Non-Hellenic Portion of the Latin Language. 515 
tracing it, directly or indirectly, to a name called by them 
Troy. 
I believe that I can solve this riddle, and explain the cause 
of this common agreement, and the symbols which enabled the 
dispersed members of a great family to recognise each other. 
But the investigation of this question alone would require a vo- 
lume, and must for the present be dropped. 
Having thus shown, from important testimonies, the close 
union between the original population of Rome and the Um- 
brians, and between the Umbrians, Romans, “ Veteres Galli” 
and Veneti, and the Cumri of our island, it now remains that 
we should examine into the language of the Umbri, and its close 
connection with the language of the Cumri. If the Iguvinian or 
Eugubian tables were really Umbrian, this might be supposed 
to furnish us with a certian test as to the identity of the two 
languages. But this they assuredly do not. The double set of 
characters, and the very imperfect representation in the tables, 
written in Latin characters, of the sense contained, or supposed 
to be contained, in those inscribed with ancient Greek letters, 
are in themselves a proof, that the language of the latter was a 
sacred one, known to a few alone, and not therefore to be ac- 
counted the language of the country. Although terrified by the 
fate of learned men, who have made a fearful shipwreck of their 
sagacity and judgment, upon these disinterred records of an older 
world, I might refuse to meddle with “ such dangerous matter,” 
I hesitate not to propose my firm belief, that these inscriptions 
are the remnants of a language, which, for want of a better 
name, may be called Pelasgic, and that we are on the eve of a dis- 
genia Britannorum studiis Gallorum anteferre, ut, qui modo linguam Romanam 
abnuebant, eloquentiam concupiscerent, inde etiam habitus nostri honor et frequens 
toga, paullatimque discessum ad de linimenta vitiorum porticus et balnea et convivi- 
orum elegantiam ; idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis 
esset. 
VOL. XIII. PART II. 3 U 
