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1815.]

On the Origin of Language,

scheme, however, is still far from being complete this we are to expect only by time and perseverance in the prosecution.

MR. EDITOR,

IN recurring to Dr. Perkins's papers, in some of your former numbers, on the Origin of Language, it has struck me very forcibly that there are one or two facts connected with that subject, which have hitherto escaped the notice of philologists. On these facts I mean not to build a theory, yet I think it not impossible that analogies may be deduced from them, which, if they do not serve to ascertain absolute truths, may yet lead to some very curious investigation.

The difference of language, resulting from the confusion of tongues at Babel, is not only clear from sacred scripture, but has even been proved by modern philosophers, as far as such proofs can extend, by analogy, drawn from a comparison of words or names which may be considered as primary. Sceptics may, indeed, deny this; as my object, however, is not to enter into that controversy, but merely to throw out a few hints, I shall for brevity's sake assume the fact, grounding nothing upon its truth, but using it merely as illustrative, though I may be permitted to hint, en passant, that as there is a daily variation in all tongues, that variation must have had a beginning, which precise event is necessarily compatible to a certain extent with the historical transaction recorded in Scripture.

One proof, and a powerful one too, of original universality of language, whilst the population of this earth was but small, is that the word man may be traced in all, or in almost all, known languages, either in the nominative case, or in some of the inflections, and this has been already noticed by the ingenious Mason Good, and several other lecturers on the subject; but there are two other words to which I wish to call the attention of the learned, as highly illustrative of the point in question.

15

rather an artificial than a natural intonation.

Again, if the lips are gently opened whilst inhalation is taking place, the sound ma will be produced almost involuntarily; the same sound may, indeed. again be produced during the expulsion of the air from the lungs, but with as much difficulty as the second formation of the sound pa already recited.

Now, Sir, as these two sounds require no other vocal organs but the lips and the throat, it is evident that they may be produced by an infant before its teeth make their appearance, and even before it can have any voluntary, at least any acquired idea, of making use of its tongue in articulation; and they are, in fact, the sounds that are first uttered by children of all nations, unless it be said that the sounds of A or (), which are produced after the mouth has been opened, are anterior to them. However, as a closed mouth is not only a sign of a wise head, but is also the most natural position for the infantile organs until some stimulus shall open it, it may perhaps be assumed that the sounds pa and ma are the first articulate sounds produced by infants in all ages and nations.

Having shewn this to a demonstration, it is scarcely necessary to point out the fact, that the duplications of those sounds are with us the earliest names applied by an infant to its parents; or, at least, that they are the names which the parents choose to apply to themselves: but, Sir, it is not unimportant to point out that these sounds, in their application, have an universality, which may be considered as a proof that a certain portion of language, nay of all languages, is not artificial, or depending upon local circumstances, upon local anatomical conformations, or upon choice, but absolutely proceeds from the general structure of the human organs, and is, as I have hinted, the same in all languages whatever! To linguists or philologists it is unnecessary to specify the various known tongues, both dead and existing, in which this takes place, and I shall therefore conclude this hint with On trying an easy experiment it will merely observing, that it would at least be found that, if the human lungs are be a curious investigation to trace these filled with air, and the mouth shut, and and other simple sounds, from their first that then the air shall be forcibly expelled, utterance, through the various changes and the mouth suddenly opened, the which arise from the alteration in the sound pa will be produced without the bodily powers in the various stages of assistance of any vocal organ except the life-from the growth of the teeth-from lips. The same sound may also be pro- the acquired habits of moving the tongue duced during inhalation, but with consi--and, finally, from the peculiar conforderably more difficulty, forming, in fact, mation of the vocal organs in different

16

Ossian's Fingal-Anachronisms in Painting.

countries, where the tension or contraction of the larynx and other organs produce a power of uttering, an impossibility of pronouncing, or a habit of transposing, various consonants; such as the Lin some parts of Italy, the R in Northumberland, the B and P in Wales, and indeed amongst all those whose dialects are Celtic, the F and V in Somersetshire, the B and V in Biscay and in some other districts of Spain, and though last, not least, the V and W in some parts of Kent, and more particularly amongst the London Cockneys.

MR. EDITOR,

INQUISITOR.

AS the remarks published in your last number (Vol. II. p 444) on my versification of Ossian's Fingal commence with two queries, I imagine some reply from me will not be unexpected; and in answer to the first, "By what authority Fingal is denominated an ancient poem?" I must beg to observe, I have so called it in compliance with custom, having never seen any edition of Ossian in which Fingal was not denominated “an ancient epic poem," and had your critic taken the trouble to read the following paragraph in my preface, I am sure he would not have asked the question-" I have no desire to enter into any dispute concerning the authenticity (consequently antiquity) of these poems, and have, therefore, in compliance with custom, entitled my book Ossian's Fingal. Whether they are really the compositions of Ossian, the fabrications of Macpherson, or traditionary legends, I leane others to determine." However, since I am thas obliged to take up the cudgels in my own defence, permit me to say, that I do not consider a translator or versifier authorized to alter or curtail the title of any work he may undertake to translate; and the poem I have undertaken to versify is most assuredly entitled "Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem," in every edition I have yet

seen.

[Feb. 1,

Having thus answered your two queries, I must now beg leave to thank you for the very handsome compliment with which the remark concludes, and should I be again tempted to come before the public, I shall certainly endeavour to produce something in which I may not be considered as having totally misapplied my time. Castle Hedingham, G. HARVEY. Dec. 9, 1814.

MR. EDITOR,

IN addition to those enumerated by your correspondent ARISTARCHUs (vol. Í. p. 22,) I may mention the following manifest absurdities with regard both to time, place, and costume, which are to be found in the works of the most eminent artists. In Michael Angelo's Last Judgment, this most solemn scene is turned into farce by his fantastic representations of the devils. So the story of Judith and Holofernes, a secret and dangerous transaction has been described in the entrance of a tent, and in the view of the whole army; with a row of brass cannon in prospect, to complete the absurdity. Joseph has run away from his mistress in a full-bottomed peruke; and Milton's Satan appeared of a common size, while his spear was in the real proportion of an admiral's mast.— Many of these absurdities are to be found among the old popish pictures. One of the most disgusting, not to say blasphemous, representations of this nature, is that mentioned by Bishop Bur nett, and which he had met with during his travels on the continent;-I allude to a picture of the Trinity, in which God the Father is represented as an old grey-headed man, and the other personages of that glorious union made to as sume appearances too profane and inpious to admit of description.

M. N.

MR. EDITOR, HAVING lately met with the followI now come to the second querying particulars respecting a simple ap "What are its pretensions to the digni- plication that is confidently asserted to fied title of an epic?" I cannot answer cure a disease, for the removal of which the question better than by referring the the most painful expedients have hicritic to Dr. Blair's Critical Dissertation therto been deemed indispensably neon the poems of Ossian, prefixed to Mr. cessary, I request you to give them a Macpherson's translation, particularly place in your miscellany, in the hope that part of it where the poem of Fingal that some of your professional readers is compared with the Iliad of Homer; may be induced to make trial of the and if he does not there find his question method there recommended, and comsatisfactorily answered, he will probably municate to you the result of the expefavour me with what (in his idea) consti- riment. Should it prove as efficacious tutes an epic poem. as the French practitioner asserts it to

1815.11

Remedy for Cancer-Scotch Colony in the Caucasus.

be, I need not observe that to all who are afflicted with the cruel disorder in question the receipt must be of inestimable value.

The celebrated Parisian actress, Mademoiselle Contat, lately underwent an operation for the cancer. On this occasion a M. Ruelle published in the papers a receipt of a far less painful and more speedy remedy for that disease, asserting that it will effect the radical cure of cancer in three days, and without any surgical operation. This remedy, says he, consists simply in a piece of dough about the size of a small hen's egg and a lump of hog's lard, the older the better, of the same dimensions. These substances, thoroughly mixed so as to form a kind of salve, inust be spread on a piece of white leather and applied to the diseased part. In confirmation of the efficacy of this remedy, M. Ruelle cites Mad. Chaumerot, mother to the book seller of that name in the Palais Royal, who was about to undergo the cruel operation of excision, when a woman who had been cured by his application informed her of it. She joyfully availed herself of this remedy, and as the Journal de Paris asserts, was completely cured in the space of three days.

PHILANTHROPOS.

Hackney, Jan. 2, 1815.

MR. EDITOR,

THE readers of the early numbers of your work will recollect the particulars given by Klaproth in his travels respecting a small Scotch colony, which about eleven years since settled in a fertile but wholly uncultivated steppe of the Caucasus. The Russian government granted to these colonists a considerable tract of land, freedom from all taxes for 30 years, a perpetual exemption from military service, permission to distil brandy for their own use, without paying the high duties otherwise levied upon this privilege in the Russian empire, and a tribunal of their own. A friend of mine who last summer visited this settlement, gives the Following account of the progress made by the colonists:—

The place is called Karres, after a Tartar village which formerly stood on its site. The lands belonging to it contain altogether above 7000 dessätines, almost the whole of which is arable, and intersected by the three rivers, Podkumock, Schimucha, and Tschuprak. The village itself is watered by three brooks, which rise in the neighbouring mountains of Betschtow: one of them NEW MONTHLY MAG.-No. 13.

17

runs through its centre, and the others on each side behind the two rows of houses, through the orchards and kitchengardens belonging to them. The inhabitants consist of 6 Scotch families, 30 German, 5 baptized Tscherkessian, and one baptized Tartar family. These comprehend altogether 188 persons, who reside in 35 houses, built after the manner of the huts of the peasantry of that country, but cleaner and better provided with furniture and utensils. The colony has its own church. Nearly every house has a garden with fruit-trees of all kinds, and vines have lately been planted by way of experiment. Wheat, rye, barley, pease, millet, hemp, and flax, thrive well, the two latter, indeed, uncom monly; but the settlers have almost exclusively confined themselves to the cultivation of tobacco and potatoes, partly because these two articles may be turned to the best account in their trade with the neighbouring Tartars, and partly be cause the crops of corn were so liable to be destroyed in the various incursions of the predatory Kabardians and Tscherkessians: now, however, since a regu lar frontier post has been established, and Russian troops are constantly stationed there, the cultivation of corn will be resumed. More than 20 dessätines are at present under tobacco, the crop of which in 1818 produced 2000 puds, or 80,000lbs. The colonists have procured from Germany some seed of Virginia tobacco, which thrives extremely well; and in the spring of 1813, the counsellor of state, Malinskji, Governor of Caucasia, sent them at their request from Kislar in Georgia, highland and lowland rice, cotton-seeds, sesamum, (a plant indigenous in China, yielding an excellent oil,) mulberry seeds, and vines. Of all these the cotton has succeeded best, and the sesamum bas at least yielded sufficient to sow a much greater quantity of ground next year. All sorts of vegetables and kitchen herbs are raised chiefly by the German settlers in their gardens, and sold with advantage to the persons who frequent the mineral waters of the Caucasus situated in the vicinity. There are already upwards of 500 bee-hives: the honey is extremely palatable, partly of a bright yellow, partly of a greenish colour, and of a fragrant smell. The settlement possesses 515 head of horned cattle and 67 horses. Among the German colonists are several artizans, weavers, shoemakers, tailors, a soap-boiler, and a smith. In 1807 they had a manufactory of cottons and linens, VOL. III.

D

18

Account of Becker's Augusteum,

and in 1811 one weaver was employed in working up the fine and soft wool of Circassian sheep into cloth for the use of the settlement. Cheese and butter are made under the direction of the Scotch in the English manner. The colony has also a water-mill, and what might perhaps not be expected in this part of the world, a printing establishment. The materials for the latter were transmitted from Edinburgh, and though it has but a single press, it is provided with English, German, and Turkish characters. With these all the first books of instruction, and on the suggestion of the Russian Bible Society, 500 copies of the Gospel of St. Matthew in the Turkish language, have been printed by way of experiment, and sent to the neighbouring Tartars, and even as far as the Crimea. So favourably were they received by these people, that 2500 copies of the whole of the New Testament in Turkish have since been taken off for the same purpose. J. MACDONALD,

London, Dec. 5, 1814.

MR. ELITOR,

TO the most splendid and tasteful works which German literature, in conjunction with German art, has of late years produced, indisputably belongs W. Gottlieb Becker's Augusteum, representing the Antique monuments preserved at Dresden, published between 1804 and 1812, in 13 parts, or three folio volumes, with 154 plates of the same size, three of which are exquisitely coloured, and 400 pages of text. The latter, printed by Göschen of Leipzig, the German Didot, on the finest vellum paper and hot-pressed, may be had either in French or German. All connoisseurs in typography agree that nothing more perfect ever issued from the German press; so that for the collectors of fine printing this work is one of the most desirable. The whole of the drawings were executed by the first-rate artists, professors in the Academy of Arts at Dresden, and transferred to the copper by the most skilful engravers in and out of that city. Becker, inspector of the cabinet of antiques, whose treasures are here delineated, and himself an experienced connoisseur in the arts of drawing and engraving in all their branches, conducted with indefatigable diligence the whole undertaking. It is the first collection of engravings from the antique, in which, by the application of a slight shading, every new addition, every restoration of the ancient monument, is marked in such a manner

[Feb. 1,

as not to affect the general impression made by the figure represented. All the plates, but especially those designed by Professor Matthäi, and engraved by Krüger and Seiffert, are so perfect, that they will sustain a comparison with the best of those published by Visconti in the Museo Pio Clementino, and Peronneau in the Musée Français. Considered merely as a specimen of the present state of the arts in Germany, the work possesses extraordinary merit, and the collectors of fine engravings cannot dispense with this series of beautiful prints if they wish their cabinets to be in any degree complete.

It is, however, among the connoisseurs and lovers of the monuments of ancient art that this work, steadily prosecuted amid the tremendous storms of the most inauspicious times, a d finished at an expense of more than 24,000 dollars, will excite the liveliest interest. Not long after Augustus II. the first king of Poland of the house of Saxony, whom history has justly surnamed the Magnificent, had, in the first half of the last century, laid the foundation of this collection of antiques, by the purchase of the celebrated museum in the Palazzo Chigi, at Rome, for 60,000 scudi, Le Plat, a Frenchman, published Les Marbres de Dresde, in one large folio volume, which is still to be found in all libraries. But neither the designs nor the engraving of these 198 plates come up to the most moderate expectations that we are authorized to form of such a work. Only those prints in this volume that were exccuted by Zucchi, from drawings by the meritorious Preissler, can be terined tolerable. All that were engraved by Bernigeroth and Lindemann, of Dresden, by Thelot, Probst, and Köhler, of Augsburg, are below mediocrity. The collection itself received considerable accessions, from Augustus III. who purchased, in particular, the three valuable Herculaneum marbles, of the heirs of Prince Eugene, at Vienna, for 6000 rix-dollars. These are wanting in the Marbres, as well as the ele-gant little Bacchus, bought at Rome during the reign of the present king, and incorporated with the "collection, a remarkable Venus, and several other works added within the last fifty years. Neither was there yet any tolerable engraving of the four finest basso relievos in the collection. Wacker, the preceding inspector of these antiques, had therefore had plates engraved to complete those of Le Plat, and these were afterwards published by Lipsius, to whom

1815.] or Illustrations of the Gallery of Autiques at Dresden.

we are indebted for a Descriptive Account of the Gallery of Antiques, (Dresden, 1798, 4to.) as a supplement to Le Plat's Recueil, in 43 plates, folio. But these attempts also fell short of expectation. The two statues from Ilerculaneum, the pride and ornament of this gallery, were particularly defective, both in the drawing and the engraving. It might, therefore, be asserted with truth, that one of the richest and most complete collections of antiques in Europe, which was equalled by very few, even in Rome itself, was not yet delineated and illustrated in a manner worthy of its pretensions.

A tutelar genius, nevertheless, watched over this collection, on account of which chiefly the immortal Herder, in his Adrastea, bailed the city of Dresden in these words: "Flourish, German Florence!" Its treasures, saved during the Seven Years' War in the fortress of Königstein, that hitherto impregnable asylum of Saxon valuables, were distributed till 1786 in several pavilions in the great garden, almost inaccessible to the artist and connoisseur, and scarcely to be enjoyed by the spectator, from the injudicious manner in which they were placed. The bounty of the present king then allotted to them twelve apartments prepared expressly for their reception on the ground-floor of the royal palace in the New Town, at an expense of 40,000 rix-dollars; and one of the most magnificent galleries of antiques, illumined by the 'most brilliant light, surrounded by the cheerful orange trees of more genial climates and the luxuriant shrubs of the King's Garden, which incloses on three sides the great square of this palace of the arts (now justly denominated Augusteum) was, after being appropriately arranged, thrown open to the public. After Vacker's death a lucky chance assigned the superintendence of these treasures to Becker, who combined a taste for the arts with a knowledge of, the book and print-selling business, who possessed the confidence of his superiors, and was able to undertake at his own expense a work which was grand in its plan, masterly in its execution, and perseveringly prosecuted to its close, in spite of the unfavourable circumstances of the times, though at last the accursed continental system had cut off all communication with nearly two-thirds of the numerous subscribers in all parts of Europe. It was more than fortunate that the conductor of such a work, amid the most painful bo

dily infirmities, which had lasted for years, and were aggravated by the vexations of an inauspicious period, was permitted to acquit himself of his engagements with the public, and to give in the 13th and last number, supplementary corrections, and, by way of appendix, the celebrated Albani vase, with the battle of the Minotaurs, so exquisitely coloured as scarcely to be equalled in fidelity and beauty by any thing of the kind that has ever appeared. A protecting genius skreened the whole collection of antiques at Dresden from French requisitions, at a time when those of Berlin, Cassel, Brunswick, and Hanover, were seized without mercy, and carried off to Paris, the grand receptacle of the plunder of Europe; there to be badly placed, or perhaps not at all, or even to serve as the means of enriching rapacious commissaries. Denon, the notorious robber of works of art, indeed, gazed with wishful looks at these treasures when passing through this city in his way from Berlin. But it was only with his greedy eyes that he devoured them: his mighty master had, from political considerations, tied his hands. The collection remained untouched. Lastly, it may be mentioned as a fortunate concurrence of favourable circumstances, that BOTTIGER, the antiquary appointed after Becker's death, to succeed him as inspector, has been permitted to deliver archæological lectures in the handsome anti-room of this gallery, surrounded by all the exquisite performances of ancient sculpture and modern bronzes, to the pupils of the Academy of Painting at Dresden, and other friends of the arts, who meet there two mornings in the week. These lectures commenced in the summer of 1814. A more magnificent and appropriate lecture-room for the science of archæology can scarcely be found in all Europe. As the young artists are moreover allowed four times a week to draw the principal antiques under the direc tion of the professors alternately, it may be considered as a truly auspicious circumstance attending this gallery, that the uses to which it is applied render it in reality the common property of all the polished and well-informed, as well as of persons desirous of information.

The number, however, of those who have opportunities of studying the works of art themselves is comparatively small. But in all parts of Europe, especially in the British empire, there are friends of the arts and dilletanti enough who gladly

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