. 
 
 Toum, finished : Tarn (Hebrew), perfect 
 
 "-y^ {&5- 
 
 Tchipa, wood to burn Chips, English. 
 
 Hes, behind Chthes (Greek), yesterday. 
 
 Hireh, Membrum Virile Hiran (Sanskrit), Siva (Linga). 
 
 Schmeha,"! i f Shamio, Syriac. 
 
 Schmia, S n 1 Shamaim, Hebrew. 
 
 { 
 
 f' 
 
 Kokba,! , f Kukab, Arabic. 
 
 Kokpa, j s "1 Kukabim, Hebrew. 
 
 voice f 
 
 f 
 
 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). 
 
 , .. n , i . i Menes, the founder of the Egyptian 
 
 Mona, God, king 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. 
 Mia, water -[ Ma, Arabic. 
 
 Mayim, Hebrew. 
 
 Melek, Arabic. 
 Malka, king { Moloch, Hebrew. 
 
 Malcho, Syriac. 
 
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 A vesta 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. RICHARDSON 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 Sassanidae, 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 Pasargada?, 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 tliis, 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.* 
 
 in. 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 Pelilvi. 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 
 
 Fars (Arabic), a horse, or mare, Persia. i/^; Pars (Ara- 
 bic), a horseman, Persia, Parthia. 
 
THE LANGUAGES OP PERSIA. 131 
 
 defeat and capture of the Roman Emperor Valerian, by 
 Sapor, King of Persia, of the race of the Sassanidae, 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 Arachotaj, 
 and next the Gedrosians, who occupy the sea-coast. To the 
 west of the Paropamisans are the Arii ; and of the Ara- 
 chota? and Gedrosians, the Drangjc. 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 exj)clled 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 cK 'pliant. s 
 
 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 Sadi, 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. 
 
 vn. Herodotus says that the ancient Persians were called 
 Cephenes by the Greeks, and by themselves and their neigh- 
 bours Artsei. 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 OP PERSIA. 133 
 
 the reader to that, and proceed to give a list of some of the 
 most remarkable words I have observed. 
 
 Panic Words. Analogic*. 
 
 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 (J), and n (J), are precisely the same as to form. An- 
 takhush differs very little from Antiochus. 
 
 Abasta, or A vesta, the name of a book which the Magi of 
 Persia attribute to the Patriarch Abraham, whom they 
 suppose to be the same with Zoroaster. 
 
 Atisb, 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 be 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, Band 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.... Lai b (Hebrew), the heart. 
 
 Bach, a child, a boy NOTE. With a Greek termination 
 
 Bacchus, 
 u Bacchus ever fair and ever young.'* DBTDEN'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 
 Anitn, 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. 
 
 Bist, twenty, contracted from { ^ffgSf* 
 
 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 lacchus, 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. Teme Filius. 
 
 Tundar Thunder, English. 
 
 Jadwal, a river Also Arabic, with Kebir (Arabic), 
 
 great, the, Guadalquiver in Spain. 
 
 Jastun, to spring forward, assail...") T m -n , i 
 
 Justan, to seek f. } Joust or Tournament, English. 
 
 Jugh Yoke, English. 
 
 Chartah, skin, leather ( ^harta ( La1 f>' P a P er ' . 
 
 L Cnarta membranacea, vellum. 
 
 Chiz, a thing / Chose, French. 
 
 L 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, 
 \ corresponding with our tything-man. 
 
THE LANGUAGES OF PERSIA. 135 
 
 Persic Words. Analogies. 
 
 Day, the Deity, the good principle { gj*?^ 
 
 Digah, 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. 
 
 Di, or Div, a de-non, a gen ... { 
 
 Ru,tak,. village { 
 
 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 { **$** ^S 118 ^ either ' m 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 Hiat, 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. 
 
 Sifflidan, 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." AVarton, 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. 
 
 TJ... . , f Kit, a short fiddle. 
 
 "* 8t * t Katan (Hebrew), little. 
 
 Kaak, biscuit Cake, English. 
 
 Kaf, the palm of the hand Caph, Hebrew. 
 
 Kilid, a key Kleidos (Greek), gen. of Kleis. 
 
 Kali/ah, a cup for water Chalice, English. 
 
 Kiwan, the planet Saturn Chiun, Hebrew. 
 
 K 4 
 
136 THE LANGUAGES OF PERSIA. 
 
 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." 
 
 Girdab, a whirlpool (Gaf, g, is in- 
 terchangeable with Kaf, k.). 
 
 Grft (Radical lette ), taken 
 
 Garm, warm, with Ens, Latin 
 
 Gri, weeping 
 
 From Gird, a circle, and Ab, water; 
 by transposition, with a Greek ter- 
 mination, Charybdis. 
 Graft (English), that which is taken 
 
 from another tree. 
 Garment (English), that which is 
 
 Cry, English. 
 
 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. 
 
 1 Mamma (Latin), a breast. 
 Murdar, a dead body .................. Murder, English. 
 
 Marz, boundary of a country ......... Lord of the Marches, English. 
 
 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 ^ f^^^^fS i A 
 
 L Nebo, identical with Baal, the sun. 
 
 Was, for Bas, enough .................. Basta, Italian. 
 
 Hrw, brave, warlike .................. Hero, English. 
 
 Hulk, shipwreck ', .......... ...... f Hulk W id }) . a shI P without her 
 
 L masts and rigging. 
 
 Hoi, true, just ........................... Holy, English. 
 
 Khur ' the SUn ' Persic - 
 Aor> ^ ^ Hebrew< 
 
 Hiir thp snn -f Khur ' the SUn ' 
 
 blur, the sun ........................... j 
 
137 
 
 CHAP. XV. 
 
 GREECE. THE GREEK ALPHABET. THE GREEK VERB. 
 
 " On the /Egean 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 
 Matthias, 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 Mcdaillcs 
 
138 THE GREEK ALPHABET. 
 
 Grecques et Pheniciennes avec une Paleographie Numis- 
 matique, par M. L. Dutens, 4to. Londres, 1776," and "In- 
 scriptiones Gra3ca3 Vetustissimae, H. I. Hose, 8vo. Cantab. 
 1825." 
 
 Alpha. 
 
 /f- 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 tbe 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. 
 
 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. 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. 
 
 in. Gamma. 
 
 1 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. 
 
 iv. Delta. 
 
 S 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). 
 
 5f 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 was 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 praterea 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 
 ii;flnr 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 Aio/^Sou? apiarsia, the bravery of Diomed, and 
 the other E2 /3d\\si Kvdepeiav, "Aprjd re, Tu8eoy vios, that is, 
 Ei (the name of the letter) the son of Tydeus wounds Venus 
 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 
 
 * 'EirtpffivijTcu Sk avrov iv Aio/iif&oc apHntip Xeyti Si ra tirta ovru. ' 0' 
 faav 01 TTt TT\O(, K. r. A. 
 
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 El, and he adduces 
 the Sigaean 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 
 Sigaean 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 BEAD THE NAME OF THE LETTER IN- 
 STEAD OF THE LETTER ITSELF. In the second Sigaean 
 inscription E only was written, but they read its name El, 
 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 washed 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. 
 
 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 H, 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 H 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 -ftCsop, of whom the inscription 
 makes mention, may have been identical with the celebrated 
 fabulist, who was a Phrygian, and consequently resided near 
 Sigaeum, 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 siinplici." (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, 5f, 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 Sigaean, Eta H, occurs twice 
 with precisely the power of the Roman H, that is, of an 
 Aspirate letter in the words ^OHO^ 1 4H and HA4E|x4>O!, 
 Haisopus and Hadelphoi, the first written from right to left ; 
 and Schotz, in his Coptic Grammar, says, " H, in vetusto 
 Graecorum alphabeto cum adspiratione pronunciabatur uti 
 Athenaeus in Deipnosophist. 1. 9. c. 12. testatur. In My- 
 sterio Lit. Grsec. Sahidico MSS. etiam ,frr<^, 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 OF 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 
 
 vni. 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. 
 
 0. In the second country has the same signification under 
 the name of Phre. 
 
 o . Ilia 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. loin. 
 
 Dutens says that this letter never changed its form among 
 the Greeks, but he appears to have been mistaken. 
 
 fl| 
 
 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. 
 
 xr. Lambda. 
 
 7. Samaritan or Phoenician. Lamed. 
 
 The form of Lambda in the Sigaean 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. 
 
 xn. Mu. 
 
 ^. Samaritan or Phoenician Mem. 
 
 The form of Mu in Dutens is that of the Sigaean inscrip- 
 tion, the Farnese columns, and the Metapontum medals. 
 
 xni. Nu. 
 
 ti. Samaritan or Phoenician Nun. 
 
 The Greek letters are found nearly in this shape on the 
 inscriptions of Sigaeum and Delos, on the medals of Zancle, 
 and on the ancient medals of Leontium and Naxos. 
 
 xiv. Xi. 
 
 X12. Xi from Dutens, or rather the elements for which the 
 character S was a contraction in writing, Chi and Sigma. 
 
 In Coptic 5 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 E,v6o$ by writing it ^icvOos, a 
 Scythian. I am aware that Herodotus writes the word 
 lS,ovdos 9 and that ^KvOys is the common Greek form of 
 
 Scythian, but my remark refers to a much earlier period. 
 
 .<" fc 
 
 xv. Ou (Omicron). 
 
 o. Ouau, or Vau, from Masclef s Syriac Grammar, the 
 sixth letter of the Shemitic alphabets. 
 
THE GREEK ALPHA HEX. 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 (Ov), 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 Vinum, 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 tho 
 Ethiopic (in which it exists also as Wav), after which a per- 
 pendicular stroke added to Ou (Omicron), thus, (D 4>, 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. 
 
 Digamraa, or Roman F, in which language Filius might have 
 been written Oilius, if the letter Phi had been naturalised, 
 and in which the Greek <&va) 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 El and OT after the ana- 
 logy of the Sanskrit, from which the Greek language was 
 principally derived. But this produced no ambiguity, 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 OF THE LETTEK, 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 Slgaean 
 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. PL 
 
 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 Resch. 
 
 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 h<ive 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 
 
 * " Statucndnm igitnr erit, ut vere Thierschius post alios, bto Euclidis 
 decreto nihil aliud fuisse contentum nisi ut lonicas literos in publicis 
 monomentis inscribendis adhibere liceret. Quo tempore ergo aut in 
 reliqua Gnccia aut in ipsisAthenis percrebuerit usus longarum rocaliuin, 
 nemo satis idone'u auctoribus fretus dicere potest. Utilissima procul 
 dubio et p#ne necessaria fuit earum in vent io, quod anteu quani invecUe 
 sint, triplicem vicem vocales E et O sustimu>rint. K scilicet sibi pro- 
 priam potestatcm, diphthong! El et longa? vocalis H vim Imbebat. Vocali 
 O eodem modo non sua tantum potestas tribuebatur, sed pro diphthongo 
 OV et vocali Q ponebatur. Negavrt qnidcm Dawesius E pro El unquam 
 a Graecis esse positum, et auctoritatem scriptorum a Tayloro advocatorum 
 nullam csse ostendit . Sed frustra negavit ; nihil enim hoc usu notius est, 
 quod sine Grammaticorum auctoritate ab exemplis quivis discere poiest." 
 (Rose, Inscriptiones Gnuctc VctuatiBHJHM^ ^cfcgcni. p. 18.) 
 
 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. 
 
 xvm. Sair( 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 
 Horae Pelasgicae, 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 Sigaean 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. 
 
 ^ j- Phi, from Rose. 
 
 CD J 
 
 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.) 
 
 xxin. Psi. 
 
 HZ 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. 
 
 O. Omega, from Dutens. 
 
 H 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, 
 a), 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 OP 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, Apbllonius Dyscolus, and Con- 
 stantine Lascaris, to the latest and most perfect productions 
 of Buttman, Thiersch, and Matthije, 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 uncertaintv, 
 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 GKEEK VEBB. 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 Pindaricuin, omits the word 
 altogether, though it occurs in one or another of its senses 
 in almost every page of Homer's descriptions of tattles, but 
 under the word Tupo he says, " pro quo usus obtinuit TV7rr&>," 
 and he explains it by the Latin words Tundo, Caedo 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 rvTrrso-Qai, h. 1. 
 ut cognatum verbum positum pro {3\rj0rjvcu 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, " TITTTTO), Verbero, Percutio, Pulso, 
 Tundo," copying Scapula, but adds as an illustration of its 
 meaning a passage from Anacreon, Q<f>is p ervtys, which he 
 translates Scrpens 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, Kcu fis TVTTTSI 
 7)7rap, 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. Now by 
 turning to the Sanskrit, we have discovered not merely the 
 genuine root of Tupo, which Darnm 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. 
 
 xxvin 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 7rpacra--&>, do, TUCT-W, 
 bear, yrjpao-K-a), grow old, and TVTTT-O), beat, not Trpao-o; n/cr, 
 ryrjpaa-fc, TVTTT, but Trpasy, TSK, yrjpa, and TVTT, are the original 
 roots. And the still more elaborate grammar of Matthise 
 remarks, that the insertion of r, after a consonant, served to 
 lengthen the Present Tense of the verb, e. g. rvTrrco for TVTTO), 
 leaving his readers to infer that the r in TVTTTQ) 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 triliteral 
 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^B-rja-o^ai has all the appearance of having been 
 formed from the Present rvTrr-o) by changing the single 
 letters into their corresponding aspirates, and adding eaofiai, 
 the Future of eofiat, substituting Eta for its initial Epsilon. 
 In the same way rvTr-rjo-opcn, the Second Future, appears to 
 be formed from the genuine root TVTT-G>. The oldest form of 
 the Greek Present Tense was probably TVTT-&>, or the un- 
 changing root joined to the auxiliary verb, the obsolete so), 
 I am, which contracted to TVTTW 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 fit were much older than those 
 terminating in o>, 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 Valpy observes that verbs in /u 
 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 fit 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 
 f4\\ti), 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 arc 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 JEolic 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 pi as older than 
 those in o>, he derives sipi, sum, from the obsolete &>, 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 
 Verb 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-SQ), i. e. Tup, unvarying root, and the obsolete auxiliary 
 
 verb Eo, I am, by contraction Tupo. 
 TVTTT-ofjiat,, 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 f, tantum, tarn pro syllabico quam pro temporali 
 augmento: sic /cn?Ta&; ss\7n%ov ; sayov, soTra^ov." And 
 Valpy 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 e is prefixed, and in the 
 latter it is contracted with the subsequent vowel : 
 
 a/cow ...... satcovov ^ CIJKOVOV. 
 
 epifa ...... eepi &v > contracted -I 
 
 opv<T<ro) ...sopvacrov J [ 
 
 The Athenians preserve the syllabic augment uncontracted : 
 
 070), I break ...... ecuyov. 
 
 delight ...... eaSov. 
 
 And in another passage the same work remarks on the 
 Passive Voice, the old forms must have been TUTTT-SIMU, 
 eTV7rr-fj,r)v 9 and not TVTTT-O/-WU, OT/TTT-O/Z^V, s being changed 
 into o, as in many other instances (p. 142.), on which I 
 would observe that e is not changed into o, but dropped, the 
 formative of the Present Tense of TVTTT-O/KU being the ob- 
 solete sofULi, I am, and of the Imperfect e-rvTrr-ofjnjv, the ob- 
 solete sofjLtjv. 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 . 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 : 
 
 f-n/7TT-OI>, 
 
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 fy y to the immutable root TVTTT, thus TVTTTSCTICOV, 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 termination! proxima ; et nullam patitur flexion em ; 
 sed manet semper in eodem tempore invariabilis. In verbis 
 non liquidis characteristica Futuri Primi semper est cr : sic 
 
 Tlft) ...... TCTft). 
 
 At in verbis liquidis characteristica Prassentis manet in 
 Futuro, sic 
 
 IJLSVW, maneo 
 
 (TTrsipa), semino ...... 
 
 GTS XXo>, mitto 
 scindo 
 
 " Verba liquida non inserunt cr ; tantum corripiunt penulti- 
 mam si longa est; et flectuntur ad instar Futuri Secundi. 
 Penultimam longam corripiunt, abject^ posteriore duarum 
 vocalium vel consonantium : sic, 
 
 Frees. Put. 1. 
 
 ), semino ...CTTTS/OW. 
 ), tendo ......... TSVW. 
 
 , ostendo ...^>avw. 
 ), polluo ...... /uazxw. 
 
 , scindo ...... re/z-w. 
 
 ), laboro ...... Ka/jLw. 
 
 crTf XXw, mitto ...... erreXw. 
 
 , cano 
 
 Valpy says, in the Future of Verbs, the Old Attic used 
 the contracted form, aXw, /caXw, oXw, ava^^w^ca : the New 
 
THE GREEK VERB. 161 
 
 Attic resumed <r, and made them aXea-M, icaXeo-a), o\r&>, ara- 
 pif3d(Tonai~ After the adoption of this Future, which be- 
 came the general form in the common dialect of Greece, the 
 Attica still preserved the other form which is now distin- 
 guished by the name of the Second Future (page 177). It 
 appears to me, that this was rather introducing the First 
 Future, than changing the Second. Verbs ending in liquids 
 X, p, v t p, pv 9 forming the Fifth Conjugation in the arrange- 
 ment of the Eton Grammar, which is perhaps more generally 
 used than any other in England, form their only Future by 
 contraction from the Present, instead of the addition of a 
 which is always a fragment, or contraction of eaco, the Future 
 of o>, and the formative of the other five Conjugations. 
 From the analogy of verbs ending in liquids, and forming 
 their Future by contraction from the Present, it is probable 
 that verbs forming their Future in <r, influenced by the con- 
 venience or necessity of poetry, circumflexed their Present, 
 used it in a Future sense, and hence denominated it a Second 
 Future ; but strictly speaking no Greek verb has more than 
 one Future ; what is called the Second being generally a new 
 theme, or second Present, of which what is called the Second 
 Aorist is a regular Imperfect, like TITTW, and ervTrov. We 
 may analyse many Greek Futures into an Oriental immu- 
 table root, and saco the Future of the obsolete 2o>, I am, 
 letter for letter. For instance, if we take the Chaldee word 
 Kal, a voice, we have the Greek Present KaX-w, and its 
 Future KaX-eVw, and if we take the Sanskrit root Mna, re- 
 member, we have the Greek Present Mvd-m and its Future 
 Mm-7o>, Mwjo-w. The able author of the article on two 
 works of Bopp in the 33rd volume of the Edinburgh Review 
 says, the First Future Middle in Greek, like the Second in 
 Sanskrit, is formed by adding the Future of the Substantive 
 Verb to the root, Tvrr-<7o/iat, Greek ; tup-syami, Sanskrit. 
 
 We therefore come to the conclusion, that what is called 
 the First Future in Greek, or, in other words, the only 
 Future of all verbs in o>, with the exception of the fifth con- 
 jugation of liquids, is formed in the Active Voice by the 
 
 M 
 
162 THE GREEK VERB. 
 
 'addition of ecrw, the Future of w, and in the Passive by the 
 addition of ecrojMU, the Future of fopai, to the root. 
 
 TV7TT- 
 
 by contraction TVTT-O-O) rv^co. 
 
 xxxn. The First Aorist. 
 
 Moor says, " Aoristum et Perfectum primo idem fuisse ex 
 multis indiciis patet." If we first expunge from the number 
 of the Tenses the Second Future and the Second Aorist, as 
 formed from a distinct root, or theme, and next the First 
 Aorist as identical with the Perfect, the Greek and Latin 
 verbs become precisely alike, each containing five tenses, 
 and those the same tenses with the same signification. It 
 appears to me to be demonstrable, beyond the possibility of 
 doubt, that the tenses of the Greek and Latin verb, like 
 those of the Sanskrit, are produced by some of the various 
 forms of the Auxiliary Verb To be, which exists in the 
 Greek language in different states ; sco, and eofjuu, having 
 become obsolete, but being susceptible of restoration without 
 much doubt or difficulty. But this is not all, for it occurs 
 to me that the different Tenses of the Verbs slfu 9 sum, 
 and Irjjju, eo, vado, %tt, mitto, is/mat,, mittor, concupisco, 
 sedeo, and slftcu, indutus sum, have been mixed and con- 
 founded, until it is hardly possible to separate and distinguish 
 them ; nor should I attempt to do so, did I not believe that 
 some of the Tenses which properly belong to e&>, slju, and 
 soiiai, the Verb Substantive To be, have been arranged 
 under some of these verbs. Of st/u, eo, the Port Royal 
 Grammar says, " from this verb el&> is derived the unusual 
 Preterite efaa, whence is formed the Pluperfect SLKSLV, and 
 the First Aorist should be fZcra." Of irjfjLi, mitto, it says, 
 " Future ^<7&>, First Aorist rj/ca for rjcra, Perfect et/ca, with ei, 
 Boeot. for ^/ea, like T&Osuca." And of elfjuu, indutus sum, it 
 remarks, Future eo-o) or iWo), First Aorist Active elaa and 
 Icrovz." Reasoning from analogy, I cannot but be of opinion 
 that the Aorist as well as the other tenses of the Greek verb 
 
THE GREEK VERB. 163 
 
 was formed from an immutable root joined to some tense of 
 the Auxiliary Verb To be, and I am therefore under the ne- 
 cessity of supposing that one of the forms of that verb con- 
 tained such an Aorist as ra, of which the initial letter e was 
 prefixed to the root TUTT as an augment, while <ra formed its 
 termination : ^rtrrr-a-a or srv^ra. If, however, the First 
 Aorist was formed from the First Future, the formative was 
 undoubtedly ea, which we find in the Eton Grammar among 
 the dialects of fy, by prefixing the s as an augment, and sub- 
 stituting the a for the final of rinffw. In the Aoristus 
 ^Eolicus of the Optative Mood, we have rirfy-na, without any 
 augment. In the formation of this tense the analogy of the 
 Sanskrit is worth noticing. Dr. Prichard says, the Sanskrit 
 Verb asmi (the Greek slfil) has no Future ; but M. Bopp 
 conjectures with great probability that syami, the adjunct by 
 which a Future Tense is formed in attributive verbs, is in 
 fact only the obsolete Future of the verb asmi (rather asyami, 
 Greek IO-O/LUU). A fact strongly favouring this hypothesis is, 
 that a tense of this verb exists in Sanskrit, and is recognised 
 as such, which is only used in forming the Prcterperfect 
 Tense of certain verbs. Asa, asit'ha, asa, is termed the third 
 Preterite, or Aorist of asmi. It is joined with karayam, 
 from the verb karomi, facio, creo, and forms karayamasa, 
 fecit, creavit. If such an Aorist as sera ever existed in 
 Greek, under one of the forms of the Verb Substantive To 
 be, e-TV7r-<ra was formed by prefixing e and affixing era to the 
 root ; if it did not, the formative was la, of the existence of 
 which there can be no doubt, and its s was prefixed as an 
 augment, and its a exchanged for the final o> of the Future 
 >, Aorist 
 
 xxxni. The Perfect Tense. 
 
 The Greek Perfect and Preterpluperfect appear to be 
 formed from a distinct root from the Present; for as in 
 Sanskrit we found Tup, we also find its aspirated form 
 Tuph, with precisely the same signification. The meaning 
 of the Perfect Tense does not appear to be produced. < r 
 indeed affected, by the reduplication, as we find that existing 
 
 * 2 
 
164 THE GREEK VERB. 
 
 in many Present Tenses. I believe the final a in rsrv^a to 
 be a contraction of fa, which we find in the Eton Grammar 
 among the dialects of fy, and tea, the termination of the 
 Perfect in the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth conjugations, 
 appears to me to have been derived from an obsolete rjica, the 
 Aorist or Perfect of one of the forms of the Auxiliary 
 Verb. There can be little doubt that the root or theme 
 of the verb (frpoveco, intelligo, is the word <f)prjv, mens, and 
 if we write its tenses thus <^ooWo>, typov-ijcrco, Tre-^pov-rjrca, ECO 
 appears to be a Present, ija-a (&ro>) a Future, and ^/ra an 
 Aorist or Perfect of the Auxiliary Verb To be. (See fyfju, 
 mitto, in the Port Eoyal Greek Grammar.) Valpy says, it 
 may be questioned whether the K and %, the TT and <f> were 
 not added to the Perfect, which was originally formed in 
 the old Attic and Ionic by the change of co into a, as we 
 find traces in scrraa, /Lt^u-aa, and in the Aorists so-sva, %, 
 tf\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 ypdfjx*), eypatya ; 7r\/ca), 
 sTrXega; yvcoplfo, eyvcopio-a ; ^raXXo), stya\a. Valpy also 
 remarks that the Attics change \s and ps of the Perfect 
 into si, as sl\ij^>a for \e\r}(f)a, and slfjuip/jiat, for fjus^apfjia^ 
 which leads to the conclusion that the formative was the ea, 
 or eia, 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 TVTTTCO 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 fy, the Imperfect of 
 STSTV<I>-IV. The formative in the Passive Voice is 
 
THE GREEK VERB. 165 
 
 the Pluperfect of eiju t but only in the singular number, the 
 first Person Dual, and the first Person Plural. Valpy 
 remarks, that the Ionic changes ew, si?, ei, of the Pluperfect, 
 into ea, eas, ee, &c., as irervfaa, as, &c. But for the augment 
 it would perhaps be more correct to say that it inserts e 
 before the final a of the Perfect, rrn^a common Greek, 
 TSTwpea, 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, " Futuruin Secunclum 
 et Aoristus Secundus optimis Grammaticis nulluin in Graeca 
 lingua locum habere videntur. Fut. 2. nihil aliud est quarn 
 contractio Attice Fut. 1. Sic TVTTW formatur a Fut. 1. 
 obsoleti verbi Tirrreo), habentis in Fut. Prim. TUTTSO-O), eliso 
 <r, TVTTSCO, contracte Ttrrrw," (page 73). Valpy 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 Prasenti" (page 152). And the Greek 
 grammar of Jones says, " the lonians insert e before the 
 pronominal terminations of the Second Future, TUTT&>, tweets, 
 for TITTTW, Tvjrsls, &c. These are contracted and circumflexed 
 by the Dorians (and Attics) TVTTW, TVTrsis, TVTTOVJJLSV, &c. w 
 (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 TUTTO) was what is called the Ionic TVTT&>, 
 and as little that that word was compounded by adding &>, 
 the Present of the Auxiliary Verb To be, to the Sanskrit root 
 TVTT, and its Future by adding &ro>, the Future of the same 
 
 M 3 
 
166 THE GREEK VERB. 
 
 Auxiliary Verb. E<ra>, in some instances contracted to <ro>, 
 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 Xew, /Lto>, vco, pw 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 (7&> was general 
 for these verbs as well as for the rest, and that the ^Eoh'c, the 
 oldest dialect of Greece, continued to retain the use of <j, 
 especially in verbs in pco. The fact appears to be that the 
 <r 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, " 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 TI/TT&), srayov from rcvya), &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. 
 
 xxxvu. 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. V. Bloomfield, M.A. 
 
THE GREEK VERB. 167 
 
 esse quam Futurum Primum Medium, Ionic reduplicatum, ut 
 T8Ttnfro/jLai ; " and that of Jones, " the form called by gramma- 
 rians Paulo-post-Futurum is not a distinct tense, but the 
 First Future Middle augmented: Tfoopai, rrruro/Lwu ; -rityoncu, 
 Te-n/1/ro/iat." 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." 
 
 xxxvin. Aoristus JEolicus Atticis usitatissimus. 
 
 Moor remarks of this tense, " ^Eolic^, Ionic, et Attice 4 ," and 
 the Port Royal says, the " JEolic Aorist of the Optative is 
 formed from the Aorist of the Indicative by dropping the 
 augment, and putting si before a, as Jrnn/ra, rv>/reta. 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 slfu, sum, 
 that there can hardly be a doubt that their tenses have been 
 mixed and confounded, and it is remarkable that eui, which 
 appears to be the formative of the tense in question, is the 
 Perfect Tense, Indicative Mood, Middle Voice of f2/u, 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 Tity-sia, except in the third person plural, where 
 the Aorist forms Tityetai>, and the Perfect of elfUj to go, 
 eiao-i. The First Aorist is said, in the Eton Grammar, to be 
 formed from the First Future, by changing o> into a, and 
 prefixing the augment, and if we exchange the final o> of 
 for eta, we have the Aoristus 2Eolicus 
 
 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 ft), ov, a, and ew, it is remarkable that the Sub- 
 junctive has only one in o>, the Optative two in oifjui and ai^ 
 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 Verb 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, 
 being found in three distinct forms as under : 
 
 "Eft), sum, Dammii Lexicon in voce. 
 Et/-u, sum, Scapula Lexicon. 
 
 sum, Port Royal Greek Grammar, book 3. c. 1.5. 
 
 Eton Greek Grammar, p. 67. 
 ("Eft)), Pronomen ego, est ab eo>, 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-o), 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 "Awo, 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 (Keu'o>), 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 lo, 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 JEolic 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 lo (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 (OLKCO), I dwell ; and how was that formed ? I 
 believe by the addition of the pronoun Ego, or rather lo, 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 : 
 'Ssfi- Ew, the obsolete form of eimi, sum, by contraction o-fySoi, 
 
 literally, worship I am, or worship I. 
 2s$-o/xat, contracted from eomai, another of the obsolete 
 
 forms of eimi, literally worship I am, or worship 1. 
 
 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, with some modifications, still continue to be spoken 
 in the South, and of the Mceso-Gothic, which is the oldest 
 written form of the Anglo-Saxon, German, and English. 
 
 Sanskrit. 
 
 1. 
 
 Asmi 
 Am 
 
 Singular. 
 
 2. 
 asi 
 ai 
 
 3. 
 
 asti, 
 ast, 
 
 
 Plural 
 
 
 1. 
 
 2. 
 
 3. 
 
 small, or smus 
 
 stha 
 
 santi. 
 
 aim 
 
 aid 
 
 and. 
 
 hastim 
 
 hastid 
 
 hastand. 
 
 shuim 
 
 si mid 
 
 shund. 
 
 sumus 
 
 estis 
 
 sunt. 
 
 eir/xes 
 
 &TT* 
 
 frrl 
 
 fff/j.ev 
 
 fort 
 
 eurl. 
 
 jesmi (y) 
 
 jeste 
 
 suti. 
 
 esme 
 
 este 
 
 esti. 
 
 siyum 
 
 siyuth 
 
 si ad. 
 
 Persic, 3 I Rastam hastl hast> 
 
 ms - (.Shum shui shud, 
 T . f Esum. 
 
 Latm * (Sum es est, 
 
 Greek, 2 \ *&r/*l ^<r<ri earl, 
 
 Forms. J elfil e?s t(frl, 
 
 Slavonic. Jesmi jese jesti, 
 
 Lithuanian. Esmi essi esti, 
 
 M. Gothic. Im is ist, 
 
 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 
 loyu, 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 s Iju ; 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 Mo3so-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 Verb, 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 GREEK VERB. 173 
 
 closely resembling it, that their tenses have unquestionably 
 been cenfounded, 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 eipi. These verbs 
 arc el/j,i and irj/u eo, vado, 'irjfii mitto, f'e/uat cupio, f)fjLai sedeo, 
 el/tai 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. 
 
 i i M i. Sum, I am. 
 
 From *w, with a smooth breathing comes ti/ii acuted. 
 1. Aorist, i'or, Poetical. 
 
 *.i', Ionic (Eustathius), also an Imperfect. 
 
 Pres. Middle, c/iai. Imp. Middle, 17/1171'. 
 
 'EIMI and"!HMI, eo, vado. 
 From tin is formed <"w, and thence *7/*i, vado. 
 Imperfect, tlv. 1. Aorist, tloa. 
 
 Perfect, fora (unusual). 2. Aorist, tov. 
 
 Pluperfect, tlxiiv. Perfect Mid. tier. 
 
 "IBM I, Mitto, to send. 
 From em, with a rough breathing, comes l'g//i. 
 
 Future, tjo-w. Perfect, T*a for }*a. 
 
 1. Aorist, r/ra for jjtra. 2. Aorist Mid. fy 
 
 2. Aorist, ,}v. Pres. Opt. Mid. 
 
 "IEMAI, T HMAT, and T EIMAI. 
 
 From ew comes if/iai, which, with a rough breathing, expresses desire. 
 From CM to sit, comes likewise >}/J<K. 
 
 Imperfect, i'iM v - ! Aorist Act. eI<Ta and tWa. 
 
 El/iai, indutus sum. 1. Aorist Mid. ciera/jqy and i 
 
 Future, eW, or 
 
 Such are the verbs so closely resembling el/u , to be, in 
 their form, that I entertain not a doubt that many tenses arc 
 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 I 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 eo-efiov (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 bv^ merely prefixing the augment s, but 
 also by changing the o> of the Present into ov, as Sebami, 
 Asebam, Sanskrit; O-#?G>, ecrsfiov, 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 fy, 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 elpl, sum, forms sov, sss, ETJ, 
 according to the Eton Grammar ; the real model of the 
 terminations of this tense, therefore, appears to be lov, the 
 Second Aorist of e2/u, 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-TIHTT-OV, the Imperfect of TUTTT, letter for letter 
 throughout all the Persons. If we now turn to I-TI^TTT-O^V, 
 the Imperfect of the Passive Voice, as the addition to the root 
 is soprjv, the s being prefixed as an augment, and the o/i^v an- 
 nexed as a termination, we can hardly doubt that that word 
 is sofjLrjv, the Imperfect of the obsolete eofiai, which itself in 
 the slightly contracted form of o^ai forms the Present Tense, 
 Passive Voice Timr-opai,. The First Future of all Greek verbs 
 in o>, except liquids in X, /*, v, p, of the fifth conjugation, ter- 
 minates in crt), so-co, or 770-0) if we resolve the penultimate 
 double letters ojr and into their elements TTS- and KS ; and here 
 it appears to me that there cannot be a doubt that the forma- 
 tive is scrco, the Future of the obsolete y, sum, added to the 
 root, and generally contracted to crco, as from TVTT, 
 
THE GREEK VERB. 175 
 
 commonly written Tvtyw, and t;<7&>, which we sometimes find 
 as the formative, appears to be the future of I'TJ/U, mitto. A*Wo>, 
 laudo, forms both atWW and aiv-ijaa), in the future ; /9oo<u, 
 chuno, o-7<ra>. H<ro/*a*, the formative of both Futures in the 
 Passive Voice, is clearly eo-ofiai, the Future of the obsolete 
 to/uu, with the change of only its initial letter, and that 
 change took place because &ro>, the regular formative of the 
 Future, in the active voice is sometimes written ^ao>. E/, the 
 termination of the Pluperfect in the Active Voice, is doubtless 
 a tense of the verb To be, and accordingly we find it arranged 
 in the Eton Grammar among the dialects of fjv, cram ; but as 
 it is circumflexed its uncontracted form probably was ssiv, and 
 the Pluperfect 8-Tru<f>-ei,v was formed from the Perfect Trv<f>a 
 by prefixing the e of ssiv as an augment, and substituting eiv 
 for the final a. In the instance of ri^/r-fwi, the Aoristus -ZEolicus 
 of the Optative Mood, Active Voice, the formative certainly 
 appears to have been ela, the Perfect Middle Voice of iipi, to 
 go, as the tenses agree almost letter for letter, and if this be 
 admitted, though ela is now arranged under eZ/u, to go, it 
 must as certainly have been a tense of the Auxiliary Verb el/ju 
 to be, at a remote period. The formative of the Pluperfect 
 Passive Voice srsTv/j,/j,r)v (s-TsrvTr^fjirjv) appears to have been 
 YI^V the Pluperfect of elfjul ; but as we find efjLrjv, second Aorist, 
 middle voice, of oj/u, mitto, it is highly probable that that 
 tense, in the infancy of the Greek language, formed part of the 
 Auxiliary Verb To be, and that its e was prefixed as an augment 
 while its /j,rjv formed the affix or termination, agreeably to 
 what appears to have been the general, not to say invariable 
 rule The First Aorist is said to be formed from the first 
 Future, by prefixing the augment, and changing its final 
 &> into a, as from TVTT-CT&), or TV^T&>, s-rvTr-ffa or erirty-a ; 
 but if my view of the subject is at all founded on fact, 
 one tense was never formed from another, which is merely 
 a contrivance of grammarians, but all the tenses were 
 formed from the simple root, which we rarely find in Greek 
 at all, and they were all formed in precisely the same way, 
 namely, by the addition of the various tenses of the Auxiliary 
 Verb To be, to that root. In the instance of TVTTTO), it is agreed 
 
176 THE GREEK VERB. 
 
 on all hands that the genuine root is TVTT, and that the r is 
 redundant. This is admitted in Damm's Lexicon and 
 Thiersch's Grammar, and we find the root TUTT in Sanskrit, to 
 put the matter beyond all dispute. The first Aorist of TVTTTO), 
 or rather TI/TTW, is e-rvTr-o-a, the addition to the root being 
 e<ra ; and as we find slcra as the First Aorist of slpi, to go, and 
 %cra as the First Aorist of M;/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 TUTT, by prefixing the e 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 -\Jro> into 
 (f>a, and the reduplication of the first consonant of the root or 
 theme with s, we find the prototype of the Greek rs-rvc^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 rsrv(f>a to be a contraction of ea, which we find in 
 the Eton Grammar among the dialects of rjv, eram ; but as that 
 makes I'a, erj9,sr}v, the model of the terminations of the Perfect 
 Tense appears to be sla, Attic fja, the Perfect Tense, Middle 
 Voice, of elfju, vado, which makes a, -as-, -s. This is the Perfect 
 of the first conjugation only of verbs in &>, and the ^a, or /ca, 
 of the Perfect of the other five conjugations appears to be a 
 contraction of fjiea, the First Aorist of M?/U, mitto ; and as that 
 Aorist, according to the Port Royal, was also fjara, 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 
 
J HK GREEK VERB. 177 
 
 to account for the different formations of almost every verb in 
 the Greek language. 
 
 XLII. The obsolete "Ea>, Sum (Dammii Lexicon). 
 
 Indicative Mood, Present Tense. 
 
 Singular, Eu *_ M. 
 
 Dual, trov ITOV. 
 
 Jm UTW (Attic). 
 
 Plural, Ofttv TI ovm. 
 
 Oufttt iTn Ovn (Attic). 
 
 Derivatives The Present Tense of all verbs in the Indicative Mood 
 of the Active Voice terminating in w, as rv7rr-w, rvtrr-o;, and of the 
 Second Future. 
 
 Imperfect Tense (Eton Grammar, Dialects of t\v). 
 Singular, Eov n,_- . 
 
 Dual, firov tirqv. 
 
 Plural, Eo/m' r tov. 
 
 Derivatives All the Imperfects of verbs in the Active Voice which 
 form their Present in w, by prefixing the t to the root as an augment, 
 and adding the ov as a termination, as t- 
 
 Future Tense (Dammii Lexicon). 
 
 Singular, E<rw tatif ta 
 
 Hrw 
 
 Dual, 
 
 Plural, Effopcv lairt taovm. 
 
 Derivatives All the Futures of verbs in the Active Voice which 
 form their Present in u>, except liquids of the Fifth Conjugation, as rvir- 
 taio, TVTr-aiti, rtn//o), ^-tcrw and 
 
 Aorist (Jtra, 1. Aorist of cifii, eo I go). 
 
 Singular, Erra laaq tat. 
 
 Hr 
 
 Dual, toarov (ffanji-. 
 
 Plural, !->(i//fi- f<rare tsar. 
 
 Derivatives The Aorists of verbs which form their Present in <, by 
 prefixing the c to the root as an augment, and adding the <ra as a termi- 
 nation, as -rv7T-<ra, frinpa. 
 
 Perfect Tense (Eton Grammar, Dialecte of i}v). 
 
 Singular, Ea ta . 
 HM 
 
 Dual, farov tarov. 
 
 Plural, !:, //in- (arc ca<ri. 
 
 Derivatives The Perfect of verbs of the First Conjugation which 
 form their present in w, by prefixing the reduplication to the aspirated 
 
 N 
 
178 THE GREEK VERB. 
 
 form of the root (Tup, Tuph, Sanskrit), and adding the fa, contracted to 
 a, as a termination, as re-rw^-a. As a model see aa, the Perfect Middle 
 of fl/Lu, to go (Valpy, p. 88.). 
 
 Pluperfect Tense (Eton Grammar, Dialects of r\v). 
 
 Singular, Etiv we e<. 
 
 ** 
 
 Dual, etiTov ettTijv. 
 
 Plural, Efifiev ire itiaav. 
 
 Derivatives The Pluperfect of verbs in w, by prefixing the e to the 
 Perfect as an augment, and substituting nv for its final a, as a termi- 
 nation, as t-Ti-rvQ-ttv. These two tenses of u, also account for the Per- 
 fect and Pluperfect of the Middle Voice, Tirvira and i TtTweiv. 
 
 Subjunctive Mood, Present Tense (Eton Grammar). 
 
 Singular, T Q r)Q TJ. 
 
 Dual, rjTov rjrov. 
 
 Plural, Qp.tv jjre vat. 
 
 Derivatives The terminations of all the Tenses of the Subjunctive 
 Mood, Active Voice, of verbs which form their Present in w. Also of all 
 the Tenses of the Passive, except the Present and the Imperfect, and of 
 the Perfect and Pluperfect, Middle Voice. It also, with some modifi- 
 cations, forms the Subjunctives of verbs in pi. 
 
 Imperative Mood. 
 
 Singular, E erw. 
 
 Dual, ETOV erajv. 
 
 Plural, Ere trwaav. 
 
 Derivatives The termination of the Present, Imperfect, 2. Aorist, 
 Perfect and Pluperfect Tenses in the Active, and of the Perfect and 
 Pluperfect in the Middle Voice. 
 
 XLIII. The obsolete "Eopai, Sum (Eton Grammar, p. 67.). 
 
 Indicative Mood, Present Tense. 
 Singular, *Eopat erf eerai. 
 
 Dual, EopeOov ttaQov eiaQov. 
 
 Plural, EofitQa eeaOt eovrai. 
 
 Derivatives The Present of the Passive and Middle Voices of verbs 
 in w, and of the 2d Future Middle, by changing o into ov, and c into , as 
 rvTrr-o/tai, rvTr-ovpat. 
 
 Imperfect Tense. 
 
 Singular, Eoprjv tov ro. 
 
 Dual, EofitOov tfo&ov ctffOt)v. 
 
 Plural, Eo/ue0a tfdfle tovro. 
 
 Derivatives The Imperfect of the Passive and Middle Voices of 
 verbs in <o, by prefixing the to the root as an augment, and adding the 
 as a termination, as e TV-TTT-O^V, 
 
THE GREEK VERB. 179 
 
 Future Tense (Eton Grammar). 
 
 Singular, !>../ </ry rfrat. 
 
 Dual, EffofjiiOov taioQov toioQov. 
 
 Plural, EffoptOa toioQi toovrat. 
 
 Derivatives The 1st and 2d Futures of the Passive, and 1st Future 
 of the Middle Voice of verbs in . The long vowel in rjfro^ai appears to 
 have arisen out of )}<rw, in some verbs the formative of the Active Future. 
 1st Future, root TVITT, and bj changing the single letters for the aspirate, 
 rvfO-qvopcu. 2d Future, root rvjr-i7<ro/*ai. Paulo-post-Futurum, root ri/sr, 
 with the reduplication, and 7o/im contracted to <ro/ia(, r-ri;jr-(ro/mi, re- 
 
 Optative Mood, Present Tense. 
 
 Singular, Eoipt eotf 
 
 Dual, foirov 
 
 Plural, Eot/uv toiri nutr. 
 
 Derivatives All the Tenses of the Optative Mood, Active Voice, 
 with the exception of the 1st Aorist, which makes ai/ii, <._, at. Also of 
 the Perfect and Pluperfect, Middle Voice. 
 
 Imperfect Tense. 
 
 Singular, i:o//u;r coto cotro. 
 
 Dual, EoifiiOov toioQov eotaOtjv. 
 
 Plural, E<u/i(0a toiaOt eoivro. 
 
 Derivatives The Present and Imperfect Tenses of the Passive and 
 Middle Voices, and the 2nd Future and 2nd Aorist Middle. 
 
 Future Tense (Eton Grammar). 
 
 Singular, E<rot/jqv taow evotro, 
 
 Dual, EaoipiOov tffotaOov 
 
 Plural, EffoiniOti KTotaOf 
 
 Derivatives The 1st and 2nd Futures of the Optative Mood, 
 Passive Voice, but apparently formed from an Active Future in i|<rw 
 rather than tcrw, and from 1790;, tjmn^i'. Also the Paulo-post-Futurum 
 in the same Mood, and the 1st Future and 1st Aorist Middle Voice, 
 except that the latter makes aaiftrfv instead of trotpqv, following the ana- 
 logy of the 1st Aorist Optative, Active Voice. 
 
 Subjunctive Mood, Present Tense. 
 
 Singular, Ewpat cy c if rat. 
 
 Dual, EufuOo* tijoQov frjoOov. 
 
 Plural, EwfitOa ttjoQi cwvroi 
 
 Derivatives The Present and Imperfect Tenses of tke Subjunctive 
 Mood, Passive and Middle Voices, and of the 1st and 2nd Aorist Middle. 
 
 M 2 
 
180 THE GREEK VERB. 
 
 XLIV. Et/u, Sum. 
 
 Indicative Mood, Present Tense (Eton Grammar). 
 Singular, Et/u vel u tan. 
 
 Hfju ns *><ri. 
 
 Dual, (ffTov t<TTov. 
 
 *TV ITO*. 
 
 Plural, Effptv tore fiat. 
 
 EytWV ITS l/. 
 
 Derivatives The First Person of Verbs in /K, and of the Dual and 
 Plural by rejecting a. The Greek follows the analogy of the Sanskrit 
 very close. In the latter language the Verb Astun, to be, forms in the 
 Present Tense, Singular Number, Asmi Asi Asti ; but when em- 
 ployed as an Auxiliary, and united with a Verbal Koot, we have Jiv-ami, 
 I live Jiv-asi, thou livest Jiv-ati, he lives Jiv-arnah, we live. But 
 the real model of Verbs in pi is !//, to send ; many of the Tenses of 
 which may be regarded as dialectical varieties of Ei/u, to be. 
 
 Imperfect Tense (Eton Grammar). 
 
 Singular, Hv /C rj. 
 
 B* 
 
 Dual, rjTOV T)T3]V. * 
 
 Plural, Hfiev r]T tjaav. 
 
 Derivatives The two Aorists of Verbs in w, in the Indicative Mood, 
 Passive Voice, and with some modifications the Imperfect and 2nd 
 Aorist of Verbs in /u ; but the oldest form was probably Eqv. 
 
 Pluperfect Tense (Eton Grammar). 
 Singular, HfjiTjv ijao rjro. 
 
 Dual, H/ii0ov tjffOov rjaOrjv. 
 
 Plural, HfjieQa. rjaOe rjvro. 
 
 If we resolve Eta into its two component Epsilons, we shall have both 
 the augment and termination of the Imperfect Tense, Indicative Mood, 
 Passive Voice, of Verbs in /it, as e- 
 
 Optative Mood, Present Tense (Eton Grammar), 
 Singular, EIJJV tirjg eirj. 
 
 Dual, 
 Plural, 
 
 Derivatives The Perfect, Pluperfect, and two Aorists of the Optative 
 .Mood, Passive Voice, of Verbs in w. Also of the Present and 2nd 
 Aorist of the Optative of Verbs in pi. 
 
 2nd Aorist (of '%i, to send, Valpy, p. 93). 
 
 Singular, Eipriv no ftro. 
 
 Dual, EijuQov tiaQov tiaOrjv. 
 
 Plural,. EipeOa eiaOe tivro. 
 
 Derivatives The Present Tense, Optative Mood, Passive Voice, 
 of Verbs in /u, as ri0-a/ijjv. Also of 2nd Aorist, Optative Middle, as 
 
THE GREEK VERB. 181 
 
 Middle Voice, Indicative Mood, Present Tense (Port Royal, p. 222.). 
 Singular, E/iai e<rai trai. 
 
 Dual, EptOov toQov taQov. 
 
 Plural, EptOa taOt tvrai. 
 
 Derivatives The Present Tense, Indicative Mood, Passive Voice, of 
 Verbs in /it, and the Perfect, Passive Voice, of Verbs in w, in the Singular 
 Number, 1st Dual, and 1st Plural. 
 
 2nd Aorist (of TIJ/, to send, Port Royal, p. 230.). 
 Singular, E/II/V too ro. 
 
 Dual, EpiOov urtov <T0ijv 
 
 Plural, KpiGa iff9e tvro. 
 
 Derivatives The Imperfect Tense, Indicative Mood, Passive Voice, 
 of Verbs in /, and the Pluperfect, Passive Voice, of Verbs in w, by pre- 
 fixing the c, as an augment, and adding the /<//'' to the root as a termi- 
 nation, as t-Ttrvir-fjiijr, and substituting /i for TT, f-rfrvft-/n;', i-rrvir-<ro, 
 
 t-rtTVTT-TO. 
 
 XLV. Such appear to me to be the obsolete tenses of the 
 Auxiliary Verb, To be, which, joined to an unvarying root, 
 form the tenses of all the regular verbs in the Greek lan- 
 guage. The Imperative, like the other moods, clearly derives 
 its terminations from the tenses of the Substantive Verb. 
 These terminations are but two in the Active Voice, ov and 
 ara> for the First Aorist, and e and era for all the other 
 tenses. We find et, by Crasis as the Imperative of slpl, Sum, 
 and rjTO), as a Doric form of the third person singular ; but 
 the model in composition appears to be el, ?TO>, the Present 
 of the Imperative of slpi, to go, by changing I into E, many 
 of the tenses of the verbs which so closely resemble those 
 of eifu, to be, having been confounded with them, as I have 
 already had occasion to remark; s and ro> however, the 
 terminations of the Imperative in the Active Voice, really 
 appear to be derived directly from the obsolete u, to be, 
 and the tenses of the Present and Imperfect of the Passive 
 Voice to be derived from the Imperative of slpl almost 
 unchanged. The terminations of the Active Participle 
 TVTTT-OW, TirTTT-ovo-a, TVTTT-oj/, are obviously the Participle of 
 the Auxiliary Verb wv, oixra, ov, &c. joined to the unchanging 
 root ; so that, beginning with , the formative of the Present 
 tense -n^rr-o) by contraction, we have now carried the 
 
 N s 
 
182 THE GREEK VERB. 
 
 Auxiliary Verb, To be, through all the moods and tenses 
 which are formed by its instrumentality. 
 
 XLVI. Of the Obsolete Verb sa/cco, Sum. 
 
 Thiersch says, " after the reduplication and the augment 
 which proceeded from it, we have to consider another kind of 
 increase, at the conclusion of the root, by means of the letters 
 a-Ky the signification of which, originally one of repetition, 
 strength, duration, is still visible in many instances, though 
 in many it is lost." (p. 432.) The root of the verb in this 
 sense appears to be the Greek word Is, robur, vis, with %&>, 
 contracted from s^a>, and substituting ^ for 7, a letter of the 
 same organ in the first instance, and in composition K ; thus, 
 to-few: from urieto' or i<r^a>, the Verbal Substantive KT^VS, 
 robur, and from the latter Kryya), possum. But this is only 
 one of the meanings of the verb tcr/cco or ur^ca, 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 slpl) is As ; to which, if we add %o>, contracted from 
 syco, we shall have ao-^co, and by changing a into s, and the 
 ^ into K, so-few or icr/cco, which forms the termination of such 
 verbs as yrjp-ao-KO), senesco, ap-scr/cco, placeo, svp-Kr/ca), in- 
 venio, ^IV-KKJKG), cognosce. Or we may deduce sar/cco, sum, 
 from <r/cov, eram, a poetical Imperfect of sl/M, which is 
 given in the Eton Grammar among the dialects of ijv, by 
 simply changing ov into co ; and it appears to have had a First 
 Aorist, or Perfect, or both, S&KO, whence the formative of the 
 First Aorist, sera, by dropping Kappa, and of the Perfect, 
 sKa, by dropping Sigma. Both jjo-a and y/ca are said to be 
 the First Aorist of irjjju, mitto, and rjfca also its Perfect ; 
 but one of the forms of the Verb Substantive certainly 
 possessed such a tense at a remote period, which contracted 
 to tea was the formative of the Perfect. If we take the verb 
 awsw, laudo, we have in the Present Tense aw-sa), in the 
 Future aw- so-co and aw-rjo-Q), and in the Perfect rjv-SKa ; and 
 as the terminations of the two first tenses are clearly borrowed 
 
THE GKEEK VERB. 
 
 183 
 
 from the Auxiliary Verb, To be ; analogy is in favour of the 
 latter being so also. Again, if we take the verb Qpovew, 
 intelligo, sapio, there can be little doubt that the root is the 
 Noun Substantive <f>prjv 9 mens, sapientia ; and we have in the 
 Present Tense </>/3ov-eo>, in the Future <f>pov-e<r<i), and in the 
 Perfect 7rs-<f>pov-ritca, 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. 
 
 from ardeo. 
 caleo. 
 erubeo. 
 horreo. 
 hebeo. 
 hio,-are. 
 
 Ardesco 
 
 r-iv 
 
 arsi 
 
 . . 
 
 I burn . . . . 
 
 Calcsco 
 Erubesco 
 
 gre 
 gre 
 
 calui 
 erubui 
 
 
 . 
 
 I grow hot . . . 
 I blush . . . . 
 
 Horresco 
 
 gre 
 
 horrui 
 
 < 
 
 . 
 
 I shudder . . . 
 
 Hebesco 
 Hisco 
 Fatisco 
 Scisco 
 
 gre 
 gre 
 gre 
 
 f'iv 
 
 hebui 
 
 
 ' 'i 
 
 I grow weak . . 
 
 igapo '.-;. u v 
 
 I cleave, gape. 
 I decree. 
 
 
 
 scivi 
 
 scitus 
 
 Suesco 
 
 gre 
 
 suevi 
 
 suetus 
 
 I am accustomed. 
 
 Senesco 
 Nosco 
 
 gre 
 
 -iv 
 
 scnui 
 novi 
 
 senectus 
 notus 
 
 I grow old. 
 I know. 
 
 Posco 
 Disco 
 
 gre 
 
 r-i\ 
 
 poposci 
 didici 
 
 poscitus 
 
 I require. 
 
 Pasco 
 
 gre 
 
 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)pa<r-K<i), 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 SO-KM, I 
 am, and the latter from Scnex, an old man, and Esco, I am. 
 Again, one of the verbs in the preceding list is unquestionably 
 derived from an Indian source. In Sanskrit we find the 
 
 N 4 
 
184 
 
 THE GREEK VERB. 
 
 Dhato, Pa, with the general signification of cherish, nourish, 
 which, compounded with different forms of the Auxiliary 
 verb, To be, becomes in Greek 7ra-s a>, TTCUO ; 7ra-e<ywu, Trao/zat, 
 and in Latin, pa-esco, pasco. 
 
 XL VIII. Of the Obsolete Verb, ava>, Sum. 
 
 We find in Sanskrit the Dhato, or verbal root An, or Ana, 
 signifying in a general way, breathe, live, which, united in 
 Greek to the obsolete eo>, contracted to o>, becomes avco, I am, 
 having no existence as a distinct word, but forming the 
 termination of many compound verbs, as Lamb-ano, capio. 
 Both parts of this word may be said to be Sanskrit, as in that 
 language we find the root lambhi. The Greek grammarians 
 are obliged to derive many of the tenses of \a^ava) from a 
 supposed obsolete root \??/3ft>; but here, also, the genuine 
 root appears to be the Sanskrit Labh, which dropping the 
 aspirate h, becomes in Greek Xa/8, with ea>, contracted to o>, 
 \a(3co, whence 8-\a/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 eo>, 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-fU) . . . 
 
 placeo . . . 
 
 ad .... 
 
 fw, Sum. 
 
 
 
 
 
 a\-fo> 
 
 augeo . . 
 
 a\d .... 
 
 td) Sum 
 
 
 
 
 avw, Sum. 
 
 
 
 
 <TKW, Sum. 
 
 a\-ow . . 
 a\-u)fjii 
 
 capio . . . 
 
 a\ .... 
 
 <t>, Sum. 
 
 
 
 
 (TK;W, Sum. 
 
THE GREEK VERB. 
 
 185 
 
 TJw Verb. 
 
 Signification. 
 
 Root. 
 
 Termination. 
 
 ctfiapT'tat . . 
 aftapr-avttt . 
 
 tlfl-tU) . . . 
 
 aberro . . . 
 
 
 placeo . . . 
 
 afiopr . . . 
 . . . . 
 
 ap . . . . 
 
 fw, Sum. 
 avw, Sum. 
 
 ew, Sum. 
 toKti), Sum. 
 
 
 
 Hi. or Va. *s -i n - 
 
 
 
 
 Bkrit, go. 
 
 avw, Sum. 
 
 /3i-Ca-w . . . 
 
 
 
 a>, contract, of <w. 
 
 
 
 
 tiui, Sum. 
 
 /3to-u> 
 
 vivo . . ., 
 
 /3o . . . . 
 
 w, contract, of cu. 
 touatj Sum. 
 
 
 
 
 f<T<eo), Sum. 
 
 /3Xa<TT-eu* . 
 /3Xaor-avw . . 
 
 ftx>- - . '. 
 
 germino . . 
 . . . . 
 edo .... 
 
 /3Xarr . . 
 .... 
 
 p P o . . . ; 
 
 tw, Sum. 
 ai'w, Sum. 
 w, contract, of f iu. 
 <(///, Sum. 
 
 /3p-w<rrw . 1 
 /3i-p-wo*cw . J 
 iXa-u* . . 
 
 t\n-Hi . 
 
 iXa-aKOfiai . 
 fii-ti-fi . . 
 
 ftva-opai . . 
 pi^v-rjffKu . . 
 oi-aw . . . 
 
 * . 
 propitius sum . 
 
 
 M , 
 
 in memoriam 
 revoco. 
 . . 
 
 tumeo . . . 
 
 1 . A 4 
 
 cXa . . . .. 
 ,, .... 
 
 : . . . { 
 
 /u-, Sanskrit, 
 mind. 
 it ... 
 
 ,, 
 
 <U(' .... 
 
 crew, Sum. 
 w, contract, of ;. 
 
 co/Liat, Sum. 
 to-rw "1 a double 
 co/iatj Aux. Verb, 
 w, contract, of c<. 
 
 CO/UH, Sum.. 
 t(T/co>, Sum. 
 aw, Sum (Spiro). 
 fw Sum 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ( 
 
 aw 1 a double 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 avta J Aux. Verb, 
 cffjcw, Sum. 
 
 o^X-w . 1' '.'' 
 
 debeo . . . 
 
 o0\ . / ;. - . 
 
 w, contract, of w. 
 cw, Sum. 
 
 0^<lX-W . 
 
 
 
 w, contract, of to/. 
 
 
 
 
 fw Sum 
 
 o^X-ttrravw . 
 
 ITO-tU .... 
 
 !* 
 
 bibo .. . . '. 
 
 ; . . . { 
 
 TTO .... 
 
 rrw 1 a double 
 avw J A.UX. Verb, 
 w, contract, of w. 
 
 TH-l'W . . . 
 
 jj 
 
 drink. 
 * 
 
 w i 
 
 arw, Sum. 
 ciiit Sum 
 
 
 
 7TO 
 
 
 
 
 irt . . ' 
 
 tffKitt Sum 
 
 rpa-w . . . 
 rpo-w 
 
 perforo . . . 
 > 
 
 rpt, Sanskrit, 
 pass over, go 
 across. 
 *. 
 
 w, contract, of o. 
 
 *, ,. M 
 
 ta>, If 
 
 ri-rpa-w . . 
 
 rt-rpa-irw . . 
 
 * 
 ,,.... 
 
 i 
 
 i ... 
 
 *s 
 
 ai-w, Sum. 
 
186 
 
 THE GREEK VERB. 
 
 The Verb. 
 
 Signification. 
 
 Root. 
 
 Termination. 
 
 Tl-Tp-T}fll . . 
 
 Tl-Tp-(i)ffK<t) . 
 XCt-tVbt . . . 
 
 perforo . . . 
 
 >? 
 
 Tpij Sanskrit, 
 pass over, go 
 across. 
 
 51 ... 
 
 ft/if, Sum. 
 
 ccncw, Sum. 
 avb) Sum. 
 
 
 
 
 <TKW, Sum. 
 
 
 
 ....{ 
 
 <new \ double ter- 
 
 
 
 
 (> J mination. 
 
 On the Irregular Greek Verb, as dependent on and modified 
 by the Root or Theme. 
 
 Dr. Vincent, the learned Dean of Westminster, in his 
 second work * on the Greek verb, says, " if I am to establish 
 E or El, as the element of the verb Efl or EIMI, and con- 
 sequently of all other verbs, I must be allowed to call this 
 not the root but the basis of EH. MENU, HEPAH, 
 AETO, are as usual roots of MONIMO2, IIOPO2, AOFO^ ; 
 but the basis is MEN, HEP, AEIY' It appears to me that 
 this is a distinction without a difference, at least a substan- 
 tial difference, as I believe the origin of the Greek verb Msv-a>, 
 I remain, to be the Sanskrit Dhato, or verbal root Man, fix, 
 stop, and of Asy-a> 9 I say, the Sanskrit Dhato Lok, speak, or 
 tell ; and that therefore it would be merely a source of per- 
 plexity to endeavour to establish a difference between root 
 and basis in the Greek language, or the Latin either, as both 
 contain very few words in a simple state. However just Dr. 
 Vincent's distinction between basis and root may be theoreti- 
 cally, practically I greatly prefer the following statement of 
 Thiersch : " Since no thought stands independently, but 
 always in some sort of relation, or according to the phrase of 
 grammar, always in some case, in some person, and the like, 
 hence to the original basis of the word letters and syllables 
 are added, in order to represent these cases, persons, *c. Thus 
 the word is subject to certain alterations, and its root is that 
 part which lies at the basis of these alterations ; e.g. we find 
 &7jpo9, Sypcrt,, &rjpss, Sypi,, &c. At the bottom of all these 
 forms lies Syp which is therefore the root of the word. The 
 syllables which remain, after taking away the mutable por- 
 
 * The Greek Verb Analysed, an Hypothesis, 
 
THE GREEK VERB. 187 
 
 tion of the word, are called the radical syllables ; the others 
 may be called the formal syllables ; i. e. those which are used 
 for the alterations of the word and the production of the 
 necessary forms." (Grammar, p. 60.) By the root of a 
 word I understand the unity, homogeneity, or uncom- 
 pounded state of that word, altogether unconjoined with 
 other words ; and we meet with few such roots in the Greek 
 and Latin languages, which haying derived them from the 
 Oriental tongues have united the Verbal roots to some form 
 of the Verb Substantive, the Auxiliary Verb To be, and the 
 Substantive ones with some form of the Personal Pronoun, 
 which in a great majority of instances is Os, y, ov, he, she, it, 
 as terminations, and this is the state in which we find the 
 great mass of the words in Greek and Latin lexicons. For 
 the genuine roots we must resort to Asia, and more especially 
 Scythia, Tartary, or Scandinavia, the north of Asia, the 
 true cradle of all the European race ; and when we have dis- 
 covered them, we shall generally remark the two following 
 circumstances. 
 
 1st. That the root of most Verbs is a Noun Substantive. 
 
 2nd. That the primitive meaning of that Noun Substan- 
 tive never disappears in all the various modifications and 
 shades of signification of the Verb, however numerous they 
 may be. 
 
 Let us take, in the first instance, the irregular verb Alisko, 
 capio. We find it existing in three states, as the Port 
 Royal Greek Grammar derives some of its tenses from an 
 obsolete, Aloo, thus 
 
 AX-oo). 
 
 The terminations are clearly and undeniably so many diffe- 
 rent forms of the Auxiliary Verb To be, E<u, Eo/uu, and 
 E0vto> or I<TKO) ; 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-w as 
 the Greek theme, what are called the Second Aorists, but 
 which are really the Imperfects, become almost regular, 
 rpwv common Greek, and eaXow 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 
 
 BaX-a>, the real Present Tense. 
 
 BaX-w, the same Tense contracted, and miscalled the Second 
 
 Future. 
 Efia\ov, its regular Imperfect, miscalled the Second Aorist. 
 
 And from the Hellenised root, /3aXX-o>, Present, s/3a\\-ov, 
 Imperfect. Yal, or lal, in Persic signifies both the hand and 
 arm, and the verb IaXXo> 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 trsfnra^ 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 /u, 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 nOrifu, urn^t,, Si&o/u, and 
 Zsvywfu, the examples in the Eton Grammar, the formative 
 appears to be E*/u, sum ; and if we suppose ITJJJU, mitto, to 
 be in many of its tenses a dialectical variety of the same 
 verb, we shall have all the terminations of TiOrjfu 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 >Lta, that which is put, from 
 which may be contracted, as we find Homer using A<5 for 
 Aw/4a. But i<rr-r)fju, though it is formed like TiO-rjfju in the 
 Singular, makes tar-arov and rr-a/^fi/ in the Dual and 
 Plural, substituting a for the e of the formative Auxiliary 
 verb, To be. Why is this ? I believe the question can be 
 answered only by referring to the root, which appears to be 
 the Sanskrit Shtha, stand, stay. Rejecting the aspirate H's 
 we have for the simple root Sta, which we recognize in the 
 Greek <rra-a> and the Latin Sto, its contracted form. It 
 was material to retain the A, as it forms an essential part of 
 the Sanskrit root, being long and therefore written, A (short) 
 being understood, and never written except at the beginning 
 of a word. We have i, prefix <rr, simple root, and ijfu f I 
 am, formative, the final A of the root being dropped in the 
 Singular ; but in the Dual and Plural it is resumed, and the 
 E of the formative is dropped, which we found unchanged 
 throughout all the persons of n&rjfju. The root of SiSatpi 
 appears to be the Sanskrit Dada, a biliteral, the A's being 
 short, and therefore understood, which left the Greeks at 
 liberty to change the vowels, retaining the consonants, which 
 they did by forming $toa> and &ta>/u, and accordingly o> has 
 
190 THE GREEK VERB. 
 
 supplanted the rj of the formative ^t, in the Persons of the 
 Singular, and o in the same way s in the Dual and Plural. 
 ZsvyvvfjLi appears to be formed from Qvyw-co. ft is clearly a 
 contraction of the auxiliary so), leaving ev<yw for the root ; 
 and we find the v supplanting the 97 and the s of the for- 
 mative Tjfju, throughout all the Persons. 
 
 It is curious to observe how nearly the irregular verbs 
 may be made to approximate to perfect regularity by our 
 finding in some instances not merely one but two Dhatos, or 
 verbal roots, in Sanskrit. The Port Royal Greek Grammar 
 says very truly, " most of the verbs are irregular for no other 
 reason but because they either form or are formed from 
 other verbs," or, in other words, are not irregular at all. 
 With regard to the Greek verb Lambano, for example, we 
 find two of its roots, Labh and Lambhi in Sanskrit, and none 
 at all in Greek. The latter indeed is denominated by Hindu 
 Grammarians its causative form; but that form, in many 
 instances, does not differ at all in signification from the 
 common one, which is never, I think, the case with the 
 Hebrew verb in Hiphil. 
 
 Tenses formed from the Sanskrit root Labh (obtain, at- 
 tain, get): 
 
 Present Tense, Aijfia) (obsolete). 
 
 2. Future, Aafico. 
 
 2. Aorist E-Aa/3oz/. 
 
 Perfect, AeX^a. 
 
 a. 2. Imperative, Aafis. 
 
 a. 2. Participle, Aafiav, 
 
 a. 2. Opt. Act. 
 
 a. 2. Subj. 
 
 a. 1. Pass. 
 
 Future Mid. 
 
 Tenses formed from the Sanskrit root Lambhi : 
 Present Tense, Aapfi-ava) (in use) 
 
 Ionic for 
 accpiam. 
 
 Ionic for 
 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 \ao>, ac- 
 cording to their views, for the sake of forming the Second 
 Aorist eXaffov, 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. 
 
 ), duco. Root Ak, Persic, a master, lord, with o>, con- 
 tracted from the absolete Eo>. The Persic Ak 
 is the Turkish Aga, a military officer whom the 
 modern Greeks have had occasion to know too 
 well. Imperfect Hyov, commonly called Second 
 Aorist. 
 
 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 A^apro) (obsolete), 
 whence the Imperfect 'Hpaprov, commonly called 
 the Second Aorist. 
 
192 THE GREEK VERB. 
 
 ), et Avfa>, 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 Eo>. From Auxano, Hvgavov, the Im- 
 perfect, commonly . called the Second Aorist. 
 Batvco, vado. There are two Sanskrit roots, from which this 
 verb may probably be derived, Va and Vi (go), 
 V 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-eo, whence the Imperfect, or 
 Second Aorist, Hfiijv. 
 
 BXacrra^o), germino. Termination Ano, Syriac, obsolete Greek 
 form BXacrr-ew, whence the regular Imperfect 
 E/3A,acrroz>, commonly called the Second Aorist. 
 Ttv(oa-/co) 9 cognosce. What is called the Second Aorist, 7- 
 vcov, is almost a regular Imperfect, from the 
 obsolete theme, IVoo>, nosco. 
 Aat&), disco. Root, Daiah (Hebrew), knowledge, with co 
 
 contracted from the obsolete Eo>. 
 abigo. Root, Ila (Sanskrit), go, with &> contracted 
 from the obsolete Ew, sum. 
 
 EXao) (obsolete), EXatw (Doric). 
 Fut. EXaom 
 Aor. 1. HXacra. 
 Pret. HXa*a. 
 
 In the present form of Elauno its termination 
 appears to be AnO (Syriac), I, I am. 
 
 , habeo. Most of the tenses are derived from the aspi- 
 rated form by transposition, 2%so>, whence Ecr^oz/, 
 which is called a Second Aorist, but is almost a 
 regular Imperfect. 
 
 morior. What is called the Second Aorist appears 
 to me to be a regular Imperfect, formed from 
 the obsolete avco, which, when circumflexed, 
 is called the Second Future, which tense, 
 together with the Second Aorist, appear to me 
 
THE GBEEK VERB. 193 
 
 to be the pure inventions of Grammarians, the 
 first being a Present and the second an Imper- 
 fect. From Qava) EQavov, cognate Savarof, 
 death. 
 
 \ayxava), sortior. Root, Aa^i;, sors, obsolete form Aa^a>, 
 whence the regular Imperfect EXa^ov, called tlie 
 Second Aorist. 
 
 Mav6av<o, 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 Ma0o> (obsolete), I learn, 
 whence the regular Imperfect EfjuiOov, called the 
 Second Aorist. 
 
 MeXo>, euro. E/Lt\ov, called the Second Aorist, appears to 
 me to be really the Imperfect. 
 
 Tlwco, bibo. ETTIOV, called the Second Aorist, is really an 
 Imperfect, formed regularly from the obsolete 
 IIia>, which itself was formed from the Sanskrit 
 Dhato, or Verbal root Pi, drink, by the addition 
 of a), contracted from the obsolete Eo>, Sanskrit 
 Pi, drink, Greek Pio, I drink. 
 
 1 Tracha, 
 
 f cognate with the I rp , 
 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 
 with a>, contracted from Eo> ; 
 i/, the regular Imperfect, called the 
 Second Aorist. 
 
 sortior, from Tuy^, sors (obsolete), and Ano 
 (Syriac) ; from Tt^ij, sors, Ti^o>, and E-n^ov, the 
 Imperfect, called the Second Aorist. 
 
194 THE GREEK VERB. 
 
 fero. It would be much easier and better to suppose 
 an obsolete Ev7/c&>, than to arrange most of these 
 tenses under Phero. From Ei/e^/ow, the Imper- 
 fect Hvsytcov, called the Second Aorist. 
 prsevenio. If we suppose an obsolete <j)6aa> 9 almost 
 all the tenses will become regular; the present 
 termination appears to be the Syriac Ano, I, 
 I am. 
 
 <J>t/a>, gigno. What is called the Second Aorist, E<vov, 
 appears to be the regular Imperfect. 
 
195 
 
 CHAP. XVI. 
 
 ETIURIA. rr.NEKKAL, OR BILINGUAL LNSCRI1T1ON8. 
 
 Ilanc olim veterca vitum coluere Sabiui, 
 Hanc Remus et frater: sic fortis Ktruria erevit, 
 Scilicet et reruin facta est pulcherrima K<-ma." 
 
 VIRG. Georg. lib. u. 
 
 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 die 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 die 
 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 
 
196 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 nmch 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 INSCRIPTION*. 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 by 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, thai 
 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 Gnecia. 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 often 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. L 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. L 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. L p. 11.) Maffei, while he 
 combated Bourguet'a notion of explaining the inscription* 
 on the sarcophagi brought to light, by the bassi-relievi 
 attached to them, in wliich 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 ETRURIA. 
 
 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, Volscian, 
 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. 
 
 vn. In the year 1772 a posthumous work of the Jesuit 
 Bardetti was published under the title " Delia Lingua de' 
 
FUNEREAL INSCRIPTIONS. 201 
 
 Primi Abitatori delP 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 . . i , 
 
 Camillus, a name of Mercury . . . Servius. 
 
 Cupra, a name of Juno , ' . . . . Strabo. 
 
 Damnos, a horse . .'..; .' . Hesychius. 
 
 Druna, head or chief . - . * . * .' 1 . . 
 
 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 . .V . . . 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, t. e. 
 Domus (ultima) Caiae Cauliae. 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 Bil. xxi. 
 
 Latin Aul. La3ca. 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. Bil. 
 
 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 r ..Lar. Vesconius. Herinia. nat. 
 
 I believe we ought to read Lari : s : Laribus, in the sense 
 of Manibus. Laribus Vesconii 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 V. 
 
 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 T as TT, 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 Latinia; 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. Veletiae nata. 
 
 It is worth remarking that the initial letter of Veletia in 
 the Etruscan is clearly Beth, the second letter of the 
 Hebrew alphabet, which has the power both of B and V, 
 and is rendered in the Latin by the latter letter. 
 
 No. 55. Etruscan Fe Tins Beletia n. 
 
 Latin Veb. Tinius Veletia natua. 
 
 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 Larthiaxea. 
 
 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, Et/zt KaXat- 
 pvcj). Ttos. 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 Digamma. 
 
 No. 252. Etruscan Lar. Apini Cecu. 
 
 Latin Lar. Apinius Caecus. 
 
 I think we may safely read this, Domus (subauditur 
 ultima) Apinii Caeci, 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 Garcia. 
 
 No. 272. Etruscan Larthi Ancarnei Marinas. 
 
 Latin Lartia Ancaria. Mariae. 
 
 I believe we must divide Larthi thus, Lar. Thi., and read 
 Laribus Theois Ancharia3 (et) Marias. 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 JEolic 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 veiy doubtful in Etruscan. I believe it to be sometimes 
 intended for tt; but Lanzi generally reads it as se. 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 Caraars 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, (f 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! 463! } Etru8can 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. iii. 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. Prater. 
 
 9. Inumck : Sakre, i. e. Hymiiae, k, or que Sacra. 
 10. Fratrum. 
 
 1 2. 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 pajn, 
 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 renowu'J, 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. STBABO 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 McDSo-Gothic word Atta, father. We find 
 in Arabic, or Turkish, the word Atabuk, which Richardson 
 interprets Lord, father ; but which I rather believe to mean 
 father of the city, from Atta (Mocso-Gothic), and Bak (Cop- 
 tic), city. In Suffetius and Atta we have probably a 
 
 p 
 
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-Gothic 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 JEolica," 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 
 JEolic Greek may be deduced from the circumstance, that 
 the early Romans, like the Dorians and 2Eolians before them, 
 frequently confounded R and S. In another part of this 
 work, I had occasion to adduce the celebrated decree of the 
 Lacedemonians, made against Timotheus of Miletus, as one 
 of the most remarkable instances. Eustathius says, " that 
 the -ZEolians 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 (o-), 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 Roman 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. 
 
 vu. 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 Eome (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.) 
 
 vin. 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 lute 
 period of the empire. 
 
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' infmiti guai, 
 Che in fronte scritti per gran doglia porte ; 
 Deh fossi tu men bella, o almen piu forte ! 
 Onde assai piu ti paventasse, o assai 
 T' amasse men, chi del tuo bello ai rai 
 Par che si strugga, e pur ti sfida a morte." Filicnja. 
 
 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 1o ^guage 
 
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 
 
 o 
 
 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 Hfe 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, ' Habeo auctores, vulgo turn Romanos 
 pueros, sicut nunc Graecis ita Etruscis literis 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 tQ 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 Prove^al 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 my 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 pcdestrid 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.) . ^ . 
 
 YI. 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.) 
 
 vii. 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 it. 
 
 Sanskrit. Italian. 
 
 Ita. gone ................................. Ito. 
 
 Gala, to eat .............................. Gala, a feast. 
 
 Jurni, the sun ...: ....................... Giorno, a day. 
 
 T> T f Naso, Italian. 
 
 Nasa > a nose ........................... ( Nasus, Latin. 
 
 , T . , f Nido, Italian. 
 
 Nlda > a nest ........................... 1 Nidus, Latin. 
 
 -VT , f Nave, Italian. 
 
 Nau ' aboat ........................... 
 
 Navis, Latin. 
 Pat'ana, a female fiend .................. Puttana, a strumpet. 
 
 Palala, straw .............................. Paglia. 
 
 Piova, rain. 
 
 rains. 
 
 (Latin), rain. 
 Prakka, to ask ........................... Prego. 
 
 Ehr!^ } to shine ..................... Brace ' a live coaL 
 
 Mriti, death .............................. Morte. 
 
 Yuvan, young ........................... Giovane. 
 
 , .............................. . 
 
 {Piova, ra 
 Piove, it 
 Pluvia ( 
 
THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE. 219 
 
 Sanskrit. Italian. 
 
 Raj, or leaking ............... { K"' 
 
 K:ijni, a queen ........................... Itegina, Italian and Latin. 
 
 Vaja, to go .............................. Viaggio, a journey. 
 
 , T . ., . , / Vedova, Italian. 
 
 Vidhava, a widow ..................... | Viduai Latin 
 
 Sala, a hall .............................. Sala. 
 
 Gatau, move .............................. Gita, a going, a walking. 
 
 Anthati, he 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. 
 
 f Lava, the flowing or moving matter 
 Lvai, go, move ........................ from a yolcan 
 
 8hinc ..................... Luce ' light< 
 
 afflict 
 
 Chada, ask, seek ........................ Chiedere. 
 
 Yaiita, couple, unite .................. Giunta, joined. 
 
 f Lutta (Italian), wrestling. 
 Luta, roll, tumble .................. -I 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 .............................. Vengo, I come, from Venire. 
 
 Vaja, go ................................. Viaggiare. 
 
 Gata, gone .............................. Gita, a going, a walking. 
 
 G.U, throat or neck .................. { <* 
 
 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 
 Vedova, and in Latin Vidun, a widow ; in Sanskrit Xasa, in 
 Italian Naso, and in Latin Nasus, a nose; in Sanskrit Mda. 
 
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, AVT<lH> Erchul, or 
 Erkul; in spite of which Lanzi Galls the head a Mercury, 
 though he informs us, in a note, that Gori regarded it as a 
 medal of Herculaneum, in which there can be little doubt he 
 was correct. The etymology of Hercules, one of the in- 
 numerable names of the Sun, I have already said I believe to 
 be Sanskrit, from Heri, lord, and Kala, or Gala, time ; that is, 
 the lord of time, from measuring time by his apparent 
 motion, an etymology which is confirmed by another Sanskrit 
 name of the Sun, Kalakrit, or he who makes time. What I 
 particularly wish to point out is, how much more closely the 
 Italian mode of writing Hercules agrees with the Etruscan, 
 than either the Greek or Latin, rendering it probable that it 
 is rather a continuation of the former than a contraction 
 formed from either of the latter. 
 
 1. Etruscan, Erchul, or Erkul. This may be called the 
 
 Oriental form, as it is destitute of that termination 
 which the Greeks and Romans generally added to 
 Asiatic proper names. 
 
 2. Italian, Ercole, differing from the Etruscan in little 
 
 more than adding a final E. 
 
 3. Greek, Eraklees, or (contracted) Erakles, by inserting 
 
 a between the r and k, dropping the u, and adding a 
 Greek termination. 
 
 4. Latin, Hercules. The initial letter is the Phrcnician 
 
 Heth, which the Greeks were unable to write, after the 
 
 introduction of the long vowel Eta into their alphabet. 
 
 IX. As we think in words, it is of more importance to the 
 
 interests of truth than is generally supposed, to call things 
 
 by their right names, and I have a strong suspicion that those 
 
 funereal inscriptions, which Lanzi has denominated bilingual, 
 
 ought rather to be called biliteral ; as it is by no means clear 
 
 to me that any single inscription in the whole number is 
 
 given in two languages, with the exception of No. 191., but 
 
 merely in two different sets of alphabetical characters, old 
 
THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE. 221 
 
 Greek, or Etruscan, and the common Roman letters which 
 are now used in almost every part of Europe. The era of 
 the great body of Etruscan funereal inscriptions would ap- 
 pear to mark a transition state, not so much of languages as 
 of letters, and to be less a matter of dialects than of alpha- 
 bets, when the Greek or Etruscan letters were becoming less 
 and the Roman more common, but in which, as the former 
 were not universally disused, nor the latter adopted, and as 
 it was still perhaps regarded by some as an equal chance 
 which would ultimately prevail, the repugnance to be entirely 
 forgotten ascribed to the dead, and the ardent affection of 
 surviving friends and relatives, suggested as a measure of 
 caution the expediency of employing the two systems of 
 alphabetical characters prevalent in Italy, the old Greek, or 
 Etruscan, and the Roman, or modern. Hence it follows 
 that it is highly probable that the great majority of the in- 
 scriptions in ETRUSCAN LETTERS are in the LATIN LAN- 
 GUAGE ; a fact which, if once clearly ascertained, will leave 
 not the smallest doubt that we possess the power of inter- 
 preting the greater part, beyond the possibility of being 
 much mistaken. I begin by observing that the word of per- 
 petual occurrence, which has hitherto been read Ril, is 
 evidently both a contraction and a corruption. In No. 12. 
 there could not remain a doubt that it formed part of a word 
 of six letters, but that the three dots may indicate the place 
 of the figures expressing the age. On turning to the inscrip- 
 tion No. 463., I find reason to believe that Ril is not a 
 genuine reading, as I discover its usual place supplied by 
 Abik, or Avik. and in No. 452. I find Aibik, or Aivik, which 
 appears to be the same word more at length : but unfortu- 
 nately Aibik, or Aivik, is as little like any known Latin 
 word as Ril, unless we can ascertain of what contractions it 
 is composed. And another inscription in Lanzi (torn. i. p. 
 423.), in Roman letters, leaves little doubt, in which we find 
 QVIX, as a contraction for Quae vixit. The Etruscan 
 character corresponding with the Roman Q has disappeared. 
 A and U were exchangeable (torn. ii. p. 384.), or rather easily 
 mistaken for each other, as the Phoenician Aleph appears 
 
222 ANTIQUITY OF 
 
 sometimes to be written thus y, and the disappearance of the 
 cross stroke converted it into Upsilon ; and Aibik, or Aivik, 
 originally was Qui vik. As I find three dots, or blank spaces, 
 at No. 12., I have now little hesitation in reading Viksit, 
 which is merely resolving the Greek letter Xi and the 
 Roman X into its elements, or single letters, as we find 
 them actually existing in the oldest Greek inscriptions. 
 The letter which has hitherto been read as an Etrus- 
 can R, in the word Bil, is really a Phoenician B, and will be 
 found as such in Lanzi's second edition of his work, at the 
 end of his third volume ; and it is well known that Beth, the 
 second letter of the Sheinitic alphabets, has the power of V 
 as well as of B. Nor is this much to be wondered at, as in 
 Inscriptions No. 463. and No. 452., the B is a regular Hebrew 
 one, and has no parallel in any known Greek form of that 
 letter. The Latin portion of No. 452. has Vix. An. 22., 
 where I suppose the Aibik of the Etruscan to have been 
 Qui vik(sit) 22 ; the word for years being understood but 
 not expressed. Lanzi has arranged, as a distinct class, the 
 Inscriptions in which the word Leine occurs. Believing that 
 by far the greater part of those in his work are merely Latin 
 or Italian (rustic Latin or Etruscan), I have no hesitation 
 in reading Leine as the Latin or Italian word Lene ; that 
 is, Lene ! ! ! May the earth press lightly or gently on him ! ! ! 
 an interpretation respecting which there can be little doubt ; 
 as in No. 450., the first in which Leine occurs, the corre- 
 sponding Latin has the letters S. T. T. L., which we are quite 
 sure mean, Sit tibi terra levis. Of the letters composing the 
 word Ril, which has given birth to so much conjecture and 
 speculation, the first is not a Greek Rho, but a Phoenician 
 or Samaritan Beth, with the power of V ; and the last not an 
 Etruscan Lambda, but a Greek Kappa badly formed. 
 
 If we had found the Inscription in a perfect state it would 
 probably have been as under : 
 
 ^ Etruscan Ch, or Roman Q. 
 y Phoenician A, with the power of U. 
 | Etruscan I, forming the last letter of Qui. 
 
THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE. 223 
 
 q Phoenician Beth, with the power of Vau, hitherto read 
 as a Greek Rho ; but the proposed reading is confirmed 
 by our finding a Hebrew Beth in the words Bik and 
 Aibik. 
 | Etruscan I. 
 
 > 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 (^) usurps the place of P (^), the genuine one being, 
 in Etruscan letters, *] \ CJ, 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 Persons 
 of a future age. (Vide Lanzi, torn. ii. 322.) 
 
224 
 
 CHAP. 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 wincl 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 Celtae, 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, 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 
 
 <j a 
 
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 t6 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. 
 
 viii. 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 Tar 
 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 go- 
 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 MAXTCHOUX, 
 
 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 Word*. Analogies. 
 
 Itche, or Itcheu, new. 
 
 Oren, or Ouren, image. 
 
 Sain, or Sagnin, good, beautiful. 
 
 Poo, house. 
 
 Antcha, plough. 
 
 Erguen, life, breath, soul. 
 
 Niyaman, heart. 
 
 Ounoun, burden ........................ Onus, Latin. 
 
 Panin, or Pagnin, character, disposi- 
 
 tion. 
 
 Pira, river. 
 
 c, ,.,.,. f Sabe (Coptic) knowing. 
 
 Sabi, prediction ..................... [ Savio (Italian), wise, learned. 
 
 Sabou, a shoe ........................... Sabot, French, 
 
 {Sanguis, Latin. 
 Sangue, Italian. 
 Sang, French. 
 Yaza, eye. 
 Tatan, tent. 
 Totolo, prognostic. 
 Tata, origin, source ..................... Tete, head, French. 
 
 Tetoun, bier. 
 Pitkhe, book. 
 Petkhe, the feet. 
 
 Oleut or Eleuth, name of the king- "I 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. 
 
 f Maha (Sanskrit), great. 
 Mama, grandmother .................. | Maa ^^^JSSii. 
 
 Mouke, water ........................... Moui, Coptic. 
 
 Tchatchouri, thick forest. 
 Tchetche, father. 
 KeF'ke, cat. 
 
OB EASTERN TARTARS. 231 
 
 Tartaric Words. Artalogics. 
 
 Kegue, eldest sister. 
 
 Kerguen, grasshopper. 
 
 Fekhi, the brain. 
 
 Kan, steel. 
 
 -. ,. t ] Fan-Maeso (Gothic), Lord. 
 
 bon ' time \Phaino (Greek), to shine. 
 
 Almost all the earliest names of 
 
 Deity were either names of the sun, or of time which was 
 measured by the sun's motion Gala (Sanskrit), time, a name of 
 Siva. Chronos (Greek), time, a name of Saturn. 
 
 Founiekhe, hair. 
 
 Ouargui, the west. 
 
 Ouekhe, stone. 
 
 Oueikhe, teeth. 
 
 Topikhi, a fox's skin. 
 
 Poulekou, mirror. 
 
 Koutchou, friend. 
 
 Pousa, an idol Also Ghinese. 
 
 Kisoun, word, speech, tongue. 
 
 Kirangui, bone. 
 
 Kouroun, kingdom Gorona (Latin), a crown. 
 
 Q4 
 
232 
 
 CHAP. XX. 
 
 ON THE MONGOLS, OR WESTERN TARTARS. TURKISH LANGUAGE 
 
 AND GRAMMAR. 
 
 " As when the Tartar from his Russian foe, 
 By Astracan, over the snowy plains 
 Retires, or Bactrian Sophi from the horns 
 Of Turkish crescent, leaves all waste beyond 
 The realm of Aladule, in his retreat 
 To Tauris or Casbeen." Paradise Lost, book x. 
 
 I. THE highest authorities on this subject appear to be 
 pretty generally agreed that the oldest dialect of the Turco- 
 Tartaric is the Ouigour ; but the most ancient manuscripts in 
 existence are probably not anterior to the twelfth century. 
 Of the Ouigour manuscripts, known to exist in Europe at 
 present, the Bodleian may boast of the possession of one ; 
 the Bibliotheque du Roi contains two ; and a third was sent 
 from Vienna to Paris, about the year 1823, by the learned 
 Orientalist Von Hammer. All appear to have been written 
 about the middle of the fifteenth century. (David, Preli- 
 minary Dissertation to Turkish Grammar.) 
 
 u. The Ouigour, says David, though superior in simplicity 
 to the Osmanli, is however much inferior in beauty and exacti- 
 tude of expression. The Verb in the Ouigour is not subjected 
 to that mechanism which renders the nicety of expression so 
 great in the dialect of Constantinople. The Affirmative, the 
 Active, the Passive, and the Negative, appear to be the 
 only forms of the verb known to the Ouigours. They are 
 strangers to the composition of the Impossible, Reciprocal, 
 Causal, and Personal verbs, formed by the insertion of a 
 letter or a particle between the radical and its termination, 
 which constitutes so material a feature in the Osmanli. The 
 Imperative is the root from which the simple tenses are 
 formed, the compound are unknown, and the only tenses an 
 
Mil. XM.MI'.IIN TARTARS. 233 
 
 Ouigour verb appears to be susceptible of, are the Present 
 and the Preterite. The Verb Substantive, in the Ouigour, 
 is not an auxiliary ; it is always employed alone, and is 
 never found performing those important offices which have 
 been assigned to it by the Osmanlis. The Infinitive is 
 terminated by Mak, the rejection of which gives the Impe- 
 rative. The Preterite is formed by adding to the Imperative 
 the particle Dim, answering to the Preterite in Dum of the 
 Osmanli ; and the mode of forming the Persons of the verb 
 is the same as in that dialect. The particles in Ur and 
 Mish, and the Gerunds in Ken, Ib, and Ub, are also fre- 
 quently employed. The Numerals offer a strong proof of 
 the Ouigour being the primitive dialect, by giving the 
 etymology of the numeral adjectives at present employed by 
 the Osmanlis, the origin of which is undiscoverable in their 
 own language. Thus in the Turkish of Constantinople, as 
 in Ouigour, Sekiz is eight, and On, ten ; but eighty is in the 
 former Seksen, while in the latter it is Sekison, literally, 
 eight ten. The same occurs in the subsequent numbers; 
 the Ouigour shewing the derivation, which elision has 
 rendered undiscoverable in the Osmanli. In the dialect of 
 the Osmanlis, the conjugation is executed throughout by the 
 aid of the Verb Substantive and the Defective Verb (Aim) 
 Im which correspond exactly to our ideas of Auxiliaries. 
 Each of the Tenses is formed by uniting to the verb, either in 
 its imperative state or in the form of a participle, the Tenses of 
 the Auxiliaries. Kilurum, I do ; Kilur idum, Kilur imishem, 
 I did ; Kildum, Kilmish oldum, I have done ; are all formed 
 in this manner ; and are, when analysed, Kilur, doing, Im, I 
 am ; Kilur, doing, Idum, I was. This fact produces a singular 
 anomaly in comparing the Ouigour to the Osmanli. The 
 Ouigour inflexion, with regard to the simple tenses which 
 it employs, is executed exactly in the same manner as that 
 of the Osmanli, which even appears more distinctly on account 
 of elision being less used. Kilurhn is, in Ouigour, I do, or 
 (literally) doing I am ; Kildim, I have done, to do I have been. 
 The singularity of this formation of tenses consist^ in the 
 verb which is used as an auxiliary to produce it, not exist in- 
 
234 THE MONGOLS, 
 
 in the language in which it is employed. The Verb 
 Substantive Aim of the Osmanlis, is an utter stranger to 
 the language of the Ouigours, and yet it is thus found 
 entering into the most intimate part of their idiom. (David, 
 Prel. Dissert, p. 29.) 
 
 in. Every peculiarity of the Tartaric languages is worthy 
 of remark, as they have been so little examined hitherto 
 and we are so imperfectly acquainted with them ; and still 
 more, every analogy they offer with the two great classes of 
 languages which appear to have such strong claims to be 
 regarded as the descendants of the Sanskrit and the Arabic. 
 The two tenses of the Ouigour, the Present and the Preterite, 
 assimilate it to the Shemitic languages ; while the formative 
 of the Preterite Dim, and the Osmanli Dum, appear to be 
 contractions of the Persic Preterite Bodm, I was, of the 
 Defective Hastan to be ; and the formative of the Present 
 in both languages, at least in the first person Im, is still 
 more clearly the Persic Am, which is cognate with the 
 Slavonic Jesmi, the Sanskrit Asmi, and the Greek Eimi. 
 
 iv. The dialects of the Turco-Tartaric may be described 
 as the Ouigour, the Jaghataian, the Kaptchak, the Kirghiz, 
 the Turcoman, the Caucaso-Danubian, the Austro-Siberian, 
 the Yakouti, the Tchouvake, and the Osmanli ; and upon the 
 last of the ten I shall now proceed to make a few more 
 observations. 
 
 v. The Turks, properly speaking, have no Article ; its 
 place, however, is supplied by the Demonstrative Pronoun, 
 Bu, and the Numeral Adjective, Bir, which answer to our 
 Definite and Indifinite Articles ; as, Bu Adem, the man ; Bu 
 Auret, the woman ; Bir Reis, a head. The Indefinite Article 
 is also sometimes expressed after the Persian manner by the 
 addition of the letter I final, as Bulbuli, a nightingale. 
 
 Turkish N0uns have six Cases corresponding with the 
 Latin ; the Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Voca- 
 tive, and Ablative : and two Declensions ; the first consisting 
 of such words as terminate in a Consonant ; and the second, 
 of those which end in a Vowel. 
 
OR WESTERN TARTARS. 235 
 
 The Turkish Adjectives, like the English and Persic, are 
 not varied on account of Gender, Number, or Case; and 
 undergo no change, except in the formation of the degrees of 
 comparison, which is effected by Prefixes and Affixes. 
 
 The Turkish Verbs are of eight kinds ; Auxiliary, Active, 
 Passive, Negative, Impossible, Causal, Reciprocal, and Per- 
 sonal. There are six Modes, which may be denominated, 
 Indicative, Imperative, Optative, Suppositive, Subjunctive, 
 and Infinitive. The Tenses are five, answering to our Pre- 
 sent, Imperfect, Preterite, Preterpluperfect, and Future . 
 and the Numbers, a Singular and a Plural, without any 
 Dual. 
 
 vi. The etymologies suggested to me by the Turkish, will 
 not occupy a very large space, from the slight degree of 
 attention I have been able to devote to the language. The 
 word Ev, a house, appears to be the origin of our eaves, 
 which is restricted to denote part of the roof of a house. Er, 
 a man, appears to be cognate with the Armenian Air, and 
 probably with the Scythic Oior, mentioned by Herodotus ; 
 which last word, again, by the addition of Digamma assimi- 
 lates itself with the Sanskrit Virah, the Celtic Fear, and the 
 Latin Vir. The Turkish Pronoun Ao, pronounced O, he, 
 she, it, seems to be perfectly identical with the same word 
 in Persic, and related to the Hebrew and Arabic Hou, he. 
 The Ouigour Men, I, is identical with the Persic Men, and 
 both with the Turkish Ben, it being a peculiarity of the 
 latter language in many instances to confound these two 
 letters. The Turkish Biz, we, seems to be related to the 
 Latin Bis, twice. 
 
 vn. It has been already remarked that there are no 
 Auxiliary Verbs to form compound tenses in Ouigour. 
 The Verb Substantive is Dur, and in Arabic we find the 
 same word denoting a circle, an age, the world, and probably 
 existence, or time in general. There can be no doubt tliat 
 our English words Dure and Endure arc branches from tho 
 same stock. 
 
 The Turkish Idum (Aidui), I was, appears to be the 
 
236 THE MONGOLS, OR WESTERN TARTARS. 
 
 Arabic root Aid, existence, a Noun Substantive, with the 
 Possessive affix M. In the Turkish Eger Iseh, if he be, 
 the Verb seems to be cognate with the Hebrew Yaish, there 
 is, there are ; and the Turkish word Ken, being, with the 
 Arabic Kan, he was. In the word Komak, to put, place, 
 the first syllable appears to be the Turkish and Persic Gah, 
 place, with the Turkish termination of the Infinitive Mak, 
 which is here almost identical with our English verb Make. 
 Komak, to place, i. e. to make place. Almak, to receive, 
 take, is formed from the Turkish Al the hand, and Mak, 
 termination of the Infinitive. The Turkish Ai, the moon, is 
 cognate with the Chinese Yue, and the Coptic loh, and all 
 perhaps with the Arabic Ay a, light, brightness ; and there 
 probably was a period in the infancy of the human race, 
 when all these words were used by one people, anterior to 
 the diffusion of mankind over the surface of the earth, to 
 form families and nations and found kingdoms and empires. 
 
 On the whole, I find so much in common between the 
 Turkish, the Arabic, and the Persic, as to induce me to 
 doubt the soundness of that arrangement of Sir William 
 Jones in his Discourses, which regards the Tartaric as a 
 distinct family of languages. He himself says, u The best 
 lexicographers assert that numberless words, in ancient Per- 
 sian, are taken from the language of the Cimmerians, or 
 the Tartars of Kipchak. 
 
237 
 
 CHAP. XXI. 
 
 ARMENIA. LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR. 
 
 The ark no more now floats, but seems on ground, 
 Fast on the top of some high mountain fix'd. . 
 
 And now the tops of hills, as rocks, appear ; 
 With clamour thence the rapid currents drive, 
 Towards the retreating sea, their furious tide." 
 
 Paradise Lott, book zi. 
 
 i. WERE we to attempt to form any conception of the lan- 
 guage of Armenia from the early traditions respecting that 
 country, nothing could be more contradictory than the con- 
 clusions at which we should arrive. As the most venerable 
 of all histories, the Book of Genesis, informs us that, after 
 the assuaging of the waters of the deluge, the ark rested on 
 the mountains of Ararat, we should expect to find in Armenia 
 traces of the Antediluvian language spoken by the patriarchs, 
 whatever that language may have been. We are told by 
 Herodotus that Armenia was peopled by a colony of 
 Phrygians ; and by Strabo, that Armenus, a Thessalian, one 
 of the companions of Jason in his Argonautic expedition, 
 supplied the country at once with a name and inhabitants. 
 Tacitus enumerates Armenia amongst the countries which 
 were not merely overrun, but completely subdued by the 
 Egyptian Rameses. Moses of Chorene assures us, that a 
 Chinese colony established itself in Armenia, at a very early 
 period ; and, finally, from the same country the Saxon 
 Chronicle brings the earliest inhabitants of England. 
 
 ii. Sir William Jones says : " Of the Armenian, which I have 
 never studied, because I could not hear of any original com- 
 position in it, I can offer nothing decisive ; but am convinced, 
 from the best information procurable in Bengal, that its basis 
 was ancient Persian, of the same Indian stock with the Zend, 
 and that it has been gradually changed since the time when 
 
238 ARMENIA. 
 
 Armenia ceased to be a province of Iran. The letters in 
 which it now appears, are allowed to be comparatively modern ; 
 and, though the learned editor of the tract by Carpanius on 
 the Literature of Ava, compares them with the Pali characters, 
 yet, if they be not, as I rather conjecture, derived from the 
 Pahlavi, they are perhaps an invention of some learned 
 Armenian in the middle of the fifth century." (vol. iii. p. 178.) 
 " The languages referred to the Caucasian order," says the 
 able author of the article Languages, in the Supplement to 
 the Encyclopedia Britannica, " have little to distinguish 
 them from the rest of the class, except their geographical 
 situation, in the immediate neighbourhood of the Caucasian 
 mountains. They have a general resemblance to some others 
 of the languages of Northern Asia, and particularly to the 
 Sainojedic dialects spoken on the mountains between Siberia 
 and the Mongols. Except the Armenian and Georgian, they 
 are scarcely ever employed in writing ; and principally perhaps 
 from this cause, they exhibit as great a diversity in the space 
 of a few square miles, as those of many other nations do in 
 as many thousands. It is only conjectured that most of the 
 inhabitants of these countries are derived from the miscel- 
 laneous fragments of expeditions of various nations left behind 
 in their passage through them at different periods. The con- 
 nection of the Armenian with the Sanskrit and the Persic, is 
 just enough to make it equally probable that the coincidences 
 may have been derived from a common parent, or that one 
 language may have simply borrowed detached words from the 
 other. We find, in Mr. Townsend's work, about ten Armenian 
 words resembling some other language, which are 
 
 Armenian Words. Analogies. 
 
 Air, a man Air, Irish. 
 
 Atamn, a tooth Odonta, Greek. 
 
 Chuerk, four Chatur, Sanskrit. 
 
 Dor, a door. 
 
 E, is Est, Latin. 
 
 Es, I laze, Kussian. 
 
 Gas, a goose Gans, German. 
 
 Houze, a house. 
 
 Lakeil, to lick Leichein, Greek. 
 
 Sert, the heart. 
 
ARMENIA. 239 
 
 " Nothing is known of the history of the Armenian before 
 the time of Miesrob, who translated the Bible into it A. D. 
 405 ; the historian, Moses of Chorene, was his pupil. The 
 language flourished till the year 800, and is still preserved in 
 tolerable purity in the cloisters." 
 
 ill. Thus far the Supplement to the Encyclopedia Britan- 
 nica ; and for the very slight knowledge I possess of the 
 Armenian I am indebted to Galano's Grammar of that lan- 
 guage, published in quarto at Rome, in 1645, from which I 
 shall now proceed to make a few extracts with occasional 
 observations. 
 
 The author commences by dividing his Grammar into four 
 parts Orthography, Poetics, Prolation, and Syntax; and 
 then proceeds to inform us, that the ancient grammarians 
 reckoned only thirty-six letters in the Armenian language, 
 but that the modern have extended their number to thirty- 
 eight, by the addition of O and F, because the ancients wrote 
 Au for O, and Pp instead of F. 
 
 It is very true that the Armenian Alphabet contains 
 thirty-eight characters, or, reckoning the three forms of each, 
 one hundred and fourteen ; but of these thirty- eight, sixteen 
 are double letters, or merely contractions in writing ; and of 
 the remaining twenty-two, four are employed to denote E 
 and I long and short, and B and V are distinct letters. In 
 all alphabets C soft may be supplied by S ; C hard, by K ; 
 while the sounds of F and P, and D and T, are hardly dis- 
 tinguishable, and consequently one of these letters may be 
 dispensed with. If we deduct 
 
 B, supplied by V, 
 
 C, K (hard), 
 
 C, S (soft), 
 
 D, T, 
 
 E, I, 
 
 F, P, 
 
 we shall find no more than fifteen or sixteen genuine letters, or 
 signs of simple or elementary sounds; the double letters being 
 merely contractions in writing, and many of the. single ones 
 
240 ARMENIA. 
 
 different modes of expressing the same elementary or simple 
 sound. The ancient Greeks are related to have had but six- 
 teen letters ; and yet no people appear to have possessed more 
 musical ears, or to have cultivated their language with more 
 attention. 
 
 There are four kinds of Points, denoting Accent, Breathing, 
 Time, and Apostrophe. The accents are three : Acute ', 
 Grave v , and Circumflex **. There are two Breathings : the 
 Rough c and the Smooth T . The Times are Duplex the 
 Short " and the Long~; and also the Apostrophe the Infe- 
 rior, and the Superior. 
 
 iv. The Armenian has three Genders Masculine, Femi- 
 nine, and Neuter ; and two Numbers Singular and Plural. 
 All Adjectives, however, with a single exception, having a 
 particular termination and the feminine gender, are of the 
 Common Gender, as in Persic, Turkish, and English. 
 
 It has ten Cases : 1. the Nominative ; 2. the Genitive ; 3. 
 the Dative; 4. the Accusative; 5. the Vocative; 6. the 
 Ablative ; 7. the Instrumental ; 8. the Narrative ; 9. the 
 Commemorative; 10. the Circumlative. In the number of 
 its cases the Armenian appears to be the most complex lan- 
 guage in existence. The Sclavonic has seven, and the Sanskrit 
 eight cases. 
 
 The marks of Case are twofold Prsepositive and Post- 
 positive ; the first being used when no change takes place in 
 the termination of a word. 
 
 A Verb, according to Galano, is a declinable part of speech, 
 possessing time without case, and signifying Action and 
 Passion. The Accidents of Verbs are eight Kind, Tense, 
 Mode, Species, Figure, Person, Number, and Conjugation. 
 The kinds of Verbs are six Active, Passive, Neuter, 
 Common, Deponent, and Transitive. That is an Active 
 Verb which terminates in lem, or Uoum, and which, by 
 changing its termination into Im, becomes a Passive. And, 
 on the contrary, a Passive Verb terminates in Im; by 
 changing which into lem, or Uoum, it is converted into an 
 Active. 
 
ARMENIA. 24 1 
 
 The Armenian, like most other languages, furnishes reasons 
 for believing that Verbs, and indeed all the other parts of 
 speech are formed from, and were originally in the very 
 infancy of society, and at a period long anterior to writing, 
 simply Nouns. In the Hebrew, perhaps the rudest of all 
 written languages, the Verbs are clearly a Noun with a 
 pronominal termination, which termination was itself 
 originally a Noun also. In Armenian we have the Noun 
 Substantive, or Root, Ser, love, which, combined with the 
 Verb lem, I am, makes Ser-Iem, I love, or am loving. 
 
 The Tenses are five : the Present, the Preter-Imperfect, 
 the Preter-Perfect, the Preter- Pluperfect, and the Future. 
 The Modes are also five : the Indicative, the Imperative, the 
 Optative, the Subjunctive, and the Infinitive. The Arme- 
 nian Verb has also five Conjugations. 
 
 v. The following are some of the most remarkable words 
 I have noted, together with the analogies with other 
 languages which they have suggested to me : 
 
 Armenian Words. Analogies. 
 
 Chcttadz, Misericors. 
 Amb, Nubes. 
 Andarr, Sylva. 
 Kinl/icl, Bibere. 
 Syi hiesd, Vestis. 
 Szbiszpn, Initium. 
 Arrachieal, Apostolus .................. Rasoul, Arabic. 
 
 Arehaiuoutte, Regnum ............... Arche, Greek. 
 
 Asduouadz, Deus. 
 
 Eua, Eve. 
 
 Huovin, Pastor. 
 
 Ser, Amor. 
 
 Artun, Sanguis. 
 
 Ghuois, Virgo. 
 
 Luois ....................................... Lux, Latin. 
 
 Tuourr .................................... Door, 
 
 Liearr,Mon3 ........................... { }' ri (Sanskrit) Terra. 
 
 \ Lurre (Basque), Terra. 
 
 Air Vir / Air ' Irish ' 
 
 Lir ' Vir ................................. 1 Er, Turkish. 
 
 Hair, Pater. 
 
 Cchuoir .................................... Soror, Latin. 
 
 B 
 
242 ARMENIA. 
 
 Armenian Words* Analogies. 
 
 Mair, Mater .............................. Mere, French. 
 
 Mart, Homo .............................. Mard, Persic. 
 
 Na, Ille .................................... Nar (Persic), male, masculine. 
 
 Asdgh, Stella. 
 
 Arehaghan, Sol. 
 
 Tuousdr, Filia ........................... Daughter, English. 
 
 Huochin Diearrn, Spiritus Dei ...... Hooch (Hebrew), Spiritus. 
 
 Marmin, Corpus. 
 
 rp. n f Dieu, French. 
 
 Tieu, Demon ........................ | Div> p ersi(j 
 
 Siun, Columna ........................... Situn, Persic. 
 
 Ain, Hie. 
 
 Mi, Unus ................................. Ma (Greek), Una. 
 
 Jerghuou, Duo. 
 
 Jeriech, Tres. 
 
 Vart, Rosa .............................. Ward, Arabic. 
 
 Mah, Mors .............................. Mawt, Arabic. 
 
 Hhuoi, Aries. 
 
 Hazz, Panis .............................. Kabbaz, Arabic. 
 
 Zierr, Manus .............................. Cheir, Greek. 
 
 Zett, Oleum .............................. Zit (Hebrew), an olive. 
 
 , T -VT- . f Nau, Sanskrit. 
 
 Nau ' Navls ........................... { Naii, Greek. 
 
 Ghin, Mulier .............................. Gune, Greek. 
 
 Pan, Verbum. 
 
 Archai, Rex .............................. Arche (Greek), Regnum. 
 
 lerghir, Terra. 
 
 lerghin, Coelum. 
 
 Ouird, Cor. 
 
 Dzamanagh, Tenrpus .................. Zaman, Arabic. 
 
 Dzam, Hora. 
 
 UosgKi, Aurum. 
 
 Chini, Vinum ......................... ... Yayin, Hebrew. 
 
 Dzuov, Mare. 
 
 Der, Dominus. 
 
 Or, Dies ................................. Aor (Hebrew), light. 
 
 les, Ego. 
 
 rr, f Tu, Latin. 
 
 TuOU , ........ ' ........................... 1 Thou, English. 
 
 Ail .......................................... Alius, Latin. 
 
 Uor, Qui, Quae, Quod. 
 
 {Aish (Hebrew), a man. 
 Is, Latin. 
 Os, Greek. 
 Siriem, Amo. 
 Sirim, Amor. 
 
ARMENIA. LM i 
 
 Armenian Words. Analogies. 
 
 Cham, Venio I come, Engli>h. 
 
 Ifin, Sum Kimi. Greek. 
 
 Ie, Es Eis, Greek. 
 
 Eh Bit Esti, Greek. 
 
 Amanagh, Tempus With the Arabic definite article 
 
 A 1, Alamanagh ; by contraction, Almanack (English), the Time, 
 
 L 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 Ga^tulians 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 GENKIiAL. 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 \\ n 
 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 jio 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 Gaetulians 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.) 
 
 ill. 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 Kast, or the sun-ri^injr. 
 in the same way as Cadmus, formed from the Hebrew wonl 
 Kedem ; and hence in the classical writers Heraclidse and 
 
 R s 
 
246 AFRICA 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.) 
 
 IV. 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 Gastulians, 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 ; Gsetulians, 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 
 Celtae, 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 Laetus, Laeta, Latin. 
 
 AH n j f Allah, Arabic. 
 
 AUa G d I Ail, Hebrew. 
 
 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 ingcns pateat tell us, 
 Tethysque novos detcgat orbes, 
 Nee sit terris ultima Thule." SENECA, Medea, 374. 
 
 Rich Mexico, the seat of Montezume, 
 
 And Cusco in Peru, the richer seat 
 
 Of Atabalipa, arid yet unspoil'd 
 
 Guiana, whose great city Geryon's sons 
 
 Call El Dorado." Paradise Lett, 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 Ammon, 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 AMERICA IN GENERAL. 
 
 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 Verde 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. 
 
 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 sa 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.) 
 
 rv. 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 Pramdamites 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." 
 
 v. 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 GENEUAL. 253 
 
 talk of the elevation of continents from the bottom of the 
 sea, by the expansive force of central fire ; but it is eqimlly 
 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. 
 
 BEAT-TIE'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. 
 
 vin. 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 of 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 llamas among the ten 
 Indian Avatars or Incarnations of Vishnu, 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. 
 
 x. The following passage from Dr. Prichard's valuable 
 work on the Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations is deserving 
 of an attentive perusal : ( ' 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 
 
AMEltICA 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.) 
 
 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 
 A nglo- A m erican. 
 
 " 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, 
 
 8 
 
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, Algonkins, 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 
 
 xn. 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. 
 
HIEROGLYPHICS. 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 intelluriliK' 
 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 s 
 
262 HIEROGLYPHICS. 
 
 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. 
 
 rv. 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, 
 
 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 alphabetical 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 
 
 " Insanom Vatem aspicies ; quae rupe sub ima 
 Fata canit, foliisque notas et noinina mandat. 
 Quaecunque in foliis descripsit carmina Virgo, 
 Digerit in numerum, atquc antro seclusa relinquit. 
 Ilia manent iminota locis, neque ab ordine cedunt. 
 Verum cadem, verso tenuis cum cardine ventus 
 I inpiilit, et teneras turbavit janua frondes, 
 Nuinquam deinde cavo volitantia prendere saxo, 
 Nee revocare situs, aut jungere carmina curat."* 
 
 VIKG. JEneid. lib. iii. 44:i. 
 
 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." 
 
 DBYDKN'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, xvii. 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 
 
IIIKUOGLYPIIICS. 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 scarab^us ; 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 thi:*, 
 that the Gods 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.) 
 
 XI. 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, arc fallen so lot? 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, "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, in 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 hieroglyphical 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 phonetically like the Ptolemy and Berenice in the 
 
11IEHOGLYPH1C8. 273 
 
 liosetta 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 NUMI-.U; 
 
 OP THE FORMER, WHICH HAVE BEEN CLEARLY ASCER- 
 TAINED AND DEFINED, IS UNDER ONE THOUSAND; AMI ILL 
 THAT OF THE LATTER IS CERTAINLY UPWARDS OF FORTY 
 THOUSAND, AND SOME ACCOUNTS SWELL THEM TO T\vi< i; 
 
 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 loh, 
 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 burii, and Seraph, an 
 archangel. Tacitus says that some regarded Serapis as 
 identical with JEsculapius, 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 
 
nii.uo(,Lvi'iiiC8. 275 
 
 ami Canopus ; of the latter of whom the Mythologiste ap- 
 pear to know next to nothing. The winged globe may be 
 merely Phonetic of the name of Cneph. 
 
 xv. 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 
 Venus, which reversed gives Dihan, Greek, in Persic Nihad, 
 nature, which Sir William Jones writes also Nahid. Strabu 
 informs us that the Armenian name of Venus 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 eterni- 
 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 we 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 Rho, 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 v 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 Kjrypt, formed, there can be 
 little doubt, from the native words Ma, place, and Re, the 
 sun ; and Cheini 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.) 
 
 xvin. 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; Cliani- 
 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 t IK-MI 
 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, trnd indiivrtly i<> 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. Eude 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 
 
IIIKROGLYPHICS. 279 
 
 of two objects, both were Phonetic, and the narrtes 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, Chamj>olHon 
 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 }><> i- 
 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 HIEROGLYPHICS. 
 
 amuse children, in which the pronoun 1 is expressed by the 
 figure of an eye ; you, by a yew tree ; the relative which, by a 
 witch riding on a broomstick ; the verb tear, 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 believe 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. 
 
281 
 
 CHAP. XXV. 
 
 ON ALPHABETICAL CHARACTERS. 
 
 'Mi' invention all admired, and each how he 
 To be th' inventor miss'd ; so easy 't sei-mM 
 Once found, which yet an found, most would have thought 
 Impossible." Paradue Lott, book *i. 
 
 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. In many instances, the Egyptian Hermes ap- 
 pears to me merely a personification of the hand, in their own 
 language Tot, which, as the principal instrument in executing 
 all mechanical contrivances, is said, by a slight raetonomy, 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- 
 
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 hieroglyphical 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- 
 iruMi 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 ad 
 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- 
 
286 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 appropriating 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, w r ere 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 im-ans l>y 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, " Summae sapientiae 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 in.-w have 
 suggested the idea, and gradually led to the formation of an 
 
286 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 appropriating 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 nu-ans ly 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, " Summre sapienti 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 nnme 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 writing 
 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 CIIAUACTK! 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 epeak 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 feut 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 arc 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, Musasus, Thamyris, Amphion, and Pythagoras, 
 their profound knowledge of music is never forgotten. 
 
 " Silvestres homines sacer interpresque Deorum, 
 Csedibus et victu fcedo 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." * Hon. Ars Poet. v. 391. 
 
 * " The wood-born race of men when Orpheus tamed, 
 From acorns and from mutual blood reclaim'd, 
 
ALPHABETICAL CHARACTERS. 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 Ive pollutis LA biis reaturn, 
 
 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 
 j>eriod 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 Thcban wall ; Amphion's lyre 
 And soothing voice the iist'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 riles the wedded couple bless'd ; 
 Plann'd future towns, and instituted laws : 
 So verse became divine, and poets gain'd applause.** 
 U 2 
 
292 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 
 ns 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. XXVL 
 
 ON LANGUAGE IN GENERAL. 
 
 " Causas rerum naturalium non plures admitti deberc quam qua; et verze sint, 
 et carum phasnominis 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, we 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 
 
 0.4 
 
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 in 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 possess 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 languages 
 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 dcc-i-i\r 
 issue. For this purpose, he had recourse to a contrivance, 
 which would not have occurred to every body. He com- 
 
298 LANGUAGE IN GENERAL. 
 
 mitted 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 arc 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 TOrigine et les 
 Fonderaens de 1'Inegalite 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 arc 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 words 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. 
 
 VIIL 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 Implement! ve and Locative to tlio 
 Latin. The Slavonic follows the Sanskrit in its Implcmentive 
 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. 
 
 xin. 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 Avell- 
 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 attrilniud 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 cohsonant 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 
 
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 signs 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 utt-, 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 vita;, or the perpetual motion. 
 
 in. 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. 
 (Vide 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. " 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 io so, Jbut 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. 
 
 ment, 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 uniforms 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 
 Sheins, 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 jof a metaphor. The same is the case 
 in the Hebrew word Rosh, 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, Rosh, 
 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 Roy (Roi), 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. 
 
 XII. 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. 
 
 xni. In Persic Bui signifies both a nose and the beak 
 of a bird. Its reduplication BulbuJ 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 Fam, 
 and Fo, are chiefly remarkable for the light they throw on 
 the formation of the Greek Verb Phemi (dice), 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 Pho3nician 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. 
 
 xvii. 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. 
 
 xvin. 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 
 number, 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, arc the 
 chief means or instruments of victory. 
 
NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 319 
 
 The Heel 
 
 XXI. Push i nah (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 fur 
 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 Vita?, 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 we 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 
 may 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, "arc 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 diflfert 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 
 copiae, additu 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, 
 
 T 2 
 
324 NOUXS ADJECTIVE. 
 
 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 language of the North Ame- 
 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 
 
 Pronoun both in Greek and Latin. In Greek that Pronoun 
 is os t TJ, ov, he, she, it, which in Latin becomes us, a, urn. 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 bad been naturalized in 
 Greek, would have been Duros, Dure, Duron. And aa 
 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 Omicron, and adding the usual pronomi- 
 nal termination, we have Ouranos, heaven, sky, firmament, 
 or that which covers the earth ; and perhaps with a, privntivr, 
 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 
 Coclum, 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 Ccelus 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 
 
 T 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 Mo>//,-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/ww/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 
 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 ' credulous * referred to * who,' and not to 
 ' thee ; ' or that * all gold ' referred to any thing ; or that in the 
 fourth line, ' unmindful ' referred to * who ' in the second, and 
 not to ' thee ' in the third ; or on the contrary, that in the 
 second line, ' always vacant, always amiable,' referred to * thee ' 
 in the third, and not to ' who ' in the same line with it. 
 In the Latin, indeed, this is abundantly plain 
 
 * Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aurea ; 
 Qui semper vacuum, semper amabileiu 
 Sperat, nescius aura 
 Fallacis."' 
 
 viii. This superior freedom in the collocation of wonl- 
 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 Cu him, 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 1 1 9th 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 witli 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." 
 
 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, 
 
 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 Abdicl. 
 
 " 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, Homer, 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 Kev if dficdrovf irtpiTiXXofitvovc inavTov. Iliad, viii. 418. 
 Neque decem 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 honoured, and by strangers mourn'd ! " 
 
330 
 
 CHAR 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, Home, 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 
 
 in. On opening the same Lexicon at page 169. I observe 
 the word Jo, caput, the head, with a remark thut it supplies 
 the place of a Pronoun, as Ejoi, in caput meum ; i. e. in me. 
 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 
 lay, the Italian Pronoun Personal lo, 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 lu ad. 
 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 Pos.^ 
 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 meus (^(JOl)* 
 
 Phok tuus (<i>(JOK)' 
 
 Phof ipsius ....(4>o5qV 
 
 Phon noster....(<|>uuit)- 
 
 Lanzi, on the authority of Varro, Diomedes, and Salma- 
 sius, says that the -^Eolic 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^KUA). 
 Phon, Coptic, Sphon, Greek (<r<jxav). 
 
332 PRONOUNS AND 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 37th 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), mihi, we have Emoi, 
 Greek, dative of Ego, i. e. Mihi (J/W). 
 
 From Ammon, or Emmon (Coptic), nostrum, nobis, nos, 
 we have Emeis, Emon, Emin, Emas, plural of Ego, common 
 Greek ; and Ammes, Ammon, Ammin, Ammas, ^Eolic. 
 
 2. Eroi, mihi, Coptic ; root, Ro, 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 rae, Sahidic; root, Hot, 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, lira, 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 unrevealM, 
 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 ray 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 PRONOUNS 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, 
 JVz, To; and in the Egyptian Lexicon, at page 21, I find 
 Tha, feminine, " significans aliquid pertinens ad rem de qua 
 agitur." 
 
 Thai, Egyptian, hocc, 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, HJBC, 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, Haec, 
 Hoc, to be deducible by changes and transpositions of letters 
 from the Hebrew word Chih (rrn) 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, Quae, 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 JE>o\ic 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 Justa? ; that Et occupies the 
 place of Que ; and that in Classical Latin the phrase would 
 stand Equales Justacque, or Equales et Justae. 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 A nth ah. 
 
336 
 
 PRONOUNS AND ARTICLES. 
 
 Egyptian. 
 
 Hebrew. Arabic. 
 
 Chatdee, 
 
 Anthof he 
 
 Hoo, or Hooa Hou 
 
 Hoo. 
 
 Anon we 
 
 Anachnop Nairn 
 
 Anachna. 
 
 Anthoten ye 
 
 Athtem Entom 
 
 Anthoon. 
 
 Anthoou they 
 
 Haim Horn 
 
 Hiraoon. 
 
 Sanskrit, 
 
 Persic. Latin. 
 
 German. 
 
 Aham I 
 
 Men Ego 
 
 Ich. 
 
 Twan thou 
 
 Tu Tu 
 
 Du. 
 
 Sah he 
 
 Ao or O (Jones) llle 
 
 Er. 
 
 Nah, ac. pi. we 
 
 Ma ISTos 
 
 Wir. 
 
 Vah, ac. pi. ye 
 
 Shuma Vos 
 
 Ihr. 
 
 
 Ishan Ilii 
 
 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. 
 
 vii. 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. 
 
 vni. 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 Anachnn, 
 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. 
 
 his 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 ^Eetes 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 whicli 
 it stands in the Lexicon, and after which follows an expla- 
 nation of the meaning of the different Moods and Tenses. 
 
 x 2 
 
340 VERBS AND PARTICIPLES. 
 
 Let us take, as an instance, the radical letters Lmd ( with 
 the points Lam ad), 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 Ou Lmd-oo. 
 
 Coptic com. Gender. 
 
 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 Verb 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 Verb Substantive 
 Hajah, as exhibited in Masclef s Hebrew Grammar, without 
 the points. 
 
 Root HAJAH, or CHAYTAH, 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 Athteu (fern.) Ten Hii-ten. 
 
 2. Hih Athtem (mas.) Tgm 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. 
 
VRB3 AND PARTICIPLES. 341 
 
 Verbal Root. Unaltered Pronoun. Contracted Form. Conjugation. 
 NSB, assistance. 
 
 Sarary's Gram. 270. Sav. Gram. p. 38. 
 
 Dual. 
 
 Nasar Entoma Toma Nasar-toma. 
 
 Plural. 
 
 1. Nasar Nahn Na Nasar-na. 
 
 2. Nasar Entonn (fern.) Tonna Nasar- ton na. 
 
 2. Nasar Entom (mas.) Tom Nasar-tom. 
 
 3. Nasar Anthoou (mas.) Ou Nasar-ou. 
 
 Coptic. 
 
 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 Noun 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 Slavic<e 
 Dialecti Veteris, Vindobonse, 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 Maeso-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 
 
 s s 
 
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. 
 
 BaSf} from Bum, Celtic. 
 
 j- i.e. I was a king, or, I had ruled. 
 And in the Potential Mood 
 
 f ^7 changing the first letter of the auxiliary Rex-issem. 
 
 j- 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 (Choldee), I. 
 Bouloiinen, 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 SehafFs 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, Cbaldee, 
 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. c. 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- 
 
VERBS 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 Svriac, 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 Otbi, Thi. 
 
 Cha, thy Athtah, Ta. 
 
 Hoo, his 
 
 Noo, our Nachnoo, Noo. 
 
 Chem, your (mas.) Athtem, Tern. 
 
 Chen, your (fern.) Athten, Ten. 
 
 Hem, their (mas.) 
 
 Hen, their (fern.) 
 
 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. XXXL 
 
 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 Anchisa satus, ct vestigia pressit ; 
 Multa putons, sortemque animo miscratus iniquam" 
 
 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 Farias, 
 the Spartan Helots, the Thessalian Penestae, 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 themsjelves ; but the same objection 
 cannot be made to our 'nevertheless' and ' not withstanding, '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? 
 
 u 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 Frum, beginning, origin, 
 source, fountain, author. 
 
 It is worthy of remark that the Persic word Sar, the literal name of 
 the head, signifies, also, top, principle, origin ; and that Berashith, the first 
 word in Genesis, may be analysed into fi 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 di mi nut ion cm ; 
 but it always retains its primitive Egyptian meaning of number, with a 
 subauditur of added to or taken from. The Egyptian word U 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, abundantly 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. 
 
 Nuh or Nu (Sanskrit), time. 
 
 Nau, hora (Coptic), a Noun Masculine. 
 
 Now (English), an Adverb of time. 
 
 Nu (Maeso-Gothic), now. 
 
 III. Hebrew. 
 
 Achor, the back, the hinder part. A Noun. 
 Achor, back, behind. An Adverb. 
 
 Ethmol, yesterday, an Adverb from {^'^e. Yfteposition. 
 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. 
 
 Leyad, 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 with. A Preposition. 
 
ON PARTICLES. 3.51 
 
 Aith, time. A Noun. 
 
 a long time. An Adverb. 
 Athi, present. 
 A t luili. now. 
 
 IV. Arabic. 
 
 Kabl, the anterior part, the front. A Noun. 
 
 also, before. An Adverb. 
 Fih, 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 Mseso-Gothic and Anglo-Saxon verb Withan, to join. 
 
 Eimc, Nisi, i. e. Ei, Imperative of Eiini ; 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 Gnecas 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 Eliste, 
 Dum memor ipse mei, dum spiritus hos regit artus," 
 
 says JEneas ; 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, dum 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 denomfnated, 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 K-urninjr 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. 
 
 ill. 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 Um ; 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 
 
 Nava (Sanskrit),1 
 
 Nu u (p^rs7c)^ r 
 
 No (Persic),' J 
 
 rsc Nov - um Latin > new - 
 
 No ' 
 
 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 
 os and 77, 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, ami 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 bs, 
 r), oi>, 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 ovrof, and that is in the triumphant speech of 
 Achilles over the dying Asteropa3us, 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<i icai oj; ot(oirc Aiof /jt-yo/Xoio iccpavvov. 
 
 Set! et is metuit Jovis magni fulmen. 1. 198. 
 
 And Jones, in his Greek Grammar, says the Attic writers 
 sometimes use 6y for avros, he ; 6s- sfa, 6s $\eys, 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 u, eo/uu, and et/u 
 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 9 
 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 os, and its de- 
 rivatives, letter by letter. 
 
 Ok (Sanskrit), a Biliteral, pronounced Oka, a house. 
 
 Ouc-og (Greek), a house. 
 
 Lok (Sanskrit), a Triliteral, pronounced Loka, a letter, an epistle. 
 
 Aoy-o (Greek), a word. 
 
 Singular. Dual. Plural. 
 
 N. OIK'OQ N. A. Ol/C-to N. OIK-Ol 
 
 G. OIK-OV G. D. OIK-OIV G. OlK-(t)V 
 
 D. OlK-(t) D. OlK-Otg 
 
 A. OIK-OV A. OIK-OVQ. 
 
 Kalam (Sanskrit), a Triliteral, pronounced Kalama, a pen, a reed. 
 KaXa/z-?;, Greek. 
 
 Samayog (Sanskrit), pronounced Samayoga, an union, an assemblage. 
 il (Greek), a synagogue. 
 
 N. KaXafi-ij N. A. KaXajji-a N. /caXa/i-at. 
 
 G. Ka\ap.-r}Q G. D. KaXa^,-niv G. KoXafi-atv. 
 
 D. KaXa/x-j; D. Ka\afi-aiQ. 
 
 A. Ka\afj.-t]v A. jcaXa/i-af. 
 
 TO uXov, wood. 
 
 N. %u\-ov N. A. i;X-w N. wX-a 
 
 G. vX-ov G. D. ZvX-oiv G. $vX-(av 
 
 D. uX-w D, uX-o 
 
 A. vX-ov A. uX-a. 
 
GREEK AND LATIN NOUNS. 357 
 
 In declining the three Noun Substantives, oticof, a house, 
 /cdXaprj, a reed, and fuXoi/, wood, we have written all the 
 Cases of the obsolete Pronoun, os, TJ, ov 9 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 oy, 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 oc, 9, or, he, she, it. 
 Singular. Dual Plural. 
 
 N. of ij ov N. A. <u a w N. 01 at a 
 
 G. OV Iff OV G. 1 ). OIV CUV OiV G. WV UiV iiiV 
 
 D. <'//(' D. otf ati; oi 
 
 A. ov ijv ov A. oif af 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 auav, auov-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, fMa^aip-as, which may be regarded 
 as a dialectical variety of rj?. To the Coptic Meri, dies, they 
 prefixed Eta, rendered the final Iota by Alpha, and formed 
 the Genitive in As, rjpspa, ypep-as, the Doric form of the 
 word being apspa, and the Ionic rjf^prf. To the Coptic Keli, 
 the leg, they prefixed the aspirate Sigma, changed the final 
 I into Os, and formed the Genitive in Eos, <r*eX-gos, 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, (ftrj/ju-ij, (frrjfji-rjs, all the terminations being the 
 cases of the Pronoun ??. 
 
 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 Ra, the mark of the oblique case 
 Damra. By the transposition of Ra, 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 Asa>s-, populus, as 
 an example of the fourth declension; but this form was 
 peculiar to the Attic dialect, and in common Greek was 
 Aaos, 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 Ianguages 3 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 os-, 77, 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 oy, the Greeks formed 
 
GREEK AND LATIN 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. irovt Pes Persic Root. 
 
 G. *r*JUf Ped-is Sanskrit Root. 
 
 D. 7ro--i Ped-i Sanskrit Root. 
 
 A. 7ro-a Ped-em Sanskrit Root 
 
 V. irovt 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 K\eiFf, 
 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 K\ts>, KXftS-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-era, 
 
 V. Al-es. 
 Ab. Alit-e. 
 
 A A 4 
 
360 ON INFLEXION. 
 
 viii. There are in Greek many words terminating in 
 E-, which form their Genitive case from Nouns in As, 
 among which is fypsap, 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 </>/rar 3 or ^pear, in Greek, as a 
 Nominative, we have the Genitive (^pear-os, by the addition 
 of the obsolete Pronoun os, 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. 60-ie ; the termination appears to be the Latin Is, he. 
 
 G. o0-fo> Ejus (to?, Ionic). 
 
 D. 00-H Ei. 
 
 A. oQ-iv Eum. 
 
 And in the plural number, 
 
 N. o$-ti ; the termination appears to be contracted from <r</>-e, they. 
 G. o$-t<t>v <r0-o>i>, of them. 
 
 D. o<p-e<n <T0-i<Tt, to them. 
 
 A. o$-ti <T0-af, them. 
 
 If we take into account all the changes that the Pronoun 
 o-fais must have undergone, in the course of time, from 
 dialect, contraction, and poetical license, exercised sometimes 
 from a regard to euphony, and sometimes with reference to 
 the necessities of particular metres, we shall perhaps have 
 
GREEK AND LATIN NOUNS. 361 
 
 accounted for the declensions of the Greek contracted Nouns, 
 in a way which, if not altogether satisfactory, is the best 
 that we can hope to attain. For <r<f>i<n, we know that the 
 ji.M-ts -..iiii.-tiim- u.-e<l <f>ti'; ami that tor afyay the Dorians 
 wrote ^g. 
 
 ix. There can be little doubt about deriving the Latin 
 Retina, a queen, from the Sanskrit Rajni ; which, combined 
 with Ea, she, the feminine of the Pronoun Is, Ea, Id, stands 
 as under. 
 
 N. Kajni, with Ea, she ; by transposition and contraction, Regin-a. 
 
 G. 
 
 D. 
 
 A. Earn Regin-am. 
 
 V. Ea Regin-a, 
 
 Ab. E& Regin-a. 
 
 The formatives of the Genitive and Dative do not appear, 
 because Ejus and Ei are common .to three genders ; but in 
 the Plural we have 
 
 N. Rajni, with Ea3 llegin-ae literally, Queens, they. 
 
 G. Karu in Regin-arum of them. 
 
 D. Eis Regin-is to them. 
 
 A. Eas Regin-as them. 
 
 V. Eae Regina3 
 
 Ab. Eis Regin-is from them. 
 
 Ea is clearly the formative of the terminations of Latin 
 Nouns of the first declension, like Musa, a song ; Is, of tjie 
 second declension in the Masculine Gender, like Magister and 
 Dominus, in the Plural number letter for letter with a slight 
 contraction ; and Ea, in the Plural of the Neuter gender, 
 like Regna, Of Parens, a Noun of the third declension, 
 increasing in the Genitive Case, the formative is clearly Ens, 
 the active participle of the verb Esse, to be ; but as Parens 
 does not seem to be so much formed by the instrumentality 
 of the active participle, as to be an active participle itself, 
 Pariens from Pario, or ilia qua? parit, a mother, it will be 
 necessary to say a few words respecting the origin and for- 
 mation of the Latin Verb, and I will conclude this branch 
 of my subject by exhibiting the mode in which the Latin 
 relative pronoun Quis is formed from the unchanging 
 
362 ON INFLEXION. 
 
 Coptic Ke, alius, alter, which appears to have passed into 
 the former language in another shape, as the conjunction 
 Que. The formative is the Latin Is, Ea, Id, he, she, it. 
 
 N. Ke-Is, by contraction, Quis Ke-Ea, Quas Ke-Id, Quid. 
 G. Ke-Ejus Cujus. 
 
 D. Ke-Ei Cui. 
 
 A. Ke-Eum Quern Ke-Eam, Quam Ke-Id, Quid. 
 
 Ab. Ke-Eo Quo Ke-Ea, Qua Ke-Eo, Quo. 
 
 The Sanskrit Ki, or Chi, what, appears to be cognate not 
 only with the Coptic Ke but also with the Latin Qui, and 
 Italian Chi; and perhaps all were derived from the Hebrew 
 Chi (radical letters), life, or a living creature. 
 
 x. I have already remarked that, in almost every language 
 in which the derivation of the Yerb Substantive is traceable, 
 the meaning of the root is invariably that of life, time, or 
 existence. The different persons of the Latin verb Sum 
 are clearly referable to the two Persic forms Shum and Am. 
 The third person singular Est is the Persic word Hast, 
 being, existence ; but I am not aware that the third person 
 Shund, or Shond, is significant in Persic ; we find, however, 
 in Coptic the word Sont, which approximates much more 
 closely to the Latin Sunt, in the sense of creation. In all 
 languages, not only the Verb Substantive but Verbs of 
 every other description will, I believe, be found to have their 
 root or origin in a Noun ; a circumstance demonstrable in so 
 many instances, as to be perfectly conclusive with respect to 
 all. 
 
 xi. That the Verb is formed from an unchanging root, 
 joined to the different tenses of the auxiliary verb To be, 
 is as clear in Latin as in Greek ; but as we have gone into 
 the subject at such considerable length, in the chapter on 
 Greece, it will be unnecessary to say much here. In the 
 first place we have the verb Possum, I am able, formed from 
 the obsolete Potis, able, possible, which Facciolati calls an 
 indeclinable adjective, and the auxiliary verb Sum in 
 some persons of the present tense the t, and in others the s, 
 of the root being dropped Pos-sum, Pot-es, Pot-est, Pos- 
 
THE LATIN VERB. 363 
 
 suinus, Pot-estis, Pos-sunt; Imperfect, Pot-eram, Pot-eras, 
 Pot-erat, Pot-eramus, Pot-eratis, Pot-erant, where we have 
 the Persons of Sum letter by letter, and this would appear 
 to be the case in every part of the Roman Verb, but that 
 some of the tenses of the auxiliary verb To be, have 
 become obsolete in that language as well as in Greek, which 
 it must be our first endeavour to restore ; and to escape the 
 charge of building without a foundation, or inventing an 
 imaginary one, I will first quote what Facciolati says on the 
 subject, next trace the Latin roots to the Sanskrit, and then 
 proceed to state the formatives of the different tenses of the 
 Roman Verb throughout the four Conjugations of the Active 
 Voice. 
 
 xn. On the obsolete Latin verb Eo, to be, and to go, the 
 formative of various tenses of Verbs of all the four Conjuga- 
 tions. 
 
 Eo, is, ivi, et ii, itum. ^. 
 
 Ire, pro Esse, existere. 
 
 Ens, Entis, Part. Praes., a verbo Sum. 
 
 Fuam,-as,-at, pro Sim, vel Fuerim, ab antique Fuo pro Sum, a <pvu. 
 
 Such is the account of Eo, and some of the obsolete Tenses 
 of Sum, given by Facciolati, one of the very best lexico- 
 graphers of the Latin language, and let us next try to what 
 extent we can trace the roots of the two Verbs, in the 
 different languages of Asia, and principally in the Sanskrit. 
 
 I (Sanskrit), Dhato, or verbal root, signifying simply, go. 
 
 I (Latin), Imperative of Eo, go, which is perhaps the only tense not 
 united to an Auxiliary, and exhibiting the root in its pure and unmixed 
 state. 
 
 Ira (Sanskrit), Dhato, or Verbal Root, signifying simply, move. 
 
 Ire (Latin), the Verb in the Infinitive Mood, signifying generally and 
 indefinitely, to go. 
 
 Re (Sahidic), to be, and to do. This verb, joined to the root; I, may 
 form the Infinitive Ire At any rate it appears to be the formative of 
 some Latin Verbs in the Infinite Mood ; as, for instance, Rege, Abl. of 
 Rex, with Re, Rege-re, literally, to be a king, or to rule. Mai (Coptic), 
 love, with A prefixed, and Re affixed, Amare, to love. 
 
 Er (Coptic), to be, to do, perhaps Am-er (Latin), I may or can be 
 loved. 
 
 I-ens, Act. Part, going ; the Sanskrit Root, I, joined to the Act. Part, 
 of Sum. 
 
364 ON INFLEXION. 
 
 Ita (Sanskrit), go. Itum and Iturus, Latin. 
 Ito (Latin), I go often. It-ans, going. 
 Aya (Sanskrit), go. Eo (Latin), Ew (Greek), I send. 
 Bhu (Sanskrit), be. Joined with the auxiliary Eo, to be ; Fuo 
 (Latin) ; 0vw, Greek. 
 
 Bud (Persic), he was. Fuit (Latin), he was. 
 
 xiii. Indicative Mood, Present Tense. 
 
 Eo, I am ; Is, thou art ; It, he is. 
 
 Imus, we are ; Itis, you are ; Eunt, they are. 
 
 The Formative of Am-o, Mon-eo, Reg-o, and Aud-io, by contraction 
 and changes of letters. 
 
 Imperfect Tense. 
 
 Ibam, I was ; Ibas, thou wast ; Ibat, he was. 
 
 Ibamus, we were ; Ibatis, you were ; Ibant, they were. 
 
 The formative of the Imperfect of Verbs of the first, 
 second, and third conjugation, by assuming the Imperative 
 as the root, and rejecting the initial I of the formative, Ama- 
 bam, Mone-bam, Rege-bam. The fourth conjugation changes 
 the initial I of the fomnative into E, as Audi-ebam. 
 
 Perfect Tense. 
 
 Ivi, I have been ; Ivisti, thou hast been ; Ivit, he has been. 
 
 Ivimus, we have been ; Ivistis, you have been ; Iverunt, vel Ivere, they 
 
 have been. 
 
 Perfect Tense (second form). 
 
 Ii, I have been ; listi, thou hast been ; lit, he has been, 
 
 limus, we have been; listis, you have been; lerunt, vel lere, they 
 
 have been. 
 
 Ama, Imp. Mood, with Vi. Amavi, Perfect Tense, 1st Conjugation. 
 Mon, Imp. Mood, with Vi , 1 - r n j r\ 
 
 read as Ui j Monm 2nd Conjugation. 
 
 Rex, Sub. Root, with I, Rexi, 3rd Conjugation. 
 
 Audi, Imp. Mood, with Vi, Audivi, 4th Conjugation. 
 
 Pluperfect Tense. 
 
 Iveram, I had been; Iveras, thou hadst been ; Iverat,hehadbeen. 
 
 Iveramus, we had been ; Iveratis, you had been ; Iverant, they had 
 
 been. 
 
 The formative of the first conjugation by assuming the 
 Imperative as the root, and rejecting the initial I of Iveram, 
 Ama-veram ; of the second, by reading the v as u, as Mon- 
 ueram ; the third takes Eram, the Imperfect of Sum, Rex- 
 
THE LATIN VERB. 365 
 
 eram ; and the fourth follows the first, as Audi, Imperative 
 Mood, with veram, Audi-veram. 
 
 Future Tense. 
 
 Ibo, I shall or will be ; Ibis ; Ibit. 
 
 Ibimus, we shall or will be ; Ibitis ; Ibunt. 
 
 The formative of the Futures of the first and second Con- 
 jugation, by assuming the Imperative as the root, and rejecting 
 the initial I of the Auxiliary, as Ama-bo, Mone-bo. 
 
 Future Tense (Second Form). 
 
 Earn, I shall or will be ; Ees ; Eet. 
 
 Eemus, we shall or will be ; Eetis ; Eent. 
 
 The formative of the Futures of the third and fourth Con- 
 jugations, by assuming the Imperative as the root, and re- 
 jecting the initial E, of the Auxiliary, as Reg-am, Audi-am. 
 
 Imperative Mood. 
 
 I, Ito, be thou ; Eat, Ito, let him be. 
 Eamus, let us be ; Ite, Itote, be ye ; Eant, Eunto, let them be. 
 
 Although the Imperative of the Latin Verb appears to be 
 formed primarily from the Infinitive Mood simply by the 
 rejection of the termination Re, as Ama-re, Mone-re, Rege- 
 re, Audi-re, and I-re, it appears to me impossible to doubt 
 that the Imperative of Eo, to be, with some changes of letters 
 is the formative of all the other persons. As little can we 
 doubt that the terminations of the Greek Imperative in the 
 Active Voice TVTTT-S, TVTTT-STO, are the tenses of the obsolete 
 E<, which, it will be observed, have a close resemblance to 
 the above. 
 
 xiv. Potential Mood, Present Tense. 
 
 Earn, I may or can be ; Eas ; Eat. 
 
 Eamus, we may or can be ; Eatis ; Eant. 
 
 The formative of the Present Tense of the Potential 
 Mood of the four Congugations, by assuming the Imperative 
 as the root, and rejecting the initial E of the Auxiliary, except 
 that in the first conjugation Am-cm, appears to take the 
 first letter of the Auxiliary, and drop the second. 
 
366 ON INFLEXION. 
 
 Imperfect Tense. 
 
 Erem, I might or could be, . Eres, Eret. 
 
 Eremus, we might or could be, Eretis, Erent. 
 
 The formative of the Imperfect of the Potential of the 
 four Conjugations, by assuming the Imperative as the root, 
 and rejecting the initial E of the Auxiliary. 
 
 Perfect Tense. 
 
 We may either suppose an obsolete tense of Eo, Iverim, 
 as the formative which dropped its initial I, and read its V 
 as U, after a consonant Ama-verim, Audi-verim, Mon- 
 uerim, and in Rex-erim, both its initials, or take Fuerim the 
 Perfect of Sim as the formative, reading the F as V, after 
 a vowel and dropping U, and the U after a consonant 
 dropping F, as Mon-uerim. 
 
 Pluperfect Tense. 
 
 We may either suppose an obsolete tense of Eo, Ivissem, 
 or take Fuissem, the Pluperfect of Sim, as the formative, and 
 the above observations will apply to both. 
 
 Future Tense. 
 
 We may either suppose an obsolete Tense of Eo, Ivero, 
 or take Fuero, the Future of Sim, as the formative, and the 
 same observations will still apply, but, take which formative 
 we will, Rex-issem and Rex-ero drop two initial letters. 
 
 General Observations. 
 
 xv. Sum and its tenses in the Indicative, and Sim and 
 its Tenses in the Potential Mood, appear to have been used 
 by the Romans chiefly as the formatives of the Passive Voice, 
 joined to the Past Participle, while the Tenses of the Active 
 Voice seem to have been formed by the instrumentality of 
 the obsolete Auxiliary Verb Eo, To be. It is remarkable 
 how seldom we find Sum and Sim permanently combined 
 with a verbal root as a formative in Latin. We recognize 
 all the tenses both of the Indicative and Potential Mood in 
 the Conjugation of Possum, and no where else that I recol- 
 
THE LATIN VERB. 367 
 
 lect, unchanged, except that the initial F is every where 
 dropped, Pot-ui, and not Potfui, Pot-ueram, Potuerim, Pot- 
 uissem, and Pot-uero. 
 
 xvi. There probably was a period, in the infancy "of the 
 Latin language, when Eram, the Imperfect of Sum, and 
 1 1 Kim the Imperfect of the obsolete Eo, to be, were identical ; 
 and the different readings appear to have had their origin in 
 an ambiguous letter, the R and B of the Phoenician alphabet, 
 as given in MasclePs Samaritan Grammar and Dutens's 
 Medals, being scarcely distinguishable ; and in the same 
 way, I think, I have proved in the 18th Chapter that the 
 word which has so long been read Ril, in the Etruscan 
 inscriptions, is really Vik, a contraction for Viksit, or Vixit, 
 the initial letter being not a Greek or Etruscan Rho, but a 
 Phoenician Beth with the power of V, and the final one not 
 Lambda but Kappa, The same remark will apply to Ero 
 the future of Sum, and Ibo the Future of Eo. There was 
 the same confusion between R and S, both in the early 
 Greek and Roman alphabet ; and we have the express tes- 
 timony of Varro, that Ero was anciently written Eso by the 
 Romans, and E<ro> it continued to be permanently among 
 the Greeks, which was the regular Future of Eo>, to be, 
 and the formative of all the first Futures of the Active 
 Voice. 
 
 xvii. Again, there is an analogy between Fui the Perfect 
 of Sum, and Ivi and li, the Perfect of Eo. li appears to 
 form Ivi by the insertion of the medial Digamma iF*. 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-essera, and Fu-ero. The regular formative of the 
 Latin Perfect was Vi after a root (the Imperative) termi- 
 nating in a vowel, as Amavi, Audi-vi, and ui, ii, or i alter a 
 root terminating in a consonant, as Mon-ui, Ven-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 Quaaro, Quaeso, Quaesivi, 
 and Quaesii, to seek ; Uro, Usso, Ussi, to burn ; Premo, 
 Presso, Pressi, to press ; Rideo, 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 Roman 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 Rus, Jussurus. Hasreo, to adhere, appears to 
 make Haesi ; but the Present was no doubt originally written 
 Haeso ; for in the early Greek and Roman 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. "VVe 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 n 
 
370 
 
 CHAP. XXXIII. f v . 
 
 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 ; jyjd 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 OF THE SDEMITIC 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 Masclefs Samaritan Grammar, is the undou)>u-<l 
 prototype of the Greek Epsilon, and the Roman 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 efievos. (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 D 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 
 0, 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 losing its upper and lower 
 strokes, thus, the ancient Eta 0, modern H. 
 
 y. The common Syriac Vau 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 Yinum ; or, in other terms, represented the Con- 
 sonant power of Vau. 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 .ZEolic 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 <E>, 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 -ZEolic, or oldest Greek alphabet/ in the form of the 
 much disputed Digamma ; but we 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 OP GREEK AND LATIN. 373 
 
 Payne Knight says, BA2IAEF2, 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 
 Pho3nician 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. 
 
 vn. 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. 
 
 vin. 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 Sigaeau 
 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- 
 sente^l 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 E2TIN on the two Farnesian Columns, for o SCTTW, 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, E3, 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 Q, 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 breathings 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 (f.) for this simple aspirate 
 (H) does not seein 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 h 
 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 H 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 earthera 
 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 tan turn 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 
 
 mm 4 
 
376 VOWELS OF THE SHEMITIC LANGUAGES, 
 
 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 
 -|, 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 Graecia are seen HHPA, KHPAKAEH2 ; and so 
 hHPAKAEIAAS HSTIEm in an inscription discovered in 
 Calabria. Hence it appears that, by the Italian Greeks, j-, 
 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 ' ', 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 -SERENNI. If this character ^ 
 was the Roman H, what was j- ? (Tom. ii. p. 539.) 
 
 XL 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, a$ 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. 
 
376 VOWELS OF THE SHEMITIC LANGUAGES, 
 
 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 H an Oscan I, as well as 
 -|, 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 Graecia are seen HHPA, KHPAKAEH2 ; and so 
 HHPAKAEIAA2 HSTIEIil in an inscription discovered in 
 Calabria. Hence it appears that, by the Italian Greeks, K 
 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 ' ', 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 -3ERENNL If this character ^ 
 was the Roman H, what was j- ? (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 w r hole 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 lambick, 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 Kuyz ; 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, " 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 tliis 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. ). 
 
382 ON PROSODY. 
 
 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; tout 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. 
 
 vni. 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 Song 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 GRK DRAMA. 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, 1' Academic 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 ly the actors f n (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 dayj 
 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 Roman 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." 
 
 xii. 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. AVe 
 hear indeed of the Plirygian, 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, u 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 JEschylus, 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. 
 
 xiv. 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 entertainment 
 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 Tyrtaeus, to Archilochus, to Terpander, and 
 to Solon. Polymnestes, Melanippides, Cinephias, and above 
 
THE GREEK DRAMx. 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 corruptors, 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- 
 
 cc 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 was 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 muslo 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. 
 
 xvn. 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 Metu.-tasio. and 
 probably no man with poetical feelings would choose to com- 
 pete with the difficulties of modern Italian music. 
 
 xvni. 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 mus'u-. 
 If the latter had gained what the former ha? lost, there 
 
 c c 3 
 
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 was 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 GKEEK DRAMA. 389 
 
 model for the viceroys of all islands would probably hsivc di.~ 
 posed of tlu* mutter 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. 
 
 xvn. In the struggle between music and poetry there can 
 be little doubt as to which has been riding behind; fur in 
 spite of all that has been said of the humanizing etiects of the 
 former, noth.ng can exceed thu 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 mo>t 
 flexible language of Europe, and yet Italy has had no 
 writers of operas of any reputation since Metaetano, 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 ha- ]>*<. there 
 
 c c s 
 
390 ON PROSODY. 
 
 would have been less to regret ; but this 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 DRAMA. 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 music 
 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 'at 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 
 JEschylus, 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 api>ears to stand in need. 
 
 cc 4 
 
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 names 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 writing 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 ; ahd finally to 
 Herman de Metris, to ascertain why they are long or short. 
 
THE GREEK 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. 
 
 xxn. 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 TUE NATURE OF LANGUAGE, 
 
 BUT OF M nul that as none of tin- iniL-ic of the 
 
396 ON 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. 
 
 xxiu. 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 (TTOO-OTT/S-, quantitas). 
 
 2. A syllable is short when its vowel is single, or short 
 (a, t, v, s, o,) and has a single consonant or no consonant 
 following it : sXlirov, bOsv, 6 7ro\v^aros. 
 
 3. A syllable is long by nature when its vowel is double ; 
 i. e. either a long vowel (97, o>, a, I, ,) or a diphthong ; irolav 
 77 TCLVTCLV rj icdvdv arsl^oo. 
 
 4. It is long by position when it has a short vowel, but 
 followed by more than one consonant ; aak-Trl^, oyOos, 
 ~%dpo9. 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 1'IJo-oDV. 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 u- 
 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 R 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 7ro\\d \/(7<7o/ifW, trapd prjyfuvi. (Homer.) 
 
 Here we cannot but remark that if a mute followed by a 
 liquid cannot lengthen a short syllable, a single liquid, which 
 in Sanskrit is sometimes a vowel, ought not to possess that 
 power; and that if, under such circumstances a short vowel is 
 lengthened, it must be from causes altogether extraneous to 
 and independent of language. The works of Homer, and of 
 all the tragic, comic, and lyric poets were originally recited 
 with a musical accompaniment, and such syllables in Homer 
 were long because they coincided, or were sung with a 
 musical note which was long, and for no other reason. 
 Long musical notes were the foundation of long syllables, 
 and short musical notes of short ones. Prosody has its basis 
 in music, and not in language, or in anything in the nature 
 of language. All the early poetry of Greece was written 
 with a view to its being sung; and when any syllable, or 
 combination of letters, had frequently or generally been 
 employed with a long note, it came eventually to be regarded 
 as naturally long, and a short syllable the contrary ; but this 
 was entirely from the association of ideas, and from nothing 
 in the nature of language itself; and, accordingly, syllables 
 which are long in Homer are short in the dramatic writ i . 
 
398 ON PROSODY. 
 
 and vice versa. As we are profoundly ignorant of Greek 
 music, we have no musical associations with the syllables, 
 and long or short is to us merely matter of authority with 
 which the ear has nothing to do. 
 
 xxv. From Valpy let us cast a glance on. the admirable 
 grammar of Matthias, the latest and perhaps highest authority 
 for the Greek language in general, and see what he has to 
 say respecting its prosody. He begins by remarking that 
 we learn the quantity of syllables from the poets ; but that 
 every syllable was either long or short in ordinary pronun- 
 ciation by nature (<f>vaet)\ long also by position (Osa-st). That 
 we must learn the quantity of syllables from the poets, if 
 we wish to know them at all, there can be no doubt. If 
 there had been no poets, or if their poems had not been 
 sung to a musical accompaniment, I believe we should never 
 have heard anything about long and short syllables ; and that 
 consequently it is not true, that common conversation was 
 regulated by a regard to quantity among the Greeks and 
 Romans, more than among the rest of mankind. Like 
 ourselves, they were probably governed in their ordinary 
 pronunciation by accent solely ; but as none of the accentual 
 marks in Greek books are older than the eleventh or twelfth 
 century, they are of no authority whatever, and convey no 
 information as to what that pronunciation was. Matthias 
 proceeds to say, by nature rj and co are long ; s and o, short ; 
 a, i, v, in some words long, in others short, or have a 
 different measure in different dialects (and different poetical 
 compositions). All diphthongs are also long by nature, as 
 well as all contracted vowels (p. 51.) I believe the diffi- 
 culties and obscurities of prosody, if they did not originate 
 in, have at any rate been much augmented by, the intro- 
 duction of the two long vowels Eta and Omega ; and that, 
 if the Greek alphabet had been left in the same state, as to 
 its vowels, as we find the Roman, Greek prosody would have 
 presented no more difficulties than Latin. Musical time has 
 its foundation in nature ; but poetical time has its foundation 
 in music, and I doubt if it exists any where else. Let us 
 
ON PROSODY. 399 
 
 suppose one of the songs of Anacreon, the Irish Melodies of 
 antiquity, to have been set to a tune so popular that it was 
 in every mouth, and ground on every hand-organ, if the 
 Greeks had such machines. The score or musical notes 
 would naturally be handed about in all directions, and we 
 may be sure that the words would accompany them. When 
 thus brought into juxta position, it is at least probable that 
 the syllables which were sung long would be written long ; 
 and the syllables sung short would be written short ; so that, 
 if the Greeks had used our musical notation, and denoted a 
 
 long musical note by the mark p , a crotchet, and a short by 
 f , a quaver, the former must always have coincided with, 
 or been over ", the mark of a long syllable, and the latter 
 over ", the mark of a short one. But we know from 
 inscriptions that the Etruscans, Greeks, and Romans, to 
 express a long syllable wrote all the vowels twice, and if this 
 simple expedient had been uniformly and steadily carried 
 out in the poetical compositions of antiquity which have 
 descended to us, so far from there being any disputes about 
 prosody at present, there would probably have been no such 
 word in existence, as there would have been no such art to 
 be studied. We know, however, that all the classical books 
 existing in our libraries were printed from manuscripts of 
 the middle ages, centuries after the ancient mode of writing 
 Greek and Latin had been irrecoverably lost. Originally, 
 however, it is highly probable that this mode of writing the 
 vowels twice to express a long syllable was limited to 
 poetry, and that the practice did not affect the common 
 orthography, and that, although a long syllable, when con- 
 joined with musical notation or a tune, would be written 
 with two vowels to agree with the time or quantity of that 
 tune, it did not at all interfere with the manner of 
 spelling and writing the word for the ordinary purposes of 
 life. As our own pronunciation is regulated by accent and 
 not by quantity, we cannot be said to have any such thing 
 as long and short syllables in English, in the sense in which 
 the Greeks had them, and which I believe to have been their 
 
400 ON PROSODY. 
 
 musical quantity ; but if any one were to attempt to write 
 the first line of the popular song from the Bohemian Girl, 
 " I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls," in such a way as 
 to represent the musical time, it is obvious that he must 
 write the first syllable of marble with two a's, maarble ; and 
 our mode of writing would instantly assimilate itself to that 
 of the Greeks and Romans as described, but of which very 
 few specimens remain in existence. We have, however, 
 various species of verse, regulated by fixed and definite laws. 
 Our heroic verse, for instance, consists of ten syllables, and if 
 the words composing a line in that metre happen to contain 
 more, they must by elision, apostrophe, and the narrow 
 resources of the licentia poetica, as practised by English 
 poets, be reduced to that number. For example, our most 
 correct and harmonious versifier, in the very first word of 
 his incomparable translation of the Iliad, was under the 
 necessity of writing and pronouncing Achilles' in the genitive 
 case precisely as he pronounced it in the nominative in the 
 seventh line, 
 
 " Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring." 
 
 After two Epsilons, however, came to be denoted by the 
 single character Eta, and two Omicrons by the single cha- 
 racter Omega, it is probable that convenience caused this 
 mode of writing to be adopted in prose as well as in verse ; 
 and in the course of time words written in this way pre- 
 sented the singular anomaly of a syllable with a long writing 
 applied, or rather misapplied, by poetical necessity to denote 
 a short quantity ; thus directly falsifying the information, 
 it had been originally invented for the sole purpose of con- 
 veying. 
 
 xxvi. Valpy says, a long vowel or diphthong is generally 
 shortened at the end, and sometimes at the beginning of a 
 word before a vowel, as OLKW ev, Homer; Trotet, Sophocles; 
 77 c0oi SI/ASS, Theocritus ; and Matthiae, that long vowels and 
 diphthongs of every kind are shortened by the epic and 
 lyric writers, and by the tragedians in lyric 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. 
 Mat time 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 9 u,) but also 
 the E and O sounds (s and 17, o and o>), 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 letters," (p. 53.) 
 
 xxvii. 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 iu none do we meet with more than in prosody, whu-li, 
 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.) 
 
 xxvui. 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, (^co/cpdrr}?, A^OCT^Z/T;?, Kt/cepwv), 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 
 
 II.\uyX0i/ iirti Tpoiijs iip&v irroXitOpov tiripffiv. 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 e*persen ; whereas the verse requires 
 ptoliethron epdrsen. 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 (" " ) 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 JE.OLIC DIGAMMA. 
 
 " There shall thou hear and learn the secret power 
 Of harmony, in tones and numbers hit 
 By voice or hand ; and various-measured verse, 
 Mo\ian 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 JEolic Digamma. The dispute commences 
 in limine ; for some deny altogether that it was peculiar to the 
 JEolians ; 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 
 ^Eolic 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 ^OLIC DIGAMMA. 405 
 
 termination, it can only be accomplished in one mode, by 
 In a ring constantly in mhul 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. 
 
 ill. 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. 
 
 DOS 
 
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 inare. 
 
 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 Rush. 
 
 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. 
 
 IY. 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 ^Eolic, 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 Spelman, 
 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 line, as Felene, Fanax, Foicus, and 
 Faner, and many such words." (Spelman, vol. i. page 46.) 
 
HIE 1EOLIC DIGA1IMA. 407 
 
 v. Such is the account of the Digainma, ascribed to 
 Dionysius of Ilalicarnassus. 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 Ou 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 Horae Pelasgicae, 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 JEoles. habuit olim 
 F Digainma, id est Vau, ab ipsius voce profectum, teste 
 Varrone et Didymo, qui id ei nomen esse ostendunt," (page 
 104.) In the fragments of Varro the following short notice 
 of the subject occurs. " I lane literam (Digainma) Terentius 
 Varro dum vult demonstrare ita pnescribit Vav. Cassio- 
 
 D D 4 
 
408 ON INITIAL ASPIRATES. 
 
 dorus de Orthographia." (Varro de Lingua Latina, Bipont. 
 1788.) 
 
 vii. 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 Phrenician ; and 
 this circumstance may reasonably induce us, in the first in- 
 stance, to give a preference to the Phosnician 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. 
 
 if Form in Masclef's Samaritan Grammar. 
 *Form in Spelman's Dionysius of Halicarnassus, on the 
 authority of Montfaucon's Palasographia Graeca, from 
 the character in which however it differs a good deal. 
 *Form in Marsh's Hora3 Pelasgicae, page 106., which ia 
 
 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. 
 
HIE ^OLIC DIGAMMA. 409 
 
 of Varro, had called the name of Digamma, not Ou, nor 
 Ouau, but Vav; and, on opening Erpenius's Arabic Grmi- 
 raar, I find a letter by him written Waw, and by others Wau 
 and Vau, and in MasclePs Hebrew Grammar Ouau, by others 
 ^ lit ten Wav ; and in his Syriac Grammar Ouau, by others 
 written Vau. 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. 
 
 < Af. If we abstract the bow at the back of the letter 
 we shall have the Koman 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 V, 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 ASPIRATES. 
 
 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 Vida ; its power, in the 
 Hebrew, that of both B and V. In the Ethiopia alphabet, 
 the form of Bet is f|, and in the Estrangolo, or Old Syriac, I 
 find A as a form of Vau, 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 V, and we are in- 
 formed by Yarro that the lonians wrote Ber instead of Ver, 
 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 V 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, 
 
 ^ Wav, in Hebrew, without any point, is a consonant, V 
 orW. 
 
 i with Cholom above the letter, it is O. 
 
 i\ with Shooraik by the side of the letter it is OO, 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. 
 
 xn. The Greeks did not borrow their Omicron either 
 from the Phoenician, or the Hebrew alphabet, but from the 
 sixth letter of the Syriac, Vau o> and until the introduction 
 of Upsilon, which was probably borrowed from another form 
 of the Estrangolo or Old Syriac, Vau A, reverse'd y it 
 answered the purpose both of O and U. Marsh remarks, 
 
THE JEOLIC 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 Amy clean, 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 Omicron and Upsilon, 
 (Lanzi, tomo i. page 100.). According to Plutarch, the 
 Egyptian priests pronounced the name of Osiris, Uairis ; 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 antiquuin 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, 
 VandW. 
 
 Oinos, Ace. Oinon, wine. 
 
 Vinuin (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 
 Unmans in its consonant, character. 
 
 xiu. 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. 
 
 Aiwv Aion .Kvum. 
 
 *Aw Ao Aveo. 
 
 Biow Bioo Vivo. 
 
 B<5f Boes Boves. 
 
 Aibg Dios Divus. 
 
 Div, Persic. 
 
 Deva, Sanskrit. 
 
 Kao Cavo. 
 
 Laios Lsevus. 
 
 Leios Levis. 
 
 Macros Mavors. 
 
 'L'.M' 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 
 -ZEvum, Latin ; the same in Ao, Aveo. In Bioo the initial letter in Hebrew 
 is B or V; and the Omicron in Syriac is V; hence Vivo, Latin. In 
 Laios, Leios, and Macros, 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 Digamma has been supposed to account 
 most easily and naturally for the formation of such words as 
 the Latin Yer, 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 Yer ; the Romans (as in the instances before noticed 
 of Vinum from Oinos, and Vicus 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 lonians 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, ^Evum. 
 
 * In Anquetil du Perron's List of Pehlvi, or Ancient Persic words, it is 
 written Vahar, torn. iii. p. 457. 
 
THE ^EOLIC 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, 
 
 A5m>, FAEN, CAHIHN, OASIflN, 
 
 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 gays, 
 Gori remarks, that in the Latin tables of Gubbio the word 
 Erunt is written in three ways ERIHONT, EKAFONT, 
 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 
 Romans, 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. 
 
 Hay n h 1 . 
 
 , T J , , } in a natural position. 
 Heth n chj 
 
 3 in a perpendicular one. 
 
 xvii. 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 
 VlxBTlD 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 Vitelia. 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 Vitulus, a calf. 
 
 cf Sanskrit, Hv. 
 
 ^f Sanskrit H in Wilkins. 
 
 HF Digamma, Tacitus cura Brotier, v. torn. Londini, 1812, 
 (Valpy). 
 
 XVIII. 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, 
 
I HE -fiOLIC 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 
 D, is equally liable to be confounded with the Hebrew letter 
 Bayth 2, 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 Vau 
 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 ^Eolians, 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 II 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 Digaiiunn. 
 That word occurs in Herodotus, and in his Ionic Dialect is 
 written Istie with the spiritus asper, and would no doubt 
 
416 ON INITIAL 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 Vesta. 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 
 
 He, prefix. 
 
 Phas, fire. 
 
 Tos, ancient form of the Article, we have Hephaistos, 
 Vulcan, 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^/fawiwwzm," 
 says Ovid, in the sixth book of his Fasti. Here I must request 
 my reader particularly to remark that Vesta is merely the 
 Roman form of the Egyptian word, and that the V, 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 
 Vesta, which would probably have been precisely as we find 
 it, though no such language as the Greek bad 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 Vesta. 
 
 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 2EOLIC DIOAMMA. 417 
 
 + 
 
 liable to be confounded with the Roman F, or Digamma, 
 the Hebrew Hay and Ileth, 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 CEnotrians ; 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 (Enotria from the Egyptian, and Hitalia, or Italia, from 
 the Arabic name of Saturn. In vol. L 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. 
 
 xxn. 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 quse 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 TTJS 0/3/417?. Nam pot- 
 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 tc the following effect : " Ubi antiqui F 
 11 1 1 cram posuerunt , not 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 
 Ou, 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. 
 
 % form of He (H) in Masclefs 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 Digamma, 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 JEO1.1C 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 Dionysiua ; 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 Hone Pelasgicas, 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 JEolic 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 JEolians 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. 
 
 BBS 
 
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 ^Eolic and the other 
 dialects, was not occasioned by an insertion on the part of 
 the JEolians, but an omission on the part of the other Greeks, 
 (page 50.) 
 
 xxvii. 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 
 
'I HE .tOLIC DIGAMMA. 421 
 
 the ^olic Diganima, 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, '. 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- 
 gamuia 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.) 
 
 xxvill. After all our pains to ascertain the origin and power 
 of Digamma, the uncertainty attending its use is not u liitle 
 remarkable. Marsh says, at what period the Greek F began 
 to be omitted, or exchanged lor H, by the Dorian*, I on inns, 
 and Athenians, is a question which we have no data to dc- 
 
 E 3 
 
422 ON INITIAL ASPIRATES. 
 
 terinine, 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 lonians 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 
 JEolians could not have used FVIOZ, where the other 
 Greeks used HVIOZ (now written vios), 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 
 
I UK ACOLIC DIGAMMA. 423 
 
 we find H used as an aspirate. In the former, the characters 
 MS 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 Q 
 should certainly be read with the following word. 
 
 Qc/vi \; 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 > T V A Erchul, with Eta. Tomo iii. page 
 
 599. 
 
 DKVE Erkle, with Epsilon. Tomo ii. page 
 
 206. 
 
 E3DKV Herkle, with aspirate Phoenician Heth, 
 
 Tomo ii. page 206. 
 
 * QD<Y Herkle, with aspirate Phoenician Heth. 
 
 Tomo i. page 199. Precisely in 
 the same way as the Ilcnalia of the 
 Amyclean inscription. 
 In the oldest part of the Sigean in- 
 scription we read 
 
 HEP^OKPflTOZ, Hermokratos. The initial letter is the 
 first form of the Phoenician He, 
 given in Dutens's Medals. 
 But as this is a proper name, and the 
 Roman way of writing such a name, 
 to put the matter out of all doubt, 
 in the last word of the same in- 
 scription we read 
 
 HftAV$OI Hadelphoi, brothers, where it is im- 
 
 possible to misapprehend the nature 
 of the initial letter. 
 
 * Another form of Heth, and the oldest Greek Eu ; we Rose. 
 
 ) ! 
 
424 ON INITIAL ASPIRATES. 
 
 From a careful examination of all the materials within my 
 reach, and the best attention I can give to the subject, I have 
 not the slightest doubt that what is called Digamma, in nine- 
 teen cases out of twenty, perhaps in ninety-nine out of a 
 hundred, is merely some form of the letter H, in one of the 
 alphabets of Asia, which we know the ancient 'Greeks wrote, 
 and the later Greeks expressed in the two breathings de- 
 nominated asper and lenis. 
 
 xxx. The Digamma then (understanding by that term a 
 character with the power or sound of the Latin and English 
 F) will do so little towards rectifying the anomalies of the 
 versification of Homer, that it may be doubted if we are at 
 all indebted to Dionysius of Halicarnassus for giving us any 
 information about it, or to Bentley for reviving it after it 
 had been nearly consigned to oblivion; and we cannot but 
 feel the full force of the following observation of Dunbar, 
 " to ascertain the causes why vowels, originally short, and 
 supported only by single consonants, are uniformly long, 
 would likewise be of great utility." (page 9.) 
 
 xxxi. In the Chapter on the Siege of Troy, in another 
 work*, I have endeavoured to show that there are two 
 passages in the Odyssey which could not, by any possibility, 
 have been written until after the era of Polycrates, tyrant of 
 Samos, as they infer the existence of Cydon in Crete, a city 
 which Herodotus positively asserts was not built until after 
 his time. Unless we suppose interpolations so extensive as 
 to destroy altogether the historical character of the work, 
 these two passages are conclusive as to the age of the 
 Odyssey ; and whatever is decisive as regards that poem is 
 very nearly so with respect to the Iliad. I have further 
 pointed out coincidences between the two sieges of Troy, by 
 Hercules and Agamemnon, and the two sieges of Babylon by 
 Cyrus and Darius Hystaspes, so close and numerous as to 
 render it almost matter of certainty that the EPIC must have 
 
 * Not yet published, " Clavis Chronologica ; or an Account of the 
 various Chronological Systems of Mankind, and an Investigation of the 
 Principles on which they are founded." 
 
THE ^EOLIC DIGAMMA. 425 
 
 borrowed various circumstances from the HISTORY, which 
 reduces the completion of the Iliad and Odyssey, in their 
 present state, so low as the age of Pisistratus, by the common 
 consent of all antiquity the editor of Homer. Those poems 
 were, in substance, written at Athens, and by Athenians ; 
 that is, either by Pisistratus himself, or by an association of 
 men of poetical talents acting with and influenced by him. 
 The prevailing dialect in the Iliad an<J Odyssey, the Ionic, 
 which was really the oldest Attic, the compliments to Athens 
 in the body of the work, particularly that as to the superior 
 military skill of Menestheus, and the more strict discipline of 
 his troops, and, above all, the universal tradition of the inti- 
 mate connection between the present form of the works of 
 Homer and the superintending care of Pisistratus*, all point 
 irresistibly to this conclusion. 
 
 XXXIL This hypothesis is inimical, not merely to the Di- 
 gamma but to any other circumstance peculiarly and em- 
 phatically ^Eolic ; and it cannot be denied that it increases, 
 in a very considerable degree, the difficulties arising out of a 
 consideration of the anomalies of Homer's Versification ; for 
 it may reasonably be demanded, if we bring down the com- 
 pletion of the Iliad and Odyssey almost to the age of Pindar 
 and -/Eschylus, why do we meet with more irregularities of 
 metre in Homer than in those distinguished authors? I 
 can suggest only one answer, that the basis of the Iliad and 
 Odyssey consisted of the works of the Khapsodists, or 
 Itinerant bards, which had been transmitted orally, and 
 never committed to writing until they were so by Pisis- 
 tratus, or the Greek Varius's and Tuccas who assisted him 
 and acted under his direction ; that the great body of that 
 poetry had been sung or recited to the accompaniment of a 
 lyre ; that there must, therefore, have been an agreement 
 
 * "Nunc vero nihil opus est conjectures capere. Historia loquitur. 
 Nam TOX totius antiquitatis, et si summam spectes consentiens fama tes- 
 tatur, Pisittratum Carolina Homeri primum consigruuse /item, et in cum 
 ordinem redigisxe quo nunc leguntur. Hoc posterius Cicero, Pausaaias, 
 et reliqui omnes qui mentionem rei fariunt, iisdem prope vcrbis, et ut 
 vulgo notusimum, pcrhibvtit." (Wolfii Prolegomena ad llonicrum, c. 33.) 
 
426 ON INITIAL ASPIRATES. 
 
 between the time of the poetry and the music ; that in the 
 early ages the Licentia Poetica extended to the lengthening 
 or shortening any syllable of whatever vowels composed, to 
 make it agree with the musical note with which it was re- 
 cited ; and that in this way the anomalies of metre appeared 
 to be so great, in a polished and learned age, that to reform 
 them altogether would have required large portions of the 
 Iliad and Odyssey to be re- written, a degree of labour from 
 which Pisistratus and his assistants shrank ; and that, there- 
 fore, there are numerous lines in Homer incapable of being 
 reduced to regular Hexameters by any known laws of 
 prosody, as there are passages in our own Chaucer, in which 
 the nicest ear cannot discover any approximation to harmony, 
 or even to any intelligible system of metre. 
 
 xxxiii. A point, however, of much more importance than 
 Digamma, in the present advanced state of knowledge, is a 
 consideration of the propriety and expediency of returning 
 to some intelligible mode of writing Greek and Latin, by 
 means of which the quantity of every syllable may be ren- 
 dered obvious at a glance, without the necessity of referring 
 to a Thesaurus or a Gradus ; I say of returning, as there can 
 be no doubt that such a mode of writing existed among the 
 Greeks and Romans, and that we have deviated from it. 
 
 1. That this was the case, even if we had no positive 
 evidence on the subject, might be inferred from the analogy 
 of many of the Asiatic languages, particularly the Sanskrit, 
 the most polished and elaborate of them all, in which we find 
 two distinct sets of vowels, long and short, and in which, 
 consequently, there is in no instance any more doubt about 
 the quantity of a syllable than about the letters of which it 
 is composed. We are informed by Sir William Jones that 
 the prosody of the Persic and Arabic languages is little more 
 difficult, though their system of writing is not so perfect as 
 the Sanskrit. But we want no assurances on the subject, 
 as the mere fact that the grammars of those languages do 
 not contain even a chapter on prosody is quite sufficient. 
 When the Asiatics have acquired their alphabet they have 
 
THE AX>LJC DIGAMMA. -IL'7 
 
 learnt their prosody at the same time ; while to an European, 
 and especially an English classical scholar, the latter forms 
 the great business of life. 
 
 2. In the Greek language at least we observe an approxi- 
 mation to the Sanskrit ; as of their five vowels two are double, 
 short and long, Omicron and Omega, and Epsilon and Eta ; 
 and of the remaining three the names of two render it a 
 matter of certainty that they were always short, and conse- 
 quently, that to express a long syllable they must either have 
 been actually written twice, or been accompanied by some 
 mark to denote that the letter was doubled in reading, and 
 therefore the time or quantity twice as long. 
 
 Alpha, etymology Alpa, Sanskrit, little, single, or short. 
 
 Epsilon, etymology, the Greek epithet Psilon, single, ap- 
 pended to the letter. 
 
 As Omicron and Upsilon were primarily precisely the 
 same letter, the former being the common Syriac Vau o, and 
 the latter the Estrangolo, or old Syriac Vau A, Omega was 
 the long vowel of both, leaving Alpha and Iota the only 
 doubtful vowels, which, when long, were probably written 
 twice. Ovid informs us that Orion, which is written with 
 Omega, was pronounced Urion. 
 
 3. Putting probabilities out of the question, we can show 
 from existing inscriptions, Greek, Etruscan, and Latin, that 
 the short vowels were actually written twice to express a 
 long syllable. In the Amyclean, the only remaining inscrip- 
 tion which exhibits the Greek alphabet as consisting of six- 
 teen letters, we have the following remarkable readings : 
 
 1. Mareep for Manjp. 
 
 2. Uareep for Harrjp. 
 
 3. Mevefwovos for Mve/Luwvos. 
 
 With respect to the Etruscans, Lanzi, after observing that 
 a double vowel indicates a long syllable, produces the fol- 
 lowing inscriptions, which must be read from right to left: 
 
 I H A A PI Paapi, or Papius, from a Samnite medal ; tomo i. 
 p. 245. 
 
 Paakul, or Pacidus, from an Oscan stone, 
 tomo i. p. 245. 
 
428 ON INITIAL ASPIHATES. 
 
 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 (torno i. p. 120.) 
 
 VAALA 
 
 FEELIX for Felix. ^ 
 
 EII for Ei, in Plautus. 
 
 JWS 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 duplicem 
 perssepe positam videmus, ut Paastores, Faato, quae omnia non nisi torn 
 dilationem quandam significare videntur Faato Naatam." (p. 446.) 
 
THE JEOLIC DIGAMMA. 429 
 
 some apparent anomalies in Greek Inscriptions. In Dutens's 
 medals I find Omega written thus Q, 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 H, 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, Iota, 
 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, primd 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- 
 saurqs, 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 
 
TFIE -KOLIC DIGAMMA. 431 
 
 tin-, 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^ 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 : 
 
 SFOTTISWOODE and SHAW, 
 New-street- Square.