letters which those old minstrels used and loved. As for itself it spread out, like a vine of strong growth, beyond its native French limits, into all the neighboring parts of Italy and Spain. It was in the 11th century, that the Troubadour poetry reached the acme of its development. And even if obliterated from the records of the past, as was supposed, its name and its influence would still have survived, having passed, by a true transmigration, in the style and name of that department of literature called Romance, into all the languages of the civilized world.

III. The Lettic family. Under this title are included the Lithuanian, the old Prussian, and the Lettic. 1. The Lithuanian is a language of very great value to the philologist. It is a sort of universal solvent for him, in all his etymological difficulties. It is, of all present living languages, the most antique in its forms. It has preserved wonderfully its identity with the Sanscrit, in respect to both its radical, and, in the case of the noun, its flexional forms. It has the same number of cases with its parent language, two of which the Latin has lost, viz.: the locative and instrumental; while the Greek has lost three, viz.: with the two already mentioned, the ablative also; the German having lost still another, the vocative; and the English one more even, the dative, retaining only the nominative, possessive (or genitive) and accusative. The Lithuanian has, also, like the Greek and Gothic, but unlike the Latin, the dual number.

Like the Icelanders, the Lithuanians were out of the path of the successive tides of emigration, that so much crushed and bore away the forms of other languages. Their language, accordingly, on account of the primeval regularity of its roots and structure, stands related to the various branches of the Indo-European family, especially to those of a modern date, whose forms have been much mutilated, as a general exponent of their agreements and differences. It is like an universal interpreter, seeming to have the gift of tongues, since its tongue is so much like all the rest, in preserving the pure primal model, from which they are all corrupted derivatives, as to seem, in whatever language you hear the chime of its words, like an old-fashioned brogue of that VOL. XV. No 57.

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language, ringing down loud and clear from ancient times. Its literature possesses neither height nor breadth, and is limited to a moderate number of popular songs, fables, and proverbs.

In respect to the flexion of the verb, it has departed more widely from its original than in anything else, having lost the principles of reduplication and augment, and of the change of the radical vowel in different tenses, to indicate the several variations of time. The passive is formed by the aid of the substantive verb. It has a middle voice, formed by the use of s, si, which is a reflexive pronoun of the third person, used in all the persons, as, also in Latin, the middle sense was formed originally, and, derivatively from it, the passive, by attaching this same reflexive s (i. e., se, the third person pronoun) euphonically changed to r, to the forms of the active voice.

The Lithuanians number, in both Russia and Prussia, 1,500,000 people: not quite 200,000 living in Prussia. Their language is said to be now undergoing serious changes, for what can resist the onset of modern innovation, under the influence of the languages and institutions that surround them? The world is destined to be in the end, for God hath spoken it, one great brotherhood; and, though in some climates and in some races, the process of fusion goes on more slowly than in others, yet still it is everywhere, with the same certainty, at work towards the final issue. Perpetual changes in detail, but perpetual progress on the whole, these are the two great primordial laws of human development.

2. The old Prussian, a sister language of the Lettic family, perished about 200 years ago. The only memorial now left of it is a catechism, prepared by Albert of Brandenburgh. While not so ancient and pure in its forms, it was still much less corrupted than the Lettic. It had not so many cases as the Lithuanian, and possessed no dual.

3. The Lettic is the popular language of Courland, and of much of Livonia. It is properly (like the Italian derived

Thus the passive forms amor, amaris or amare, amatur, restored to their original crude state, would be amose, lit. I love myself, amasse, amatse, etc. So the Germans use, to a wonderful degree, the reflexive forms, in our passive sense, as in sich schämen, to be ashamed (lit. to shame one's self), etc., and in French similar forms occur abundantly, as in il se vend cher, it is sold high (lit. it sells itself dear), etc.

from the Latin) but a derivative of the Lithuanian. Its points of difference from it are, besides a general corruption of its forms, the following:

(1.) It has the article, as the Lithuanian had not.

(2.) It has opened the door freely to foreign words, particularly to those of German and Russian origin.

(3.) It has special euphonic laws of its own, which it carefully follows.

IV. The Slavic or Slavonic family. The area covered by this family of languages in Europe, is very large, extending from the Arctic Ocean on the North, to the Black and Adriatic Seas on the South, and from the Dwina on the East, to the Hartz Mountains on the West. It extends itself also, in scattered districts, through Asia into the upper regions of North America. The name Slavic comes from the root slv, Sanscrit, sru, (Greek Av as in uw and KAUTÓS, Latin inclytus) meaning "to hear," and "to hear one's self called," or "to be named," "to be celebrated." Its meaning is therefore, renowned, distinguished. The Slavonic languages. are very intimately affiliated, one with the other. With any one of their various dialects, except the Bulgarian, which has degenerated most of all, it is quite easy to make one's self intelligible in conversation with those speaking the others. There are religious manuscripts in the Slavonic language dating back as far as the 11th century, and, by a comparison of the present forms with those of that date, they are found to have been remarkably stable. changes that have taken place, have occurred chiefly under the influence of the vowels, especially the I and J sounds on the consonants preceding them. By their influence many mutes have been changed into sibilants, or assibilated to those in juxtaposition with them; and hence, the superabundance of sibilants in those languages. The double consonants, that occur so frequently in them, particularly in

The

1 And yet this is the very word from which, as in the French esclave and German Sklave, comes our English word slave. So those great names, Caesar and Pompey, are now the common names of dogs and slaves.

the Polish, while double to the eye, are, like several similar combinations in English, but single to the tongue.

The Slavic languages are rich in grammatical forms. They have the same number of case-endings with the Sanscrit; but do not use the article with the noun, or the pronoun with the verb. In common with the Lithuanian and German languages, they have a double form, viz.: the definite and indefinite, for each adjective.

The alphabetic characters of this family of languages are of two different kinds. The Slavonians of the Greek faith have what is called the Cyrillic alphabet, first introduced by St. Cyril; and it is used in the ecclesiastic Slavic now. The Russian and kindred Servian alphabets are formed from this, with some alterations, and are of recent origin. The style of orthography used by the other Slavonians, as the Croats, Bohemians, Lusitanians, Illyrians and Poles, is of the Roman order, like our own, although somewhat dialectic in each case. There is also a secondary form of the Ecclesiastico-Slavonic, to be found occasionally, called the Hieronymic, from the idea that it was invented by Hieronymus. It is, however, quite doubtful when and by whom it was invented, and for what special purpose.

The Slavic family of languages consists, properly, of two leading branches :

1. The South-eastern Slavic.

2. The Western Slavic.

Some of the general points of difference existing between these two branches, although marked with many exceptions, are such as these:

(1.) An euphonic insertion of d before 1 in those of the second division, but not in those of the first. (2.) The letters d and t before 1 and n are rejected, in those of the first, but not in those of the second. (3.) The labials v, b, p, m, when followed by j, take in the first, an 1 between them, but not in the second.

I. The South-eastern Slavic branch includes

As in the English know and knee, gnash and gnat, pneumonia, etc.

1. The Russian language.

2. The Bulgarian.

3. The Illyrian.

I. The Russian language. This, like the Russian Empire, spreads over a very wide domain. It is, with the Servian, the most harmonious of all the Slavonic tongues. Consonantal combinations, which would otherwise be harsh, it often softens, by the special insertion of vowels. It has in it adaptations, as an urn of the finest mould, for containing the most precious intellectual treasures that may be entrusted to it now, or in any future age. Already Russian literature, like Russian arms and Russian enterprise, has begun to show some of those gigantic proportions in which it is destined to lift up itself in full view, when, under a general equal evangelical system of development, its people shall come to appreciate and undertake their true work among the nations. It contains three separate dialects:

(1.) The Great Russian, a special form of which, the Muscovite dialect, is the standard, in respect to both orthography and orthoepy, for all the dialects. The great Russian dialect is spoken from the Peipus Sea to the Sea of Azof.

(2.) The Little Russian. This is spoken in the Southern part of Russia, as in Galicia, and shows many traces of foreign influences upon it.

(3.) The White Russian. This is the Russian spoken in Lithuania, especially in Wilna, Grodno, Bielostok, etc., and in White Russia. This is a new dialect, and has grown up since the union of the Lithuanians with the Poles, and is full of Polonisms. The limits of its sway are much narrower than those of either of the other dialects.

2. The Bulgarian. This language spreads over the large and fruitful space bounded on the north by the mouth of the Danube, on the east by the Euxine in part, on the south by a line running from Salonica to Ochrida, and on the west by the Pruth, or, rather, a line a little beyond its western bank. The Bulgarians have a solid, deep, earnest character beyond the races that surround them, that must ere long bring them and their language, and all its archæology, into bolder relief