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bulary. You will be particularly struck, that the first class is by far the most numerous, which consists wholly of Celtic Latin words, and which I think, from internal evidence, were known long before the arrival of the Romans. The second class, which was evidently derived from the Latin, is comparatively small; and the third class, from its own nature, contains but few words.

From all these circumstances, I am inclined to believe, that Cornish has a closer affinity to Latin than to any other foreign language; but it is unnecessary to multiply proofs, when the annexed lists of each class are considered.

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'The Cornish days of the week have the same names and tutelary deities a the Roman: as, De Zil, Sunday; De Lin, Monday; De Mer, Tuesday; De Marhar, Wednesday; De Jeu, Thursday; De Guerna, Friday; De Sadarn, Saturday.

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The Cornish months are nearly Roman :-Mis-Genvar, January; MisCheurer, February; Mis-Merh, March; Mis-Ebral, April; Mis-Me, May; MisMemen, June; Mis-Gouarc, July (play month); Mis-East, August; Mis-Guengolo, September; Mis-Mezre, October; Mis-Diu, November (black month); Mis-Guerdin, December (month of black storms.)

A saint,

Sanctus.

Resurgo.

362

OBSCURE WORD IN LYCOPHRON.

WE discover a word in the Cassandra of Lycophron, which, as it does not occur elsewhere, has caused some embarrassment to various commentators. I allude to reppa, in verse 1428, and shall lay before my reader the whole original passage to which it belongs :

Κύφελλα δ' ἰῶν τηλόθεν ῥοιζουμένων

ὑπὲρ κάρα στήσουσι, κίμμερός θ' ὅπως

σκιὰ καλύψει ΠΕΡΡΑΝ, ἀμβλύνων σέλας.

These lines are interpreted by Reichardus,-" Partim sagittarum multitudine, veluti nube, "Solem" obscurat;" and, according to the more literal Latin version, thus

"Nubes etiam sagittarum procul emissarum,

Supra caput stabant, et tanquam caligo,

Umbra "Solem" tegit, hebetans lucem."

That Teppa was a foreign word, and not improbably Egyptian, one commentator affirms; "inter voces extraneas et forte Egyptias numeranda." That it was a Persian name for 'the sun,' has been the opinion of others, as Canterus observes. But he and Meursius would alter it to wérpa, which Callimachus and Euripides have used in that sense.

Now let us examine Lord Royston's admirable translation of the Cassandra, (published in the Classical Journal, Nos. xxv and XXVII.) We find that he renders the Greek lines above quoted, thus

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High o'er their heads a sleet of arrowy shower
And iron clouds shall canopy the globe

With dreadful shade, veiling the light of heaven.”

Class. Journal, No. xxvII. p. 53.

Here, in my opinion, the word globe, corresponding to #éppa, does not imply the solar, but the terrestrial orb; as we might say, "the earth," "the world," &c. Yet in his note respecting this obscure passage, having remarked that the scholiast explains réppa as signifying "the sun," Lord Royston seems inclined to adopt this interpretation; and (if I rightly comprehend his meaning) would think the word, expressing in a general sense any spherical body, any orb, or globe, not inapplicable, xar' xv, to that great luminary, a chief object of adoration among the ancient Per

sians. Whether I have misunderstood his lordship or not, will best appear by the quotation of a passage from his own note. "The word," says he, "is perhaps of Persian origin; for, when mentioning the disasters of a Persian army, our author may be supposed to have given a Persian name to a Persian deity. "Ber," in the modern Arabic and Persian languages, signifies a globe;" if adopted by a Greek, he would give a Greek termination to this monosyllable, and I would be the nearest approximation he could make to the sound of its initial; for B was probably pronounced soft, like our V."-(Clas. Journ. No. xxvII. p. 53.)

بر

I am willing to allow the ingenuity of this conjecture; and that if the Persians ever called the sun per (), it would be written by the Arabs ber, as their alphabet does not furnish the letter p. But, in the first place, I cannot discover that either ber or per was among the various names which the ancient Persians bestowed on the sun. Secondly, the word ber, I may venture to affirm, is never used to express generally "a globe," any orb, or sphere; although, as Richardson informs us, it signifies "the continent, the earth, the globe."-(See his Arab. and Persian Dict. in voce) Here it is globe merely in the sense of this earth; it is land in opposition to water, or the sea; and ber u bahr() is a very common antithesis, "land and sea." But we now speak of ber as an Arabic word. As Persian, I do not find in the best manuscript Farhangs or Dictionaries (the Jehangiri, Berhan Kattea, &c.) any signification of either ber or per that will favor Lord Royston's conjecture, by the general sense of " a globe."

If, however, we still seek a Persian origin for Lycophron's Tippa, let us consult not Richardson's Dictionary, at least the first edition, which is defective in many significations of words, but the manuscript Farhangs above mentioned, and we shall discover that per() spelt with the same letter as eppa, and genuine Persian, may be used in a sense fully applicable to the sun, as globe would have been; for it expresses "light, splendor, effulgence," &c. being equivalent to pertau,,, rusheni, &c. I do not by any means offer this suggestion as a substitute for Lord Royston's conjecture; it is not altogether satisfactory to myself; and Lycophron would scarcely employ the word éppa and oxas in the same line and in the same sense.

Reverting, after all, to the opinion of that commentator, who thought that reppa was, "forte inter voces Egyptias numeranda ;"

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