appear to have taken it for granted that it was formed altogether by gradual changes in the language of ancient Rome, and chiefly by neglecting the declensions of the nouns and the conjugations of the verbs as respected the terminations of both, and that modern Italian is merely corrupted or simplified Latin; but, according to Lanzi, the ancient language of Rome did not subside into a new language, of which the Divina Commedia of Dante is almost the oldest written specimen, but was superseded by a language common to all Italy, and perhaps as old as Rome itself. The languages of Hindustan will afford an illustration. Every one knows that the Sanskrit is the repository of literature, science, poetry, and religion; and that there is another ancient language, denominated Prakrit, which appears to have been applied to all the ordinary purposes of life. Indeed the signification of the word Prakrita in Sanskrit, low, common, vulgar, is sufficiently indicative of the nature and destination. of the language. But if the Italian Prakrit mentioned by Lanzi did not originate in the corruption of a learned language, what was the antiquity of that Prakrit, and how far is it possible that Latin, the Italian Sanskrit, the language of literature, of the state, and of religion, may have originated from it by elaboration?

III. Lanzi proceeds to remark that the transition from the Latin to the general use of this ancient and vulgar language of Italy was gradual and insensible; that there was a relapse. into modes of speech which had been proscribed by learning and taste; that certain plebeian words, such as Caballus for instance, which had been banished, returned; that exchanges were made in letters of the same organ; that there was a general indifference respecting the termination, and an equal degree of licentiousness as regarded the contraction of words; and that the result of all these elements of change was the fabrication of an idiom much more analogous to the rustic ancient Latin, than to the specimens of that elegant language preserved in books, and by us denominated classical. (Tom. i. p. 422.)

6

IV. One of the most accomplished, in every respect, of our English travellers in Italy, Mr. Henry Matthews, in his Diary of an Invalid,—a book which is frequently in my hands, and which I never lay down without feelings of regret that his own journey of life was so short, and that he was so early taken from a world which he was so well fitted to adorn and enlighten,-has the following very striking observations in connexion with this subject:-" The origin of the Italian language has long been a subject of discussion. The literati of Florence are fond of tracing it up to Etruscan antiquity. We know that Etruria had a language of its own distinct from the Latin. This was the language in which the Sibyl was supposed to have delivered her oracles, and in which the augurs interpreted the mysteries of their profession. Livy says, Habeo auctores, vulgo tum Romanos pueros, sicut nunc Græcis ita Etruscis literis erudiri solitos.' This language is by some supposed to have continued to exist during the whole time of the Romans, as the sermo vulgaris, the patois which was in common use among the peasantry of the country, while the Latin was confined to the higher classes and the capital, to the senate, the forum, the stage, and to literature. This opinion does not seem entirely destitute of probability. We have living evidence in our own island of the difficulty of changing the language of a people. In France too, till within the last half-century the southern provinces were almost utterly ignorant of French; and even at present the lower classes of the peasantry never speak French, but continue to make use of a patois of the old Provençal language. In like manner it is supposed by many that pure Latin was confined to the capital and to high life; while the ancient Etruscan, which had an additional support in being consecrated to the service of religion, always maintained its ground as the colloquial patois of the greatest part of Italy. Thus when Rome fell, the polished language of the capital fell with it; but the patois of the common people remained, and still remains in an improved edition in the language of modern Italy. For if this be not so, we must suppose first that the Etruscan

was rooted out by the Latin, and that the Latin has again yielded in its turn to a new tongue. But innovations in language are the slowest of all in working their way; and if the pure Latin of the Classics had ever been the colloquial language of the common people, some living evidence of it would surely have been discovered, as we now find the ancient language of the Britons lingering in the fastnesses of Wales and Cornwall; but no information is handed down to us by which we can ascertain when Latin was the common spoken language of Italy, or at what period it ceased to exist." (Diary of an Invalid, 2nd edition, p. 264).

v. I am the more impressed with these remarks, because they coincide with and are confirmed by my own experience. In the bilingual funereal inscriptions, given in the second volume of Lanzi's Essay on Etruria, the word Tana is of very frequent occurrence. That word is not Greek; it is not Latin; it is not to be found in the copious and admirable dictionary of the latter language by Facciolati, nor in the still more voluminous work of Ducange, containing the Latinity of the middle ages; but we meet with it in every Italian dictionary, and its meaning is a cave,-a sense which perfectly agrees with the mode in which it is employed in Lanzi. There can be little more doubt about the Etruscan letters, even if they stood alone, than about the beautiful Greek characters which the Clarendon press is so well employed in sending into the world; and in all these instances they are corroborated by the Latin, although not with minute and scrupulous exactness. If it be admitted that the Etruscan Tana, or Thana, is the Italian Tana, a cave, few will be disposed to doubt that the Etruscan Tannila, or Thanilla, which occurs only once (No. 297.), is an Italian diminutive formed from Tana, and signifies little cave. reader may call Tana, and Tanilla, Etruscan or Latin as he pleases, and apply to them the epithet quotidianus with Quintilian, or pedestris with Vegetius, or usualis with Sidonius, or rusticus with many other authors; but I regard them as two of the oldest Italian words in existence,

The

and specimens of a language which probably prevailed in almost every part of Italy, and was older than the Latin itself, whether we choose to denominate that language Etruscan, or to distinguish it by any other name. (Hallam's Literature, vol. i. p. 27.)

vi. Lanzi says that the Etruscans frequently omitted M at the end of a word, and that the same practice was common among the ancient Latins, and quotes as authority for the former the words Screhto est from the Eugubine table. Some forms of H and Ph, in Etruscan, are easily mistaken; so that screhto may have been Screphto, or Screpto. This is very like the Italian scritto, which we may perhaps regard as a third Etruscan, or rustic Roman word; while Lanzi's remark, if well founded, establishes the remote antiquity of the whole class of Italian past participles. (Tom. ii. p. 254.)

VII. The following words from the Sanskrit will be admitted to throw some light on Italian, perhaps on Etruscan etymology; and it may turn out, after all, that we are better acquainted with the latter language than we gave ourselves credit for, like the worthy citizen in Molière, who had been speaking prose all his life without knowing it.

VIII. In many of the words of the preceding list, it appears to me impossible not to be impressed with the circumstance, how much more closely the Italian word corresponds with the Sanskrit, than the Latin does, leading to the conclusion that the first was Etruscan, and borrowed directly from the second without passing through the medium of the third. For example, in Sanskrit we have Vidhava, in Italian Vedova, and in Latin Vidua, a widow; in Sanskrit Nasa, in Italian Naso, and in Latin Nasus, a nose; in Sanskrit Nida,