is deducible, through the Italian, from dies; and roffignol from luscinia, or the finger in groves; that fciuro, écureuil, and fquirrel are compounded of two Greek words defcriptive of the animal; which etymologies, though they could not have been demonftrated à priori, might serve to confirm, if any such confirmation were necessary, the proofs of a connection between the members of one great Empire; but, when we derive our hanger, or short pendent fword, from the Perfian, because ignorant travellers thus misspell the word khanjar, which in truth means a different weapon, or fandal-wood from the Greek, because we fuppofe, that fandals were fometimes made of it, we gain no ground in proving the affinity of nations, and only weaken arguments, which might otherwise be firmly fupported. That Cu's then, or, as it certainly is written in one ancient dialect, Cu'r, and in others, probably, Ca's, enters into the compofition of many proper names, we may very reasonably believe; and that Algeziras takes its name from the Arabick word for an island, cannot be doubted; but, when we are told from Europe, that places and provinces in India were clearly denominated from those words, we cannot but obferve, in the first inftance, that the town, in which we now are affembled, is properly written and pronounced Calicátà; that

both Cátá and Cút unquestionably mean places of strength, or, in general, any inclosures; and that Gujarat is at least as remote from Jezirab in found, as it is in fituation.

Another exception (and a third could hardly be discovered by any candid criticism) to the Analyfis of Ancient Mythology, is, that the method of reasoning and arrangement of topicks adopted in that learned work are not quite agreeable to the title, but almoft wholly Synthetical; and, though Synthesis may be the better mode in pure Science, where the principles are undeniable, yet it seems less calculated to give complete fatisfaction in hiftorical difquifitions, where every poftulatum will perhaps be refused, and every definition controverted: this may seem a flight objection, but the fubject is in itself so interesting, and the full conviction of all reasonable men so desirable, that it may not be loft labour to difcuss the same or a fimilar theory in a method purely analytical, and, after beginning with facts of general notoriety or undisputed evidence, to investigate fuch truths, as are at first unknown or very imperfectly difcerned.

The five principal nations, who have in different ages divided among themselves, as a kind of inheritance, the vaft continent of Afia, with the many iflands depending on it, are the Indians, the Chinese, the Tartars, the Arabs, and

the Perfians: who they feverally were, whence, and when they came, where they now are settled, and what advantage a more perfect knowledge of them all may bring to our European world, will be shown, I trust, in five diftinc effays; the laft of which will demonftrate the connexion or diversity between them, and folve the great problem, whether they had any common origin, and whether that origin was the fame, which we generally afcribe to them.

I begin with India, not because I find reason to believe it the true centre of population or of knowledge, but, because it is the country, which we now inhabit, and from which we may beft furvey the regions around us; as, in popular language, we speak of the rifing fun, and of his progress through the Zodiack, although it had long ago been imagined, and is now demonftrated, that he is himself the centre of our planetary fyftem. Let me here premise, that, in all these inquiries concerning the history of India, I fhall confine my researches downwards to the Mohammedan conquests at the beginning of the eleventh century, but extend them upwards, as high as poffible, to the earliest authentick records of the human fpecies.

India then, on its moft enlarged fcale, in which the ancients appear to have understood it, comprises an area of near forty degrees on each

fide, including a space almoft as large as all Europe; being divided on the west from Perfia by the Arachofian mountains, limited on the east by the Chinese part of the farther peninsula, confined on the north by the wilds of Tartary, and extending to the south as far as the ifles of Java. This trapezium, therefore, comprehends the ftupendous hills of Potyid or Tibet, the beautiful valley of Cashmir, and all the domains of the old Indofcythians, the countries of Nepál and Butánt, Cámrùp or Afàm, together with Siam, Ava, Racan, and the bordering kingdoms, as far as the China of the Hindus or Sin of the Arabian Geographers; not to mention the whole western peninsula with the celebrated ifland of Sinhala, or Lion-like men, at its fouthern extremity. By India, in short, I mean that whole extent of country, in which the primitive religion and languages of the Hindus prevail at this day with more or lefs of their ancient purity, and in which the Nágari letters are still used with more or lefs deviation from their original form.

The Hindus themselves believe their own country, to which they give the vain epithets of Medhyama or Central, and Punyabbúmi, or the Land of Virtues, to have been the portion of BHARAT, one of nine brothers, whofe father had the dominion of the whole earth; and they re

present the mountains of Himálaya as lying to the north, and, to the weft, those of Vindhya, called alfo Vindian by the Greeks; beyond which the Sindhu runs in feveral branches to the sea, and meets it nearly oppofite to the point of Dwáracà, the celebrated feat of their Shepherd God: in the fouth-east they place the great river Saravatya; by which they probably mean that of Ava, called also Airávati in part of its course, and giving perhaps its ancient name to the gulf of Sabara. This domain of Bharat they confider as the middle of the Jambudvipa, which the Tibetians alfo call the Land of Zambu; and the appellation is extremely remarkable; for Jambu is the Sanfcrit name of a delicate fruit called Jáman by the Mufelmans, and by us rofeapple; but the largest and richest fort is named Amrita, or Immortal; and the Mythologists of Tibet apply the fame word to a celestial tree bearing ambrofial fruit, and adjoining to four vaft rocks, from which as many facred rivers derive their several streams.

The inhabitants of this extensive tract are defcribed by Mr. LORD with great exactness, and with a picturesque elegance peculiar to our ancient language: "A people, fays he, prefented "themselves to mine eyes, clothed in linen gar

ments fomewhat low defcending, of a gefture "and garb, as I may say, maidenly and well