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From want of

extended sense than exactly belongs to it. some general title, Fr. Schlegel has named his treatise, which is one of the earliest works in this department of Palætiology, An Essay on the Language and Philosophy of the Hindoos;' which he has divided into three books, on Language, Religion, and Polity. My object in the present Work is to perform for Italy and the West, the same kind of task which he has executed for India and the East; and to induce others to enter upon the same path. May Palætiology, on the higher theme of Man, obtain as numerous and scientific inquirers as she already possesses on the subject of the earth!

CHAPTER II.

PROGRESS OF PHILOLOGY: SANSKRIT, ZEND, PERSIAN: MEDO-EUROPEAN AND PERSO-EUROPEAN IDIOMS.

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FOR an insight into the nature of language itself, and into the earliest migrations of one great family of the human race, no monument has been left us from antiquity more instructive than the remains of the Sanskrit tongue. It has been well said, that "India, formerly the home and birth-place' of all sorts of prodigies, contains nothing at the present day half so marvellous, or calculated to strike an enlightened inquirer with so much surprise and admiration, as the sacred idiom, to which the guardianship of all its treasures, of religion, science, and literature, has been in great measure confided1." The word Sanskrit refers, not to the locality, but to the character of the language, and would be best translated into English by the term classical. It is derived from the Sanskrit sam, cum,' and krita, 'facta' (kritas, krita, kritam, from the verbal root kri or kar, 'to make'), and signifies confecta, perfecta.

1 Edinburgh Review, vol. li. p. 546.

Besides its own intrinsic worth, Sanskrit has enabled us rightly to estimate and advantageously to use the materials we already possessed. The Gothic tongue is the most important among the numerous class of German idioms, and holds the same high place among its kindred dialects, as Sanskrit among the Indo-European. The Gothic gospels of Ulphilas have been well known for more than a century; and it was solely in consequence of the low state of criticism during that period, that they failed to reveal the degree of affinity that exists between all the German and the two classic languages. The other great division of idioms, the Sclavonian, has only lately been cultivated for philological purposes: their close affinity with Latin decidedly proves the kindred origin of the Sclavonian and Italian tribes, and decides the question that Latin is not a dialect of Greek, but even ranks higher than its rival in the scale of European antiquity.

:

Every relic of every dialect is now sought out with the greatest care, and the collected materials are arranged and investigated with scientific precision. This favourable result is entirely due to the discovery of Sanskrit its palpable resemblance to Latin and Greek, together with its great remoteness from all European interests, afforded striking matter for wonder; and the impulse was kept up and regulated by the opportuneness of the discovery, at a time when philology was rising to its place among the sciences.

Philologists, however, will readily acknowledge the merits of the Danish scholar and traveller, Rask. In his prize essay on the Thracian class of languages, written in the year 1814, he had begun successfully, even without the aid of Sanskrit, to investigate on rational grounds the

affinity of Scandinavian and Gothic on one hand, and of Sclavonian and Lithuanian on the other, with the two classic languages. "His omission of the Sanskrit, which was little known at that time, cannot," says Bopp, "be made a ground of reproach; but his dispensing with it is so much the more to be regretted, as we plainly see that he was in a condition to have made a spirited use of it; as it is, he arrives only half-way at the real truth. We owe to that early work the first intimation of a regular interchange of letters in different languages, which Grimm afterwards so admirably developed in his simple law. His later work, which was written in the year 1826, in illustration of Zend, and which affords us the earliest scientific information on that language, must be held in high honour as a first attempt; it shews clearly that Zend is not a mere dialect of Sanskrit, but is related to it as Latin is to Greek, or Scandinavian to Gothic" ".

Writers acquainted with the eastern dialects inform us, that the languages in the north of India, the Hindostanee, Bengalee, &c., consist almost entirely of Sanskrit, either in a pure or corrupt state, but shorn of all its profusion of grammatical inflexions, and reduced, like most modern idioms, to the necessity of supplying their place with auxiliary verbs and separate particles. The languages more to the south, the Teluga, Tamul, Canarese, &c., are of a different origin from Sanskrit: according to Rask, they belong rather to the Tatar and Finnish dialects of middle and northern Asia. He supposes that a great Scythian race once extended continuously from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean; that this line of settlements was broken through by Sanskrit tribes from Iran, who pos

2 Vergleichende Grammatik, Vorrede.

sessed themselves of Hindostan and the Deccan, and drove the former inhabitants towards the southern point of the peninsula3. It was also the opinion of Sir W. Jones, that Sanskrit was native to Iran, and was introduced by conquerors upon the original language of Hindostan. The influence of Sanskrit, however, was not limited to India; it extended still farther eastward to the borders of China, and spread over the islands in the south. "One original language seems, in a very remote period, to have pervaded the whole Archipelago, and to have spread towards Madagascar on the one side, and to the islands in the South Sea on the other; but in the proportion that we find any of these tribes more highly advanced in the arts of civilized life than the others, in nearly the same proportion do we find the language enriched by a corresponding accession of Sanskrit terms, directing us at once to the source whence civilization flowed towards these regions*."

From these eastern parts I turn to consider the relations of Sanskrit to the families of the West. It is now well known that numerous Sanskrit words are found in all languages, from India to England and Iceland. This interesting discovery is primarily due to the investigations of Mr. Halhed, who, about the year 1778, "first opened the inestimable mine of Sanskrit literature," by a comparison with Latin and Greek. Sir W. Jones soon after confirmed and added to Mr. Halhed's observations. He says, "The Sanskrit language is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of

3 Uber die Zend sprache, p. 6.

4 Raffles' History of Java, vol. i. p. 368.