1828.] 
carries him lightly, but safely, over pas- 
sages, with the minutie of which, if he 
dwelt upon them, he would soon be per- 
plexed. But with languages which exist 
only in bocks, which are only to be under- 
stood by dint of great labour—by searching 
and sifting—single phrases, and even single 
words become of prior, if not of mightier 
importance—for before you can get at the 
sense of the whole, you must detect, and, to 
a certain degree, define that of the parts. 
For the accomplishment of this purpose, 
etymological learning comes usefully in— 
not that the bare knowledge of immediate 
derivations will carry you safely through 
writers of every kind and every age, who 
use the language. Amidst an abiding ana- 
logy, and a general steadiness, there are 
great and progressive changes, which have 
arisen not cnly from changes as to the 
knowledge of the thing the word indicates, 
but from the introduction of new phrases by 
successive writers, and the consequent ap- 
plication of the old to new purposes, or at’ 
least a modification of the old usage, for 
they were seldom utterly abandoned—and 
these from a variety of causes—fashion— 
whim — intercourse with foreigners — pe- 
dantry—power. But still the tracing back 
to their sources tends to specificate the 
sense, and frequently suggests to the in- 
quirer the causes that led to new or un- 
usual applications. It isa sort of general 
index—or, still better, it is the polarity of 
the language. Every body feels that he has 
a firmer hold of his native tongue, the more 
he knows of the sources, whether Greek, 
Latin, or Saxon, from which it flows; and 
the same satisfaction, in degree, is derivable 
from the same sort of knowledge in every 
other language, though it be true that he 
cannot get thoroughly to the root of 
them. r 
The author of the volume before us, one 
of the numerous, industrious, and learned 
family of the Valpys, who come into the 
world with Latin at their tongue’s end, as 
some do with their teeth ready cut, has 
made a very useful book—nothing of the 
kind has hitherto been introduced to schools 
—compiled from a variety of books, most 
of which are beyond the reach of numbers, 
and quite useless to learners—not that we 
mean to insinuate the volume is wholly bor- 
rowed, for the author has shewn consider- 
able sagacity, and, occasionally, no little 
dexterity. In the preface, he proves that 
the Latin and Greek are. relative languages 
—mnother and daughter—not sisters or cou- 
sins—by a very obvious and satisfactory 
process ; for instance, Domus and Aoj.os— 
plainly the some words—which is the pro- 
genitor ? What can we make of Domus 
in Latin? Nothing. What of Aoo¢ in 
Greck? Refer it to Aduw, to build, and 
that to Aw, to bind, or bind together. 
Therefore, Domus comes from door, and 
not Ao40¢ from Domus. To be sure both, 
by. possibility, may be traceable farther 
Domestic and Foreign. 
309 
back, and to a common source, and thus be 
proved to be sisters—though we have no 
great expectation from oriental sources, not 
even from the Sanskrit, to which certain scho- 
lars seem disposed to point; and none at 
all from the north—though Egypt we think 
not utterly unlikely, should the present re- 
searches of Champollion, Young, &c. make 
any progress. The very history of Greece 
and Rome, however, leads to a confirma- 
tion of the author’s hypothesis ; and the 
dates are precisely marked of numerous 
words, when they passed from Greece to 
Rome. At all events, the more the Latin 
language is looked into, the more are words 
traceable to significance. Vossius, as Mr. 
Valpy remarks, did not know that zewive 
was the source of pruina—ss a thing of the 
morning—hoar frost. 
The great fault of the book is too fixed a 
determination to find a Greek origin for 
every thing, and the consequent admittance 
of wild and random guesses. Too much 
reliance, again, is placed upon analogous 
substitutions of letters—e. g. “ Dirus for 
dinus,” says Mr. Valpy, “ from 8etvos 3” 
and by way of proof, or, at least. of illustra- 
tion and confirmation, he adds, “‘ mora from 
pon.” Refer to jrovn, and you find it sup- 
ported in like manner, by dirus from dewos 
and so they prop one another. But farther, 
to shew that dirus may very well come from 
dewvoc, that is, that in this case m may be 
changed into r, an instance is produced 
where r is changed into 7, as donum from 
dwpov, which itself, if it really have any thing 
to do with the matter in hand, wants au- 
thority. But other sources are, it seems, 
thought worthy of being quoted. It may 
come from ‘éz0s, doc, fear; for yvog makes 
nurus, which latter, though it be true 
enough, will go a very little way in esta- 
blishing the other. Or again—this is still 
Mr. Valpy—if the Greek utterly fail, the 
Anglo-Saxon may be called into requisition 
—dere, hurtful, mischievous—Shakspeare 
has, “would I had met my dearest foe in 
heaven,”’—which itself had surely better be 
read direst—-but who, except an etymologist 
by profession, would have gone to Anglo- 
Saxons for a word in use with the Romans 
long before the Romans came in contact 
with them. Surely the wiser and more 
manly way would be to avow ignorance ; 
the tendency of the present course is to con- 
firm errors, or to check inquiries, or to ex-: 
cite ridicule. 
Take another instance — Comis—cour- 
teous, mild, affable; from cémo, I trim, 
polish, as Quintilian has comere et eapolire 
orationem. Hence cdmis is much the same 
as our word polite, from polio—all which 
may do. But not content with this, we 
have al. from xw.w, I adorn with care; 
al. from cosmis, from xoo~w, I adorn; al. 
from xwj.0s, festivity, hilarity. Once more, 
al. from com, i.e. cum and eo—somewhat as 
the Greeks use oipumepupsponee for 1 am ob-~ 
sequious, or complaisant. But o would be 
