adventum in hanc insulam saeculis, relicta patria Gallia *** sedem hic sibi elegerunt." It should be observed that this writer is not cited as a credible authority, but as indicating the existence of previous documents whence his information was derived, or as conveying the impressions of the educated men of his time. He divides the districts on the southern coast of Britain into three provinces, the Kentish, Belgian and Damnonian. Ptolemy defines the British Belgae in these words: Βελγαι και πολεις Ισχαλις, Ύδατα θερμα, Oveνra (ii. c. 3). The Venta Belgarum is repeatedly mentioned by subsequent writers.

A tribe, mentioned by ancient writers, under the name of Briboci, was also called Remi :-" Cantiis proximi, et, ut putant nonnulli, subjecti, Bibroci, qui et aliis Remi dicuntur, natio in monumentis non penitus ignota." (Ric. Cic. c. vi. 9.) The Durotriges, or people of Dorset, were according to the same authority called Morini :- Infra Heduorum terras siti erant Durotriges, qui et Morini alias vocantur." (Id. vi. 15.) This double nomenclature might readily have originated in the fact that the inhabitants of a certain district sometimes retained the original Keltic name, sometimes adopted the name of the immigrant tribe.

Again we meet with a tribe bearing the name Manapii, and a city called Manapia (Wicklow in Ireland) (Ptol. ii. 2), adjoining another tribe the Cauci. In addition to the undoubted existence of acknowledged Belgian tribes in Britain, Caesar's statement is supported by independent evidence of a no less satisfactory character. Tacitus, after mature deliberation, arrived at the same conclusion :-" Proximi Gallis (i. e. Belgis) et similes sunt; seu durante originis vi, seu procurrentibus in diversa terris, positio coeli corporibus habitum dedit : in universum tamen aestimanti, Gallos vicinum solum occupasse credibile est." (Agric. xi.) We find again abundant evidence of the existence of intimate relations between the two nations. We have seen above that the Atrebate Commius possessed great influence among his island kinsmen; and we read in Caesar that the king of the Belgian Suessiones also held sovereign sway in Britain :-" Apud eos fuisse regem nostra etiam memoria Divitiacum, totius Galliae potentissimum, qui quum magnae partis harum regionum, tum etiam Britanniae imperium obtinuerit." (B. G. ii. 4.) Again, when the powerful tribe of the Bellovaci were vanquished by Caesar, the chiefs who had been the principal instigators of the rebellion fled for protection to their friends in Britain (Id. ii. 14). We have already seen that, in the hour of danger, the Veneti sent to solicit assistance, not only from the German Morini and Menapii, but also from the Britains; and the pretext for Caesar's invasion of the island was the fact that "omnibus fere Gallicis bellis, hostibus nostris inde subministrata auxilia intelligebat" (iv. 20). Commercial intercourse between the two countries is also distinctly intimated in numerous passages in the ancient authors. There remains the positive declaration of both Caesar and Tacitus as to the identity of customs, religion and language of the two people. Tacitus remarks: "Eorum (i. e. Belgian Gauls) sacra deprehendas superstitionum persuasione; sermo haud multum diversus” (Agric. xi.); and Caesar writes: "Ex

his omnibus longe sunt humanissimi, qui Cantium incolunt, neque multum a Gallica differunt consuetudine" (B. G. v. 14); and again"Horum est infinita multitudo creberrimaque aedificia, fere Gallicis consimilia."

To these illustrations numerous additions might readily be made, but it is considered that sufficient evidence has been adduced to support the probability: 1st, that the Belgae were substantially a German people; 2nd, that the inhabitants of the south-eastern portions of Britain were substantially Belgae.

The writer had collected evidence of the settlement of numerous bodies of German origin in Britain, and of the existence of intimate relations between the Gothic tribes of the continent and those of this country previous to 450 A.D.; but finding the majority of the selected passages indicated in Mr. Kemble's work, The Saxons in England,' he has considered it unnecessary to trouble the Society with the restatement of facts accessible to all. One passage, however, which is omitted in Mr. Kemble's work, appears worthy of record.

In the enumeration of the tribes which constitute Gallia Belgica, Pliny (1. iv. 17) mentions a people called Britanni. He places them between the Morini and the Bellovaci. The MSS. supply no variation in the reading, although they present frequent and striking discrepancies in the names of the other tribes. The existence of this people on the continent may perhaps afford some explanation of a fact which perplexed Pliny. In the 25th book of his Naturalis Historia' (c. 3), he writes, "Reperta auxilio est herba, quae vocatur Britannica, non nervis modo et oris malis salutaris, sed contra anginas quoque et contra serpentes." After describing the plant, and the method of extracting and applying the antidote, he proceeds: "Frisii, qua castra erant, nostris demonstravere illam; mirorque nominis caussam, nisi forte confines Oceano Britanniae velut propinquae dicavere. Non enim inde adpellatam eam, quoniam ibi plurima nasceretur, certum est, etiamnum Britannia libera."

It will have been observed that the evidence throughout this paper has been of a purely historical character. To confirm this evidence it would be desirable that philological proofs of the existence of German tribes in Britain should be collected and produced. But a moment's consideration of the difficulties which attend such an investigation will convince us, if not of its impracticability, of the very limited results which it could ever be possible to attain. The first and simplest means of prosecuting the inquiry, viz. specimens of the dialects spoken in the south-eastern districts of Britain, do not unfortunately exist. We might next have recourse to the recorded names of districts, hills, rivers, promontories, &c.; but here again we encounter a serious difficulty. The country had been previously occupied by inhabitants of another stock,-a stock apparently the earliest of which history supplies any record-and the existing names of localities unchangeable in their nature would be recognized and adopted by the victorious settlers. A careful examination of these names may, however, still furnish interesting results to scholars wellversed in the ancient forms of the Keltic and Gothic dialects.

VOL. V.

PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

FEBRUARY 7, 1851.

HENSLEIGH WEDGWOOD, Esq., in the Chair.

No. 104.

The following gentlemen were elected Members of the Society Hugh Alexander Johnston Munro, Esq., Fellow and Lecturer of Trinity College, Cambridge. William George Clarke, Esq., Fellow and Lecturer of Trinity College, Cambridge. Richard F. Weymouth, Esq., Portland Villas, near Plymouth. William Arthur Case, Esq., University College, London.

A paper was then read

"On the position occupied by the Slavonic Dialects among the other Languages of the Indo-European family: "-Continued. By Prof. Trithen.

It is natural that when the original meaning of the termination of the nominative case was forgotten, or when the whole of the termination was dropped, the article, the utility of which is so obvious, should have been introduced. With regard to the Roman language, it has been supposed that the sudden change which the Latin underwent at the time of the German invasion, was the consequence of the imitation of the German idiom. But it seems more than doubtful whether the use even of the definite article had at that æra been introduced into the Teutonic languages; and it is probable that we shall most nearly approach the truth, if we suppose that when the Latin was by that event put into a state favourable to a new development of its grammatical forms, it obtained the use of articles, and adopted for them those words which appear naturally to suggest themselves as most convenient for this purpose. Hence unus was taken as the indefinite, and ille as the definite article.

The use of the article is therefore to be attributed to the effort which is constantly perceivable in language, to analyse and separately to express every idea. But whatever be the cause of this wonderful change in language, it is clear that the Slavonic dialects have not undergone it; nor is it less certain that they are inferior in point of age and perfection of form to the Latin and Greek. They therefore occupy a place between the ancient and the modern languages; and in this respect they are pre-eminently deserving of the attention of the philologist. They are to him of the same importance as a living specimen of a Saurian would be to the geologist. Indeed it is scarcely possible to realize the full beauty of the languages of Greece and Rome without having experienced the wonderful power of a word in a similar language, which when it strikes the ear seems to be quivering with life. For in these languages every word in a sentence is a spontaneous creation-not a skilful arrangement. And, though it be true, that even in the inflective languages, an in

VOL. V.

E

flected word may be analysed and reduced to the very same elements into which the idea it expresses is resolved in the analytical languages, yet are those elements so intimately blended with one another, that they are, and produce the effect of an undivided whole. And it is more especially for the analysis of inflected words-for a proper understanding of their organism,-that the study of the Slavonic languages is to be recommended. And if it be one of the objects of comparative philology to ascertain the laws of language in their relation to the laws of thought, it is evident that the examination of such a language as the Russian-a living synthetic language,-cannot but add a number of interesting and important facts. Bopp has admitted the Slavonic into his Comparative Grammar, and he has derived great advantages from it for the elucidation of the declensions and pronouns; but he has chosen the ancient Slavonic, and neglected to compare the dead languages with a living specimen of their own class,—an omission which has frequently caused him to commit grave errors.

The same amphibious character, if we may be allowed so to term it, which distinguishes the languages of the Slavonic race from those of the other nations of Europe, marks their literatures. The peculiarity is even greater; for while their languages have never suffered any intrusion of foreign words, and much less idioms, from any of their neighbours, their literatures are altogether the results of the civilization of the West of Europe. And yet, though the Russian poet Pushkin is imbued with Byron, and the Polish poet Mickiewicz is full of Goethe and Schiller, neither of them can be charged with being simply an imitator. The same reason which may be assigned for the preservation of the Slavonic dialects from the general dissolution and subsequent change which came over the other languages of Europe in the first centuries after Christ, has preserved the originality of the Slavonic poets, in despite of the influence of their western teachers. The Slavonic nations to this day understand nature as the ancients did, and more especially the Hindus; like them they endow her elements with moral faculties, and like the Greeks they invest them with the human form. The belief in the Rusalkas and Domovoys is as prevalent in Russia in the nineteenth century as was the belief in the nymphs and satyrs in the early days of Greece; and the ideas on nature one hears in everyday life from the mouth of the peasant are quite as poetical as any which occur in the Vishnu Purána.

It would seem therefore that they are still in what might be termed the stage of childhood in nations; they are still essentially poetical and creative. Their languages were too young to become analytical when the Gothic and Latin were changed to that form; their minds were not ripe for the effects of Christianity; nor did any of these nations receive it before the ninth century, while Russia was not converted before the end of the tenth.

It is to this primitive originality in the character of all the Slavonic nations, that we must attribute the peculiar colouring which everything European receives as it passes through the mind of the

Slavonic poet. Whoever has read Bürger's Lenore and compared it with Zhukofski's Svyetlana (it is translated in Bowring's Anthology), will remark, that though the idea and even the form be suggested by the German poet, the whole tone of the Russian production is different; it is even more poetical, and the advantages which a synthetic language has over those of an analytical character, give an additional charm to the Russian poem.

But if it be true that the Slavonic literatures are almost entirely suggested by the literatures of the western nations of Europe, it is a truth which applies only to the written productions of those nations. In Russia it can only be said to apply to the period after Peter the Great. By far the greater part of their poetry and traditional history is oral; and though it has been collected during the last ten or twenty years and printed, it is still oral, for it lives in the mouths of the people to this day, and may be said to be their common work and property. And nothing can be more interesting than this oral literature of the Slavonic nations.

While, as has been stated before, the mythologies of Greece and Rome are connected with the ideas contained in the Vedas, the traditions of the Slavonians relate to the Mahábhárata; the Amrita or 'water of immortality,' plays a prominent part in their stories; the History of Draupadi, the Wanderings of the Pándavas, which form some of the most beautiful episodes in the Indian epic, are to this day current in Russia.

Another series of songs relates entirely to the political events of their countries, and forms a history which in many respects is more faithful and interesting than the works of their learned chroniclers. Thus the whole history of Servia is contained in a cycle of songs, some of which are of great length: (the history of Michael Czerneyovitz, for instance, extends over more than two thousand verses ;) and though Bohemia has for a long time been a civilized country, there are many parts of its history that can only be learnt from the national poetry. Dr. Bandinel has lately shown the writer a little collection of Russian songs in the Bodleian Library, which are of great interest for the history of Russia under and after Boris Godunof.

But by far the greatest number of their songs is of a lyrical nature. It is strange to see some of the most beautiful poetical productions rise day after day, without its being possible to discover their authors. For in Slavonic countries a song is seldom the work of one man; a pretty idea left unfinished, a poetical simile, which in civilized society would perish, is there taken up and carried from mouth to mouth until it grows into a poem, and then it may truly be called the common property of all.

Mickiewicz has, in one of his lectures on the language and literature of the Slavonic nations (which he delivered at the Collège de France), called the Ukraine the original seat or the cradle of the lyrical poetry of the Slavonic nations. The Ukraine, as you know, is the land of the Kosaks; they speak the Ruthenian dialect, which partakes of the character both of the Polish and Russ. The Kosaks