124 



Observatio?is on Original 



[July 



genius of an original language. To illustrate this, I hope I shall he 

 pardoned if I introduce some examples from Horace, marking with 

 italics those words which are in point. 



Altera jam teritur hellis civilihus alas, 



Suis et ipsa Roma viribus ruit. 

 Quam neque finitimi valuerunt perdere Marsi f 



Minacis aut Etrusca Porsence manus ; 

 JEmula nec virtus Capuee, nec Spartacus acer, 



Novisque rebus injidelis Allobrooc ; 

 Nec /era cceruled domuit Germania pube, 



Parentihusque abominatus Hannibal j 

 Impia perdemus devoti sanguinis (Etas ', 



Ferisque ru'rsus occupabitur solum. 



I would here remark that, according to the genius of a strictly original 

 languarge, it ought to be Capuee virtus, but the poet placed the genitive 

 after its substantive, merely for convenience sake, as the caesura 

 would not have been so beautiful by far. Similar passages we find in 

 Liber II, Ode 12, Stroph. 1 and 2— L. Ill, Ode 3, 45 and 48 ver.—L. 

 Ill, Ode 1st, 11th and 15th Strophes ; but I cannot omit one, which is a 

 particularly fine specimen of the accuracy with which the Roman 

 Poets have sometimes observed the construction of an original lan- 

 guage, viz. L. II, Ode 14. 



Linquenda tellus, et domus, et placens 

 Uxor ; neque harum quas colis, arborum 

 Te, praeter invisas cupressos, 

 Vila brevem dominum sequetur. 



Here we have exactly the Tamul construction ; and, I would observe 

 by the way, that, because in a Tamul translation of the phrase quas 

 colis arborum ulla, the words quas colis, are rendered by the participle, 

 as it were, tu colens arborum, or tu colentium arborum, i. e. a te cult arum 

 arborum, — and because, in the Tamul language, the verb with the rela- 

 tive (like quas colis) must always be the participle, and must stand 

 before the verb which it more accurately describes, the Tamiilians have 

 no relative noun at all, as they never stand in need of any. Also, in 

 that respect, the Latin has preserved a fragment of a strictly original 

 language, as they say mecum, secum, nobiscum, putting the preposition, 

 which is nothing but a modification, or a more accurate definition, of the 

 noun, after it, just as in the original Hindu languages. 



9. If I am not mistaken, the Greek Poets are by no means so care- 

 ful to observe this rule of construction, and even many compound words 



