India, appears to me evidently to follow, as well from the marriage of Nausicaa (who represents modern languages, are found united in the Sanscrit. Whoever compares a work composed in it, with its translation into Bengalese, will recognize the same peculiarities which distinguish the Latin from its modern derivatives. Its eight cases render the use of prepositions superfluous; and in Sanscrit, these are exclusively employed as prefixes to verbs, being without signification alone. To the same circumstance the Indian poets are indebted for the freedom of their transpositions, the sense remaining perspicuous, without subjecting the words to any settled collocation in the composition of each sentence. This structure facilitates those harmonious measures so much preferable to rhyme, which the modern poets of Persia and India, as well as of Europe, are obliged to call to their assistance, to conceal the defects, and to compensate the monotony of their language. But whatever elegance the modern tongues may be susceptible of, every man capable of enjoying the charms of composition feels, that what is gained in precision, is lost in energy; that the capability of saying much in few words, is one of the first excellencies of a language; and that mere perspicuity is far from not a part only but the whole of India) to Ulysses; as from the expression yala na van dif compensating that energetic conciseness, which, in the writers of antiquity, at once delights and exercises the understanding of the reader." These last observations of the reviewer seem to me to lead to a conclusion very ferent from what was in the reviewer's contemplation, namely, that if the Sanscrit be an artificial language (which is highly probable,) the Latin and the Greek are so likewise: indeed it appears to me that an involved phraseology contains in itself a strong evidence of a language being artificial, and that an inverted collocation of words would be next to impossible in a living spoken language, since, by such a freedom of transposition, the whole order of the speaker's thoughts must be inverted at the same time with his words, and reason itself give place to an utter confusion of ideas. In reading the numerous elegant productions in the Latin and Greek languages, the understanding of the scholar is aided by the eye by habit; but it may be fairly presumed, that in speaking Latin in modern times by the learned of any of the few nations or literary bodies that have not yet discontinued that practice, the collocation of the words is not inverted, but orderly, natural, and regular. and (the river Hughly and the country of India) contained in the following beautiful simile: 5 Od. 399, Ως δ' οταν ασπάσιος βιοτος παίδεσσι φανείη Πατρος ος εν νόσω κειται κρατερ' αλγεα πασχων Δήρου τηκόμενος σύγερος δε οι έχραε δαίμων Ασπασίως δ' αρα τον γε θεοι κακοτητος ελυσαν Ως Οδυση ασπαςον εείσατο γαια και υλη. In the same positions are the English of the present day seen flourishing and happy; and the like may be said of the ancient connexion of the English with the Chinese; for though it was not so close as that of marriage, yet there is reason to think, (from what Ulysses says to Alcinous,) that the English had a factory or resident establishment in China at the times in question, similar to the one now subsisting there: 11 Od. 360, 4 Ει με και εις ενιαυτον ανώγοιτ' αυτόθι μιμνειν Και με το βέλοιμην και κεν πολυ κέρδιον ει And from the lines before cited (Δυσσετο τ' ηέλιος, &c. 6 Od. 321, and Δηομεν αγλαον αλσος, &c. 6 Od. 291), it should seem that that factory was situated in some western district, and therefore, perhaps, as at present, at Canton ; which becomes more probable, on considering the unalterable nature of all measures of Chinese policy. It appears, that indeed, throughout all known time, the British isles, by their valour, their wisdom, and their nautical skill, have possessed a commanding influence in both India and China. Nausicaa acknowledges that it was by the special favour of Heaven that that influence was established: 6 Od. 240, Ου παντων αεκητι θεων οι Ολυμπον εχεσιν Φαιηκεσσ' οδ' ανήρ επιμίσγεται αθανατοισι. об VOL. V. And though Ulysses, in describing himself as a Briton (αλλα θνητοισι βροτοισι), expresses, as might be expected, a due sense of religion, 7 Od. 208, 8 γαρ εγωγε Αθανατοισιν εοικα τοι ἔρανον ευρυν εχεσιν yet such are the wealth and power resulting from that influence, that Nausicaa tells him, however unequal in strength he might be to other potentates before, the possession of that influence put him in a manner on a level with the gods themselves : 6 Od. 242, Προσθεν μεν γαρ δη μοι αεικλιος θεατ' είναι The means by which our dominion and influence in those countries were anciently preserved, were unquestionably, in the first place, by maintaining our superiority in naval power; which leads me to state, that to consider Ulysses as merely representing our commercial traders with |