130 Dr Hodgkin on the Progress of Ethnology. 



we feel warranted in connecting with the rude inhabitants of 

 London itself, when the first Roman general brought his 

 eagles to the banks of the Thames. 



When the ethnologist, brought to take this extensive view 

 of the subject, seriously applies himself to recover all that 

 may yet be gleaned of a people who seem to be lost in obli- 

 vion, he will find, as Dr Prichard has fully shewn, that a great 

 number and variety of positive facts may be satisfactorily as- 

 certained. Thus, one author may have left the sketch of per- 

 sonal character, which, as an incidental passage, may seem to 

 be of little importance, but which, when selected and applied 

 to the present purpose, is invaluable. Another detached pas- 

 sage may regard the similarity or difference of language spoken 

 in difi^erent parts of the country ; and this record, in conjunc- 

 tion with a few names of men, places, rivers, and mountains, 

 preserved in other passages, will enable the philologist to con- 

 tribute his invaluable assistance to ethnology, and to deter- 

 mine not merely the language, but the dialect of such lan- 

 guage, which has been spoken in a particular locality, in the 

 most remote and obscure period of its history. 



The interest of the subject does not stop here. When the 

 apparently hopeless task of marking out the former territo- 

 ries and relations of a once very numerous and extensive hu- 

 man family, now reduced to a few detached remnants, has 

 been to a good degree accomplished, a still more remarkable 

 discovery has rewarded the sagacity and patient perseverance 

 of the ethnologist. Similarity and analogy, too close to be the 

 result of mere accident, have been shewn by the philologist to 

 exist between the Sanscrit and the Greek ; and the same rela- 

 tion is still more easily shewn to exist between the Greek and 

 the Latin. There is perhaps nothing to excite astonishment 

 in this discovery, since Greece is known to have borrowed a 

 part of its civilization from the East, as the Romans, and those 

 who preceded the Romans, did theirs from Greece and other 

 people to the east of them. The most remarkable fact is that 

 which the philological ethnologist has brought to light, viz. 

 that the ancient Greek is not more certainly allied to the 

 Sanscrit, than is the rude Celtic preserved as a living lan- 

 guage in the Highlands of Scotland, the mountains of Wales, 

 and the rudest parts of Ireland. 



