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The Observations on J. J's Illustrations of Homer in No. vi. are received.

M. T's. article on Antiquities came too late for our present Number.

The Latin Prize Poem sent us by Oxoniensis will be found in the MUSE CANTABRIGIENSES, lately printed in London.

The best way of recommending the branch of Literature, to which Palæophilus directs our attention, is to favor us with a wellwritten article in it.

The remainder of the Notes on Blomfield's Prometheus will appear in the next Number.

Sequel to Sir W..Drummond's Remarks on the Inscriptions at Saguntum, shall be given in No. vIII.

Some additional remarks on the Poem of Festus Avienus, shall also appear.

The third Letter to Mr. Maurice on Pagan Trinities, will be inserted in our next.

Mr. B's. Appendix to the China of the Classics, will probably appear.

The Latin Essay on Literature contains many excellent observations; but the author is sometimes inattentive to the construction of verbs with conjunctions.

To the Latin Strictures of D. S. which have a dark political tinge, we must answer in the words of Pliny: ornare patriam et amplificare gaudemus, pariterque et defensioni ejus servire et gloriæ. If, indeed, they had the force, the variety, and the classical elegance, of Dr. Parr's Preface to Bellendenus, we should hesitate much more in rejecting them.

The Tract, De Ludis privatis ac Domesticis Veterum, came too 'late for this Number, but it shall certainly be noticed.

We shall readily insert Mr. Bailey's answer to the Criticisms on his Verses, given in this Number.

The Extracts on Oriental and Greek Mythology shall be considered.

Notice of Iconographie ancienne, ou Recueil des Portraits des Empereurs, &c. shall appear the first opportunity.

Sir W. Drummond's Answer to our Norwich Correspondent's article in our last Number shall have an early insertion.

The article In Eschyli Cantus Choricos novi Tentaminis Specimen is accepted.

The Remarks On The Comet seen at the death of Julius Cæsar shall be 'noticed.

Mercator's Description, &c. is unavoidably postponed.

Our Norwich Correspondent's articles are all intended for insertion.

The Oriental Inscription sent to us by K. shall appear in our next.

Biblical Criticism by C. is under inspection.

Some unnoticed Articles are intended for insertion.

We understand a list of most scarce and valuable Greek and Latin Books, with the Prices annexed, recently imported from France and Portugal, is nearly ready for delivery, gratis, at Lunn's Classical Library, Soho Square.

We shall be happy to receive from our friends any Literary notices on subjects connected with CLASSICAL, BIBLICAL, and ORIENTAL Literature.

CLASSICAL JOURNAL.

No. VIII.

DECEMBER, 1811.

A SEQUEL TO SIR W. DRUMMOND's

REMARKS ON THE INSCRIPTIONS FOUND AT ANCIENT SAGUNTUM,

Which are Printed in No. IV. Page 907.

NO. I.

THE

HE two Essays on the Coins, which have been found at Saguntum, are certainly the most learned and ingenious, which have yet been published in the Classical Journal. The accidental possession of a Biscayan Grammar, Bible, and Testament, enables me to collate Sir W. Drummond's observations with a short chapter in the History of Spain, by Mariana, and to confirm the system, into which three learned authors have fallenPinkerton, in his Dissertation on the Goths, on a curious affinity between the Biscayan and the Shilhi, or Mauric; Minsheu, in his Spanish and English Dictionary, on a pretended affinity between the Biscayan and the Chaldee; and Megiserus, in his specimens of 50 languages, published in 1662, on a wonderful affinity between the Biscayan and the Welsh.

Before I proceed to examine Sir W. Drummond's observations, I shall modestly propose my few reasons, why I agree in opinion with these three scholars.

VOL. IV. No. VIII.

1. Pinkerton says, in p. 18. that "the Iberian still partly survives in the Gascunian, or Basque, and Mauritanic;” and in a note in p. 121. he says, "The Iberian language survives in the Cantabric and Basque; the old Mauric is little known, and few specimens have been published: there is a dissertation on it at the end of Chamberlayne's Oratio Dominica (de linguâ Shilhensi); and some information may be found in Shaw's Travels it is yet spoken by the Kabyles, or Mountaineer Clans (Kabyleah, Arab. Clans) in Mauritania; is called the Showiah, or Shillah, being rather different from the Arabic, the general speech of the country: these Kabyles have, to this day, the manners described by Sallust," of the (I add here Medi and Persæ,) colonizers of Mauritania.

Now Pinkerton is in part refuted by the following list of numerals (from 1 to 10) in the Shilhi, in the Biscayan, and the Welsh:

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In No. VII. I published the above, with nearly two hundred other specimens of numerals; in mother-tongues, and in their dialects, whether oral, or written, whether in the dead languages, or in the newly-born tongues ; for new tongues arise, one in each 1000 years!!! as the Hebrew after Abraham's departure arose out of the Chaldee coeval with his age; as the Syrian, for 1000 years the official and the courtly tongue of the Assyrian, nay of the Persian, and even of the Parthian monarchs, changed in the era of Queen Zenobia into the Palmyrene, and in the 5th and 7th centuries of the Christian era into the Syriac of the Polyglott, and in our century into a dialect of the modern Arabian; as the Abyssinian, in which the translation of the Bible in the Polyglott is written, has been transfused in the time of Bruce into various and widely-different dialects; as the Arabic of the Book of Job, and the pure Chaldee of the prophet Daniel, have respectively re-appeared, in a very altered idiom, one in the Coran of the 7th century, and in the Arabic translation of the New Testament in the 14th century; the other in the Chaldee Targums, which were composed from the 4th century to

I blame not the profound classic Pinkerton, because he has accidentally fallen into these trivial mistakes, as he wrote in A. D. 1787. on the Basque, and on the Shilhi, with all the learning, of which Europe was possessed in that year. But the Shilhi has accidentally been illustrated in the past twenty years by two literary travellers, and in the "Papers of the African Association," it has fortunately found a Hebrew or an Arabic commentator in Mr. Marsden, the celebrated historian of Sumatra, and an adequate judge of their affinity with the Irish, and of their discordance and total difference from the Biscayan. To these papers I must refer the inquiring reader.

The astonishing affinity of the Irish, and of the Punic quoted in Plautus, any reader can discern by the juxta-position of the same speech written in the two languages as it is thus translated in Col. Vallancey; and it is referred to in my notes on Avienus, in the 5th No. of this Journal-

"I pray the gods, male and female, who guard this land, O mighty deity of this country, powerful, terrible, quiet me with rest, that my plans may be completed; may my affair prosper under their guidance; support of weak captives, be it thy will to instruct me to obtain my children after my fatigue."

Punic.

Irish.

Na at oliunim u oliunut sbuat esmun zut Nijth al o nim ua lonuth sicorathissi

Irish.

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ma com sith.

chuinigh lach chimithe: is toil muin beiridh mioch liar moschith.

The second, or rather third line is pure Hebrew, according to Bochart.

the year 1600.; as the classic Greek has degenerated into the modern Greek, and the Latin has refined into the Italian; as the venerable Pehlavi has been commuted for the Persico-Arabic of our age, and the Sanscrit, its very aged daughter, has been superseded by its modern twelve dialects; in short, as the earliest Sauro-metan, or Sclavoniç, or Vandal, has given place to her nine descendants, and the superannuated Mæso-Gothic to her nineteen kindred dialects! So numerous are the modern ramifications of the few ancient and maternal tongues of the primitive or parental tribes, out of whose empires new colonies issued to plant new dialects on new shores.

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