64 Dr Prichard's Anniversary Address 



bution by a learned Finn, M. Kellgren, who has also pub- 

 lished separately a very accurate and interesting work, on the 

 class of languages to which his own national speech belongs, 

 1 mean the Ugro-Tartarian languages. Adopting the notion 

 of Julius Klaproth, as to the origination of the tribes com- 

 posing this family, from two chains of mountains, M. Kell- 

 gren terms the whole groupe, the " Ural-Altaisch Spradch- 

 stamm." We had some few years ago, a publication on the 

 Finnish language and literature, by Dr Sjogren, of the uni- 

 versity of Abo. But this paper, the work of a very distin- 

 guished philologist, though the title promised more, contained 

 very little new information, either on the language of the 

 Finns, or the compositions that are extant in it. On the 

 mythological poems of the ancient Finns, the songs of 

 their " Bunonieckas,^' or bards, and the worship of their 

 divinities, Ilmarinen, and Vainamoinen, much curious 

 information was collected by Porthan, president of a lite- 

 rary society at Abo, and by Lencquist and Gannander, 

 in the early part of the last century, and the subject has been 

 well treated in a work published a few years since in Swe- 

 dish, by M. RUhs, of which we have a translation into the 

 German language. A remarkable trait, pointed out by M. 

 E,uhs in the poetical compositions of the ancient Finns, is 

 worth noting, as it suggests an inquiry of ethnological im- 

 port. In these verses the same principle of composition pre- 

 vails which has been well known since the time of Bishop 

 Lowth, as the leading characteristic of Hebrew poetry. 

 The second verse in each distich or poetical sentence ex- 

 presses in a more rhetorical or poetical style, or in a man- 

 ner somewhat modified, the sentiment which was more simply 

 uttered in the first.* This is so remarkable a trait of re- 



* In a poem to Tapio, the god of the woods, an invocation occurs which ex- 

 emplifies this style of composition. 



0, thou Bee. smallest of birds, 



Bring me honey from the house of the woods. 



Sweet juice from the hall of Tapio. 



The following invocation occurs in a hymn to the Finnish goddess of " Disease,''^ 

 who was styled the ^* Daughter of Death. ''^ It is translated by Lencquist. 



