1827.] The Origin of Language. 249 



Saxons, which has given to them, in the course of ages, and through their 

 inhabitation of a narrow island, a tone of mind, and a consequent manner 

 of speech, so distinct from those of the sedentary and speculative German, 

 the continued inhabitant of a continental region, little tempted to sail over 

 every sea, estranged almost from every great navigable river, shut out from 

 southern intercourse, little engaged in commerce, little communicating with 

 foreigners of-any soil whatever, and still less with those of France, and of 

 the rest of the South of Europe, in particular ? 



We are provoked to these inquiries by the marked and unqualified Ger~ 

 manism of the pages before us ; a Germanism of thought and expression, 

 that evinces how small a part of the difficulty of an Englishman's reading 

 a German author consists only in the difference of language or, as it 

 really is, of dialect alone ! In a French, Spanish, Italian, or other South- 

 ern author, upon the other hand, let an Englishman but once conquer the 

 language, and he finds himself conversing we had almost said, with one 

 of his fellow-men ; but certainly with an individual of the same general 

 education, mode of thinking, and mode of speaking with himself. National 

 differences there still undoubtedly are ; but, in spite of these, there is a 

 general resemblance. But take up a German author, and whether we are 

 ourselves conversant with the German, or the German is ever so success- 

 fully rendered into English, yet, at last, how small is the approximation 

 obtained ! Other remarks would offer themselves in other departments 

 of German literature ; but it is a philosophical work which is now under 

 review, arid it is only to German philosophical literature that we are here 

 addressing ourselves. A " Treatise upon the Origin of Language" is 

 before us ; and, though the " Origin of Language," upon any hypothesis, 

 belongs to what is usually called " metaphysics," yet what Englishman or 

 Frenchman would conduct a metaphysical discussion in the manner of this 

 " Treatise;" or can follow, with patience and pleasure to himself, the 

 waste of words, the waste of thought, and the multiplied abstractions, 

 and at least peculiar phraseology, which such pages, even when perfectly 

 anglicised, present ? 



The diversity too of national education between the German and modern 

 English is rendered, ten times the more remarkable in the instance here 

 adduced, from the language employed by the Translator himself; in 

 which, while the most correct English is confessedly written -while none 

 but the most usual English words are confessedly employed yet the 

 modes of expression at once proclaim the German birth and education of 

 the writer, and make, as we should fear, that writer's avowed purpose of 

 being " instrumental," through the means of this version of Herder, " to 

 more amalgamation between the Germans and the English," utterly hope- 

 less ! It is not merely the text of the Author which repulses, but the 

 Translator's " Introduction" itself, written for the directly opposite pur- 

 pose, must answer, as we actually fear, and sincerely regret, no other end 

 than that of a scarecrow, to drive away the feet of the Englishman 

 who would approach any German treatise in philosophy J The Trans- 

 lator, in the mean time and while taking a just view of the c( opposite 

 spheres of speculative and practical life," in which the Germans and Eng- 

 lish are respectively engaged assures us, that, " by the strenuousness of 

 their strongly-contrasted exertions, they are become more closely connected 

 than they imagine." But, for our own part, we can perceive no symptom 

 of the desired and most desirable union ! The character which is ascribed, 

 in this very 4 < Introduction," to German philosophising, and the very Ian* 



M. M. New Series. VOL. IV. No. 21. 2 K 



