to a common point of no fmall importance in the pursuit of interesting truths.

Of all the works, which have been published in our own age, or, perhaps, in any other, on the History of the Ancient World, and the first population of this habitable globe, that of Mr. JACOB BRYANT, whom I name with reverence and affection, has the best claim to the praise of deep erudition ingeniously applied, and new theories happily illuftrated by an assemblage of numberless converging rays from a most extenfive circumference: it falls, nevertheless, as every human work must fall, short of perfection; and the least satisfactory part of it seems to be that, which relates to the derivation of words from Afiatick languages. Etymology has, no doubt, fome use in hiftorical researches ; but it is a medium of proof fo very fallacious, that, where it elucidates one fact, it obfcures a thousand, and more frequently borders on the ridiculous, than leads to any folid conclufion: it rarely carries with it any internal power of conviction from a refemblance of founds or fimilarity of letters; yet often, where it is wholly unaffifted by those advantages, it may be indisputably proved by extrinfick evidence. We know à pofteriori, that both fitz and hijo, by the nature of two several dialects, are derived from filius; that uncle comes from avus, and stranger from extra; that jour

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is deducible, through the Italian, from dies; and roffignol from lufcinia, 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 ferve to confirm, if any fuch confirmation were necessary, the proofs of a connection between the members of one great Empire; but, when we derive our hanger, or fhort pendent fword, from the Perfian, because ignorant travellers thus misfpell the word khanjar, which in truth means a different weapon, or fandal-wood from the Greek, becaufe 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'T, 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 firft 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 Analysis 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 fynthesis may be the better mode in pure Science, where the principles are undeniable, yet it seems lefs calculated to give complete fatisfaction in hiftorical difquifitions, where every poftulatum will perhaps be refused, and every definition controverted: this may feem a flight objection, but the subject is in itself so interesting, and the full conviction of all reasonable men so desirable, that it may not be loft labour to dif cuss the fame or a fimilar theory in a method purely analytical, and, after beginning with facts of general notoriety or undifputed evidence, to investigate such truths, as are at first unknown or very imperfectly discerned.

The five principal nations, who have in different ages divided among themselves, as a kind of inheritance, the vast continent of Afia, with the many iflands depending on it, are the Indians, the Chinefe, 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 distinct effays; the last of which will demonftrate the connexion or diversity between them, and solve 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 rising sun, 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 system. Let me here premife, that, in all these inquiries concerning the history of India, I shall confine my researches downwards to the Mohammedan conquefts at the beginning of the eleventh century, but extend them upwards, as high as poffible, to the earliest authentick records of the human species.

India then, on its most 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 weft from Perfia by the Arachofian mountains, limited on the east by the Chinese part of the farther peninfula, 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 ufed with more or lefs deviation from their original form.

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