nfthe Human Species. 321 



Avlth an infinite number of other small tribes, of different ori- 

 gin and languages. The Tartar people have remained more un- 

 mixed in all this space. They long menaced Russia, and have 

 at length been subjugated by her from the mouths of the Danube 

 as far as those of the Irtisch. 



" We are here, in the first place, struck with the circum- 

 stance, that the Tartar race is joined with the Finlanders and 

 the Hungarians. Now, the nations last mentioned are two 

 branches of a stock spread through the northern parts of Europe 

 and some regions of Asia from very early times, and are strongly 

 distinguished by physical character and by manners from the 

 Tartar or Scythian race. What is still more important, the 

 Finnish nations are always to be identified among themselves, 

 and clearly distinguishable from the Tartars by their dialects. 

 The Fenni and Scritifenni, belonging to the stock of the 

 Finns and Laplanders, are described by the Roman writers 

 Tacitus and Pliny, as inhabitants of the north of Europe. They 

 are mentioned by King' Alfred in his curious transcript of the 

 Voyage of Ocher the Northvian ; and, according to the most 

 learned investigators of northern antiquities, the Finns are the 

 people who, under the name of Jotuni, or Giants, had occu- 

 pied Scandinavia and the shores of the Baltic before the arrival 

 of Odin and his Teutonic followers from the east. It is said, 

 indeed, that some of the noble families among the Northmen or 

 Normans, were descended from these aborigines of Scandinavia. 

 Even Rollo, the conqueror of Normandy, and the ancestor of 

 the royal dynasty of England, claimed his descent from a Jo- 

 tune family, who had dwelt from time immemorial near Dron- 

 theim in Norway. The history of the Finns has been traced 

 among all the writers of the middle ages. It has long been 

 known that all the Finnish and Hungarian tribes are allied by 

 t!ie Resemblance of their dialects; but a few years ago this sub- 

 ject' was profoundly investigated by a learned native of Hun- 

 gary, Gyarmathi, who availed himself of his intimate acquaint- 

 ance 'with one of those diflleots — his own mother tongue^— and 

 applied hiniseir to the investigation of the cognat languages. 

 The result has been to establish a connection in speech, and 

 therefore iii rncekiid origin, between the Laplanders, the Finns, 

 the Hungarians, the Ostiaks in Asia, and niany tribes scattered 



VOL. XV. NO. XXX. OCTOBER 18*53. X 



