letters are clearly referable to the common Syriac, and some to the Estrangolo, or old Syriae, and again several letters of the Shemitic alphabets may be proved to have had their origin in Chinese hieroglyphics. And with respect to the roots of Greek words, though some may be traced to the Persic and Arabic, the Sanskrit is undoubtedly the immediate mother both of the Greek and Latin.

XXVII. To that language we must have recourse, if we wish to have a perfectly clear idea of the origin and formation of the different tenses of the verb Tupto. This far-famed verb has been used as a Paradigm in Greek Grammars, and enforced by so very peculiar a discipline in our great public schools, until, like the laws of Draco, it may almost be said to be written in blood, and yet, which is singular enough, I cannot discover a true account of it in any Lexicon in my pessession. That of Scapula, which is usually regarded as the best after Stephens's Thesaurus, says, "Tupto verbero, percutio, pulso, tundo," entirely omitting two of its most important meanings, to wound and to kill. The Lexicon of Damm, denominated in the title-page Homericum et Pindaricum, omits the word altogether, though it occurs in one or another of its senses in almost every page of Homer's descriptions of battles, but under the word Tupo he says, "pro quo usus obtinuit TUTTW," and he explains it by the Latin words Tundo, Cado comminus, Verbero, Pulso, I strike, thrust, beat, which appear to be copied from Scapula, and are quite as imperfect; but before concluding the article he quotes Iliad N. from line 567. to line 575., and adds, "ex quo apparet TUTTEσdai h. 1. ut cognatum verbum positum pro Bλnonvar ut sit in genere letaliter vulneratus, todlich getroffen" (mortally wounded). The common school Greek Lexicon of Schrevelius, in which I have often discovered the true etymology and meaning of a word after having looked for it in vain in works of much higher pretensions, says, "TUTTO, Verbero, Percutio, Pulso, Tundo," copying Scapula, but adds as an illustration of its meaning a passage from Anacreon, Opis μ' eтve, which he translates Serpens me vulneravit, adding one more important signification to the word; and he might have quoted from

the same author, speaking of Cupid, Και με τυπτει μεσον ηaρ, where the verb has clearly the same signification, to wound. If we turn from Tupo in Damm's Lexicon, to page 380. of Wilson's Sanskrit Dictionary, we shall find the Dhato, or verbal root Tupa, with the meanings-to injure, to hurt, to kill, and immediately following it, its aspirated form Tupha, with precisely the same meanings. Now by turning to the Sanskrit, we have discovered not merely the genuine root of Tupo, which Damm appears to regard as the root of Tupto, but several of its most important significations, which are looked for in vain in a Greek Lexicon, and we have also discovered as certainly in the aspirate Tupha, the genuine root of the Greek Perfect Tense TeTupha, and the Pluperfect Ete-tuph-ein.

XXVIII. On the Present Tense, as the Root of the Greek Verb.

With regard to the question whether Tupto or Tupo is to be considered as the genuine root of the verb, and whether the former is derived from the latter by inserting t, or the latter from the former by dropping it, the Eton Grammar makes no observation whatever, but by selecting Tupto as its Paradigm, it appears to regard that word as the root, in common with most of the Lexicons, and Tupo as its Second Future. But the admirable grammar of Thiersch observes expressly, that of the verbs πрaσσ-w, do, tikt-w, bear, ynpaσk-w, grow old, and TUTт-w, beat, not πраOO, TIKT, γηρασκ, τυπτ, but πραγ, τεκ, γηρα, and τυπ, are the original roots. And the still more elaborate grammar of Matthiæ remarks, that the insertion of 7, after a consonant, served to lengthen the Present Tense of the verb, e. g. TUTTW for TUTW, leaving his readers to infer that the 7 in TUπT is altogether a redundant letter, and was added to the root by the poets solely for their own convenience. There is, however, another view of the subject. That the Greek root Tup is cognate with the Sanskrit Dhato Tup, or Tupa, kill (a triliteral word as written, for the final a being short is merely understood and not expressed) there cannot be the smallest doubt, and Tupa in Sanskrit makes Tupati in the third person

T

Present Tense, in Greek Tuptei, and hence probably the redundant T found its way into the other persons of Tupto and into the tenses formed from it. Indeed the First Future Passive τυφθ-ησομαι has all the appearance of having been formed from the Present TUTTT-w by changing the single letters into their corresponding aspirates, and adding sooμat, the Future of copal, substituting Eta for its initial Epsilon. In the same way тUπ-ησoμаι, the Second Future, appears to be formed from the genuine root τUπ-w. The oldest form of the Greek Present Tense was probably TUTT-Ew, or the unchanging root joined to the auxiliary verb, the obsolete ew, I am, which contracted to TUTTO was called the Second Future, and its regular Imperfect ETUTTOV the Second Aorist.

XXIX. So much for the root, or theme of the verb, and as to the verb itself we have a glimpse of it in a more ancient state, than we find it existing even in the works of Homer. The excellent Greek Grammar of Moor, with additions by Dalzel and Dunbar, remarks that there is every appearance that verbs terminating in μ were much older than those terminating in w, and adduces as a proof of it the much more common use of this form of the verb by Homer than by the other Greek writers; while Valpy observes that verbs in μ have only three tenses in that form, the Present, the Imperfect, and the Second Aorist, which we may perhaps reduce to two, as the Second Aorist appears to be formed from a distinct root; and if a period ever existed in the Greek language when u was the only form of the verb, and that form had only two tenses, the Present and the Imperfect, the absence of the Future must have been supplied by the auxiliary μɛw, or some such equivalent, and the Indo-European class of languages would not appear to have been more rich in tenses than the Shemitic; for though the Hebrew has only a Preterite and a Future, that Future has sometimes a present and sometimes a past signification. Almost all the best Greek Grammars now appear to admit that what are called the Second Future and the Second Aorist really form no part of the verbs under which they are arranged in the Lexicon, being derived from a perfectly distinct root. If so,

the Greek verb has clearly no more than six tenses; and as many grammarians believe that the First Aorist and the Perfect were primarily identical, the Greek had, whatever it may have now, no more than five tenses, exactly corresponding with the Latin, which is precisely what might have been expected; for as the Latin is said to have been derived principally from Æolic Greek, it appears to be older than the other dialects of the Greek language, a conclusion which derives additional probability from its greater simplicity, and, above all, from the circumstance of its possessing no dual number, which all the Greek dialects, except the Æolic, have. But while Moor regards verbs in μ as older than those in w, he derives suu, sum, from the obsolete ew, which is not very consistent. The real fact is, that they are all equally old, and all formed precisely alike, consisting of an immutable root, joined to one of the forms of the Auxiliary Verb To be, two of which are become obsolete, and when recovered, or restored, will facilitate the conjugation of the Greek verb in a greater degree than could have been previously conceived.

TUπ-ɛw, i. e. Tup, unvarying root, and the obsolete auxiliary verb Eo, I am, by contraction Tupo.

TUπт-oμaι, i. e. Tup, unvarying root, T redundant letter, and omai, contracted from the obsolete Eomai, I am.

xxx. Imperfect Tense. Syllabic and Temporal Augment.

Moor says, "Fuit antiquissimis temporibus aut nullum augmentum aut ɛ, tantum, tam pro syllabico quam pro temporali augmento: sic ἔκτηται; ἐέλπιζον; ἔαγον; ἐόπαζον.” And Valpy that was first prefixed to all augmented tenses for the temporal as well as the syllabic augment, and adds, it has been conjectured that the syllabic augment is formed from the imperfect v. Perhaps the Ionic form a would be a better origin. In the Sanskrit language the same syllabic augment E is prefixed in the formation of the past tense. The Celtic tenses are also formed by prefixes. (Grammar, pp. 48-49.) The Greek Grammar of Jones,

says the syllabic and temporal augment are both founded on the same principle. In either case & is prefixed, and in the latter it is contracted with the subsequent vowel:

And in another passage the same work remarks on the Passive Voice, the old forms must have been τυπτ-εμαι, ετυπτ-εμην, and not τυπτομαι, ετυπτ-ομην, ε being changed into o, as in many other instances (p. 142.), on which I would observe that ɛ is not changed into o, but dropped, the formative of the Present Tense of TUπT-оμaι being the obsolete soμai, I am, and of the Imperfect E-TUTT-oμny, the obsolete εομην. Much light is thrown on the formation of the Greek Imperfect Tense, by the analogy of the Sanskrit, respecting which Dr. Prichard remarks in his valuable work on the Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations (p. 143.), "The Imperfect is formed from the Present Tense by prefixing an augment, and abbreviating the personal endings. The augment is the first short vowel ă, which, corresponding with the short vowels of the Greeks, might be represented indifferently by ȧ, or . Thus are formed from

tud-ami......a-tud-am,

tud-asi......a-tud-as,

tud-ati ......a-tud-at.

In the same way the Greek Imperfect is formed in the Active Voice, by prefixing the E of Eon, the imperfect of Eo, to the immutable root, and affixing On, and in the Passive Voice by prefixing the E of Eomen, the imperfect of Eomai, and affixing Omen thus:

ἔ-τυπτον,
ἐ-τυπτόμην.