THE ETRUSCAN QUESTION. 85 



confidence. Proceeding on this hypothetical principle it is quite 

 possible, by a mere resemblance in the words, to show with great 

 plausibility the affinity of a language, and consequently of a nation, 

 with any other language or nation. We have not hitherto attached 

 any importance to Professor Campbell's researches. Any attention we 

 may have given to compai-ative philology has been because of its 

 historical importance, and, if Professor Campbell derived any satis- 

 faction fi'om his Hittite or Aztec researches, we were not disposed to 

 detract from that pleasure, for neither the Hittites nor the Aztecs 

 have contributed much to the general development of civilization, 

 and historically considered are unimportant nations. The Hittites 

 had relations with Egypt during the Hyksos T)eriod, and during the 

 reign of Rameses IT., but they did not affect to any extent the pro- 

 gress of civilization. But Professor Campbell was treading very 

 different grovmd when he entered the field of Etruscan research. 

 The Etruscans were a very important people. They at one time 

 occupied the greater part of the Italian peninsula, and largely 

 influenced Roman civilization. They had extensive commercial 

 relations with the inland countries of Europe, and with the Baltic. 

 They have been regarded as foreigners on Italian soil, and there has 

 been a very strong desire to read their numerous inscriptions, and to 

 trace their affinity with other nations. It is more than half a century 

 since Niebuhr said that he would willingly give half of \Viiat he 

 p ssessed, if he could possibly obtain a clue to the deciphering of the 

 Etruscan language, but he had come to look on this as utterly hope- 

 less'. Undoubtedly since Niebuhr's d'ty some advance has been made 

 in our knowledge of the Etruscan language- In 1828 appeared the 

 first edition of Ottfried Miiller's " Die Etrusker," and in the second 

 volume of this very learned work the author established the value 

 and power of both the Etruscan and the Umbrian letters. Five 

 years after, in 183-3, appeared Lepsius' work, " De Tabulis Eugu- 

 binis," in which he substantiated the results arrived at by Muller. 

 The subsequent researches of Aufrecht and Kirchhoff, of Grotefend 

 and Lassen, of Mommsenand Deecke, of Corssen and Pauli, of Curtius 

 and Bugge, with those of English, French, Italian, and Swedish 

 scholars, have all tended to support the results ai'rived at by Miiller 

 and Lepsius, till in the last edition of Mullein's work, edited by 

 Deecke, we have a very valuable supplement, in which there is very 

 clearly and satisfactorily represented, not only the value of the Etrus- 



