The system of transition now noticed has commonly been called Grimm's law of " Lautverschiebung," or Sound-shifting, as it may be loosely rendered. But it is due to the memory of a very great philologist to observe, that it was anticipated, in a partial but most important point, by a previous writer. The mutual relation of the Greek and Scandinavian, in their initial consonants, had been formally announced by Erasmus Rask, in his "Enquiry into the Origin of the old Northern or Icelandic Language," a work which was published in Danish in 1818, and of which some of the tabular views were subsequently translated by Vater, and included in his "Vergleichungs Tafeln." The first edition of Grimm's Grammar appeared in 1819, and it was only in the second edition of 1822, that the general law referred to seems to have been properly developed. Rask did not, perhaps, see the full extent of his own discovery, particularly as to noninitial consonants: though it must be confessed, that as to these its operation is sometimes considerably disturbed, and it would seem that some peculiarities in the Scandinavian tongues might, in this respect, tend to obscure his perception of the rule. Grimm, on the other hand, was pro. bably enabled to follow it out more confidently, from being led to observe that the old High-German stood in the same relation to the Gothic and its dependents as these to the Greek or Latin.*

In the older philologers we find little or no indication of the law now

adverted to. It is repeatedly, indeed, observed, that mutual transitions take place among the tenues, middles, and aspirates of the same class of consonants; and it was impossible that the frequent occurrence of such changes could escape the most cursory enquirer. But they are treated by those writers as the exceptions and not as the rule; they are as often misapplied and mistaken as the reverse; and they are seldom resorted to for explanation till a more direct and literal etymology, however desperate, has been attempted in vain. Thus Junius, instead of connecting the Gothic dauthus, death, with θανατος, which seems its most probable etymology, derives it from the Greek δηθαίων, longævus, and gratuitously compliments the Gothic nation on their lofty creed, thus philologically promulgated, that death and immortality are the same things.

It is a just observation of Grimm's, that, according to the law which we have attempted to explain, a correspondence between the mute consonants of words in different sections of these affiliated languages is, generally, a proof, not that the words are the same, but that they are different in origin. We do not indeed affirm that the law is universal, and without exception in its operation. Some words of hardier fabric, or of happier destiny, have undoubtedly floated down the stream of ages, untouched by the influences that have disguised or mutitilated others. We are told that the word sach is to be found in the same form in almost all languages, which gavé occasion to the facetious observa

tion of the learned Goropius Becanus,* a gentleman whose lucubrations we are little acquainted with, except in connexion with this jest, that at the building

of Babel, "nemo ædificantium in subitâ linguarum confusione oblitus est sui SACCI." Other vocables, and parts of vocables, have made a similar escape from the effects of time or transition; but such exceptions would not disprove the existence of the general rule, even if they were more numerous and unequivocal than we believe them to be. Further enquiries, we are inclined to think, will show that many apparent cases of affinity, where there is an absence of that change of consonants which the rule would require, are not real deviations from it, and that thus a number of common and plausible etymologies are unfounded. There is little doubt that the Greek φαυλος, and the Teutonic foul, are not connected in etymology: as indeed they do not appear to be in origina! meaning. The Latin Dies has perhaps less connexion with the Teutonic day than with the terms time or tide, to which, according to Grimm's law, it may radically correspond. The derivation of care from cura, is doubtful, and the common identification of vulgus and folk, if not unfounded, is, at least, remote and indirect.

We have dwelt so long on this subject, from a conviction that the full truth and practical importance of this singular and mysterious law of transition is as yet but imperfectly felt in English philology. Within the last few years numerous works in lexicography and etymology have appeared in this country, which continue to be constructed on the same principles as if Rask had never lived, or as if the Deutsche Grammatik had never been written. Thus, in a Greek lexicon of no remote date, and in other respects valuable, we find such English etymologies as the follow

ing:-ακρόδρυα, acorns; βλαπτω, blast; κνημη, knee ; κοιλος, to coil up ; κολλοψ, collops ; οδυρμα, dirge, &c.; and worse examples might be derived from other sources. It must, on the other hand, be confessed, that ordinary Teutonic philologers often lay themselves open to the charge of rashness or ignorance when they venture far out in the sea of classical philology. It must rarely, indeed, happen that a thorough acquaintance with each department is united in the same individual: and perhaps in no branch of science is partial error or occasional oversight more probable or more pardonable.

One or two recent publications will greatly tend, we think, more widely to diffuse a due knowledge and appreciation of Grimm's rules of comparative philology. Mr Pritchard's work on the "Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations," (1831,) has attracted the attention that is due to any production from so valuable a source. "A Manual of Comparative Philology," by Mr Winning of Bedford, (1838,) is entitled to much commendation, and deserves to be generally consulted, though we do not avow ourselves converts to his theory on the origin of the TusOf the New Cratylus of Mr Donaldson, (1839,) we must not, as yet, profess to have formed any other opinion than that it is a work of great learning, of much interest and value, comprising a mass of materials that have never before been collected in an English shape, and proceeding, in the main, on what we perceive to be sound and safe principles, though sometimes, we humbly suspect, extending into a latitude of speculation that is at least premature. In all of these works the views of Grimm are explained and enforced.

cans.

Having said so much of the relation subsisting between the consonants in the different sections of the Indo-Teutonic family, we must not omit to observe that the vowels also are subject to changes, which, though less fixed, we have no right to suppose capricious, and which have already been partly reduced to definite limits. The changes which in the several languages take place upon the vowels in the inflections of nouns and verbs, throw a strong light upon their transitions and fluctuations in passing from one language to another. But here, as elsewhere, it happens that phenomena occur, of which the explanation is more or less obscured by the darkness of antiquity. This, however, is a subject too abstruse and subtle to be considered in this place.

In illustration of the system of consonantal transition, to which we before referred, we venture to subjoin some comparative tables of the affinities of Greek and Latin with Teutonic words, framed upon as simple and popular a plan as possible, and containing few results that do not seem to be well established. Even if, in some instances, our suppositions should be thought mistaken or doubt ful, our lists, we think, will still be

sufficient to demonstrate at once the existence and the value of these very remarkable laws.

It will be observed that no express examples are here given of words which, according to the rule, ought to change the Greek or Latin Binto a Gothic P. In reality, the letter B, in the classical languages, particularly as an initial, seems to be of a very uncertain character, being often apparently a remnant of the digamma, or a corruption of some other letter. Accordingly, it is remarkable that the corresponding initial P is of rare occurrence in the Gothic languages. There are not in Junius's Glossary above half a dozen Gothic words commencing with that letter, and the number of similar words in Anglo-Saxon is also few. The origin and history of the numerous words in modern English which have that initial, have never as yet, we think, been fully explained.

The examples we are now to give are chiefly of the changes of initial consonants, though some words are also set down which show the operation of the rule on internal consonants.