of Moses, [Gen. x. xi.] they will acquire the same degree of interest, inasmuch as they exhibit the early opinions respecting the affinity of original tribes. Nor is it by any means necessary to suppose that they were inventions of comparatively modern genealogists; but where they do not follow poems on the subject of theogony, they were probably taken from sacred traditions or documents, though certainly without having been duly weighed. That they are partly grounded upon very false assumptions, is palpable in the case of the Mosaical registers, which treat of people as kindred who undeniably belonged to entirely different families. With still greater suspicion must we receive the Greek genealogies. But it is striking, and deserves attention, that the notrians and Peucetians, as well as the Thesprotians, Mænalians, and other Arcadian races, according to Apollodorus, (whom we must substitute as authority instead of Pherecydes and Acusilaus,) are made to descend from Pelasgus. The opinions of the Greeks respecting the common or kindred origin of these nations, does not deserve to be treated with disregard, as a frivolous mythologic tale.

We must rest satisfied with the impossibility of determining, with certainty, what nation were the Pelasgi? how distinguished from the Greeks? whether those who are mentioned as in different places, belonged to one stock? Every notice of this people, in the brightest as well as in the darkest periods of history, remains to us an enigma; the satisfactory solution of which, will be the most absolutely de

spaired of by him who has most studiously laboured at its investigation.

This is not the place for a diffusive essay: meantime we may take it as proved, that the Pelasgi differed from the Greeks in language; that the earliest inhabitants of Thessaly and the Peloponnesus were of their stock; and that many Pelasgian, as well as Arcadian and Attic nations, had transformed themselves into Grecian. It is in the highest degree probable that the Epirotes (I here mean Epirus in its widest extent, reaching to the coast opposite the Peloponnesus) were Pelasgi, as many writers have denominated them 39. That the Dodonæans were so, is beyond a doubt.

Among those Epirotes also, whom Thucydides still called Barbarians, the language gradually changed, without conquest or colonization, into the Greek; a corrupt jargon of which is spoken by their descendants, as well as the inhabitants of Greece Proper. A similar transformation had taken place amongst the Siculi, according to the testimony of Diodorus 40, and Cicero in his oration against Verres; although the Greek colonies in Sicily had only extended to very few towns in the interior. This renders probable an analogy and affinity between languages certainly different, as, in some degree, exists between the Sclavonian and Lithuanian; in which also we perceive similar results; namely,

30 Πολλοὶ δὲ καὶ τὰ Ἠπειρωτικὰ ἔθνη, Πελασγικὰ εἰρήκασιν. Strabo, v. c. 2. § 4; a remarkable passage respecting the Pelasgi.

40 V. c. 6.

the gradual substitution of the latter for the former dialect. A similar analogy is observable among the Siculi, who were (Enotrians, as well as among the Epirotes. The name "Chones" (the northern Enotrians) seems identical with “Chaones;" a people of Epirus, near the Ceraunian mountains, opposite the promontory of Iapygium: and before Victorius altered the reading in Aristotle, it was "Chaones," instead of "Chones." In this sense, therefore, we may follow the ancient genealogy in considering the three nations, viz. Epirotes, Enotrians, and Peucetians, as branches of the Pelasgian stock; though such an affinity does not necessarily imply emigration. This latter opinion has grown out of the false reasoning, that nations of a common stock must have had a common origin from which they were genealogically descended. This opinion prevailed also amongst the ancients, though they recognized many families of mankind, originally different from each other. If, however, we follow up this view consistently, to the admission of a common descent from one pair, it will appear, when examined without prejudice, utterly untenable, if we renounce what is indispensable to its adoption, the miracle of the confusion of tongues; a miracle which certainly is insufficient, in a physical point of view, to account for the striking varieties of the species. But if we allow that the origin of the human race lies beyond our comprehension, which is only adequate to its developement and progress,-if we confine ourselves to retracing, step by step, the range of history,-we shall frequently discover nations of one stock, i. e. iden

tical in language and characteristics, dwelling upon opposite coasts of similar formation, without necessarily inferring that one of these countries, so separated, was the original seat from whence emigration took place to the other. Thus we find amongst the people of Italy, on the western coast of the Adriatic, the same Illyrians as those who inhabit the opposite shores: thus, also, we meet with Iberians in the islands of the Mediterranean, and Celts in Gaul and Britain. The same analogy pervades the geography of the animal and vegetable kingdom, whose extensive regions are separated by mountains, and include

narrow seas.

Besides those nations, which are identified in language and characteristics, some with stronger and others with fainter shades, there are others of unquestionable affinity, and yet so different, that, in order to explain the phenomenon, we must either admit the common opinion of an intermixture, or, where their languages bear the stamp of a pure developement, an inexplicable and spontaneous deterioration, even though experience shews a regular preservation of the analogy, under all the influences of time. Thus, there is a striking affinity, both in structure and etymology, between the Persian language and the Sclavonian, and in some points also the German. Thus, also, we recognize a fundamental affinity between the Latin and the Greek languages, much more than a mere intermixture, which only introduces or alters words. Nevertheless, in the elements of the former, in which that affinity clearly existed before the admixture with foreign nations had

entirely altered its structure, there remains an equally decisive and radical difference. But this is not more remarkable than the resemblances and diversities which are generally observable in nature, wherein different species and several apparent varieties continue without alteration, and evidently belong to the same genus.

We cannot admit, with Dionysius, that the notrians were Greeks. In very remote times, the Peloponnesus itself was not Grecian: but I consider it a conjecture as probable as can be hazarded respecting those ages, that the Enotrians and Peucetians were kindred to the Greek stock 41.

The Enotrians, who were so denominated only by the Greeks, lived in Bruttium and South-Eastern Lucania, according to the authority of Antiochus, already quoted. Two nations were distinctly recognized; the Italians, in the small circle of original Italy, within the isthmus between the bays of Scylaceum and Napetinum; the Chones, to the north, and beyond the isthmus, as far as Iapygia. The western coasts of Lucania, in which Elea was founded by the Phocæans 42 are also included by

41

Why did the Romans, and, indeed, the other Italians also, call the Hellenes Græci? Aristotle says the Hellenes were so called, when they lived on the highest mountain of Epirus; i. e. they were so named by the Epirotes. Alexander, the Etolian, uses this appellation in an age in which every uncommon epithet was introduced as an oratorical ornament. Was it not probably in use amongst his own nation, which was almost wholly Epirotan? Was it not also among the Macedonians, as it was received from the Alexandrians?

42

ἐκτήσαντο πόλιν γῆς τῆς Οἰνωτρίης ταύτην ἥτις νῦν Ὑέλη καλέεται. Ι. c. 167.