MEMOIB OF THE LATB MR. JOHN JUST, OF BUBT. 



105 



the theory and linguistic rule of that profound philologist, 

 Rask, coupled with his intimate familiarity from childhood 

 with the peculiar dialect of Westmorland, qualified him to 

 point out many unsuspected affinities between the proper 

 names of men and places, still existing in the North of 

 England, and the old Norse and Danish tongues, — enabled 

 him to trace many archaisms to their Scandinavian origin, 

 and greatly assisted him in the decyphering and translation 

 of old Runic inscriptions. From this close interweaving of 

 kindred sciences and branches of knowledge, it is by no 

 means easy to note separately bis acquirements in each. But 

 first as to philology, it may be observed that while at the 

 Kirkby Lonsdale Grammar School, he became a good Latin, 

 Greek, and Hebrew scholar ; after taking up his residence in 

 Bury he acquired a sufficient knowledge of French, German, 

 Italian and Spanish, Swedish and Danish, to read any author 

 in those languages ; and his strong desire to trace to its various 

 sources his own vernacular tongue, led him to acquire a 

 thorough knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon and other Teutonic 

 languages; of the old Gothic and Scandinavian tongues, no 

 less than of their modern forms; and even to extend his 

 researches into the structure of the ancient British and other 

 Celtic languages and dialects. 



The gentleman of whom he took lessons in French, was 

 struck with his great power of acquiring and retaining the 

 more difficult parts of the language, as the idioms, the 

 irregular verbs, &;c. So extensive was his knowledge of 

 various languages, that being once asked how many he knew, 

 he enumerated upwards of twenty of which he had some 

 knowledge, seventeen of which he knew structurally. But, 

 though of these he could not only read but write many, he 

 was unable to speak any but his native English, and those 

 who knew him will remember that he retained much of the 

 pronunciation of his native county, — the broad Doric of his 

 Anglo-Danish birth-place. 



