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long after the reign of Alexander, and not improbably affected in some degree by the introduction and intermixture of Greek, during the troubled times of his successors. Since the fugitive Guebres of India received their sacred Books, as it is asserted, from Persia, long after their separation, it is clear that, to read it, they must have retained their native language: but since they had not the written volumes of their ancient tongue till then, is it not probable that their speech and pronunciation becarae tinctured with those of Hindostan ?

ings of the Oriental Society, a statement shall call Median, being of the age of Dain its learned President of the doub's that rius-Hystaspes and Xerxes, whereas that of by England at least, affirmed by English the Zend-Avosta was, admitting its purity, Orientalists in general to be a mere jargon and utterly factitious; whilst, on the contrary, Continental scholars uniformly support is pretensions to reality. We must at once acquit a portion at any rate of our countryman from the charge of this incredulity, as some members, then present, immediately avowed their conviction of its genuineness. It would be hard to determine to what extent a system of doubt might not be carried, if, because we see imperfections and irregularities in the only wrecks that are left to us of a language, we were at liberty to determine that, since we It is not to be wondered at if some doubts cannot explain what we see, it has conse- have occurred in the minds of the eminent quently no existence? We imagine that scholars we have mentioned above, as to the fact of the publication of Dr. Lassen's the precise nature of the language in which volume has escaped notice in England: but the Inscriptions are written, and that differsince the ingenuity of Professor Grotefend ences of opinion have existed as to the value first caught the clue, the labors of St. Mar- of its characters or letters. The more caretin, Lassen, and Burnouf, upon the Conti- fully we examine the subject by a comparinent, have woven the web into a consistent son of several Inscriptions, some of them, texture with the relics of the tongue preservas M. Burnouf remarks, similar, if not ed till now only in the Zend-Avosta a and few other fragments. Whether, therefore, the language of the Inscriptions is or is not precisely the same with that of those Parsi volumes, the difference being only, at most, a dialectical variety, such as ancient writers affirmed of the speech of the old Persian tribes, we know not how to escape the conclusion that the above opinion of some of our countrymen is decidedly erroneous, since the very rocks bear the evidence of a living language against them.

identical, the more thoroughly shall we be convinced that the slight differences which alone prevent their absolute identity, springs from the substitution of one form of orthography for another, and from positive changes of letters. These varieties do not appear accidental, though they have given rise to great confusion. On the contrary, they appear to have been based upon established rules, framed with a nicety that argues in favor of a highly cultivated state of grammatical science in a very remote But what is the language? it is asked. age of Persian history, and forming, we do We answer on our own responsibility- not hesitate to say, a prototype of the SanMedian. That some scholars, amongst scrit. We are strongly inclined to espouse them Dr. Lassen as we have seen, doubt several letters of Grote fend's system; some this, and proceeds so far as to point out from the general admission of their valueconjecturally the exact location of the some that differ from Dr. Lassen's arrangespeech of the Inscriptions, is by no means ment-but that support and bear out beconclusive, we submit, in the state of un-yond all contradiction the facts we have certainty to which the blanks of History just stated, so important for the history of and Philology have reduced us. On the language. other hand, St. Martin, Bopp, and Profes- As instances we would compare the sor Burnouf, hold an opinion nearly simi- mode of spelling the word bumiha in Dr. lar to ours. But even they, it seems, are Lassen's (Niebuhr's) inscription A. with the somewhat embarrassed by the apparent dif- orthography of the same word on the slab in ference of termination between the lan- the British Museum. In the last line of anoguage of the Inscriptions and that of the ther inscription in the Museum, we find the Parsi Books. i or a of Grotefend performing the duty of While we utterly, and from the most per-m: in other places the m is substituted by fect conviction, deny the proposition that n, or uh-and continually the initial a is the former is Old Persian, we think the so- exchanged for the guttural a or o after a lution of the second difficulty simple. The word terminating with a vowel, or even language does differ from the Zend, but merely because their is a difference in their date. That of the Inscriptions, which we

perhaps an aspirate. Hence the different opinions respecting the value of particular letters are easily reconcileable; and we

would point out the remarkable instance of the Ghain, which, often used as ng, nh, n and m, is also repeatedly put in the place of the initial a, precisely as sounded in the modern Persian word Atar, and evidently to avoid the elision of the Final.

A language fenced with such extraordinary care from corruption must, in all probability, have adhere to the system in speaking as in writing; and thus we conceive ourselves fully borne out in the opinion, that the alphabetical estimations of Rask are not invariably to be received, and that his corrections of Anquetil du Perron are not in all cases correct. We rather should be tempted to admit the double value of various letters of the Zend alphabet as given by those two writers, corroborated, not merely by the &c. but by the unquestionable testimony of the Cuneiform Inscriptions.

peculiarities aparently strengthening our conjecture. It is here that the cuneiform characters come in to our assistance, mutually reflecting and receiving light with their originals, the Hebrew. The 7, Kaph, has many varieties of aspiration or guttural force, K, Kh, Khh, Q, Qu, &c. The corresponding Cuneiform alphabetic character presents us first with two angular forms, denoting, as every where else in our opin ion, (Dr. Lassen will excuse us,) a double or very strong aspiration; to accompany the utterance of the fixed, or consonantal, sound, determined, we do not hesitate to say, by the two perpendicular wedges that follow them.

The s,, Mem; so strongly consonantal at times, at times so perfectly faint and nasal, is fixed by the elongated shape to the former sound as a Final. Our knowledge of the Zend or Median cuneiforin value of this letter is a point that may be disputed at present, and therefore we do not adduce it in

We would for a moment digress, if it is digressing, here, to utter a few remarks upon a not immaterial nor irreleuant ques-illustration hare, though our own conviction

tion.

is that it fully bears out the argument. It is also clear that in some languages it was, as a Final, both consonantal and nasal, for the Latin, which we deduce from the Zend, uses the elision of it before a vowel: in poetry at least this is demonstrable, and here first we find the reason for this rule.

1, 2,

With regard to the Finals of ancient, if not of modern, oriental speech, we think it almost a certainty that these, in many instances, materially differed from the value of the same character in other situations, i. e. from Initials or Medials. We cannot be satisfied to consider them merely as marks The Nun, we find either consonantal of the termination of a word in writing, be- or nasal; and in various languages the cause the same necessity would exist in same rule applies to it as to the M, for words terminrting with other letters. Since which it is so frequently substituted; as, the Hebrew or Chaldaic, the oldest gene- for instance, in the Arabic, the nearest affirally admitted language, has various termi- nity to Hebrew. The double horizontal nations of words, therefore it is that we wedge, in parallel before the angle (or se would examine the grounds of their having cond part of a K) gives, we consider, a defionly a few Finals; that is to say, of a dif-nite sound before an aspirate in the cuneiferent shape from the usual form of the form character; and this legitimizes its gecharacter. They would not want only a neral sound as preserved in Hindostan and partial distinctness; but when we notice France; while the placing another angle that these Finals are the 1, Kapb-the, before the parallel wedge (thereby inclosing Mem-the Nua-the Pe-the them) gives that sound which is especially 1, 1 Tsaddi--we feel ourselves irresistibly drawn to two conclusions.

preserved in the Portuguese nh. Like the Hebrew and Turkish &c. also, this Ghain is also Oin, the very guttural A we refer to in a preceding paragraph, and settling the double value of this letter.

In the first place, by comparing these Final letters with their cognate Initials or Medials respectively, ɔ, ɔ, 2, », », we find that the former are simple elongations of the lat The 7 Pe, is nearly every where in ter; that is to say, a simple and obvious the East confounded with B, and this last indication to the eye that the voice or sound with bh or v. The two small double anwas to be also elongated. And this propo-gles of the cuneiform alphabet preceding a sition of ours would hold trne whether the letter, as we have here supposed, was the first indication of the sound, or merely an imitation of it, and representation of an existing usage in speech.

In the second place, if we notice the value of the characters thus selected for a variation of form in the Final, we observe some

long perpendicular wedge, give the soft or aspirated sound of B (which, reversed, it so closely resembles) to this character, and assimilate it with the ancient Slavonic, both in value and shape. The Hebrew Final, therefore, in all probability guarded the pure sound of p

The », P, Tsaddi, is also notorious for

its corruptions, as d, dz, dj, j, zhe, &c. The double angles of the Cuneiform, each marking an aspiration, and placed under an horizontal wedge defining a consonantal sound, show, we conceive unquestionably, that the aspirate thus becomes sibilant. The elongated form of the Hebrew Final confines the terminal to a precise sound, by elongating the utterance.

Sogdio Bactrian, that raises, we submit, this conjectural difficulty at all.

To his second question, whether the cuneform alphabet is simplified from others more complex, or whether they are derived from it?we should be tempted to answer, that it is probably not derived from any that we know; and that only an occasional letter of any other system is derived from it: such as the cuneiform a, consisting of one horizontal above three perpendicular lines, which is clearly the Zend a also, and the Armenian

If this opinion of ours is correct, all material confusion was probably avoided in Hebrew letters; since the Finals, for one class or portion only, were sufficient for dis-e; and which in the Egyptian hieroglyphic tinction from the remainder, and advantageous for simplicity also. That the Arabs extended this principle is only in keeping with the other complications of their elaborate grammatical system They may have done it merely for uniformity, but more probably for the sake of attaching a peculiar value to the terminal.

It will be seen that, considering the perpendicular wedge to bestow a consonantal sound, and the horizontal as confirming it, we are giving cognate uses to forms that differ only as to the direction in which they are drawn; also that, by our estimation of the vowel a, we consider it, with some writers, a consonant. We do so consider it and all other long vowels in the East, and have also a strong suspicion that this is the real sense of the ancient passage of Plato, that letters first in Syrian invention represented syllables. We hold this confirmed by the Cuneiform Inscriptions, which, enlarging on the Hebrew, add, we think, vocality or aspiration to every letter; and, as one striking instance to illustrate and familiarize this supposition, we find the, A-U-R, of the Hebrew expanded into the Zend A-hU Ro. We farther suspect that the European and general modes of pronouncing Hebrew are WRONG: and that the Sanscrit will help us to its proper enunciation. Further reasons for this opinion we cannot detail here.

To return to our author.

writing repeatedly occurs with the value of both, and, if we in common with others are not grievously mistaken, at times with the value of other vowels also; facts which suf ficiently vindicate Professor Grotefend's estimation of the character.

We must also object to Dr. Lassen's translation of ma m in all instances by the Latin me. We feel satisfied that it is only the elision of the initial in some cases, and that in these it is simply the word imam. The regular insertion of the same Inscription found in different places into the same number of lines, which M. Bournouf remarks, is not more singular, perhaps not so much so as the fact, that the orthography of these, otherwise identical, Inscriptions varies without any assignable cause, so far as our knowledge extends-whether from some unknown rule, some carelessness of the writer or sculptor, some difference of different schools, or merely dialectical variations, it were vain to conjecture.

The subject is one of the deepest interest to philology, but we are sorry to find it treated with such indifference or scepticism in England. Whether from this last, or any other cause, we know not, nor desire to know, but we cannot refrain from pointing attention to the circumstance that, of the works from which we would have fain elucidated our researches, scarcely one was to be found when we sought it in the Library of the British Museum. Notwithstanding To the question of Dr. Lassen, why no the intercourse with Germany, neither the traces of alphabets previous to the Sanscrit Vienna Jahrbucher, nor the Halle Litteratur appeared eastward of the Persian desert-Zeitung appeared in its Catalogue, nor even though not perfectly certain of the sense he the Magasin Encyclopedique of France. To attaches to the phrase "in lands which Or- the labors of Millin and the remarks of De muzd first created"—v -we shall attempt a re- Sacy we have therefore no means of referply by observing, that since the Brahmins ence. But will it be credited that Profesmay be fairly suspected of abolishing all sor Burnouf of Paris, on the deserved celehistory not their own, and the Jainas openly brity of whose researches into this particular charge them with this, they are also open to tongue, the Zend, we should think we need the farther suspicion of abolishing any mo- not remark, will it be credited that his Comnuments of foreign literature, if they ever mentary on the Yacna, and his volume on existed, in those places-which is questiona- the Cuneiform Characters, though sufficientble:-and it is only the learned writer's as-ly long published, are not to be found there, sumption of what we should call Median, or any more than his treatise on the Pali lan

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guage-and that the only work out of several by this accomplished and eminent scholar in the pages of the Catalogue, is a Supplemental Pamphlet containing a correction of some of the errors of the Pali treatise.

To these instances of omissions how many more might be added! We ourselves

ART. XIII.-Grundriss der Pflanzengeographie, mit ausführlichen Untersuchungen über das Vaterland, den Anbau, und den Nützen der vorzüglichsten Culturpflanzen welche den Wohlstand der Völker begründen. Von F. J. F. Meyen. (Essay on Botanical Geography, with detailed Inquiries respecting the Native Country, the Cultivation, and the Utility, of the principal cultivated Plants which constitute the Basis of the Welfare of Nations. By Dr. F. J. F. Meyen.) 1 vol. 8vo. Berlin, 1830.

recollect, out of a list of sixteen Spanish historical writers some years since, obtaining but three from the Museum Library, and nearly all the remainder from the King's! The private collection, therefore, was richer than the National in this important branch of Foreign Literature; and but for that munificent gift, the PUBLIC THE reputation of Dr. Meyen as a diligent LIBRARY OF THE NATION would proba- and judicious observer, already established bly be devoid of them to this day. There by his interesting narrative of his voyage is a book, it is true, where readers may put round the world,* must be not only susdown what is not, but ought to be, in the tained, but much increased by this new Library and thanks to the zeal and acti- work; a great portion of the materials for vity of the Librarians, such works are which are the fruits of his own personal promptly supplied. The fault is not with experience and observation, which enabled. them. But surely it would be no disgrace him to improve and extend what had been if our Legislature, which deprives every, done by the few writers who had preceded even the poorest, author or bookseller of him in this interesting, but hitherto comeleven copies of every edition of every work, paratively neglected, branch of botanical to relieve the poverty of the richest Univer- inquiry, in which, though the harvest is so sities and the richest People in the world, ample, the laborers have been but few. At were to provide something like a proper the head of the list is A. v. Humboldt, return, by purchasing from happier foreign- whose "Essai sur la Geographie des ers the works it cannot obtain gratis, per Plantes," 1 vol. 4to. was published at Paforce, from them: and this, too, promptly, ris, in 1803; his Ansichten der Natur" instead of waiting till it can drive a gratis in 1807, in which there is a short Essay bargain of its duplicates, many of them, on the Physiognomy of Plants, and his doubtless, procured in the liberal manner Essay "De Distributione Geographica we have just referred to, in order to divide Plantarum," 8vo. Paris, 1817. A late very the Credit of this National Disgrace, by estimable work is that of M. J. Schow, of making Strangers participators in the spo- Copenhagen, published in Danish and liation of its own subjects. There is but a German in 1823. To these may be added, few pounds difference between economy Wahlenberg's works, on the Flora of Lapand meanness; a trifle between respectabi- land, the vegetation and climate of Switlity and shame. Could not one person be zerland, and the Flora of the Carpathian found, at home or abroad, to point out what Mountains; and Mr. Robert Brown's Geis most essential in the literature of other neral Remarks on the Botany of Terra countries, and to see it procured? Every Australis. book entered, as now, in the Procuranda of the Museum is an opportunity lost for the student, a reproach gained for supineness and neglect! Would not £1000 per annum effect all that is wanted on this head, or must we wait to enlarge our minds till the walls of the Museum itself are enlarged, for fear our intellects should exceed its li

mits!

46

Though this work is highly important to botanists, one of whom told us that he diligently studied it by day and meditated on it by night, and though it contains a variety of information interesting to the general reader, who takes delight in the beauties of the vegetable world without professedly studying them, our circumscribed limits will not allow of more than a few extracts.

"The entire mass of species of plants is in a certain proportion to the several

* Reviewed in our XXIXth Number.

zones of the earth's surface; it increases | title of "Enumeratio Plantarum quas in as we approach the Equator, and dimi- Novæ Hollandiæ ora Austro-Occidentaly, nishes as we recede from it. Lapland ad fluvium Cygnorum, et in_sinu regis has 509 phanerogamous and 600 cryptogamous plants; while Denmark, which is Georgii collegit Carolus liber Baro de Husmaller but situated more to the south, gel." From this work it appears that in has 1034 phanerogamous and 2000 cryp- the short space of three weeks Baron Hutogamous plants. According to De Can- gel collected on the Swan River and in dolle, France has 3500 phanerogamous and 2300 cryptogamous; latterly, however, above 6000 phanerogamous plants have become known, only from the East Indies, by means of the Herbaria of the English East India Company; and it is highly probable that more than twice that number of plants of this kind belong to that country. The whole of Europe, on the contrary, though so much more extensive than India, has only a little more than 7090 phanerogamous plants.

King George's Sound above 300 plants, of which nearly two-thirds are new. We may judge from this what we may expect from his collection in the Himmalaya, the vale of Cashmere, and the dominion of the Seiks. In connection with this subject Dr. Meyen has a very interesting chapter on Botanical Statistics (Statistik der Gewächse).

"If we range through this immense va"It would be highly interesting, and riety of plants we shall soon find that naeven now most important to botanical geo- ture, in similar circumstances of climate, graphy, to be acquainted with the total has produced similar forms, nay often the number of speceis of plants that clothe same form. Banks and Solander, as well the earth's surface. For many years past as the two Forsters and Sparmann, who there have been calculations and conjec- were with Captain Cook in two of his voytures on this subject; which, however, ages round the world, were not a little have been always proved to be defective surprised on finding about Cape Horn a by the discoveries of recent travellers. vegetation resembling that of our northern At the death of Linneus 8000 species were zone. If we examine the vegetation of known, and now more perhaps than the plains from the high northern latitudes 66,000 have been described. The number to the torrid zone, we shall find with the of those in the Herbaria of different na- change of latitude a constant change in tions not yet described may amount to the physiognomy of the vegetable world; many thousands, so that the sum total of and the same change, often more or less plants hitherto discovered may be 80,000. perceptible, will be recognized, if in those But if we consider what immense tracts torrid regions we ascend from the level of of country, as well in America, as in Asia, the sea to the summit of the highest mounAustralia, and the South Sea Islands, are tains, which there so frequently rise above still entirely unexplored; if we reflect on the line of eternal snow. There we shall the vast continent of Africa, which, with in a short time traverse all the climates the exception of some totally sterile sandy which correspond with those of sultry Af deserts, is as rich in various species of rica, of the beautiful countries of Southern plants as Europe and Asia are known to Europe, and those of frozen Spitzbergen; be, we may at the least double the num- and in the same proportion as the variaber of plants already known, so that we tions of climate occur on those mounshall have 160,000 species. It is also no-tains, with the increasing elevation does torious that many recent travellers, who the vegetation likewise change. have explored countries long since visit-magnificent palm and the nutritious banaed, have found such a quantity of new na are no longer to be seen at the elevaplants, that the above number of 160,000 be may very fairly increased by onefourth, and we may thus assume at least 200,000 kinds of plants as a number perhaps pretty near the truth. If the interior of Africa should be one day opened to us, and the mountainous parts of Australia explored, some of the most important points in botanical geography will be elu

cidated."

In confirmation of the above, we may mention that the Austrian traveller, Baron von Hugel, who was lately in London on his return from six years' travel in Asia, New Holland, and the Cape, has brought with him a very rich Herbarium, contain ing a very great number of new plants, and has just published a small work under the

The

tion of 7 or 8000 feet, but in the vicinity of the eternal snow of those mountains we find grasses, cyperoidæ, gentianæ, cruciferæ, and other plants entirely resembling those of our northern Europe."

If we more closely investigate the causes which may occasion such peculiar distribution of plants, we shall find that they are sometimes such as appear perceptible to our observation, but often such as depend on the most mysterious laws of nature, the effects of which we can trace but by no means account for. If a plant brought from hot countries flourishes also among us, as soon as we give it in our hothouses a climate like that from which it came, we have certainly found the proximate cause why this plant

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