Grimm's Grammar on the theory of the Teutonic conjugations, embody a list of 460 strong or primitive verbs, with their comparative forms in the different dialects, which deserve to be familiarly known to all Teutonic philologers, as collecting together the most valuable materials for etymological illustration.

Kate. *

The Third Book is devoted to the formation of words by derivation and composition. The subject is as fully as it is ably discussed, and occupies two volumes, containing ten chapters. The first chapter explains the derivation of cognate words from the various conjugational parts of the strong verbs. A very large mass of vocables from all the Teutonic languages are here brought together, and the common bond of their connexion developed by Grimm a task which had before been laboriously and usefully, but somewhat loosely, performed in the Dutch work of Lambert Ten The suggestions made by Grimm as to the possible forms of strong verbs now lost, but of which the disjecta membra survive in their derivatives, may occasion differences of opinion among philologers, but are at least highly valuable as illustrations of the limits within which the affiliation of words may with certainty range. The second chapter treats more peculiarly of derivation, and digests under distinct heads the various terminational portions of words by which the root is lengthened in form and modified in signification. The third chapter treats of the composition of words in all its varieties, and illustrates the subject with copious examples. The fourth treats of the formation of pronouns. The fifth of that of adverbs, prepositions, and particles generally. The sixth embraces the difficult subject of gender, which is discussed with more fulness and systematic arrangement than, we think, have before been bestowed upon it; while the illustrations given may be said to furnish in themselves a rich treasure of information on many points of ancient Teutonic manners and modes of thinking, as well as of terminology. The seventh chapter treats

of comparison. The eighth of diminution, or the formation of diminutives; the ninth of the forms of negative words, and the tenth of those expressing question and answer.

The Fourth Book is devoted to syntax, a subject which the author has not yet completed, or rather has scarcely commenced; his fourth volume, which is the latest published, being confined to the syntax of the shortest and simplest models of a complete sentence. The more complex forms of phraseology and composition are reserved for the continuation of the work.

It is not our intention, if it were in our power, to raise or revive any question as to the accuracy of all the views adopted by Grimm, in reference to individual languages. His great work, minute and detailed as for the most part it is, must yet be considered chiefly as a Comparative Grammar, in which it cannot be expected that in each particular department the slighter features should be as strongly delineated as the more considerable; or that the same clearness of perception or accuracy of knowledge should be exhibited, as if it consisted of different and divided dissertations on its several topics. Ageographical treatise may be allowed sometimes to be loose or incorrect as to the topography or statistics of a county or a parish, and its oversights may be detected by microscopical observers who are incapable of reaching or of understanding its comprehensive results. The Teutonic Grammar is naturally fuller and more perfect in some departments than in others: as, for instance, in the Gothic and in the Old and Middle High-German. But in all its parts, so far as we can judge or learn, it is more minutely correct than most of the existing individual grammars; while with that minuteness it combines in an unparalleled degree the advantages of historical deduction and varied illustration.

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It is manifest that a complete survey of the Teutonic languages, in the spirit which we have attempted to explain, must be of the utmost service to philology. It has been fully established, what was at one time but imperfectly understood, that the whole of the languages thus considered are originally identical, not only in their radical words, but in their structure and inflections. It becomes apparent, at the same time, not only that it is impossible scientifically to understand any modern Teutonic language without a knowledge of its more ancient form, but that it is equally impossible to know thoroughly the character of any one branch of the common stock without a reference to the correspond. ing features of its sister shoots. Above all, we may be allowed to say, a scientific acquaintance with the Gothic language is essential to thorough knowledge of any of the other varieties of Teutonic speech, whether ancient or modern.

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The importance of a comparative study of the Teutonic languages, in a manner at once comprehensive and minute, must be peculiarly apparent with reference to all enquiries of an etymological nature. It will often happen that the root of an extensive class of words is only to be found in one or in a small number of the Teutonic languages, while its derivatives are widely diffused, or exclusively confined to others of the family. We shall sometimes, again, discover the primitive or proper meaning of a word in one tongue, while in others it has been diverted to a merely secondary or figurative signification. A wide view of the whole field will at once conduct us to discovery, and guard us against those errors of precipitate and presumptuous dogmatism, which have often made the school of Horne Tooke a legitimate laughing-stock. In endeavouring, for example, to analyse a supposed derivative word in any one language, we may be rashly led to imagine resemblances to simple elements, whether in form or meaning, which a larger examination of the affiliated dialects would prove to be erroneous. If in two or more Teutonic languages, of equivalent authority, we have the same word which we propose to explain, and if in those languages we have also the elementary words of which we conceive it to be a product, we ought not to infer that our supposed etymology is correct, unless in all of these languages our conjecture be equally consistent with their forms and rules of derivation. We may point out one or two common fallacies in etymology, which we think have in this manner been detected.

It is a frequent and a flattering remark that the English name of the Deity, God, is a derivative from "good," and must have been selected by our ancestors as indicating the best and loveliest of the Divine attributes. Junius, a writer whose own learning and ingenuity have greatly assisted his successors in correcting his numerous errors, has, in his Etymologicum Anglicum, expressed himself thus under the word God :-" Origo vocabuli dilucidè satis desumpta est ex A. S. god, bonus. Nam ut sapientissimi Teutonicæ linguæ authores, hominem, inexhaustum omnium vitiorum turpitudinumque gurgitem, man dixerunt, a man, malitia, &c., ita Deum, perennem bonitatis æternæ fontem, antithesi valde manifestâ atque illustri God dixerunt, a god, bonus." A similar derivation and remark is to be found in Mr Bosworth's very useful Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. But both of the etymologies here referred to are shown to be more than questionable, by reference to the same words in other languages. It is only, however, as to one of them that we shall here point out the fallacy. It is true that God, Deus, and god, bonus, are spelled in the same way in Anglo-Saxon, though the prosody is different; but a wider examination shows that the words are es. sentially distinct: the radical vowel in the name of the Deity being a short u, while in the adjective for good it is a long or double a. There is no principle by which, in the Teutonic languages, the vowels, thus diversified, can warrantably be referred to the same roof. The true etymology of the Divine name is still a dark and disputed question.

Again, to take another and humbler instance:-Acorn, in Johnson's Dictionary, and even in more modern works, is described as being compounded of Ac, Anglo-Saxon for oak, (aik, Scot.,) and corn or cern, as AngloSaxon for a grain or nut. This is violent enough, even upon Anglo-Saxon principles; but the theory is discredited by the existence of the word in other languages, in such a form as to throw the utmost doubt on the identity of the alleged compound with its component parts. Thus, in Icelandic,. Akarn is the word answering to acorn; but the Icelandic Akarn cannot with any propriety be derived from its supposed elements, of which the forms

in that language are eik, quercus, and korn, granum. The Gothic Akran, glans, fructus, is most probably the original of acorn, and is certainly derived from Akrs, ager. It thus means literally the produce of the earth, and has only become applicable to the fruit of the oak, as being a distinguished article of diet in that stage of society, "When wild in woods the noble savage ran."

"Glandis appellatione," say the civilians, " omnis fructus continetur." It is possible, however, that, in some of the dialects at least, the term may have come to be more peculiarly applied to the fruit of the oak, from a vague feeling of its resemblance to the name of that tree; a process which we believe to operate insensibly in the use of language to a considerable extent.

The multiplication of checks and assistances of this kind seems essential to the due prosecution of philology, whether we contemplate the wide field of discovery which it opens to us, or remember the snares and pitfalls to which our progress in it is exposed.

The first elements of language, like the primitive atoms of matter, lie hid and disguised in their actual existence under innumerable varieties of form and combination, eluding the eye of superficial observation and it is only by systematic study that we are even partially enabled to reproduce them in a more simple state, and to discover, on the one hand, the real identity of objects that appear different, and the real diversity of others that appear the same. As the original sources of human speech are hid in the darkest antiquity, it is conceivable that all, or many of the languages with which we are acquainted, though their courses and channels be now far distant, or mutually opposed, may yet have flowed from fountains springing up in the same spot or vicinity. The inhabitants of Leyden and Lyons may unconsciously drink the snows of almost the same glacier; and the German or Scottish peasant never dreams that the unintelligible dialects of the stranger or scholar are often mere varieties of his vernacular tongue. If we consider the infinite combinations of which elementary sounds are susceptible, and the infinite changes to which they may be subjected by the attrition of use, the

corruptions of rudeness, and the refinements of affectation, we can have no difficulty in understanding how languages, diverging from a common centre, should in time lose any obvious trace of mutual affinity. The instance given by Dr Watts of the apparent dissimilarity and real identity of the words bishop and evêque affords a good measure of the divergences that have taken place in the diffusion of the Roman language among different countries since the establishment of Christianity. Another and less familiar example may be given, which reaches into a higher period of antiquity.

There is no doubt that the English word tear, and the French word larme, are the same in etymological origin as well as in meaning. Tear is referable, through the Anglo-Saxon tæher, to the Gothic tagrs, which is of similar meaning, while tagrs is demonstrably identical with the Greek δακξυ. Δακρυ, however, or its derivative and synonyme δακρυμα, is, without doubt, another form of the Latin lacryma, through the interchange, which not unfrequently occurs, of the letters land d. Finally, lacryma, which is thus traced to be a cognate of tear, is the acknowledged parent of the French larme. A connexion is here established, by a plain and necessary procession of proofs, between two words which have no external resemblance whatever. The steps of the deduction appear simple when they are shown; but if we were unacquainted with the Greek and Gothic links of the chain, we should never suspect the intrinsic relation of the extreme points. To a great extent we are placed in that supposed state of igno rance as to the common bonds by which diversities of language are re.. conciled; an ignorance which in the case put would have left room for boundless conjecture, instead of the direct demonstration afforded by a fuller knowledge.

The latitude of speculation which is opened up by these peculiarities of the science constitutes one danger, as well as one attraction, of etymological pursuits. Because infinite analogies and affinities may be conceived among remote forms of speech, the etymologist often hastily and falsely infers that he has discovered their existence. The interest and the extent of the subject heat the imagination of the enquirer, and, like the day-dreamer gazing on the clouds, or on the embers of his winter fire, he is prepared to trace the most fanciful and unsubstantial resemblances, where the sober eye of reason can make no such discovery. Occasional results, too, of real value lure him on, like the alchymist, in the search of some universal solvent of all difficulties, that has either no actual or no relative existence, and only leads to absurdities that bring the study into disrepute.

It is only by treating philology as a proper science that its reputation can be sustained, or its progress promoted. If it is at all a fit subject of accurate investigation, it must be dealt with, like any other branch of inductive knowledge, by the twofold process of collecting, extensively and minutely, the facts connected with it, and of endeavouring to generalize those facts into distinct laws. The facts collected ought undoubtedly to be extensive, at least within the particular province that may be selected for examination, otherwise no comprehensive or safe results can be obtained. But it is the spirit of generalization that can alone reduce the chaos of our materials into order, or animate them with life. We have no reason to believe that any of the phenomena of nature are governed by a lawless caprice. The heavenly bodies do not roll on high without a fixed decree to impel and restrain them. The wildest brook that wanders across the plains obeys, in all its windings, the dictates of a steadfast rule. We are not to infer that language, one of the noblest gifts of God, is left to shift and fluctuate from tribe to tribe, and from generation to generation, without regular and constant principles of change. In this, as in all other departments of observation, we may rejoice to address ourselves in the language of the poet:

"All nature is but art unknown to thee: All chance, direction which thou canst not see."

And this further is permitted us to believe, that although the ultimate secrets of nature must be for ever hid from mortals, yet a partial and pro

gressive discovery of her laws is promised to us by past experience, so long as the study of her works shall be prosecuted in a humble and hopeful spirit, and with a firm reliance on the wisdom and uniformity of her operations.

The field of enquiry which chiefly seems, in our own day, to call for the labours of the philologer, is at once extensive and captivating, and is becoming daily better defined and understood. It comprehends that vast family of languages which, reaching from India to Iceland, has embraced within its bosom almost the whole range of human civilisation and uninspired literature. The Indo-Germanic tongues present a subject of study of the most sublime and inexhaustibleinterest. Their original identity, not merely in their radical words, but in their whole system of inflections, appears to have been fully demonstrated. What has been so thoroughly accomplished for the Teutonic languages by Grimm, is now in the course of being still further extended by Bopp, in his "Comparative Grammar of the Sanscrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Old Sclavonic, Gothic, and German;"* a work of profound learning and consummate ability, of which, so far as we can judge of it with a very limited knowledge of its subjects, the execution appears to be answerable to the promise which its title puts forth. It remains to follow out the same principles into the apparent dissimilarities of Celtic philology, an object which, until lately, has been too much neglected by the scientific students of comparative philology; but which is now, we believe, begun to be widely considered in its true light. Although compelled to acknowledge our ignorance of this important branch of the subject, we can see evidence that in our own country we have both classical and modern scholars among us who are able to contribute valuable assistance in this department; and the labours of Williams and of Pritchard must remove the idea, hitherto prevailing, that where Celtic learning was concerned, the " amare et sapere" were irreconcilable things. †

In a comparative study of the numerous household of affiliated languages, to which we have now referred, it is of the utmost importance to reduce, if possible, to definite laws the principles of transition which prevail among them. Nothing can be more unsatisfactory than the system, which so long existed, of inferring resemblances from mere external appearance and general impressions, without a minute deduction of the historical etymology of words, under the separate heads of structure and signification. The Grammar of Grimmought to introduce a new era in studies of this description. It has placed it beyond a doubt that a fixed principle prevails in comparative philology, where every thing was formerly thought to be arbitrary and accidental. It has contributed to shed a clear and steady light on a dark domain of science, whiere before we had nothing to guide us but an occasional Will of the Wisp, that almost always led us out of the right road, and generally landed us in a quagmire.

Etymology, as already hinted, may be considered as consisting of two branches, which ought ever to go hand in hand; the physical and the metaphysical:-the one treating of sounds, the other of ideas, in their several relations and susceptibilities of variation. Each of these divisions presents a large field of enquiry, and in each there is ample room for the application of philosophical principle. Let us take, among many illustrations, a remarkable example of a na tural affinity subsisting between different ideas, and leading to a modification of the meaning of cognate words, which has had an important influence on language.

Sound and light, the objects of the kindred senses of hearing and seeing, are bound together by strong mental analogies, and the same radical word is often, in the same or in cognate languages, employed to signify those several conceptions. To give forth sound, and to give forth light, to speak and to shine, though often very different things in the House of Commons, are in Greek and in Sanscrit denoted severally by the same root. Bhami the Sanscrit verb signifying to shine, and φαμι, the Doric form of

Donaldson's Cratylus, p. 558.

Clarus, clear, is, in like manner, an epithet equally applicable to the objects of hearing and of vision. The English loud, representing intensity of sound, is very probably a relative of the German lauter, signifying bright, pellucid; and both words appear to be connected with clarus. Dim and dumb seem to be cognate terms, indicating the obscuration of sound or colour; and on the same principle there is reason to connect together the Latin surdus and the Teutonic swart, which, though differently applied, refer severally to the absence or negation of those kindred qualities.*

With respect to the structural part of etymology, it appears to be now demonstrated that a very singular and settled relation subsists between the chief tribes of the Indo-Germanic race of languages. The liquids, sibilants, and semi-vowels, remain generally unchanged in them all, under certain known modifications in individual cases, such as the frequent substitute in Greek of the simple aspirate for the ordinary sibilant, and the ultimate disappearance or modification of the w or digamma in the same language. But the history and position of the mute consonants in those tongues, is more peculiar. The general rule as to these is, that, in the transmission through different languages of words characterised by those consonants, they undergo a certain fixed and regular modification. We are not, of course, now speaking as to any change undergone by words imported directly from one language into another, such as the Latin, Greek, or Norman terms, which abound in ordinary English speech. We refer to those more venerable vocables which appear as natives in a great variety of languages of different