the term comparison,' or an application of the great processes of observation and experiment to a wider sphere, and a greater number of objects than previously. Men had moved within the narrow circle of a few facts, or had confined themselves to the isolated study of each distinct genus by itself, but had seldom gone to the higher step in generalization, of comparing genera with each other, and forming still more comprehensive classes. Each had wrought at his own particular field isolated from the others, and each had hence come to wrong conclusions, while their conceit on account of what had been accomplished, was too often in proportion to the falsity or lameness of their results.

A master-mind was wanted, or rather a master-principle in many minds, which, leading the philosopher to take his stand in the wide field of the human Sciences, would enable him to see the points in which one harmonised with, or was related to, another, and also so to investigate the details of each, as out of a new understanding of them, to bring a new or at least a cognate Science. This master-principle was no fresh discovery, but merely a more accurate application of the whole spirit of the Baco-. nian philosophy. The result has been that the unity of the truth, whether as manifested in the physical or mental Sciences, has been clearly demonstrated, and a new evidence gained from the united voice of human knowledge for the wisdom and personality of Him who created the heavens and the earth. By its aid Alchemy was developed into Chemistry, Astrology into Astronomy, and Surgery into Comparative Anatomy, while the foundations of Geology were laid on a firmer basis. By it too, the arbitrary rules and meaningless statements of Grammar have been explained, the confusion that existed as to man and his speech their origin, their nature, their development, their derivation, their migration over the inhabited globe, has been cleared away. Grammars and languages have formed the data of the study of Grammar and Language, and have in their turn been purged of inconsistencies, absurdities and difficulties, and the principles and history of the whole have been discovered by Comparative Philology, which embracing, as it does, the whole subject of Ethnography, now ranks as one of the most important of the Sciences. On one side of it, it is connected with the mental Sciences and especially with Logic, being concerned with the expression of thought and the connexion between them, and on the other, it touches upon the Physical Sciences, and especially Physiology.

Our object, at present, is not so much to look into the laws on which it is based, and the character of the data whence these have been deduced, as to view it historically, and especially to see what part India has contributed, either in men, methods or lan

guages, to constitute it. The truth of the remarks above made, will be found all through its history,-that it has had to pass through much ridicule, opposition and trial, ere reaching the sure pedestal of general acceptance and scientific accuracy, where it now is.

We have placed the above works at the head of the article as representatives of the progress made by Comparative Philology in its last stages. The first is a pamphlet by Mr. Romer, consisting of three short papers, originally published at different times in the journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. To these is prefixed a preliminary notice by the author, and some excellent introductory remarks by Professor H. H. Wilson. The papers are entirely controversial, having it for their object to prove that the Zend and Pahlavi languages, as used by the Parsis and seen in their religious writings, are not authentic; that their character is entirely fictitious; and that consequently any attempt, such as that of Bopp in his Comparative Grammar, to base philological theories upon them, must be futile and absurd. The nature and value of Mr. Romer's arguments we shall presently consider.

The "Outlines of Comparative Philology," by M. Schele De Vere, is in itself a 'curiosity of literature.' It professes to supply what, with reference to the Science itself and to modern education, is certainly a great desideratum-" a work to which the student might resort with the hope of finding everything that pertains to the study of language, collected and arranged,' a Manual of Comparative Philology in fact, where all information, as to what it is and what it has done, might be expected. That the author fails to supply this is to be regretted, and still more so that he does not supply even original materials for such a work. He has evidently read much of the literature of the subject, and has gathered together many facts, both historical and critical, from different authors. But his whole work is vitiated by the absence of two important things which would have made it otherwise most valuable-a philosophical method, and a sound criticism. The want of the former has caused him to scatter the various divisions of his subject in wild confusion over his pages, so that the fresh student would necessarily be lost in ignorance, the further that he went. It is true that in his preface the author professes to give " suggestion rather than complete information," but information of any kind, and especially on a scientific subject, to be useful, must be methodical. Such different subjects as the Origin of Language, Theories regarding it, the History of Comparative Philology, Writing Materials, the Connexion between Comparative Philology and History, Printing, America, and an account of the three great classes of languages, are mixed together in promiscuous profusion. Facts and statements are

introduced into the middle of a chapter that have no connexion with its subject, and with an imperfect sketch of the languages of Europe, the first part of the book comes to a close. The second, as the History of Writing, is naturally more methodical, though incorrect in many of its statements. The absence of a sound criticism is destructive to the usefulness of the compilation. Accurately ascertained facts are nowhere distinguished from mere conjectures, and everywhere theory and fanciful hypothesis are mixed up with principles that are settled by all as the laws of the Science. No attempt is made to reduce the conflicting statements of different authors and schools to consistent harmony, nor are the latest results of the Science carefully gathered up, and its various uses and applications shewn. The work seems rather to be a "commonplace book" on Philology, an Index Rerum Linguisticarum (if we may be allowed the expression,) than scientific "Outlines of Comparative Philology."

How different the third work, that of the Chevalier Bunsen! Our late Prussian ambassador has distinguished himself alike in the fields of Biblical Criticism, Ecclesiastical History, Archaeology and Comparative Philology. In these few scholars can now be regarded as his equals, while he has carried into all his works the same large-heartedness, and manly generosity of life and opinion, that made him a favourite in the highest London circles, and now draw upon him many a visit from foreign scholars in his quiet and philosophic German retreat. The work before us is entitled in its totality," Christianity and mankind, their Beginnings and Prospects." In its details, as spread over seven large octavo volumes, it consists of three distinct works-Hippolytus and his age, Sketch of the Philosophy of Language and Religion, or the Beginnings and Prospects of the Human Race, and the Remains of AnteNicene documents. The second seems to our Anglo-Saxon common-sense to be strangely thrust in between the other two, but Bunsen himself satisfactorily explains it.

The philological part is that only with which we have to do. We do not hesitate to say that it is the most important work on the subject that has been published since Bopp's Comparative Grammar. With the assistance of such scholars as Aufrecht and Max Müller, an account of the latest researches and results is admirably given, and a further generalisation of the three great families of languages is attempted, by shewing the proof of a connexion between the Semitic and Indo-European class. If further evidence of this is found, then will scholars at once recognise the improvement, and to Bunsen, assisted by these two great Hebraists, Fürst and Delitzsche, will be ascribed the honour of this farther step in the simplification of the Science.

The fourth work that we have placed above-the Lectures by Cardinal Wiseman, is well-known to the scientific public. We are glad to see that it has reached a fifth edition, which is much improved, and contains corrections and additions, so as to keep it abreast of modern science. We here notice it only on account of its two opening lectures "On the comparative study of languages." As they appear in this edition, they are a most philosophical and accurate summary at once of the doctrines and history of the Science, and in default of a regular manual on the subject, we cannot point the tyro to a better introduction to it. With the exception of an admiring allusion to a Jesuit author, which any one might make, they are free from that bigotry which we might have been led to expect, and of which in its Popish form both Science and Revealed Religion are the determined enemies.

The "Bibliothecae Sanskrite" of Professor Gildemeister is a catalogue of Authors Indian and European, who have edited or translated Sanskrit works, or treated of Sanskrit literature. It gives the titles of their works in full, occasionally accompanied by notes, and is followed up by indices of Sanskrit books published in India according to their chronological and alphabetical order, of Indian authors and editors, of Indian philologers, and lastly of European writers on Sanskrit. The whole is a most accurate and invaluable manual of Sanskrit bibliography, or of the literature of Sanskrit philology. We would take exception only to the Author's Latin, and his mode of Romanizing oriental titles of books. Who from "phortauleyam" and " gemsa prinsep" would discover Fort William and James Prinsep?

Professor Weber's lecture is in every way worthy of one of the most distinguished of recent German philologers. It is throughout at once popular and scholarly, and gives in small compass the results of the study of the Indian languages, literature and history, during the past seventy years. Beginning with the statement of a few facts in the history of Sanskrit scholarship, and alluding to such well-known works as the Sakuntala and Bhagavad-Gita, he at once excites the attention of his hearers to what might, in the case of a general audience, be otherwise dry and repulsive, and aided by it, goes on to state the philological argument on which the whole of his remarks as to the migrations, early history, literature and manners of the South-Aryan race are based. We have never seen it so scientifically and yet simply put :

“In the first rank stand the results already obtained with regard to the primeval history of the Indo-European race. The comparison of the grammatical formation of the Sanscrit, especially as it appears in its oldest form in the Vedas, with the Celtic, Greek and Latin,

with the German-Lettish-Sclavonian and Persian languages, teaches us, that the structure of all these languages has one common foundation; moreover the gradation of forms and sounds directs us to the Sanscrit as the language which taken altogether has retained the most primeval form, and has adhered the most tenaciously to that parent ground. This original language thus disclosed by the identity of the grammatical form naturally supposes and demands that at the time when it was a living and spoken language, the people speaking it must also have been one; the different nations, as well as their languages appear thus, as the result of a gradual separation from the original Indo-European race and its language, indeed so much so, that the greater or less similarity of the sounds and forms of the several languages to each other and more exclusively with reference to the Sanscrit, gives us a clue as to whether this separation from the parent stock took place as an earlier or later period. The deficiency of all historical testimony for that early time is by this means made good for each people by the form of its language which affords a conclusive objective evidence distinctly confirmed by the geographical relations which meet our view when the historical period commences.-If the grammatical relations and inflexions are only the skeleton of the language and therefore afford us no direct picture of its life or even of the life of the people speaking it, the words themselves, the lexicographical treasure of a language, on the contrary are as it were the flesh clothing the skeleton, the nerves giving it vitality. In this way we may conclude that words, entirely or partly common to those languages, and the objects thus designated, were already either abstractly or positively the property of the earliest people, while the agreement of only some of those languages in words which are wanting in others, is a sign that the things or ideas thus designated belong to a time succeeding the separation already effected. Further from the circumstance that the Sanscrit has preserved a great number of roots which have been lost in the other languages, we are enabled to discover in a great mass of derivatives besides their traditional meaning up to this time purely metaphorical, also their primary signification, and thus we obtain an idea of our forefathers' style of thought, and see how naively they have given the most significant names to so many different objects. Finally an acquaintance with the old songs, habits and customs of the Hindoos at the Vedic era, promises even to afford us a means of determining the religious life of that early period, giving us an idea of their conception of the divine powers and forces in nature, in as much as there we find again a great proportion of such conceptions as are known to us from the Greek, Roman and German mythologies, the roots of which thus appear to have existed already in that common primeval time. Here certainly much is wanting in precision; and the investigations on this point are as yet the least conclusive, the greater part being still left to conjecture.'

Trusting almost wholly to the facts given by a comparison of the various Indo-European or Aryan dialects, he draws an ex