Non-Hellenic Portion of the Latin Language. 515 



tracing it, directly or indirectly, to a name called by them 

 Troy. 



I believe that I can solve this riddle, and explain the cause 

 of this common agreement, and the symbols which enabled the 

 dispersed members of a great family to recognise each other. 

 But the investigation of this question alone would require a vo- 

 lume, and must for the present be dropped. 



Having thus shown, from important testimonies, the close 

 union between the original population of Rome and the Um- 

 brians, and between the Umbrians, Romans, " Veteres Galli" 

 and Veneti, and the Cumri of our island, it now remains that 

 we should examine into the language of the Umbri, and its close 

 connection with the language of the Cumri. If the Iguvinian or 

 Eugubian tables were really Umbrian, this might be supposed 

 to furnish us with a certian test as to the identity of the two 

 languages. But this they assuredly do not. The double set of 

 characters, and the very imperfect representation in the tables, 

 written in Latin characters, of the sense contained, or supposed 

 to be contained, in those inscribed with ancient Greek letters, 

 are in themselves a proof, that the language of the latter was a 

 sacred one, known to a few alone, and not therefore to be ac- 

 counted the language of the country. Although terrified by the 

 fate of learned men, who have made a fearful shipwreck of their 

 sagacity and judgment, upon these disinterred records of an older 

 world, I might refuse to meddle with " such dangerous matter," 

 I hesitate not to propose my firm belief, that these inscriptions 

 are the remnants of a language, which, for want of a better 

 name, may be called Pelasgic, and that we are on the eve of a dis- 



genia Britannorum studiis Gallorum anteferre, ut, qui modo linguam Romanam 

 abnuebant, eloquentiam concupiscerent, inde etiam habitus nostri honor et frequens 

 toga, paullatimque discessum ad de linimenta vitiorum porticus et balnea et convivi- 

 orum elegantiam ; idque apud imperitos humanitas voeabatur, cum pars servitutis 

 esset. 



VOL. XIII. PART II. 3 U 



