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Inaugural Lecture 1 On the study of Medicine 15 On the study of Language 27

On the Doctrine of the Caesura in the Greek senarius 68 On the use of the signs of Accent and Quantity as guides to the pronunciation of words derived from the classical Languages 74

On the Meaning of the word ????? 81

Notice of works on the Provincialisms of Holland 85

On the subjectivity of certain classes in Ethnology 138 General principles of philological classification and the value of groups, with particular reference to the Languages of the Indo-European Class 143 Traces of a bilingual town in England 152 On the Ethnological position of certain tribes on the Garrow hills 153 On the transition between the Tibetan and Indian Families in respect to conformation 154 On the Affinities of the Languages of Caucasus with the monosyllabic Languages 156 On the Tushi Language 168 On the Name and Nation of the Dacian king Decebalus, with notices of the Agathyrsi and Alani 175 On the Language of Lancashire under the Romans 180 On the Negrito Languages 191 On the general affinities of the Languages of the oceanic Blacks 216 Remarks on the Vocabularies of the Voyage of the Rattlesnake 223 On a Zaza Vocabulary 242 On the Personal Pronouns and Numerals of the Mallicollo and Erromango Languages, by the Rev. C. Abraham 245 On the Languages of the Oregon Territory 249 On the Ethnography of Russian America 266 Miscellaneous contributions to the Ethnography of North America 275 On a short Vocabulary of the Loucheux Language, by J. A. Isbister 299 On the Languages of New California 300 On certain Additions to the ethnographical philology of Central America, with remarks on the so-called Astek Conquest of Mexico 317 Note upon a paper of the Hon. Captain Fitzroy on the Isthmus of Panama 323 On the Languages of Northern, Western and Central America 326

PAEDEUTICA.

INAUGURAL LECTURE

DELIVERED AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON, OCTOBER 14, 1839.

Instead of detaining you with a dissertation upon the claims and the merits of our Language, it may perhaps be better to plunge at once into the middle of my subject, and to lay before you, as succinctly as I am able, the plan and substance of such Lectures as, within these walls, I promise myself the honour of delivering. For I consider that the vast importance of thoroughly understanding, of comprehending, in its whole length, and breadth, and height, and depth, the language which we all speak, we all read, and we all have occasion to write--the importance also of justly and upon true grounds, valuing the magnificent literature of which we are the inheritors--I consider, I say, that the vast importance of all this is sufficiently implied by the simple single fact, that, in this Institution, the English Language, with the English Literature, is recognized as part and parcel of a liberal education. It may also be assumed, without further preface, that every educated man is, at once, ambitious of writing his own Language well; of criticizing those who write it badly; and of taking up his admiration of our National Literature, not upon Trust but upon Knowledge.

The English Language is pre-eminently a mixed Language. Its basis indeed is Saxon, but upon this basis lies a very varied superstructure, of Danish and of Norman-French, of Modern French and of Greek, of Classical Latin and of the Latin of the Middle Ages imported at different periods and upon different occasions. Words from these languages are comprehended by the writer just in the proportion that he comprehends their origin and their derivation. Hence it is that the knowledge of isolated words is subordinate to the formation of a style; and hence it is that the rules for their investigation are akin to the rules of Rhetoric.

This however is but a small part of what may be our studies. It is well to know how Time affects Languages, and in what way it modifies them. It is well to know how one dialect grows out of another, and how its older stages differ from its newer ones. It is well if we can perceive that these variations are in no wise arbitrary; but it is better still if we can discover the laws that regulate them. Yet all this is but a knowledge of the changes that words undergo, a knowledge of the changes in their form, and a knowledge of the changes in their meaning. Now these points are points of Etymology, the word being used in its very laxest and its largest sense; and points of Etymology must, in no wise, be neglected or undervalued.

Lectures upon these questions will form the Etymological part of a course; and Lectures upon Prose Composition the Rhetorical part of one; whilst the two, taken together, will give a course upon the English Language, in contradistinction to one upon the English Literature.

In respect to the latter, I shall, at regular intervals, fix upon some new period, or some new subject, and, to the best of my power, illustrate it.

Thus much for the divisions and subdivisions of the subject-matter.

The considerations that come next in order are the considerations of the manner of exhibiting it, the considerations of the knowledge that can be detailed, and the considerations of the trains of thought that can be inculcated.

In this way two things may be done: our criticism may be sharpened, and its edge may be turned upon ourselves. At this I aim, and not at teaching Rhetoric systematically.

The father of Horace, as we learn from the testimony of his son, was peculiar in his notions of education. In his eyes it was easier to eschew Vice than to imitate Virtue. Too wise a man not to know that an unapproachable model was no model at all, he let the modesty of Virgil speak for itself. But he counselled his son against the prodigality of Barrus, and held up, with parental prudence, the detected peccadilloes of Trebonius.

Now the system, that produces a negative excellence in morals, may produce also a negative excellence in literature. More than this Art can not do. For Wit, and Vigour, and Imagination we must be indebted to Nature.

The discovery of remote analogies is not only mental exercise, but, worse luck, it is a mental amusement as well. The imagination is gratified, and Criticism thinks it harsh to interpose.

Again, there is no language that a man so willingly illustrates as he illustrates his own. He knows it best, and he studies it with the greatest ease. He loves it not wisely but too well. He finds in its structure new and peculiar beauties; he overvalues its excellence, and he exaggerates its antiquity. Such are the men who talk--in Wales, of the ubiquity of the Celts; in Germany, of the Teutonic Origin of the Romans; and in Ireland of the Phoenician extraction of the Milesians.

I think that at the entrance upon an unsettled subject, a man should boldly say, and say at the very onset of his career, upon whose opinions he relies, and whose opinions he distrusts. He should profess himself, not indeed the implicit follower of any School, but he should name the School that he preferred. He should declare whose books he could recommend, and whose he would eschew. Thus, if I were lecturing upon Geology, I should say, at once, whether I were what is called a Scriptural Geologist or a Latitudinarian one: And thus, in the department in point, I name the writers I put faith in. In the works of Grimm and Rask I place much trust; in those of Horne Tooke some; and in those of Whiter and Vallancey none whatsoever.

Hence it is that what we will know, to a certainty, of Etymological processes, must be collected from Cotemporary Languages. Those who look for them elsewhere seek for the Living among the Dead; arguing from things unknown , and so speculating laxly, and dogmatizing unphilosophically. Hence it is, that in Cotemporary Languages, and of those Cotemporary Languages, in our own most especially, we may lay deep and strong, and as the only true substratum of accurate criticism, the foundations of our knowledge of Etymological Processes. And, observe, we can find them in a sufficient abundance provided that we sufficiently look out for them. For Processes, the same in kind, though not the same in degree, are found in all languages alike. No process is found in any one language that is not also found in our own; and no process can be found in our own language which does not exist in all others beside. There are no such things as Peculiar Processes: since Languages differ from each other, not in the nature of their Processes, but in the degrees of their development. These are bold, perhaps novel, assertions, but they are not hasty ones.

There are two stages in Language. Through these two stages all Languages, sooner or later, make their way; some sooner than others, but all sooner or later. Of this the Latin language may serve as an illustration. In the time of Augustus it expressed the relations of Time and Place, in other words, its Cases and Tenses, by Declension and Conjugation, or, broadly speaking, by Inflexion. In the time of Dante there was little or no Inflexion, but there was an abundance of Auxiliary Verbs, and an abundance of Prepositions in its stead. The expression of Time and Place by independent words superseded the expression by Inflections. Now in all Languages the inflectional stage comes first. This is a Law. There are Languages that stay for ever in their earlier stage. Others there are again, that we never come in contact with before they have proceeded to their later one. Languages of this latter kind are of subordinate value to the Etymologist. Those that he values most are such as he sees in the two stages: so being enabled to watch the breaking-up of one, the constitution of the other, and the transition intermediate to the two.

The Breaking-up of the Latin is a study in itself. It is a study complete and sufficient; not, however, more so than is the study of the Breaking-up of the Gothic. For in this stock of Tongues, not only did the Saxon pass into the English, but the Moeso-Gothic, the Scandinavian, and the Frisian, each gave origin to some new Tongue; the first to the High German, the second to the Languages of Scandinavia, and the third to the Modern Dutch. The study then of the Languages of the Gothic stock is something more than a sufficient disciplinal foundation in Etymology.

In matters of pronunciation, living Languages have an exclusive advantage. For dead Languages speak but to the eye; and it is not through the eye that the ear is to be instructed.

It is well for the Geologist to classify rocks, and to arrange strata, to distinguish minerals, and to determine fossils; but it is far better if, anterior to this, he will study the Powers of Nature, and the Processes that are their operations: and these he can only study as he sees them in the times wherein he lives, or as he finds them recorded in authentic and undisputed histories. With this knowledge he can criticize, and construct; without it he may invent and imagine. Novel and ingenious he may, perchance, become; but he can never be philosophical, and he can never be Scientific. So it is with the Etymologist. Whenever, in a dead Language, he presumes a Process, which he has looked for in vain in a living one, he outruns his data. The basis of Etymology is the study of existing Processes.

Our Language has had its share; I must hasten to the consideration of our Literature.

These, the primeval and Pagan times of our ancestors, must claim and arrest our attention; since it is from these that our characteristic modes of Thought are derived. In the regions of Paganism lie the dark fountains of our Nationality.

Beside this, I consider that, even in the matter of Language, the direct Scandinavian element of the English is much underrated; and still more underrated is the indirect Scandinavian element of the Norman-French. And here, again, when we come to the Conquest, we must grapple with new dialects, irregular imaginations, and mystical and mysterious Mythologies; for the things that have a value in Language, have a value in History also.

Now come, in due order, and in lineal succession, the formation of our Early English Literature, and the days of Chaucer; and then those of Spenser: periods necessary to be illustrated, but which may be illustrated at a future time. And after these the AEra of Elizabeth, fertile in great men, and fertile in great poets; so much so, that it must be contemplated by instalments and in sections.

There are many reasons for choosing as a subject for illustration the Dramatic Poets of this Period. They stood as great men amid a race of great men; so doing, they have a claim on our attention on the simple solitary grounds of their own supereminent excellence. But, besides this, they are, with the exception of their one great representative, known but imperfectly. Too many of us consider the Age of Elizabeth as the Age of Shakspeare exclusively. Too many of us have been misled by the one-sided partiality of the Shakspearian commentators. These men, in the monomania of their idolatry, not only elevate their author into a Giant, but dwarve down his cotemporaries into pigmies. And who knows not how their writings are filled even to nauseousness, with the imputed malignity of Ben Jonson? Themselves being most malignant.

This, however, has been, by the labor of a late editor, either wholly done away with, or considerably diluted. Be it with us a duty, and be it with us a labour of love, to seek those commentators who have rescued great men from the neglect of Posterity; and be our sympathies with the diligent antiquarian, who shows that obloquy has originated unjustly; and be our approbation with those who have corrected the errors of Fame, loosely adopted, and but lately laid aside.

Yet here we must guard against a reaction. Malone, and his compeers, valued, or seemed to value, the Elizabethan Drama, just for the light that it threw upon the text of their idol. Gifford, goaded into scorn by injustice, fought the fight on the other side, with strength and with spirit; but he fought it like a partizan; reserving his admiration and his eulogy for those whom he himself edited. Next came Hazlitt and Charles Lamb; who found undiscovered beauties in poets still more neglected. I think, however, that they discovered these beauties, or at any rate that they exaggerated them, in a great degree on account of their being neglected.

Be there here a more Catholic criticism! be there here eulogies more discriminate! be there here tastes less exclusive!

Now, although, the Schools of Cowley and the Schools of Dryden, differ essentially from that particular section of the Elizabethan AEra, which we have just contemplated, they do not differ, essentially, from another section of that same aera. Be this borne in mind. There are in Literature, no precipitate transitions. The greatest men, the most original thinkers, the most creative spirits stand less alone than the world is inclined to imagine. Styles of composition, that in one generation are rife and common, always exist in the age that went before. They were not indeed its leading characteristics, but still they were existent within it. The metrical Metaphysics of Cowley were the metrical metaphysics of Donne: the versified Dialectics of Dryden may be found, with equal condensation but less harmony, in the Elizabethan writings of Sir John Davies. The section of one age is the characteristic of the next. This line of criticism is a fair reason for never overlooking and never underrating obscure composers and obsolete literature.

The School of Pope, and the School of our own days, are too far in the prospective to claim any immediate attention.

And here I feel myself obliged to take leave of a subject, that continually tempts me to grow excursive.

There are two sorts of lecturers; those that absolutely teach, and those that stimulate to learn; those that exhaust their subject, and those that indicate its bearings; those that infuse into their hearers their own ideas, and those that set them a-thinking for themselves. For my own part, it is, I confess, my aim and ambition to succeed in the latter rather than in the former object. To carry such as hear me through a series of Authors, or through a course of Languages, in full detail, is evidently, even if it were desirable, an impossibility; but it is no impossibility to direct their attention to the prominent features of a particular subject, and to instil into them the imperious necessity of putting forth their own natural powers in an independent manner, so as to read for themselves, and to judge for themselves. Now as I would rather see a man's mind active than capacious; and, as I love Self-reliance better than Learning, I have no more sanguine expectation, than, that instead of exhausting my subject I may move you to exhaust it for yourselves, may sharpen criticism, may indicate original sources, and, above all, suggest trains of honest, earnest, patient and persevering reflection.

NOTES.

NOTE 1, p. 6. l. 24.

NOTE 2, p. 7. l. 22.

Let the Languages of Greece and Italy be learned for their own sake; and by those who have the privilege to appreciate them. One might think that the works of Homer and Demosthenes, of Lucretius and Caesar, were a sufficient reason for turning with diurnal and nocturnal hands the copies that exhibit them. But let us not be told that it is necessary to study the Latin or the Greek Accidence for the sake of learning grammar in general. The self-deception that in taking up Latin and Greek we are studying a Grammar, instead of beginning a Literature, is too often the excuse for concluding our studies just where they might advantageously begin, and for looking with complacency upon limited acquirements just where limited acquirements are pre-eminently of little use.

NOTE 3, p. 8, l. 27.

INTRODUCTORY LECTURE, DELIVERED AT THE MIDDLESEX HOSPITAL, OCTOBER 1, 1847.

There are certain facts of such paramount importance, that they not only bear, but require, repetition. The common duties of every-day life, and the common rules of social policy, are matters which no moralist states once for all: on the contrary, they are reiterated as often as occasion requires--and occasion requires them very often.

Now it is from the fact of certain medical duties, both on the part of those who teach and those who learn, being of this nature, that, with the great schools of this metropolis, every year brings along with it the necessity of an address similar to the one which I have, on this day, the honour of laying before you.

You that come here to learn, come under the pressure of a cogent responsibility--in some cases of a material, in others of a moral nature--in all, however, most urgent and most imperative.

To the public at large--to the vast mass of your fellow-creatures around you--to the multitudinous body of human beings that sink under illness, or suffer from pain--to the whole of that infinite family which has bodily, not unmixed with mental affliction, for its heritage upon earth--to all who live, and breathe, and feel, and share with yourselves the common lot of suffering--here, in their whole height and depth, and length and breadth, are your responsibilities of one kind. You promise the palliation of human ailment: but you break that high promise if you act unskilfully. You call to you all those that are oppressed; but you may aggravate the misery that you should comfort and relieve. You bear with you the outward and visible signs, if not of the high wisdom that heals, at least of the sagacious care that alleviates. Less than this is a stone in the place of bread; and less than this is poison in the fountain-springs of hope.

Not at present, indeed, but within a few brief years it will be so. Short as is human life, the period for the learning of your profession is but a fraction of the time that must be spent in the practice of it. A little while, and you may teach where you now learn. Within a less period still, you will practise what you are now taught.

Well! this has seemed excursive, but it is not so: it is a reason against the putting off of your learning-time. When your first case comes, you must be as fit for it as you are ready for it.

A difference between old practitioners and beginners there always will be--so long at least as there is value in experience, and a difference between age and youth; but this difference, which is necessary, must be limited as much as possible, must be cut down to its proper dimensions, and must by no means whatever be permitted to exaggerate itself into an artificial magnitude. If it do so, it is worse than a simple speculative error,--it is a mischievous delusion: it engenders a pernicious procrastination, justifies supineness, and creates an excuse for the neglect of opportunities: it wastes time, which is bad, and encourages self-deception, which is worse.

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