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" Greeks." Whether they were or not it is impoflible at this 

 diftance of time to pronounce with any degree of certainty ; but 

 the Trojans were a mixture of Greeks and Phrygians, fay fome 

 authors. If the Hymn to Venus is allowed to be genuine (and 

 fome of the moft penetrating critics never denied its authenticity) 

 it will appear, from the authority of Homer himfelf, that the Tro- 

 jans and Phrygians fpoke different languages. This difference 

 is taken notice of in the Hymn to Venus, not in the Iliad; a 

 circumftance which deftroys the force of that argument which 

 is drawn from the general filence of Homer as to the languages of 

 the contending nations. If the Hymn to Venus had been loft, 

 few perhaps would have thought of afligning different languages 

 to the Trojans and Phrygians ; the general inference from the 

 Iliad would have been, that they were the fame. If, therefore, 

 Homer is totally filent in the latter poem as to the language of 

 Greece and Troy, he is equally fo as to that of Troy and Phrygia ; 

 and yet in another place we have his own words to prove that 

 the laft-mentioned countries did not fpeak the fame tongue. 

 Virgil, fays Mr. Wood, always confounds the Trojans and Phry- 

 gians, and reprefents them as one people, when in fad they 

 were by no means fo. If fuch an accurate obferver of Homer 

 has fallen into this error, what may not other authors have done ? 

 In a queftion, therefore, where there is fo much doubt, fo much 

 confufion, fo much uncertainty on the one hand, and a refped- 

 able and evidently impartial authority on the other, to which 

 fide ought we rnofl to incline ? The extent of the language of 

 the Greeks, or of Grecian colonization, does not come cxadly 

 within the fcope of the prefent enquiry. That their language 

 was very generally diffufed at the earliefl periods is certain. 



( I ) Chios, 



