the Romanfh Language * 145 
diftri<fi, which (till leffens the frequency of their inter- 
courfe, alfo accounts, in a great meafure, for the variety 
of fecondary dialers fubfifting in aim oft every different 
community or even village. 
The oldeft fpecimens of writing in this language are 
fome dramatical performances in verle upon fcriptural 
fubjedts, which are extant only in manufcript. The hif- 
tories of susanna, of the Prodigal Son, of judith and 
holofernes, and of Esther, are among the firft ; and 
are faid to have been compoled about the year 1560. 
The books that have lince been printed are chiefly upon 
religious fubjedts ; and among thole that are not fo, the 
only I have ever heard of are a fmall code of the laws of 
the country in the Cialover dialed!, and an epitome of 
sprecher’s Chronicle, by da porta, in the Ladin. 
The language fpoken in Gaul from the fifth to the 
twelfth centuries being evidently a mixture of the fame 
Roman and Celtic ingredients, and partaking of the fame 
name with thofe of the Grifons ; it will, I hope, not be 
thought foreign to the fubjedt of this letter, if I enter 
into a few particulars concerning it, as it feems to have 
been an effential part, or rather the trunk, of the lan- 
guage, the hiftory of which I am endeavouring to elu- 
cidate. 
One of the many infiances how little the laboured re- 
fearches of philologifts into the origin of languages are 
to be depended upon, is the variety of opinions enter- 
tained by French authors concerning the formation of 
Vol. LXVL U the 
