various strata, but I have so chosen the colours, as to indicate their structure and relationship. As I believe that the Greeks and Celts-like the Teutones and Cimbri of history-were scions ultimately of the same stock, I have represented them by cognate colours-red and pink; and then, taking yellow to mark the Sclavonians and blue to indicate the Gothic tribes, the fusion of these races in the Lithuanian or Latin is shown to the eye by a stratum of green, which is a mixture of blue and yellow. The former edition of this book, though complete with reference to its immediate object, was merely a review of existing knowledge, extended by suggestions and materials for further researches. The present republication endeavours to fill up the outline, which was thus presented. It will be found, therefore, that there is much more of enlargement than of alteration in the book as it now appears. Scarcely any chapter is without considerable and important additions, and I have thought it right to insert four new chapters, containing a full discussion of some subjects, which received only an incidental notice in the former edition. In fact, I have not intentionally omitted an examination of any important or difficult question connected with the ethnography of ancient Italy, or with the higher departments of Latin etymology and grammar1. With regard to the great 1 In regard to all discussions in the present Volume, which bear immediately on the practical study of the Latin language, I should wish this. work to be considered as a sequel to the Latin Grammar and Exercises which were published a few months since. Teachers will, I hope, find that I have fully explained and justified my departure from the traditionary, and, as it appears to me, erroneous method so long pursued in our classical schools. philological problem,-the origin of the Etruscans and the nature of their language,-I think that I have so far extended and confirmed the theory, which I laid before the British Association in 1851, that it may now claim formal recognition as a discovery resting firmly on inductive evidence. In reprinting this volume, I have felt much distrust of my ability to do all that I wished with the book; but I have no want of confidence in the soundness of the principles, which support it, or in the certainty of the results, to which it leads; and I believe that, whatever may be its defects, this work will contribute, in some degree, to facilitate and promote an important branch of those studies, to which I have devoted the best years of my life. J. W. D. BURY ST. EDMUND's, PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. N° O person who is conversant with the subject will venture to assert that Latin scholarship is at present flourishing in England'. On the contrary, it must be admitted that, while we have lost that practical familiarity with the Latin language, which was possessed some forty years ago by every Englishman with any pretensions to scholarship, we have not supplied the deficiency by making ourselves acquainted with the results of modern philology, so far as they have been brought to bear upon the language and literature of ancient Rome. The same impulse, which has increased and extended our knowledge of Greek, has checked and impoverished our Latinity. The discovery that the Greek is, after all, an easier language than the Latin, and that it may be learned without the aid of its sister idiom, while it has certainly enabled many to penetrate into the arcana of Greek criticism who must otherwise have stopt at the threshold, has at the same time prevented many from facing the difficulties which surround the less attractive literature of Rome, and, by removing one reason for learning Latin, has induced the student to overlook the other and higher considerations which must always confer upon this language its value, its importance, and its dignity. A return to the Latin scholarship of our ancestors can only be effected by a revival of certain old-fashioned methods and usages, which have been abandoned, perhaps more hastily than wisely, in favour of new habits and new 1 See the Postscript at the end of this Preface. theories. No arguments can make it fashionable for scholars to clothe their thoughts in a classic garb : example will do more than precept; and when some English philologer of sufficient authority shall acquire and exert the faculty of writing Latin with terse and simple elegance, he will not want imitators and followers. With regard, however, to our ignorance of modern Latin philology, it must be owned that our younger students have at least one excuse-namely, that they have no manual of instruction; no means of learning what has been done and is still doing in the higher departments of Italian philology; and if we may judge from the want of information on these subjects which is so frequently conspicuous in the works of our learned authors, our literary travellers, and our classical commentators, this deficiency is deeply rooted, and has been long and sensibly felt. Even those among us who have access to the stores of German literature, would seek in vain for a single book which might serve as the groundwork of their studies in this department. The most comprehensive Roman histories, and the most claborate Latin grammars, do not satisfy the curiosity of the inquisitive student; and though there is already before the world a great mass of materials, these are scattered through the voluminous works of German and Italian scholars, and are, therefore, of little use to him who is not prepared to select for himself what is really valuable, and to throw aside the crude speculations and vague conjectures by which such researches are too often encumbered and deformed. These considerations, and the advice of some friends, who have supposed that I might not be unprepared for such an office, have induced me to undertake the work which is now presented to the English student. How far I have accomplished my design must be left to the judg ment of others. It has been my wish to produce, within as short a compass as possible, a complete and systematic treatise on the origin of the Romans, and the structure and affinities of their language,-a work which, while it might be practically useful to the intelligent and educated traveller in Italy, no less than to the reader of Niebuhr and Arnold, might at the same time furnish a few specimens and samples of those deeper researches, the full prosecution of which is reserved for a chosen few. The most cursory inspection of the table of contents will show what is the plan of the book, and what information it professes to give. Most earnestly do I hope that it may contribute in some degree to awaken among my countrymen a more thoughtful and manly spirit of Latin philology. In proportion as it effects this object, I shall feel myself excused in having thus ventured to commit to a distant press a work necessarily composed amid the distractions and interruptions of a laborious and engrossing profession. J. W. D. THE SCHOOL HALL, BURY ST. EDMUND'S, 25th March, 1844. |