vous: Indeed I have obferved that nerves very much follow the fcale of property; and I fancy that if I could procure a peep at the books of the commiffioners of income, I could pretty exactly point out those whole ten per cents amount to a decent trepidation. But as thefe gentlemen are fworn to fecrecy, I must be content without this display of the phyfiognomy of income, and perhaps it would, like other phyfiognomonical fketches, be rather a fubject of curiofity than utility. In the country there are very few nerves; even in places not more than twenty miles from London, they are scarcely heard of, except in the newspapers. But in the adjacent villages they are fufficiently plenty. You may trace them on the Hammer(mith road, as far as Kew or Richmond. Their tendency is weftward; for, although they are exceedingly common on the Bath road, and at the fouthweftern villages of Roehampton, Wimbledon, Putney, &c. yet we do not hear much of them about Rotherhithe, Limehoufe, or Stepney. Indeed I do not know of what fervice they could be in the hip-building-line. On Hounflowheath they are occafionally found in perfons who travel after dark. I am told likewife that they are general in affembly-rooms, and that the poffeffion of nerves is a fine qua non in the subscribers to dances and card clubs. In Wales and Scotland, they are unknown-a circumftance which is particularly fortunate for the natives of the latter, as they would travel very flowly on the London road with fuch an incumbrance. Having ftated these circumstances as mémoires pour fervir à l'hiftoire, An Effay on the Origin of the Italian THE learned differ very much in their opinions relative to the origin of the Italian language. Leonardo Bruni, of Arezzo, a celebrated writer of the fifteenth century, cardinal Bembo, and among the modern writers, Quadrio, maintain that the Italian was as old as the Latin language, afferting that the latter had been the language of the learned, whilft the former had been spoken by the multitude, and in common conversation. They fay, that the ancient Romans had learned the genuine Latin language in the fchools, and that in the comedies of Plautus and Terence, who, from the nature of their compofitions, were the least able to deviate from the language of the multitude, words and idioms are found, which are not to be met with in works of fcience. Hence they conclude, that the common language of the people had been a peculiar language as widely different from the Latin as the Italian is now. Nothing can be easier than to refute this opinion. When Plautus wrote his plays, and caufed them to be acted at Rome, the difference between the language of the learned and that of the common people could not but be very trifling, The Romans then began to be ambitious of literary eminence. The Latin language, language, of course, could not be fo much transformed as to be materially different from that of the common people. The language of Plau tus's comedies was the language of the learned as well as of the populace; and although there occur in them many expreffions which are not ufual with the other Roman authors, yet they are far from being fo numerous as would be fufficient to cause an effential difference.There is not a fufficient number of works of other authors of that epocha extant to enable us to prove that the particular words and expreffons, occurring in Plautus, were ufed exclufively by the populace. We cannot, indeed, deny that, when the Romans had conquered all Italy, and Rome had become the general refort of all Italian nations, the language of the Romans underwent a very great and ftriking alteration; but it cannot thence be concluded that there had been formed among the people a language totally different from that of the learned. All the nations of Italy Proper, excepting thofe of Great Greece, in fact had only one language, diftinguishing themfelves from each other only by the difference of dialect; therefore they did not bring with them to Rome a language effentially different from that of the Romans. Having cultivated the arts and fciences long before the Romans, their dialects could not but be more copious and harmonious than the Roman dialect; confequently they also could produce no other alteration in the language of the Romans, but what contributed to enrich and refine it. The first reformers of the Roman language were Livius Andronicus, Nævius, Ennius, Cæcilius, Statius, Pacuvius, and L. Accius, who all had been born and educated in dif feren provinces of Italy, and were as well understood at Rome as in the places of their nativity; for, at that time, even the Bruttians, inhabiting the most diftant part of Calabria, fpoke a langnage, not ef fentially different from that of the Romans. A I cannot, therefore, conceive how by means of the conflux of many Italian nations at Rome, there could be produced a language totally dif ferent from that of the ancient Romans, unless this difference had been brought about by the learned. However the learned may refine a language by their writings, they cannot poffibly tranfmute it entirely. Their writings, if not compofed in the language of the people, would have been as unintelligible as hieroglyphics and riddles. language of the learned, wholly differing from that of the people, cannot poffibly have exifted. It is faid to have been the language of the fenate, of the comitiis, the forum, the tribunals of juftice, of the laws, the generals of the armies, the priesthood, and of all legal compacts, without being generally underflood by the people. An idea more abfurd than this cannot poffibly be conceived. The neceffity of a competent knowledge in the Latin language was fo indifpenfable and effential to a Roman subject; that whole foreign nations fubftituted it in the room of their vernacular language. If any one fhould object, that the Romans learned the Latin language of the grammarians and rhetoricians, we need but to obferve that they applied to them for inftruction only in order to be initiated into the ele gance gance of diction, and for the purpofe of juridical eloquence, an effential requifite for a Roman citizen. We know that the Latin lan guage in Upper Italy and in Gaul fuperfeded the Gallic, and in England the British language; how much the more would it have expelled a totally different language from its original feat if it had there taken its rile? occafioned a total neglect of elo quence, no great attention was paid to elegance in writing the Latin language. The claffic authors were neglected, and learning was left to neceflitous foreigners. These prefumed to be more learned and witty than Cicero, Virgil, and Horace; and took all poffible pains to render the ftyle and language of these great men contemptible. None of all these corrupters of the Latin language were worse than the Greeks, who, we will not de The celebrated marquis Maffei was of opinion that it owed its real origin and gradual formation exclu-cide whether it was owing to their fively to the progreffive deviation of the Italians from the grammatical correctness of the Latin language, interruptedly continuing for feveral centuries, He, at the fame time, denies that the invafions of barbarous nations had contributed any thing towards it; afferting that if this had been the cafe, it would have produced a language totally different from that of Italy. But Maffei, in this fuppofition, is under a manifest mistake; for any one who has only a flight knowledge of both languages, will eafily obferve that the Italian language differs from that of the Romans not only in the moft ftriking deviation from the rules of the latter, but also in an infinite number of foreign words and phrases. This opinion is generally adopted by the learned; but I can find it no where fo clearly illuftrated as I with, and therefore fhall attempt to inquire how far this opinon is tenable, While eloquence was effentially neceffary for a Roman citizen, the Romans could not but be animated with an univerfal defire of acquiring purity and elegance of diction.But when the lofs of civil liberty being more pliant, or fuperior to the Romans in point of learning, met with a very favourable reception at the imperial court, and in the palaces of the great. This attracted a numerous crowd of Greek rhetoricians, philofophers, and fophifts to Rome, and the Greek lan guage was generally adopted by the great, and all thole that were defirous of being thought people of good tafte. It was a difgrace not to know the Greek language; and many a Roman, though little acquainted with it, liftened to the declamations of the Greek fophifts with the loudest tokens of applause. The principal object which thefe infatuated talkers ftrove to attain, was to found their fame on the depreciation of the Latin language and learning. Those that know what injury the German language fuftained, in the beginning of the prefent century, from the contempt with which it was branded by the French and their filly admirers in Germany, will eafily be able to cal culate what injury the Latin language must have fuffered from the fcorn with which it was treated by the Greeks and their fervile admirers. This contempt caufed the Romans Romans to difregard the writings of their ancestors, to deviate from the original spirit of their language, and rendered them incapable of difcerning the genuine words and phrafes from those that were interpolated. The Latin language being thus left at the mercy of the populace, it could not but become highly vitiated, efpecially as Rome continued to be inundated by numerous crowds of foreigners, who flocked to the capital and the Italian provinces. This conflux of foreigners now confifted no longer of nations, who had one language in common, but of Gauls, Britons, Germans, Bohemians, Illyrians, Pannonians, Dacians, and other conquered nations, whofe languages were effentially different from each other, and who, by the fuperiority of their number, and their incapacity of learning the Latin language properly, naturally must have occafioned the greateft corruption. This evil increased rapidly when the Roman provinces, from the time of the emperor Probus, were garrifoned with foreign auxiliaries. Amongst these the Herulians and Goths, who had fettled in Italy in confiderable numbers fince the government of Valens, undoubtedly caufed the greatest mischief. The Herulians and Goths were the first of all foreign nations that ufurped a dominion over Italy, divided the lands with the natives, lived according to their own laws, or rather customs and religion, and learnt the language of the country only as far as they wanted it, in order to converfe with the ancient inhabitants. They gradually became better acquainted with the language of the country, and imagined to fpeak elegantly when they expreffed the phrases of their own language by mutilated Latin words, or even gave to the words of their mother-tongue Latin terminations. The Italians, having already greatly deviated from the correctness of their language, and caring little or nothing for its purity, they became accustomed to foreign expreffions and words, adopted them as a current coin, and at last could not difcern any longer the foreign impreffion. Thence arofe, towards the clofe of the fifth century, a language which by the learned was called Lingua Romana Ruftica. This pe riod might be called the firft epocha of the Italian language. During the ruinous wars between the Greeks and the Goths, and the invafions of the Longobards, all means of reftoring the language to its original purity were totally loft; the fchools became deferted, the teachers were fuffered to starve, a great number of libraries were confumed by the flames, and books became extremely scarce. There were, indeed, few people who could either read or write; therefore the language of the people could not but neceffarily differ ftill more from the genuine Latin under the Longobards, than it had under the Goths. It can, however, be proved that the common people in Italy underftood the genuine Latin language till the ninth century. This appears clearly by the Latin fermons which were at that time publicly preached, and are still extant, as well as by the Latin laws framed by the Longobard and Franconian kings, and the performance of public worship in the Latin language, This was alfo the caule why, under the Longobards, the numerous alterations in the language of the people continued analogous to the rules of the Latin grammar, till at laft the copious intermixture of Franconian idioms and words produced a total alteration in the language. If we compare the French and Italian manner of declining and conjugating with the radical words of both languages: it clearly appears that the Italian was almoft totally formed after the rules of the French language. This grand alteration, which was occafioned by the Franconians, may therefore be confidered as the fecond epocha of the Italian language. The Latin language became now very little known among the common people, or even among the clergy. However numerous the Latin fchools founded by the king Lotharius might be, all his endeavours to restore the language to its priftine purity proved ineffectual. The language of the people had already deviated too much from the genuine Latin tongue. The principles of religion, and the laws, propounded to the people in the Latin language, were unintelligible to them; and this feems to be one of the principal caufes of the licentioufnels by which all ranks, the clergy not excepted, diftinguished themfelves in the tenth century. The mercantile intercourfe of Pifa, Genoa, Venice and Amalfi, with the other Italian towns, rendered their refpective dialects intelligible all over Italy, and gradually produced an univerfal language of trade. The formation of this new lan guage was greatly facilitated by The civil wars which, after the death of Charles the Corpulent, convulfed all Italy. The cities, eager to shake off the yoke of foreign emperors, united themselves first with one and then with another party, as it beft fuited their individual intereft. The campaigns which were jointly undertaken by different cities, the alliances which they at different times formed among themselves, and the conquefts made by them, gradually confolidated the peculiar dialects of the cities into an univerfal language. The armies being compofed of natives from all parts of Italy, every individual was compelled by necelfity to make ufe of those words and expreflions in which he agreed with others, and to refrain from ufing his provincialifms, which were unintelligible to natives of other parts of Italy, with whom he was connected, and thus accustomed himfelf to felect fuch expreffions as enabled others to comprepend the ideas which he wished to convey. In this language were the armies commanded by unlettered generals, alliances and concordates between citizens and towns concluded, and the conftitutions of the new republics framed by illiterate legiflators. Thus arofe, in the tenth and cleventh centuries, from the combination of the dialects of the Italian nations, an univerfal language, different from that of the ancient Ro mans, which, indeed, poffeffed already the collective copionfness of the prefent Italian language, but in all its component parts was ftill fo uncouth, that no man of learning ventured to make use of it in his writings. The chronicles, histories, and other literary works of that epocha continued to be compofed in Latin, which alfo was made ufe of in all important public documents; |