cides remarkably with the common prototype. Varttita, er werde (he shall be), vetsi, vetti-du weisst, er weiss (thou shalt know, he will know); Schrityati, er schreitet, (in Latin, scribit) (writes); Shlissyati, er um-schliesset (he encloses); Vindati, er findet (he finds); Mishrati, er mischt (miscit) (he mixes).

We will not fatigue our reader's patience by a longer citation of such resemblances. If he is desirous of information on this subject, and has any scruples to satisfy, we confidently refer him to Mr. Townsend's work, where he will find copious vocabularies and much curious matter. In fact, the volume is very nearly filled with a comparison of the languages of this family. We shall now return to Mr. Adelung, and consider his remarks on the history of the nations whose vocabularies we have investigated.

The nearest relatives of the Sanscrit are two languages which, like it, have been for many ages confined to the use of sacerdotal orders From eighteen to twenty centuries have elapsed since the Zend and the Bali were living dialects: both of them coincide very nearly with the Sanscrit in their vocables, and are formed from the roots of that language according to the regular laws of elision and contraction. This fact was pointed out by Sir W. Jones, and has been confirmed by Dr. Leyden.

The Bali is the language of the Talapoins, or priests of the Buddha, who were persecuted and banished from Hindustan about the commencement of the Christian era. Their religion has been by some supposed, upon grounds by no means satisfactory, to be more ancient than that of the Brahmans. It is one of the numerous heresies, or deviations from the doctrine of the Vedas, which have sprung up in the fertile soil of Hindu superstition. The priests in emigrating carried with them their sacred books, which they still preserve in the original language, and contrived to establish their hierarchy in Tibet, whence they have extended their creed among the northern Mongoles as far as the Caspian, through the Chinese empire, the eastern peninsula of India, and the islands of Japan and Ceylon. It is the religion of the Grand Lama, of Fo, of Amida, and Sommona Codom, the three last of which are different names of their supreme saint.

The Zend is preserved in the Zendavesta, the ancient writings of the Persian Magi, for the knowledge of which we are indebted to the zeal and perseverance of M. Anquétil du Perron, who undertook a voyage to the East in quest of them. It is much to be regretted that in consequence of some petulant language, characteristic of his nation, he incurred the resentment of Sir W. Jones, and that the latter was prejudiced against him and scarcely sensible of his just merit. The great authority of Jones threw a temporary shade over the fame of M. du Perron; but it is now generally allowed by those who are competent to

form an opinion on the subject, that he has really collected ancient writings which have been preserved by the priests of fire, under various persecutions and calamities, from the period when their rites were celebrated with splendour in the capitals of Susa and Persepolis. The Parsees, both in Surat and on the mountains of Kirman, as far as we can trace them in writing, have professed to regard these works as the authentic documents of their rites and the rule of their faith. It is mentioned by Ebn Haukal, an Arab geographer, who lived at the early part of the tenth century, and whose narrative Sir W. Ousely has translated, that in his time there were many Guébres in Persia, who practised their worship in fire temples, and possessed the ancient sacerdotal books of their sect; and there is no period in history in which we can with any probability suppose their works to have been forged, particularly when we consider that the idiom in which they are written was extinct long before the Christian era. The discovery that this idiom closely resembles the language of the Vedas in our opinion sets at rest the question as to the authenticity of the Zendavesta as a relic of the ancient Magi. That it was composed by Zoroaster in the time of Darius Hystaspes is only a probable supposition.

It is not easy to determine in what province of Persia the Zend was the popular language. We can see no degree of probability in the conjecture of Du Perron that it was in Northern Media, and we find no reason to reject the opinion of Sir W. Jones, that the Zend was the language of Farsist'han, and the parent of the Parsee, which was the dialect of that province and the ancient language of Persia before the Mohammedan conquest. If, as it has been supposed on apparently good grounds, the character of the Persepolitan inscriptions is allied to the Deva Nagari, and the words at least in part Zendish, this idea is strongly confirmed.

The Pahlavi is another ancient language of Persia, in which the commentaries in the Zendish books were composed at a time when that idiom had become nearly extinct, or was falling from some cause into disuse. The Pahlavi contains a great proportion of words derived from the Chaldee. It was the vernacular dialect of Parthia, and the era of its establishment in Persia was probably that of the Parthian monarchy. Mr. Adelung, in order to defend the conjecture of Sir W. Jones, who supposed the Pahlavi to have been the idiom used at the court of Darius and Artaxerxes, attempts to identify the Parthian race with the Medo-Persian dynasty, contrary to all the testimony of ancient history. The Caianian princes are mentioned by Khondemir and the author of the Sháh Námeh as the genuine succes sors of the old Persian kings, who held their residence at Ist

akhar or Persepolis, and of whom Jemshid was one. Cyrus was of this family, who are called by the Greeks the Achæmenidæ, and he is said to have restored the splendour of the ancient dynasty of native princes, after it had suffered a temporary eclipse under the successes of the Medes or followers of Afrasiab. The successors of Cyrus cannot therefore be considered as a foreign race. Besides, it was during the reign of one of them, viz. Darius Hystaspes, that the Zendavesta is reported to have been composed.

Zend therefore was the language of the noble Persians at the time when their monarchy extended over Asia; and the Pahlavi was probably introduced by the Parthians, who drove the Seleucidæ out of the eastern conquests of Alexander. When the Parthian empire was destroyed, and the native line of princes restored, or at least a Persian race seated on the throne, the dialect of Farsist'han or the Parsee became the court language of Iran.

Under the government of the Sassanidæ, and especially in the reign of Anushirvan, the golden age of Persia, this idiom was cultivated, and many works are said to have been composed in it. Some refer to this period the origin of the Zendavesta, and pretend that it was forged by the priests of fire after the reestablishment of their rites. But the idiom in which it is written had been at that time a dead language for many ages. The Pazend itself, which is a commentary on the text, composed at a period when the Zend had fallen into disuse, is in the Pahlavi or Parthian. This circumstance renders the fact of such a forgery extremely improbable. All the flowers of Persian lite rature, which had bloomed under the fostering care of the Sassanidæ, were consumed by the religious fury of the Mohammedan conquerors; at least nothing remains to our day. It is said, however, that certain relics were extant in the time of the poet Firdausi, and the historian Khondemir. This is indeed possible; but the compositions of those writers partake so much of Arabian imagery and of that peculiar style of fiction to which the eastern people have been so much devoted since their taste was corrupted by a fantastical superstition, that we cannot help suspecting the greater part of their productions to be frauds of the Mohammedans.

The modern Persic, as is universally known, is a mixture of the Parsee with Arabic.

The next offspring of the Indian family has held a still more conspicuous place in the history of literature and human society than the preceding; this is the Pelasgian stem, from which are descended the Greeks and Romans, and the modern nations in the south of Europe who speak dialects of the Latin. Our

author has given good reasons for including the Thracians in the same stock, as well as the numerous population of Asia Minor, and all the European tribes who appear to have been allied on the one hand to the Getæ and on the other to the Pelasgi. The Lydians, Lycians, Phrygians, &c. are connected by many historical facts with the lineage of the Greeks and Thracians. The authority of Strabo is a far better reason for classing the Cimmerii with the Thracians and Getæ, than the mere resemblance of a name can afford for identifying this nation with the Cimbri in Denmark, or the Cambro-Britons in Wales. Yet many modern writers, among whom is even Mr. Townsend, talk of the Cimmerii in Britain, as if the name were synonymous with Welsh.

The Tauri, whose celebrated rites in honour of Diana, or of some unknown goddess to whom the Greeks gave that name, form the foundation of the romantic drama of Iphigenia, were probably a remnant of the Cimmerian stock. We learn from Herodotus that they were a distinct nation from the Scythians, remaining within the old Cimmerian confines.

With respect to the Getæ and their relation to the Goths, our author adopts the opinion of M. d'Anville. All the ancients supposed the barbarians who invaded the Roman empire in the reign of Decius, and who afterwards conquered it, to have been the same people over whom the legions of Trajan had triumphed, and who had been known from early antiquity under the name of Getæ. We are certain, however, that the Getæ were Thracians. On the other hand, we know that the language of the Goths was a German dialect. This appears from the translation of the Bible into the Moso-Gothic by the bishop Ulphilas. The manners also of the Geta distinguish them from the Germans: they lived in wagons aud roamed about like their neighbours the Scythians. From these facts the learned Cluverius thought himself authorised to depart from the unanimous opinion of antiquity, and to announce the Goths as a new people. He supposes that they descended from the shores of the Baltic, and, entering the empire through the Getic country, were mistaken by the Romans for their ancient enemies. D'Anville and Grotius followed Cluverius, and Mr. Adelung joins himself to their party. We have no room to enter into the discussion of this question; but shall merely observe, that the German dialects, and particularly the Meso-Gothic, are found to bear a strong affinity to the Pelasgian, as Dr. Jamieson, in his "Hermes Scythicus," and Mr. Townsend in the volume which lies before us, have sufficiently proved. This fact, of which Mr. Adelung was aware, puts the question with respect to the Getæ in a very different light from that in which it appeared to the excellent geographer

who first started it. Some efforts had been made long ago to find German interpretations for the Getic words accidentally preserved in the old writers. Gebeleizin, the name of the Getic deity, was derived from "Gif all easen," &c.; but these attempts were too ridiculous to attract notice, though the opinion which gave rise to them was well founded.

Adelung derives the Illyrians, the supposed ancestors of the Albanians, from the Thraco-Pelasgians, and refers to a work of Thunmann, entitled "Geschichte der östlichen Europäischen völker." As far as we know, this work has never been imported into England; but we are at a loss to conjecture what proofs can be found to identify the modern Albanians with the Grecian race. Our author is aware of this difficulty, and conjectures that these barbarians are not the Aborigines of Illyrium, but the remnant of some of the hordes who made their way into Europe during the declining ages of the Byzantine empire. The Alani, a nation of Caucasus, who were perhaps the Albanians of the Caspian shores, may possibly have left relics of their once formidable name in the coasts of the Adriatic. At the era of the Turkish conquest many of the Albanians emigrated, and still preserve their language in their hamlets in Calabria and Sicily.

The origin of the Pelasgi, and their relation to the Hellenes or Greeks, properly so called, has been a fertile subject of conjecture and dispute. Fourmont deduced the Pelasgi from Peleg, and identified them with the Philistines. D'Ancarville insisted on deriving them from the Titans. Larcher, who should have been better informed, makes them Phoenicians, and Pellouter forces them into the ranks of his favourite Celts. Our author adopts the only opinion which carries with it a shadow of probability: he considers the Pelasgi and Hellenes as one race. The passages from which this inference must be drawn occur so frequently in the writings of the Greek historians, that it is surprising they have been so often overlooked. We are told repeatedly by the Greeks, that the first inhabitants of the Peloponnesus were Pelasgi; and that when the Dorians introduced the Hellenic name into that country, the Arcadians, who defended themselves in their mountainous territory, and continued to boast that they were older than the moon, were still called Pelasgi. Yet we know that the Arcadian language was Greek, though a rude and unpolished dialect; and nobody will pretend that the Spartans and Argives, who fought under the Atridæ, were not Greeks, though it is certain that they were Pelasgians, The name of Hellenes belonged at first, as Thucydides informs us, to a kind of feudal association among the Thessalian princes, under Hellen son of Deucalion, and was extended over the Peloponnesus by the conquest of the Dorians.