W MEMOIR OF PALLAS. 



and govemment, but devotes a large portion of his 

 work to an account of their religion, which is truly 

 shocking and singular in its essence and history. 

 It is not a little astonishing that this work has not 

 been translated either into French or English, whilst 

 every day increases the number of travels which are 

 of infinitely less value. " This is a work," says 

 Mr Tooke in his Russia Illustrata^ " that will enrich 

 the stock of human knowledge with discoveries, the 

 greatest part entirely new, and which no person but 

 Professor Pallas is able to communicate." 



A most important part of the history of nations, 

 and one which enables us to penetrate farther into 

 the antiquity of their history than all written docu- 

 ments, is the knowledge of their language. It is by 

 it we can judge of their origin, and can better follow 

 their genealogy than by all their traditions; and 

 there is no govemment which can more promote this 

 important study than that of Russia, whose subjects 

 speak sixty different languages. Catherine II. con- 

 ceived the ingenious idea of making a digest of the 

 vocabularies of all the tribes which yielded obedi- 

 ence to her sceptre : she actually commenced this 

 work herself, and then charged Professor Pallas, who 

 was the individual who had seen most of these hordes, 

 and was best acquainted with their language, to col- 

 lect together all the Asiatic vocabularies, at the same 

 time restricting him to a list of words which she 

 had drawn up. Hence the two quartos under the 

 title " Linguarum totiics Orhis Vocabularia Corn- 

 par ativa" It is not matter of astonishment that a 



