ous

analogy, the same letters have been chosen to characterize the first and third person singular of verbs. But what are we to say of the second person, which ends in asi, and as or ah, having no affinity to the second personal pronoun, whose most prominent letter is t again? The same thing is still more conspicuus in the second persons dual and plural, of which the verbal terminations are in the present thah and tha, and in the past tung and ta. The objective case of the second personal pronoun dual and plural are yoovang and yooshman, or by other forms, vang and vah. Between these and the corresponding verbal terminations, there is certainly no analogy.

The verbal terminations of the first person dual and plural are, in the present, vah and mah, va and ma. The oblique case of the first personal pronoun dual and plural are, āvang and asman, and as in these there are found the letters vand m, it may be thought, at first, that these correspond to the verbal terminations va and ma; but it unluckily happens to be demonstrable that the personal power (if we may so call it) of the pronouns does not reside in the letters v and m, but in the prefixes aa and as; for the oblique cases of the second personal pronoun are yoovang and yooshman, having the same v and m, with a change in the prefix. As, therefore, these letters do not possess a personal power in the pronoun, it is difficult to conceive how they could have communicated it to the verb by derivation. Indeed, if there be derivation in the case, it is certainly much more probable that the single syllables va and ma should be the roots of aavang and asmān, than the reverse. In other words, the pronouns are more likely to be derived from the verbal terminations, than the terminations from the pronouns. The analogies between the first persons dual and plural of the verbs and pronouns are too obscure to require dwelling upon. It thus appears that, out of nine cases, the analogy is perfect in two only (the first and third person singular). In two (the first person dual and plural), the derivation is at variance with the significative; in two more (the third person dual and plural), it is too obscure to be depended upon; and in the remaining three (the three numbers of the second person), it certainly fails altogether.

Still more; in Sanscrit there are two forms of conjugation, the distinction between which is not perfectly understood, but it is commonly described as resembling that between the Greek active and middle. European grammarians distinguish them by the titles Common and Proper. The examples given by the Reviewer are all from the common form; but it is evident that, if the terminations of the common form be contractions of the personal pronouns, those of the proper must also be contractions of the same personal pronouns; and whatever be the difference between the conjugations, must be intended to express the obscure relation between the active and middle voice. Now of the verb yāchati, he seeks,' the first persons present are as follows:

Common: yāchāmi, yāchāvăh, yāchāmăk;

Proper: yaché, yāchāvăhé, yāchāmăhé.

Here, in the first place, it will be seen, that the m, supposed to be the root of the first personal pronoun, in the common form, is not found in the proper ; and, next, that a long e is added to the common terminations of the dual and plural, to express, in the proper form,-what? We think no degree of ingenuity will ever show either that this e is a personal pronoun or a self-significant word.

We might pursue this reasoning through the passives, causals, volitives, &c.; but it would be needless. To attempt to reduce all these to personal pronouns is a mere waste of ingenuity.

But this is by no means an end of the difficulties. It is demonstrable that the Sanscrit verbal terminations are intended to express not only personality, but also time; and besides that, other relations of a more refined and obscure nature. To begin with those of time. The present time of bhoo, 'to be,' is bhavati, 'he is;' its future is bhavisyăti, he will be.' Now, if any thing be certain in language at all, it must be, that the syllable sy here means future time, and must in fact be equivalent to a future temporal adverb. Part, at least, then, of a verbal termination is not a personal pronoun.

"Oh, but," the Reviewer may reply, "adverbs, according to my system, are themselves pronouns (p. 105), and of course those of future time among the number. The syllable sy is, therefore, doubtless a personal pronoun too." Is this really the mode of reasoning by which the nature of language is to be elucidated? If it be so, we shall not attempt a reply, till the temporal adverb and its equivalent personal pronoun be produced, of which sy is the abbreviation.

But let us take another case. Babhoova, he was.' Here the reduplication of the letter ba indicates past time. Is this a past temporal adverb derived from a personal pronoun? If so, all the letters of the alphabet must be the same adverb derived from the same pronoun, since this tense is universally formed by the reduplication of the initial of the verbal root. Thus dadao, he gave,' chichaya, he gathered,' shishraya, 'he rested,' &c. To make this system of reduplication accord with any part either of Tooke's or the Reviewer's system, is like the attempt of the Laputan philosopher to place a sun-dial upon the weathercock of their great church.

From all that has been said, our own opinion may now be easily inferred. We consider the terminations of verbs to be not self-significant, but consignificant vocables; that is, sounds possessing no independent meaning, but capable of modifying the meaning of the self-significant verbal roots, to which they may be joined by the rules of inflection, so as to express the variations of mood, time, person, and in some languages, of gender. That, from the principles of analogy, in which the human mind delights, the personal part of those terminations may be made to resemble the most prominent element of the corresponding personal pronoun, is true; but this circumstance is neither necessary nor constant, and in the comparatively few instances in which it does happen, in no degree changes the consignificant character of the vocable. In short, we are not Boppites, but Schlegelites.

To us we confess it has always appeared, that Tooke and his followers have fallen into three capital errors. The first consists in making general inductions from partial facts. Having found or imagined a circumstance to be true with respect to a few instances in some languages, they have at once concluded that it must be true in every instance in all languages, and have then set it up as a necessary principle of speech; a mode of reasoning that would be tolerated in no science whatever: just philosophy prohibits the reception of any theory, however plausible, till it has explained every fact and every phenomenon. Another error is in carrying derivation too far. It is evident that it is impossible to go on deriving one word from another, in an infinite succession. We must at some point arrive at words absolutely radical, that is, words for whose meaning no reason whatever can be given, except the arbitrary will of the inventors of language, whoever they were; and having arrived at this point, we must stop. Of this, however, most etymologists seem to be insensible, and go on deriving one word from another in endless sequence, as if language, like matter, consisted of parts divisible to infinity. Akin to this, is the desire to resolve language into too few constituent parts. Modern chemists have, after Asiat. Journ. N.S. VOL.22. No.87. 2 H

many efforts, been compelled to admit the existence in nature of fifty or sixty unanalyzable elements. Such an enumeration would have excited the contempt of their ancestors, who boldly resolved the whole material world into salt, sulphur, and mercury. Is it not to be feared that our etymologists are committing a similar mistake, and that, in analyzing, with Tooke, all language into nouns and verbs, or, with the Reviewer, into abstract nouns and pronouns, we are attributing to nature a degree of simplicity which she does not possess, and are making compounds of what are really elements, and are thus confounding, instead of explaining, the principles of speech? Why may not speech have ten distinct elements, as well as two?

In this view, we heartily concur with the following opinion of the Reviewer: "We think one point satisfactorily established, namely, that pronouns and simple particles, instead of being, as Tooke represents, comparatively modern contrivances, are in reality of the most remote antiquity, as well as of firstrate importance in language. The oldest dialects have invariably more words of this class than the more recent ones." p. 109.

If particles be of this remote antiquity, there can be no great danger in adding prepositions, conjunctions, and a long catalogue of adverbs, to the number of the essential elements of speech.

Before concluding, we may notice one or two trifling mistakes in the Reviewer, probably proceeding from the unsatisfactory system we before noticed, of expressing Sanscrit words in Roman letters. He tells us (p. 85) that the Sanscrit dative plural ends in bhyam: it is the dative dual that so ends. The Sanscrit dative and ablative plural end in bhyah or bhyas, evidently the cognate of the Latin bus. Again; the Reviewer speaks (p. 104) of "the Greek T, from the (Sanscrit) demonstrative root ta, and Latin que from the relative ka.” The fact is, that both T and que are cognates of the Sanscrit cha, which means the same thing, and is subjoined to substantives in the same manner. In P. 99, the Reviewer speaks of ta and ima as Sanscrit demonstrative pronouns. Of these words, in that language, we confess our ignorance.

Those who may have taken the trouble to look over the foregoing pages will, perhaps, have observed that we have taken no notice either of the Reviewer's numerous references to the Welch and Celtic languages, or to the writings of Bopp and other German philologists. It is most assuredly no disbelief of the importance of these languages, in a philological view, or disrespect to those eminent scholars, that has caused our omission, but simply the circumstance of the writer of this article happening to have his present residence in a remote province of the kingdom, where he has access to none but the most common books, and where it is out of his power to inspect either Bopp or the Celtic grammarians.

Under these circumstances, and knowing how limited is the diffusion of such works in this country, he cannot help wishing that the Reviewer had given a more detailed account of the speculations of the German philologists, for the benefit of those who, like himself, may be precluded from an immediate opportunity of referring to them. Of Bopp's eminence as a philologist, no one can doubt; still it must be confessed, that some of the conclusions to which he seems to have arrived (such as the formation of adverbs and conjunctions from pronouns) are extraordinary, and we should have been much gratified by having the steps of his reasoning laid more distinctly before us. Anxious as we are to pay to the opinions of this great scholar that deference to which they are so justly entitled, still, when we see so eminent a name as that of Schlegel arranged on the other side of the question, when we perceive that

even the Reviewer himself (p. 96) seems to hesitate as to the correctness of the whole of Bopp and Pott's theories, and when we recollect the errors into which a man of such wonderful sagacity as Dugald Stewart allowed himself to be led, in his speculations on the origin of Sanscrit, we think we can hardly be accused of much presumption, in wishing to have complete evidence, before assenting to conclusions which tend to unsettle our previous notions of the structure of language.

We have thus laid before our readers the observations which have occurred to us in going over the Reviewer's very able and interesting article, and we sincerely trust that our having done so will be considered as originating from no motive but that of a wish to advance the science to which it has reference, and in which we confess we have long been interested,—that of philosophical grammar. In the extended intercourses which the nations of the world are now carrying on with each other, and the infinite number of religious, political, and scientific interests which subsist among "all people, nations, and languages," it is evident that the cultivation of grammar, as a means of facilitating the correct communication of sentiment, is daily increasing. It is, therefore, desirable, in every point of view, that the science which is the foundation of all practical knowledge of language should have its true principles investigated; and this, it is plain, must be accomplished by the same means as in every other department of knowledge, namely, by a diligent collation of facts, and a careful induction from those which have been collated, and the admission of no theory without a rigorous examination of the principles upon which it is founded.

THE EUPHRATES ROUTE.

(Extract of a letter, dated Tellicherry, 4th September, 1836.)

"This will be despatched by Colonel Chesney. I have felt much interested in his navigation of the Euphrates, which he accomplished a short time since, in the face of innumerable difficulties. The papers seem to think, erroneously, I hope, that the Board of Control areagainst continuing this line of communication. Commercially, it will lead to great benefits; it will bring our Indian trade, and thereby much British merchandize, to the Persian Gulf, Bussorah, and Baghdad, whence by short landcarriage it may be introduced into the centre of Persia, by Kermaunshaw and Ramadu, and into the north by Tabreez, taking the Solimaunee route. But the political advantages it holds out are of far greater importance. Our influence in Persia is nearly extinct; the navigation of the Gulf, the Euphrates, and, by a junction canal, the Tigris, would enable our vast Indian resources being brought by water on a parallel line to any part of Persia from Kermaun to Tabreez, removed from Kermaun about three marches, Shiraz nine, Ispahan (if the road over the Buctiani mountains were made practicable, as it might be), about twelve marches, Kermaunshaw ten, and Tabreez from fifteen to eighteen marches. This navigation might lead to our occupation of Baghdad, where our rule is hoped for. Baghdad has long ceased to be anything but a source of vexation to the Porte; its revenues are never transmitted to the capital; our resident, and a special commissioner lately employed, Mr. Frazer, are both of opinion, that the sultan might be induced to farm to us this division of his dominions; and the advantages of Baghdad, both as to position and fertility, are such, that we might afford to give very liberal terms for what produces to the Sultan absolutely nothing. No wonder the Russians are jealous of our advances on this side. The very apprehensions of our great rivals ought to open the eyes of our rulers to the sure and important benefits which we should derive from the navigation of the Euphrates."

STATIONS IN CENTRAL INDIA.

UPON landing at Calcutta, the stranger, who has heard continually of the arid plains of India, is surprised by the perpetual verdure with which he is surrounded on every side: he has possibly fallen into the still too common error, of supposing that Bengal comprizes the whole of the presidency which goes under its name, and that the soil and climate of the vast peninsula is pretty much the same in all its districts. Comparatively few Europeans who resided in the British territories in the East, previous to those campaigns which, under Lord Lake, so widely extended the Company's dominions, had any opportunity of judging from personal experience of the vast difference in the various provinces of the upper country, and they could obtain little or no information from books. Even Bishop Heber was unprepared for the striking contrast which he observed in the appearance of the people, as he voyaged up the Ganges, and gazed with surprize at the contrast afforded by the tall, athletic, soldier-like looking men of the higher districts, with the puny, diminutive, and timid Bengallees. We are apt to associate great fertility with our ideas of India, and certainly very extensive portions of the country fully bear out the supposition; but there are others of an opposite character, each green and luxuriant spot appearing like an oasis in the desert.

The large province of Ajmere, which, though in many parts extremely beautiful, is, generally speaking, a sterile and almost intractable waste; amongst other barren and unproductive districts, it comprehends the great desert, and nothing can well be imagined more dreary than the stations which have been selected for the civil and military servants of the Company, appointed to the administration of those portions which are under British control. One, Nusseerabad (a name derived from a Persian title, Nasir-ud-Dowlah, conferred by the court of Delhi on Sir David Ochterlony), has provoked a wretched pun: some one asks the name of the place, and whether it is a good station; the reply is, "No sir, a bad." Neemuch is equally dreary, perhaps even more so, since, although there is only a single tree indigenous to the soil to be found in the immediate neighbourhood of Nusseerabad, the gardens are said to be in a flourishing condition; whereas those of Neemuch are not very luxuriant. The sandy and stony nature of the soil, the want of water, and the saline deposits, are the causes of the present sterility. There are comparatively few rivers in this province, and the streams, occasioned by the periodical rains, speedily dwindle into insignificant rivulets, and in the dry season are utterly exhausted. The population is thin, and the reverse of wealthy; consequently, there are no large tanks, in which the rain which falls abundantly during the season might be preserved for future irrigation, nor are the rivers dammed up, and thus prevented from getting dry. The philanthropist, therefore, while grieving over the present condition of many districts in this vast province, may entertain a hope that, at some future period, they may be reclaimed, and rendered equally productive with regions to which nature has been more bountiful, Neemuch was selected as the site of a military cantonment by Sir John Malcolm, in 1820, who, it is supposed, was induced to make choice of it on account of the salubrity of its climate, that being the only circumstance in its favour. The cost attendant upon sinking wells forms a serious item in the expenses of those who are obliged to build or maintain their residences in repair at Neemuch; the water procured becomes so speedily exhausted, that, to obtain a further supply, the shaft must be deepened, an operation which is performed by blasting the rock with gunpowder. The water when procured is