XIV 



prepared to use the crude-form system iu their teachiug will find the 

 part on Syntax very useful*. 



The Philological Essays of Mr. Key were " in part published for the 

 first time, in part reprinted from the Transactions of the Philological So- 

 ciety, but with many changes or additions." Of the useful essays in this 

 volume, the following, in Two Parts, is worth a careful study : — " Quae- 

 ritur. The Sanskrit language as the basis of Linguistic Science ; and the 

 labours of the German School in that field, are they not overvalued ? " 

 The author acknowledges the deepest obligations of all classical students 

 to the scholars of Germany ; and he adds that in the question which he 

 is now considering, the word " overvalued " is " quite compatible with an 

 admission of great value ; " and this great value he does not deny. He 

 also acknowledges the signal services of Bopp, the founder, as he is named, 

 of the science of Comparative Grammar. The particular objections to 

 some of the opinions of the Sanskritists can only be learned from the essay. 

 The objections to some of the theories of Bopp appear to be unanswerable ; 

 some of those theories are properly termed "extravagancies," and it is hard 

 to conceive that any student of language can accept them. 



The second part of " Quaeritur " treats of the ' Yergleichende Gram- 

 matik ' of Bopp, the first portion of which was published in 1833. The 

 book was republished with some changes and considerable additions in 

 1857-60. Mr. Key objects to the precedence which Bopp gives " to 

 writing over sound ; " or, in other words, to languages which are written 

 over languages which are only spoken ; and he objects for this reason, 

 that " the error, so to call it, has told unfavourably on the arguments 

 that follow." Accordingly Mr. Key objects to Bopp's designation of a, 

 i, u as the three original vowels, which error proceeds from Bopp not 

 looking " upon the materials for oral language as belonging to the domain 

 of physical science, and wholly independent of those other forms of lan- 

 guage which are addressed to the eye." Bopp's error also proceeds from 

 knowing nothing of Professor Willis's experiments (p. 272) on the vowel- 

 sounds, which sounds " pass by imperceptible gradations from the one 

 extreme i (the sound in feet) to the other u (or oo in boot)" The varieties 

 of vowel-sounds are therefore infinite, or practically unlimited — a fact 

 which a careful observer of human speech would certainly know. Another 

 objection made to Bopp's work is this : — " The German philologer de- 

 parting from the course marked out by his Indian authorities, refuses to 

 accept the doctrine that all words are traceable back to verbs." This 

 matter is discussed by Mr. Key at some length. 



Mr. Key's last work is on ' Language, its Origin and Development ' 

 (1874). By language he means oral language; and he says, "in this 

 sense the word language will be always used, unless the contrary be 



* There is an article by Mr. Key on the advantages of the crude-form system in Bell's 

 ' English Journal of Education ' for December 1850, vol. iv. New Series, p. 446. 



