I have read his book until I despair of getting to the light; so often does he deal in the claro-obscure, and so often utters unguarded assertions, at least such as are incapable of solid defence.

Passow has some good remarks in his Lexicon, respecting the article; and so has Bretschneider, who seems to have laid out some effort upon this part of speech. Wahl has endless subdivision, seemingly without any steadfast principles under which he attempted to arrange his facts. Buttmann, in his Grammar, has only a few hints; Rost has made a very brief but a striking digest of general principles. Matthiae alone seems to have made the subject one of attentive, deep, and thorough study; and he has more facts respecting it, than all the others put together. Winer seems to have fully and thoroughly studied and comprehended him; but he has not taken the requisite pains to classify the subject in general. The parts of it that he has exhibited, are done in his best manner.

I make these remarks merely for the sake of readers, who may wish to study the subject, and not for the sake of indulging in criticism on the efforts of others, which is far enough from being the particular design of this essay. The reader who has not leisure or opportunity to read all which has been written on the Greek article, will naturally wish to be informed where he may read to the best advantage. I have ventured, in the above remarks, to give him my views respecting this question.

'But-mutato nomine de te fabula narratur; the next writer that rises up, may find as many faults with your theory, as you have with other theories.' So methinks I hear some of my readers say. Be it so, is my reply. I have but one wish respecting the subject; and this is, to come at what is true, if there be any such thing as finding it. If my remarks should excite some one to correct my errors, and to throw more light on this subject, so long neglected, and so little understood by most Greek readers, I shall be among the foremost to tender him my congratulations and my most cheerful approbation.

In the mean time, it is not amiss to give a hint to theologians and critics, that important conclusions in either of their departments ought not to be built on the presence or absence of the article, until the metes and bounds of this part of speech are much more definitely settled, and better understood. Nothing can be more certain, than that a large extent of the ground is arbitrary, at least it is in a great measure so; and the limits to

which it is so, remain to be fixed more definitely, before we can say-ultra quos nequit consistere rectum. Our faith, then, in matters of belief or exegesis, should not, for the present, have for its basis this "loquacissimae gentis flabellum." The context, the idiom in general, and the nature of the case, are always, and ever must be, better guides. Them let us follow; at least until our new guide attains to a character more fixed, more uniform, and more trust-worthy than it has at present.

ART. IV. HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE SLAVIC LANGUAGE IN

ITS VARIOUS DIALECTS; WITH
THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

SPECIAL REFERENCE TO

Original.

PRELIMINARY NOTE.

THE following article has been prepared for this work with great care, and with a diligent use of all the sources accessible to a writer in this country; some of which indeed are here accessible only to the writer, who has likewise been for several years conversant with the subject in another country under more favourable auspices. It is here inserted for two principal reasons. The first is the intrinsic interest and importance of the subject itself; relating as it does to the language and literature of a population amounting at present to nearly sixty millions, or more than four times as great as that of the whole of these United States. These topics embrace of course the history of mental cultivation among the Slavic nations, their intellectual developement, the progress of man among them as a thinking, sentient, social being, acting and acted upon in his various relations to other minds. It is also a'matter of no small interest, to observe the influence which Christianity has exercised upon the language and literature of these tribes. It was to the introduction and progress of Christianity that these nations owe their written language; and to the versions of the Scriptures they owe not only their moral and religious cultivation, but also the cultivation and in a great degree the existence of their national literature. The same influence Christianity is now exercising upon the Indian languages of our own country and of the Pacific; and with the prospect of results still more propitious. Indeed, wherever we learn the fact, that a language hitherto regarded as barbarous and existing only as oral, has been reclaimed and reduced to writing, and made the vehicle of communicating fixed thought and permanent instruction, there it has ever been CHRISTIANITY and MISSIONARY ENTERPRIZE, which has produced these results.

A second reason for the insertion of the present article, is the circumstance, that the information here given is no where else accessible to the English reader. It is true, that the literature of some of the Slavic nations, e. g. of the Russians, Poles, Bohemians,

etc. is treated of under the proper heads in the German Conversations-Lexicon; and that these articles have been translated and

incorporated into the Encyclopædia Americana. The Foreign Quarterly Review, also, has occasionally articles of value on these topics. Dr Bowring, in the preface to some of his specimens of Slavic poetry, has given short notices on the same subject. The biblical literature of the Old Slavic and Russian has been well exhibited by Dr Henderson. But still, all these are only imperfect sketches of the separate parts of one great whole; of which in its full extent, both as a whole and in the intimate connexion of its parts, no general view exists in the English language.-EDITOR.

HISTORICAL VIEW, ETC.

THE earliest history of the Slavic nations is involved in a darkness, which all the investigations of diligent and sagacious modern historians and philologians have not been able to clear up. The striking analogy between their language and the Sanscrit, indicates their origin from India; but to ascertain the time, at which they first entered Europe, seems now no longer possible. Probably this event took place seven or eight centuries before the Christian era, on account of the over-population of the regions on the Ganges.1 Herodotus mentions a people, which he called Krovyzi, who lived on the Ister. There is even now a tribe in Russia, whose name at least is almost the same.2 Strabo, Pomponius Mela, Pliny, Tacitus, and several other classical and a few oriental writers allude to the Slavic nations occasionally. But the first distinct intelligence we have of them, is not older than the middle of the sixth century.3 At this period we

1 See Schlegel's Sprache and Weisheit der Indier, Heidelb. 1808. Von Hammer's Fundgruben des Orients, Vol. II. p. 459 sq. Murray's History of the European Languages, Edinb. 1823. Frenzel, who wrote at the close of the seventh century, took the Slavi for a Hebrew tribe and their language for Hebrew. Some modern German and Italian historians derive the Slavic language from the Thracian, and the Slavi immediately from Japhet; some consider the ancient Scythians as Slavi. See Dobrovsky's Slovanka, VII. p. 94.

2 Krivitshi. The Greek is Kooẞuso, Herodot. IV. 49. Comp. Strabo VII. p. 318, 319. Plin. H. N. IV. 12.

3 The first writers, who mention the Slavi expressly, are Jordan or Jornandes, after A. D. 552, Procopius A. D. 562, Menander A. D. 594, and the Abbot John of Biclar before A. D. 620. See Schaffarik's Geschichte der Slavischen Sprache und Literatur, Buda 1826. Dobrovsky's Slovanka, V. p. 76-84.

see them traversing the Danube in large multitudes, and settling on both the banks of that river. From that time they appear frequently in the accounts of the Byzantine historians, under the different appellations of the Slavi, Sarmatae, Antae, Vandales, Veneti and Vendes, mostly involved in the wars of the two Roman Empires, sometimes as allies, sometimes as conquerors; oftener, notwithstanding their acknowledged valour and courage, as vassals; but mostly as emigrants and colonists, thrust out of their own countries by the pressing forward of the more warlike German or Teutonic tribes. Only the first of the above mentioned names is decidedly of Slavic origin; the second is ambiguous; and the four last are later and purely geographical, having been transferred to Slavic nations from those who occupied formerly the territory, where the Romans first became acquainted with them.

It results from the very nature of this information, that we cannot expect to get from it any satisfactory knowledge of their political state or the degree of their civilization. In general, they appear as a peaceful, industrious, hospitable people, obedient to their chiefs, and religious in their habits. Wherever they established themselves, they began to cultivate the earth, and to trade in the productions of the country. There are also early

a.

4 The name of the Slavi has generally been derived from slava, glory, and their national feelings have of course been gratified by this derivation. But the more immediate origin of their appellation, is to be sought in the word slovo, word, speech. The change of o into a occurs frequently in the Slavic languages, (thus slava comes from slovo,) but is in this case probably to be ascribed to foreigners, viz. Byzantines, Romans, and Germans. In the language of the latter, the o in names and words of Slavic origin in many instances becomes The radical syllable slov is yet to be found in the appellations which the majority of the Slavic nations apply to themselves or kindred nations, e. g. Slovenzi, Slovaci, Slovane, Sloveni, etc. The Russiaus and Servians did not exchange the o for a before the seventh century. See Schaffarik's Geschichte, etc. p. 5. n. 6. The same writer observes p. 287. n. 8, "It is remarkable that, while all the other Slavic nations relinquished their original national names, and adopted specific names, as Russians, Poles, Silesians, Tchekes, Moravians, Sorabians, Servians, Morlachians, Tchernogortzi, Bulgarians, etc. nay, when most of them imitating foreigners altered the general name Slovene into Slavene, only those two Slavic branches, which touch each other on the banks of the Danube, the Slovaks and the Slovenzi, have retained in its purity their original national name."