In the country of the Caucasus, in that space between the Black and the Caspian Seas, there are said to be a great number of dialects, according to some there are in Dioscurias alone about three hundred, all, however, dialects of the same language. We find very little about this country in the Roman authors, excepting what they learned from Pompey's officers, who entered it from Armenia, fought the Albanians and Iberians and then advanced in pursuit of Mithridates as far as the mouth of the Phasis, where they met Servilius with the Roman fleet. In the reign of the empress Catherine of Russia Prof. Guldenstaedt was sent to Mount Caucasus with orders to traverse these wild regions in various directions; to trace the rivers to the sources; to take astronomical observations; to examine into the natural history of the country; and to collect vocabularies of all the dialects he might meet with so as to form a general classification of all the nations comprehended between the Euxine and the Caspian Seas. The result of his researches shows that there are in this district of country at least seven distinct nations; each speaking as he says, a different language. These

Not only in the languages but the history of these peoples there are many correspondences found with the ancient Irish which it is not necessary to specify here.

The Osseti are called Cusha by the Circassians; their language has some analogy with the Persian; that of one tribe seems to be a dialect of that language. One of the districts is called Archoti. Their history is little known, as likewise that of the Kisti, whose dialects are said to have but little analogy with any known language. The country of the Lesguis is called by the Georgians indifferently Lesguistan and Daghestan. Guldenstaedt has remarked in their language eight different dialects and has classed their tribes in conformity to this observation.

Georgia comprehends the ancient Iberia, Colchis, and perhaps a part of Albania; as the province of Caket, in the old Georgian language, is said to have been named Albon.* They have received their present name from their attachment to St. George, the tutelary saint of these countries.

"The whole country is so extremely beautiful that some fanciful travelers have imagined they had there found the situation of the garden of Eden. The hills are covered with forests of oak, ash, beech, chestnuts, walnuts and elms, encircled with vines, growing perfectly wild, but producing vast quantities of grapes. From these is annually made as much wine as is necessary for the yearly consumption; the remainder are left to rot on the vines. Cotton grows spontaneously as well as the finest European fruit trees. Rice, wheat, millet, hemp and flax are raised on the plains almost without culture. The valleys afford the finest pasturage in the world; the rivers are full of fish, the mountains abound in minerals and the climate is delicious."

"There are in Georgia considerable numbers of Jews, called in the language of the country Uria. Some have villages of their own and others are mixed with the Georgian, Armenian and Tahtar inhabitants, but never with the Osseti. They subsist principally by agriculture and raising of cattle, very few of them being employed in trade. Their language is divided into three dialects, the Car

The most eastern province is Caket. Iberia or Hibernia and Albania signify western and eastern respectively. The Gaels of Erin and of North Britain trace their ancestry back to those parts. Many examples of local names corresponding to the ancient Irish might be adduced from those regions.

duel, the Imretian and the Suaneti, which appear as extraordinary as those of the Lesguis:

On what is determined to be a very improper choice of words, made by Guldenstaedt from the fourteen dialects of the Caucasus, there are forty-three similar in letter and sense to the old Irish. The sun, for example, in the Circassian is Ddaga, in the old Gaelic Daghdae, corresponding to the Dughda-rath of the burnt chariot, or the Phoebus of the Brahmins. In the Ossi it is named Khoor, in Old Gaelic Kearo, which latter is exchangeable with Daghdae, and is the same with the Arabic and Persian Khoor, Khur, or Khawar. In the Antshong dialect of the Lesguis the sun is named Bauk, in old Gaelic Bagh, which is an old Persian word, as we learn from Moses Choronensis, as follows: "When the Persians conquered Armenia the mountain on which they lighted the perpetual fire was called Baghaven, from Bagh, fire, the sun and Aven a mountain.” (Hist. Armenia I. I. c. 74.) Aven is the old Gaelic Amhan, a river, which we see here signifies a mountain. The word Amun in the Egyptian and Hebrew has for one of its meanings a pillar; but it is evident that in ancient times it was a name for the river Nile, and of a high place or mountain as well as of the God worshiped on that high place, namely the sun. So the word Nile was not only a name for the river but for the sun, for which another equivalent, well known form was Sechar, the Hebrew Seir or Hor, a name applied to a mountain, a high, or rough place, to a teple, and to the sun. It is the same with the Gaelic, Siar, and Kearo, and with the Arabic and Persian Khur, Khawar, as above. And so an Egyptian name for the Nile, Ameiri (Am-iara), is a precise equivalent to the Gaelic and Hindu Nial, as meaning blue.

As to the origin of the people called Hunns I may say that the

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component Hind in Hindu is evidently the same with the name Hunn. That the Hunns were of Indo-Scythic origin appears plainly in a passage of Mr. Wilkin's Asiatic Researches (vol. I, p. 136), where it speaks of that people as having possessed "the Seagirt throne," pointing to Scythia-Lymirica or Maratime Scythia. Hindu Sindu=Cindu=Cunn=Hunn=in full Gaelic Cathan-dhaebh pronounced Con-yu, Conn or, with the S prefixed, Schan-dhu = Scandin in Scandinavia. There must in an early age have been a great emigration of those people northwards from Hindostan. These are the people who as well as their distant kindred, the Goths, so effectually assisted to the downfall of the Roman empire.

FARTHER AS TO ROBERT BRUCE AND THE RISE OF THE HOUSE OF STEWARD; THE SHAWS, &C.

The house of Steward, as said before, was a continuation of the line of regular, hereditary Gaelic Kings. In the interval between Alexander III. and James I., or for two generations, Scotland was much disturbed by invasions led by the Norman Kings of England. For a period during this interval William Wallace, who, perhaps, sprang from the royal stock, strove very effectually for the freedom of his country. The history of Scotland, therefore, for these two generations, exhibits a very unsettled state of affairs and has been written by Fordun, Barbour, de Wyntoun and others rather in the style of the historical romance than in that of history proper. The picture given of Robert Bruce is much like that given in the Scriptures of King David and by some historians he has been compared to Judas Maccabeus and Joshua. In this historical romance John Baliol and Robert Bruce are two names or characters that stand antithetical to each other in the national drama; and so, in the continuation of that drama for the time under consideration, Edward Baliol and David Bruce stand antithetically to each other. Two real and bona fide men, however, discoverable back of all this scene went by the modest Gaelic names of Aengus and Eachan.

The critic perceives that at James I, the regular history may be said to commence, although the records of his reign and those of the reigns after him, even down to that of James VI, are much intermixed with the romantic. John de Fordun, frequently before mentioned, was the author of this continued historical romance down