thologic elegance.

Yet perhaps the very elegant and picturefque image of Love, in its prefent fituation, fomewhat weakens the impreffion first made by the tenderness and beauty of the fentiment contained in the affecting wish,

Tu cave Lethæo continguas ora liquore

with which the Infcripton feemingly ought
to have concluded, as in the Greek.

Te fequar; obfcurum per iter dux ibit eunti
Fidus Amor, tenebras lampade difcutiens.
Tu cave Lethæo continguas ora liquore,
Et cito venturi fis memor, oro, viri.

"But I will foon follow thee; and Love " shall conduct me through the gloomy paf

fage, difperfing the darkness with his torch. "In the mean while beware thou, touch "not the waters of Lethe, and thus preserve "the remembrance of thy husband, who "wil foon be with thee." By which arrangement the beautiful image is preserved without doing any injury to the sentiment.

Obf. IV.

V. *

THE ANTIQUITIES OF LANGUAGE, the history of its origin and progress, have employed the diligence and fagacity of many very ingenious writers within these few Years; The President de Broffes, the Abbe Bergier, M. Court de Gebelin ; &c. Of our own Countrymen, Mr. Nelme, Mr. Sharpe, Mr. Parfons, &c. among whom it would be injustice not to mention Lord MONBODDO with particular respect, whose Origin and progrefs of Language, especially the Second Volume, is distinguished by the depth and refinement of Grammatical difcuffion, as the third is by the accuracy and elegance of critical Obfervation. It is much to be hoped that his Lordship will complete his defign by deducing Language, (which he has traced from its origin through the feveral stages of gradual formation and improvement, to the perfection which is exhibited in the laboured combinations of rhetorical and poetic

elegance,) and carrying it down through the Obf. V. hiftory of its corruption: in affigning the caufes and tracing the progrefs of which his Lordships good taste cannot fail of affording many excellent leffons, and useful applications to the present state of our poetical and even historical phraseology.

Of the utility of Etymological researches in the illuftration of other fciences, of Phyfics, and Metaphyfics; of ancient History, and Mythology; the Prefident de BROSSES has spoken profeffedly in the second chapter of his Traité de la Formation Mechanique des Langues, et des Principes Phyfiques d'Etymologie, (Paris, 1765.) He defigned to have published two other Volumes in order to give a more extenfive and particular application of his Grammatical Theory to Geography, as far as the names of places are concerned; to Mythology, to the history of ancient nations, and to the history of the migration and transplantation of colonies. The different objects of this intended inquiry are thus briefly mentioned in the pre

liminary

Obf. V. liminary difcourfe to the Traité (p.51.) " II "a cherché dans cette partie de l'ouvrage la "fuite des differens peuples, qui ont fuccef“ fivement habité une region; les traces de "leur langage confervées dans les noms qu'ils "ont impofées aux lieux, lefquels ont pref

"

que une force fignificative convenable à "leur pofition; les langages anterieurs, dont "chaque idiome fubfiftant eft composé en "différentes dofes. Il examine et explique

les noms anciens, tant des Rois que de Di"vinités de chaque pays, en faisant voir "combien l'intelligence de la fignification

propre de ces noms explique naturellement "les faits hiftoriques et les ufages; montre "l'origine des fables, que les défigurent, "et fait évanouir le faix marveilleux; fert, "en un mot, à lever ce voile obfcur que la "nuit des tems, l'erreur, et le mensonge ont

jetté fur des événements tres ordinaires, "L'hiftoire des colonies et de leur parcours fur "la surface de la terre tient de fort près à l'hiftoire des langages. Le meilleur moyen de "découvrir l'origine d' une nation est de suivre,

❝en

"en remontant, les traces de fa langue com- Obf. V.

parée à celles des peuples avec qui la tra"dition des faits nous apprend que ce peuple "a eu quelque rapport.".

The Analysis of languages, and the inveftigation of their primitive Elements, fays Mr. BERGIER, may ferve to diffipate by degrees, the obscurity which involves the hiftory of ancient nations, and may enable us to distinguish with greater probability the real events of national occurrence from the fictions of fable and imagination. On fuch principles M. Bergier founded his Origine des Dieux du Paganisme, et le fens des Fables: which was a continuation of a system, which he had begun in his Elemens Primitifs des Langues, Paris, 1764.

To the labours of the Prefident de Broffes, and M. Bergier, must be added Mr. BRYANT's celebrated Analysis of ancient Mythology, a work full of extenfive learning, and ingenious fpeculation, and founded in great measure on Etymological principles, and the internal evidence of Language. But of all

writers,