Italians, the descendants of the ancient Lombards and Romans, express this and all other similar relations. And, in this manner, prepositions seem to have been introduced in the room of the ancient declensions. The same alteration has been produced upon the Greek language, since the taking of Constantinople by the Turks.

"A similar expedient enables men, in the situation above-mentioned, to get rid of almost the whole intricacy of their conjugations. There is in every language a verb, known by the name of the substantive verb; in Latin, sum; in English, I am. This verb denotes not the existence of any particular event, but existence in general. It is, upon this account, the most abstract and metaphysical of all verbs; and, consequently, could by no means be a word of early invention. When it came to be invented, however, as it had all the tenses and moods of any other verb, by being joined with the passive participle, it was capable of supplying the place of the whole passive voice, and of rendering this part of their conjugations as simple and uniform as the use of prepositions had rendered their declensions. A Lombard, who wanted to say, I am loved, but could not recollect the word amor, naturally endeavoured to supply his ignorance by saying, ego sum amatus. Io sono amato, is at this day the Italian expression, which corresponds to the English phrase above-mentioned.

"There is another verb, which, in the same manner, runs through all languages, and which is distinguished by the name of the possessive verb; in Latin habeo in English, I have. This verb, likewise, denotes an event of an extremely abstract and metaphysical nature; and, consequently, cannot be supposed to have been a word of the earliest invention. When it came to be invented, however, by being applied to the passive participle, it was capable of supplying a great part of the active voice, as the substantive verb had supplied the whole of the passive. A Lombard, who wanted to say, I had loved, but could not recollect the word amaveram, would endeavour to supply the place of it, by saying either ego habebam amatum, or ego habui amatum. Io aveva amato, or Io ebbi amato, are the correspondent

Italian expressions at this day. And thus, upon the intermixture of different nations with one another, the conjugations, by means of different auxiliary verbs, were made to approach towards the simplicity and uniformity of the declensions.

“In general, it may be laid down for a maxim, that the more simple any language is in its composition, the more complex it must be in its declensions and conjugations; and, on the contrary, the more simple it is in its declensions and conjugations, the more complex it must be in its composition."

This general observation Mr. Smith confirms by particular instances, for which I must refer to his dissertation.

The circumstances pointed out by Mr. Smith as discriminating the Greek and Latin languages from the French, the Italian, and the English, have given rise to some remarkable differences between the genius of ancient and modern tongues, considered both as materials for agreeable composition, and as instruments of Philosophical communication. I shall touch on one or two of these characteristical differences as briefly as possible.

1. In consequence of the inflections of nouns and verbs which supersede the use of prepositions and of auxiliary verbs, the ancient languages possessed a great advantage over the modern, in point of conciseness. The words, Dei and Deo, for example, expressed, each of them, what in English must be translated by two words, of God, to God. The difference is still greater with respect to conjugations. What a Roman expressed by the single word amavissem, an Englishman is obliged to express by four words, I should have loved. It is in a great measure owing to this, that in epitaphs and other inscriptions, where the shortness of the work requires the most finished elegance, the use of the modern languages is almost intolerable to those who are acquainted with the beauties of which the ancient tongues are susceptible in consequence of the rejection of every thing superfluous and cumbersome.

Dr. Campbell has illustrated this advantage, which

the ancient tongues possessed over the modern in point of conciseness, by the difficulty of translating any of the common Latin mottos (or what the French call devises) into a modern language, without destroying completely their spirit and vivacity. In the motto, for example, Non mille quod absens, how spiritless is the English translation, "A thousand cannot equal one that is absent." Another instance mentioned by Campbell, is that of a rock in the midst of a tempestuous sea; to denote a hero, who, with facility, baffles all the assaults of his enemies; the motto Conantia frangere frangit; in English, "I break the things which attempt to break me.' All European languages labor under the same inconveniences.

2. The structure of the ancient languages allowed a latitude in the arrangement of words, of which modern languages do not admit. The structure of the latter ties us down to one invariable arrangement, or, at least, confines our choice within very narrow limits. In the Greek and Latin, though the adjective and substantive were separated from one another, the correspondence of their terminations still showed their mutual reference; and the separation did not occasion any confusion in the sense. Thus, in the first line of Virgil,

"Tityre, tu patulæ recubans sub tegmine fagi,”

we easily see, that tu refers to recubans, and patula to fagi, because the terminations determine their mutual reference. But if we were to translate this line literally into English "Tityrus, thou of spreading reclining under the shade beech," it would be perfectly unintelligible, because there is here no difference of termination to indicate to what substantive each adjective belongs. The case is the same with the verbs. In Latin, the verb may often be placed without any ambiguity in any part of the sentence. But, in English, its place is almost

"In this example," says Campbell, "we are obliged to change the person of the verb, that the words may be equally applicable, both in the literal sense and in the figurative, an essential point in this exercise of ingenuity. The personal pronoun in our language must always be expressed before the verb. Now the neuter will not apply to the hero, nor the masculine He to the rock; whereas the first person applies equally to both."-Philosophy of Rhetoric, Vol II. p. 411. Note.

always precisely determined. It must follow the subjective, and precede the objective member of the phrase in almost all cases. Of this, no better illustration can be produced than the following passage from Milton, quoted by Mr. Smith, in which the poet has pushed the inversion and transposition of words so far beyond the genius of our language, as to render his meaning, if not altogether unintelligible, at least extremely obscure to those who are not acquainted with the lines in Horace, of which it is a translation:

"Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold,
Who always vacant, always amiable

Hopes thee, of flattering gales

Unmindful." ""*

In the Latin, all this is abundantly plain :

"Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aureâ ;

Qui

semper vacuam, semper amabilem
Sperat; nescius auræ

Fallacis."

These remarks of Mr. Smith are important, and, at the time of their publication, they had, at least, in this country, all the merit of novelty; but they do not exhaust the subject, and, therefore, I shall take the liberty of following out the speculations a little farther.

In considering this difference between the genius of ancient and modern languages, two things are to be attended to, which have been often confounded by critics. 1. The ordinary arrangement of words in common conversation. And, 2. The deranged collocation in rhetorical and poetical composition. The first of these has been very well considered by Batteux, † and Monboddo; both of whom have shown, that the arrangement of words, in the ancient tongues, was, in some respects, more natural than in ours; that the sentence

* Lord Monboddo is of opinion that Milton intended this translation to serve as a proof how inferior, in point of composition, the English is to the Latin.-(Origin and Progress of Language, Vol. I. p. 130.) But this is by no means probable. Milton in his greatest poetical work, and still more remarkably in his prose writings, has shown a disposition to assimilate the style of English composition to that of the Latin, in a far greater degree than suits the genius of our language. This translation, which must undoubtedly be considered as a sort of tour de force, seems to have been meant to show, that the English tongue is susceptible of a much greater latitude of transposition than is commonly imagined.

† Principes de Littérature, Vol. V.

Origin and Progress of Language.

fructum da mihi (for example) is, in one view, arranged more naturally* than the sentence give me fruit.† But this and similar observations throw no light on the deranged collocation familiar to us in the classical authors, and which was regulated by principles of a perfectly different nature. What these principles were, it is impossible for us now to ascertain; but, in general, we know, that although the latitude of arrangement was great, it was not unlimited. Quintilian produces some instances of inversions, which he thinks blameable, that would scarce appear to us inversions at all. The following sentence in Cicero, pro Cluentio, he thinks, needs an apology: “Animadverti, Judices, omnem accusatoris orationem in duas divisam esse partes.-In duas partes divisam esse, rectum est, sed durum et incomptum." Some transpositions, he says, are entirely peculiar to poetry, and are not admissible in prose; as in Vir

* "Such an arrangement," (as Dr. Blair observes, Lecture VII.) "is precisely putting into words the gesture which nature taught the savage to make, before he was acquainted with words; "—that is, he would first point to the object, and then to himself.

It appears from Humboldt, that this natural arrangement prevails in the languages of the American Indians, which are certainly as well entitled as any we know, to the appellation of original or primitive. "The arrangement of words," he observes, "in the Chayma, is such as is found in every language of both continents which has preserved a certain air of youth. The object is placed before the verb, the verb before the personal pronoun. The object on which the attention should be principally fixed, precedes all modifications of that object. The American would say, liberty complete love we; instead of, we love complete liberty :-thee with happy am I; instead of, I am happy with thee. There is something direct, firm, demonstrative, in these turns, the simplicity of which is augmented by the absence of the article. Ought we to admit that, with an advanced civilization, these nations, left to themselves, would have changed by degrees the arrangement of their phrases? We are led to adopt this idea, when we recollect the changes which the syntax of the Romans has undergone, in the precise, clear, but somewhat timid languages of Latin Europe."-Personal Narrative, &c. Vol. III. p. 261. I quote from the admirable English version by Helen Maria Williams. Such a translator, faithful, at once, and elegant, falls to the lot of few authors.

† See on the same subject, Diderot's Lettre sur les Sourds et Muets.

On the subject of inversions Diderot has made a very ingenious remark, which deserves to be prosecuted.

"Nous sommes peut-être redevables à la philosophie Péripatéticienne, qui a réalisé tous les êtres généraux et métaphysiques, de n'avoir presque plus dans notre langue de ce que nous appellons des inversions dans les langues anciennes. En effet nos auteurs Gaulois en ont beaucoup plus que nous, et cette philosophie a regné tandis que notre langue se perfectionnoit sous Louis XIII. et sous Louis XIV. Les anciens, qui généralisoient moins, et qui étudioient plus la nature en détail et par individus, avoient dans leur langue une marche moins monotone, et peut-être le mot d'inversion eût-il été fort étrange pour eux. Vous ne m'objecterez point ici, Monsieur, que la Philosophie Péripatét cienne est celle d'Aristote et par conséquent d'une partie des anciens; car vous apprendrez sans doute à vos disciples que notre Péripatéticisme étoit bien différent de celui d'Aristote."