PROGRESS OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY 241 



followed in 1858 and 1859, was indeed wretchedly poor. It consisted 

 in a treatment of general grammar as the subject was understood 

 in the eighteenth century. It was only in 1865 that comparative 

 grammar was properly taught at Paris. In that year, Minister 

 Duruy transferred to the College de France the chair which had 

 existed, more in name than in fact, at the Sorbonne, and intrusted 

 it to Mr. Breal, who had studied in Germany under Bopp and under 

 Albrecht Weber, and who still occupies this chair. 1 In England and 

 in Italy, the teaching of comparative grammar dates from about 

 the same time, being inaugurated in those countries by two men 

 equally eminent, but widely different in qualities and methods, 

 Max Miiller and Prof. Ascoli. 



Diez seems to have felt Bopp's influence only indirectly, but 

 Grimm's grammar acted upon his ideas in a decisive way. He was in 

 fact a "Germanist" before becoming a "Romanist." At .the Univer- 

 sity of Bonn he taught mostly Germanic philology. His courses in 

 Romance philology were slimly attended and were subordinate. The 

 general principles which he was to apply to the comparative study 

 of the Latin tongues were ready to hand in the grammar of the 

 Germanic languages, which was already founded upon a scientific 

 basis. The statement of this fact in no way operates to diminish 

 Diez's merit. The difficulties which he had to overcome were enor- 

 mous. The laws of phonology and of inflections are much more 

 complicated and less apparent in the Romance languages than in 

 the Germanic languages, and, on the other hand, the materials which 

 Diez had to make use of in his work were far more defective and less 

 reliable than those upon which Jakob Grimm had worked. In the case 

 of Old French and Old Provengal, whose monuments go back to the 

 ninth and tenth centuries, he was compelled to compose his gram- 

 mar from texts few in number and in a majority of cases poorly 

 edited. For the popular idioms, the patois, texts were in most cases 

 not to be had. It need occasion no surprise, therefore, if at this 

 distance we discover numerous gaps in his work; we must rather 

 admire the sagacity which enabled him to use to such wonderful 

 advantage the defective materials with which he was forced to be 

 satisfied. 



The first edition of Diez's grammar was little known outside of 

 Germany. In France, a man of keen intelligence and unusual breadth 

 of view, but a man of letters rather than a linguist, J. J. Ampere, 

 was the first to use it, in 1841. In writing a rather superficial book 

 on the history of the formation of the French language, 2 he condensed 



1 He has just resigned. His successor is Prof. Meillet, well known for his various 

 essays on Slavonian and Armenian languages. (Dec. 1905.) 



2 Histoire de la formation de la langtie frangaise, 8vo, 1 vol. In 1869 appeared 

 a second edition, to which I was persuaded to add a number of footnotes in 

 which I endeavored to correct the more obvious mistakes. 



