SACRED ISLES I^T THE WEST, ScC. 9.65 



religious notions re-appear in various places, under 

 various modifications, as might be expected ; and 

 there is not a greater difference between the tenets 

 and worship of the Hindus and Greeks, than exists 

 between those of the churches of Borne and Geneva. 

 AVith regard to the languages, both ancient anil 

 modern, through this he/t, their radical Vv'ords, 

 verbs and nouns, viith others regularly deduced 

 from them, are in great medsuve SanscrU. It can- 

 not be expected that their respective grammars 

 should preserve much affinity. It is the fate of 

 every language, when in a state of decay, to lose 

 gradually its cases, moods, and tenses of tlie se- 

 cond order, and to employ auxiliary verbs, which 

 the*Sfl«>c?7/f uses sparingly, and I)y no means througii 

 necessity. I have observed that grad»ual state of 

 decay in the Sanscrit language, through the dia- 

 lects in use in tlie^^V^er?? parts of Lidia down to 

 the lowest,* in which last, through all the words are 

 Sanscrit more or less corrupted, the grammatical 

 part is poor ?aid deficient, exactly like that of our 

 jnodern languages in Europe, whilst that of the 

 higher dialects of that country is at least equal to 

 that of the Latin language, from such state of 

 degradation no language can recover itself : all tlie 

 refinements of civilization and learning will r^ever 

 retrieve the use of a lost case or mood. The im- 

 provements consist only .in borrowing words from 

 other languages, and i'n framing new ones occa- 

 sionally. This is the remark of an eminent mo- 

 dern writer, and experience shows that he is per- 

 fectly right. Even the Sanscrit alphabet, wlien 

 stripped of its double letters, and of tliose peculiar 

 to that lano-uaoe, is the Pelaso-ic, and every letter 

 is to be found in tliat, or the other ancient alpha- 

 bets which obtained forn^erly all over Ei(roj)e, and 

 I am now preparing a short essay on that interest- 



ing subject. 



