"But the na

also worthy of particular remark. "tion of the Hellenes, since ever it existed, continues, as far as to me appears, to use the same language; being a branch cut off from the "Pelasgic stock, and, weak and inconsiderable

at the first, in a short time it increased into a "multitude of people; vast numbers of the "neighbouring nations in particular, and multi"tudes of other barbarians in general, having joined it, as I imagine to have been the case."* It will be observed, that this father of Grecian history speaks with great uncertainty with respect to the origin and descent of the Helleneans. He seems to speak with some confidence, when he says that they were a branch of the Pelasgic stock; if so, they were in his opinion the same original people with the inhabitants of Crestona and Placia, who spoke a barbarous language, and not Greek. If the Hellenes were a branch of the Pelasgi known to the Greeks, and universally admitted by all their learned men to have been very early a great and powerful people, not only in Greece, but in Thessaly, Thrace, the Hellespont, and Asia Minor; the гgaixos, Græci, were also of the Pelasgic stock. Aristotle, giving an account of a deluge, informs us that this deluge happened chiefly about the district of the Hellenes, and near the ancient city Hellas. That city lay near Dodona on the Achelous; for this

* HERODOT. lib. i. c. 58.

river has often changed its name. The Selli resided there, and those who were at that time called Graikoi, and now are denominated Hellenes. "Habitabant etenim inibi Selli, et qui tunc ap"pellabantur Græci, nunc autem Hellenes."

de

“કે

οἱ καλεμενοι τοτε μεν Γραικοί, νυν δε Έλληνες.” Aristotelis Meteoralogicorum, lib. i.

It will be observed, that in the passage from Herodotus first above transcribed, he says, that the Athenians were also of Pelasgian origin; but he adds, that the Athenians must necessarily, when they came amongst the Hellenes, have learned their language; a circumstance which implies that the language of the ancient Hellenes and that of the Athenians were different, and which seems to be unaccountable, upon the supposition of both these people being branches of the same, viz. the Pelasgic stock. "Some of "the best supported of ancient Grecian tradi"tions," says a very learned and ingenious author, "relate the establishment of Egyptian colonies "in Greece; traditions so little accommodated to "national prejudice, yet so very generally receiv

ed, and so perfectly consonant to all known "history, that, for their more essential circumstances, they seem unquestionable. But with "all the intricacy of fable in which early Gre"cian history is involved, the origin of the "Greek nation, from a mixture of the Pelasgian, "and perhaps some other barbarous hordes, with

"colonies from Phoenicia and Egypt, seems not "doubtful."*

One great and important fact may be relied on as certain, that in that quarter of the globe known by the name of Asia, a great portion of the inhabitants lived for ages in a state of high civilization, cultivation, and opulence, were collected into great and populous cities, and governed by the polity of extensive empires, which became the seats of arts, of luxury, and despotism, before Athens, or Rome, so illustrious in the western world, had any existence, or even Greece and Italy were known by these names to the refined nations of the East, as parts of the habitable world.

That the Pelasgi were the first or earliest inhabitants of Greece, is a fact which we do not recollect to be affirmed by any author; that, however, they were very early inhabitants of that country, is admitted; and that they introduced civilization and arts into Greece, is vouched by the revered authority of Homer. The Pelasgians are by him enumerated among the Trojan auxiliaries: he bestows on them a highly honourable epithet, dio Пtasyo, intimating some very estimable qualities in their character by which they were supereminently distinguished. The commentator Eustathius explains the reason of the application of so dignified an epithet, from the circumstance

* MITFORD'S History of Greece, vol. i. p. 19.

that they were the only people who, after Deucalion's flood, preserved the use of letters.*

These Pelasgi, it will be observed, were still Asiatics; those of their race, who, long before the Trojan war, had passed the Hellespont, and migrated into Greece, had been long mixed with the ancient inhabitants of that country, and were animated, without distinction, with the passions and heroic ardour of the Grecian people. In latter times, it is well known that a great body of the Anglo-Saxon people fled into Scotland, to avoid the cruelty and tyranny of the Norman conqueror. These Anglo-Saxons mixed with the ancient inhabitants of Scotland, with whom they became intimately incorporated, and assumed their national appellation, imbibed their animosities and antipathies, and, being farther advanced in the knowledge of the useful arts than were the people with whom they had immixed, they not only added to the national strength of their old enemies by an increase of numbers, but, by a communication of a more industrious exertion of the cultivation of the new country of which they became possessors, gradually improved the condition of the Scottish people, and communicated to them the use of a language, which being found to be more convenient as the vehicle of intelligence, and more accommodated to transactions of a commercial nature with their southern neigh

*Iliad, Odyss. EUSTATHIUS,

bours, was adopted as the court language of the country to which they migrated for protection.

The Pelasgi with their manners introduced their language into Greece, of which language, and that of the native inhabitants, the Greek language became a mixture. The ancient language came in a great measure to be absorbed into the language of this new Asiatic people; and although a great body of the more ancient language was still retained, the remnant was clothed in so new and variegated a garb, as to render it strange and unintelligible to those native inhabitants who had preserved themselves and their language free from any foreign admix

ture.

It is evident that the Pelasgi, when they settled in Greece, exceeded the natives in power and number, being previously in possession of large and extensive territories on this side the Hellespont, as well as in Asia. The Greek language rose into a fabric of the most exquisite and astonishing art, at a period of which the Greeks themselves furnish not even traditionary accounts, "Nor does any circumstance in the history of "the Grecian people appear more difficult to ac"count for, even in conjecture, than the extra

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ordinary superiority in form and polish which "their speech acquired, in an age beyond tradi❝tion, and in circumstances apparently most un"favourable. For it was amid continual migra"tions, expulsions, mixtures of various hordes,