ARTICLE I

SINCE the revival of letters in Europe the study of language has held a prominent place in every enlightened system of education, and the creation of an original national literature has been every where accompanied by the culture and improvement of the vernacular tongue. Indeed, the predominant traits of national literature stand in the relation of both cause and effect to the character of the national language; for thought, like light, partakes of the hue of the medium through which it is transmitted, and the genius of every literature is so far determined by the idiom of the language which is its vehicle, that the literary productions of nations having a common speech are seldom or never distinguished from each other by well-defined characteristic traits, while, on the other hand, the form and spirit of every language is, to a great extent, fashioned and moulded by the intellectual character of its greatest writers.

Unwritten and uncultivated tongues usually abound in dialects. In nations whose language has never been reduced to writing, every district has its peculiarities of accent or vocabulary. These change, from generation to generation, and the local dialects of regions separated by political divisions, or natural boundaries, soon become distinct tongues. But when alphabetical writing is once adopted, this process of divergence is usually arrested. Some great national writer adopts the dialect of his own province, or another better adapted to the artificial forms which distinguish written from spoken language, or, with more comprehensive genius, selects from many, and combines into a harmonious whole the elements of picturesque and poetical, discursive, or narrative expression, which are scattered among them all. The dialect thus selected or formed now becomes the classical standard of the language, while the others, unless, as in the rare case of the Grecian dialects, also illustrated by rival genius, sink to the humble rank of vulgar patois, and in process of time become entirely extinct.

For a century past, philological studies have not only been more universally cultivated, but they have taken a new direction, and have been pursued for new purposes. Formerly, the Greek and Latin languages, distinguished as the Humanities,literæ humaniores kar' eğoxîv, were alone thought indispensable to a finished education, because they were the vehicles of the best models of every species of literary composition, and men learned Greek and Latin, merely that they might be able to read the works of the poets, the philosophers, the dramatists, the orators, and the historians of Athens and of Rome, who were supposed to have reached the highest point of attainable excellence in every department of intellectual exertion, and the greatest minds of modern Europe were content to admire and imitate what, by common consent, the most favored genius could never hope to rival.

It is a fact well worthy of notice in this connection, that the mighty intellects, who led the way in the revival of learning in the fourteenth century, while cherishing the highest admiration for the master spirits of antiquity, were yet sufficiently independent to strike out for themselves new forms of literary effort, to be judged only by new canons of criticism, though doubtless with many misgivings as to the success of these untried labors. Rude dialects were softened, polished, enriched, made flexible, and taught to move in numerous verse. New rhythms, metres, and prosodiacal combinations were invented, assonance and rhyme introduced, and their laws defined, and a new machinery was employed and adapted to wholly original poetical forms. The explanation of this phenomenon is to be found in the general fact, that every period marked by the successful resistance of man to arbitrary power has been conspicuous for great literary activity and excellence. For the greater part of the fourteenth century the papacy was under a cloud, and men breathed freer during the great struggle between the crown

and the tiara. The study of Grecian and Roman literature served rather to stimulate than to discourage attempts at equal excellence, and the fourteenth century is almost as memorable an era in literary history, as that which immediately followed the final emancipation of human intellect by Luther. Dante, Petrarch and Chaucer were akin in spirit to Wickliffe. Great original writers are reformers in all ages, and among the names that shed lustre on the literature of the periods we have noticed, there is not one, whose writings did not either directly advocate, or indirectly promote the principles, which finally gave character to the Protestant reformation. The conflicting interests of the throne and the hierarchy were at length reconciled, according to the usual practice of robbers, by a division of the spoil. Temporal supremacy was conceded to the crown, and the church was invested with plenary jurisdiction over the action of the human mind. It now became the mutual interest of these two powers to sustain the authority of each other. The prerogatives of the throne were defended, and majesty was consecrated, by ecclesiastical sanctions, and the civil power authorized its judges to confirm, and lent its execution ers to fulfil, the sentences of the church. The pope, indeed, could no longer dethrone kings, but he was compensated by the unlimited power of worrying heretics. In the thirteenth century, Innocent III. deposed John of England, but his successors, in the fifteenth, enjoyed no higher oblation than the incense from the roasting of Huss, and the hecatombs of Torquemada. The sovereign pontiffs now found leisure to turn their attention to enslaving the power of thought, as well as enchaining the freedom of conscience. The fifteenth century was, consequently, almost entirely barren in manifestations of original intellectual power, and ancient mind acquired an ascendency over submissive modern intellect, from which ages of free discussion and active rivalry have scarcely yet fully emancipated us. The invention of printing, the discovery of America, the Reformation, and the almost uninterrupted succession of political revolutions, which have followed that great event, have kept the energies of the human mind constantly upon the stretch, literary activity has opened a thousand new fields, and almost every European nation can

now boast an original and independent literature.

The objects of philological pursuits, as a branch of general education, are two-fold. The one makes the study of languages a means of the acquisition of language, or, in other words, it makes the knowledge of other tongues subserve the purpose of aiding us in acquiring a more thorough understanding and more perfect command of our own; the other views the knowledge of foreign tongues simply as a key to the intellectual treasures of which they are the depositories. We shall at present concern ourselves with the subject, only in the former of these aspects. The value of etymology, as an auxiliary in the study of living languages, has been disputed, and the extravagances of the etymologists of the seventeenth century have been justly ridiculed, as some of the wildest absurdities into which fanciful and ingenious men have ever been led by the abuse of ill-digested erudition. It is moreover objected, that the ablest linguists have not often been distinguished for superior skill in the use of their vernacular, that many of the best writers of modern times, as well as most of the illustrious authors of classic Greece and Rome, have been ignorant of all languages but their own, and that women, who are usually not conversant with foreign languages, or the speculations of etymologists, generally speak and write the purest English. It is no doubt true, that an exclusive devotion to the study of foreign languages will seriously impair the power of ready and appropriate expression in our maternal tongue; but, on the other hand, it will be generally found, not only that the vocabulary of authors, who are acquainted with but a single language, is exceedingly narrow, but that they confine themselves to a range of subjects, which requires little scope or variety of expression. We are not authorized to impute to ancient writers so great a degree of ignorance of foreign tongues, as is generally assumed. That we find no ostentatious display of philological learning in their works, is indeed quite certain, but we have no means of determining, how far the languages of Egypt, Persia, or Carthage were known to the learned of ancient Europe, or how far the forgotten literature of those countries may have influenced or modified that of Greece or Rome. We however know, that the