pression of a landscape; but the genius of the place escapes him altogether.

Whether Delta's busy life, with his profession calling him away from his musings at any moment of the day or of the night, was favourable to the production of poetry, is not so easily settled as at first sight might appear. Uninterrupted leisure, enjoyed in unbroken seclusion, often makes study a vague, if not a vacant dream. It was believed that the last thirty years of Wordsworth's life had been accumulating several grand poems; but, lo! it has turned out that, during that long term passed serenely-as he had often wished-in communion with nature and his own soul, a few sonnets and other small pieces were the only fruits. The hours snatched from some secular employment frequently achieve more than days or years said to be consecrated to the service of the muses. The muses are virgins, and will allow lovers occasional interviews and dalliances, but will not marry, so as to be always in the house. The ardour with which a man who spends much of his time in some secular calling betakes himself to his desk, is but rarely felt by the seemingly more fortunate man who may sit at his desk all day long. We have an apt illustration in the case of the biographer as compared with the subject of his biography. Mr. Aird has incontestably a higher and purer poetic nature than Delta, and he has also had more leisure for the display of his gifts; and yet he has not written one-half of the quantity of Delta's verse. Delta's laborious profession does not seem, then, to have interfered with the amount of poetry, which, considering the character of his mind, could fairly be expected from him; nor do we think that it spoiled the quality. His genuine poetry was elegiac, as his best prose was comic; and the medical profession furnished him with scenes to be rendered into tuneful sadness. His melody is but the echo of his tread into many chambers of affliction and death.

The two volumes of poetry, to which the 'Life' has been prefixed, do not contain the half of what Delta wrote. Mr. Aird has acted on the advice of Professor Wilson, that the selection should be a narrow and severe one;' and those who are familiar with the pieces formerly published, will appreciate the taste and judgment of the editor.

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ART. III.-India in Greece; or, Truth in Mythology. Containing the Sources of the Hellenic Race, the Colonization of Egypt and Palestine, the Wars of the Grand Lama, and the Bud'histic Propaganda in Greece. By E. Pococke, Esq. Illustrated by Maps of the Punjaub, Cashmir, and Northern Greece. London: J. Griffin and Co. 1852.

THE inquisitive mind, wishing to penetrate the mythical and mythological clouds which obscure the regions of past time, has often proposed to itself such questions as the following:-How was Greece peopled, or colonized at the earliest period? What was its language, and whence derived? Who created its mythology, or whence came its myths? What relation have they to fact? Is Greek etymology reliable, or are we to dig deeper into antiquity, and in another land, for the roots of our historic knowledge? Are the sources of Greek mythology native or oriental? Who were the Pelasgi? These and numerous other inquiries are suggested in the reading of this volume; and we shall endeavour to furnish some notion of its contents.

It is curious to observe the various derivations of the term, which, as our author remarks, appeal to a Greek etymology in the absence of Greek history, and thus conduct to no practical result. Pelasgi is taken from Pelagos, 'the sea'intimating they were a people who came into Greece by sea. Another explanation is found in Pelagoi, Storks,' from the lower dress of that people, or from their wandering habits. Peleg is also adduced. Müller and Wachsmuth choose Pelargos as the primary form of the word, and derive it from pelo, to till,' and agros, a field.' Another etymology is from pelazo, and another supposes the people were called Pelasgoi from their own barbarous language. Mr. Pococke lays down the following as the etymological and historical basis. Pelasa was the ancient name for the province of Bahar, (so denominated from the Pelasa, or Brutia Frondosa, a large tree of the mountains). Pelaska is a derivative form of Pelasa, whence the Greek, Pelasgos. The Pelasgi spoke the Sanscrit language; and the Greek is a derivation from the Sanscrit. Those who spoke the former language, therefore, must have come into Greece-that is, they were the Indians, or first settlers, whose language then became corrupted or modified. Now, the province of Bahar was the stronghold of Bud'hism which the Brahmins detested. The fierce and prolonged contest between these rival sects issued at length in the expulsion of the

Bud'hists, whose country then poured its expatriated population into many regions of Asia and of Europe. Hence arises the term Pelasgic Hellas, or Greece. The peculiar claim to preference in regard to this derivation is, that it is historic rather than etymological; and, therefore, that a conjectural etymology, which is solely founded on a corrupted language, is displaced, as it surely ought to be, by facts which have relation to the geography of distant countries, and the movements of tribes. and people in a remote antiquity. Mr. Pococke's work comprises an account of the locality of the Bud'hist emigration in Affghanistan and North-western India; and the occupation of Greece, Egypt, Palestine, and Italy; whence arose the great Scandinavian families, with the early Britons. Thus the way is opened to the revision of Grecian history, and the detection of the truths which lie concealed in Grecian mythology. The labours of the Bud'hists in Greece are traced, and the wars of the Great Lama, together with the localities of the Pelasgi and the Sindian colonists of Palestine and Italy. These new interpretations of ancient documents, if well founded and substantiated by geographical evidence, plainly affect the question of the originality of the Greek and Latin languages, and are alike important to the classical and scriptural student, to the searcher into ancient history and antiquarian lore.

The first subject of consideration respects the evidences of an Indian colonization. This is indicated in the reproduction of India in Greece, as manifested in the habits and language of a portion of its early possessors. In the heroic period of Greece we find the perfection of the arts, the profusion of golden vessels, ornaments of ivory, embroidered shawls, the products of the needle and the loom, carving and sculpture, and whatever else distinguished oriental elegance and luxury, thus bespeaking their origin. The Sanscrit was the language of Pelasgic and Hellenic Greece; a fact which may unravel the earliest poetic fallacies. Amidst the numerous dialects which compose the English language,' says our author, the Saxon has left the strongest impression upon our native tongue. The deduction, therefore, independent of history, is, that people once speaking the Saxon language lived in this island: it is then equally clear that these were Saxons. Apply this to Greece. What strikes us so forcibly as this identity of structure, of vocables, and inflective power, in the Greek and Sanscrit languages? The Greek language is a derivation from the Sanscrit; therefore Sanscritspeaking people-that is, Indians-must have dwelt in Greece, and this dwelling must have preceded the settlement of those tribes which helped to produce the corruption of the old language; in other words, the Indians must have been the primi

tive settlers—at least they must have colonized the country so early, and dwelt so long, as to have effaced all dialectic traces of any other inhabitants. The evidence of this fact derives additional confirmation from the transference of geographical names, and from the philosophy, mysteries, and religion of the mighty East. It would not be sufficient to weaken, much less to overthrow this argument, to allege, that a considerable portion of the influence in question might have sprung from traditionary causes and from the incidental, it might be the frequent, visitations of travellers, or others, from the distant lands, who, in the course of time, infused their notions, habits, and observances into the general mass of the aboriginal inhabitants of the soil; because the question lies between Greece and India, and the origin of attainable history in the remotest times, and because it is not conceivable that the entire language, literature, customs, and religion of a people, and the alteration of the very names of their mountains, rivers, and various localities, could have been accomplished by stray visitors or temporary means. The anni hilation or formation of a language, in particular, seems to be the inevitable result of conquest or colonization.→→

We are ignorant, let us not deny it, of the simple meaning of the name of nearly every place in Greece; and yet we flatter ourselves that we are writing what we call Classical Geographies and Grecian Histories. But now mark the perilous position to which this admission will reduce us. If we, through either the vanity or the ignorance of Greeks, are unacquainted with the original import of the geographical nomenclature of Greece, then are we equally ignorant of the history of that period, if our Grecian informants have not, with historical facts, given us the full value of historical names.

What I have now to show is, that they have given us those names; but as those names have no signification attached, they are historically, as the earliest map of Greece is geographically, worthless; nay, more, they have led, and still lead us, astray. They have told us of Pelasgoi and Pelargoi, and forthwith our literati expend their energies upon problems impossible of solution, with the feeble means at their disposal. They attempt to draw from the Greek language, a language not in existence at the Pelasgian settlement of Hellas, a history of the origin of the Pelasgians, a process similar to an investigation of the origin of the Saxons, by the sole aid of the English language.

What then, having confessed our ignorance of men and things in the olden times of Greece, that is, in the time of the Pelasgian race,-what then is the remedy? Simply to refer to the Pelasgian, instead of the Greek language, for solid information in lieu of fabulous commentary. Is that language still in existence?-It is. It is the Sanscrit, both pure, and in the Pali dialect: sometimes partaking of the form and substance of the Cashmirean, and very often of the structure and vocables of the old N. S.-VOL. IV.

M

Persian. But what, it will be asked, is your proof of this? My proof is one of the most practical that can be imagined; a proof geographical and historical; establishing identity of nomenclature in the old and new country of the Greek settlers, and acquiring the power, by this language, of restoring to plain common sense the absurdities of the whole circle of Greek literature, from Hesiod and the Logographers downwards.'-pp. 23, 24.

The cause of the Indian emigration is traceable in the following manner. A religious war prevailed for a long period, and to a great extent throughout that country, which issued in the expulsion of vast multitudes of people. Driven from the Himalayan mountains on the north, and across the valley of the Indus on the west, they carried with them art and science into Europe. The Brahminical and Bud'hist sects were the two great combatants; and the former being victorious, the latter sought refuge in Bactria, Persia, Asia Minor, Greece, Phoenicia, and Britain. In the Greek language alone-that is, the modified Sanscrit which we receive as Greek, in its disguises and transmutations, there are evidences of this position. The author first takes a connected view of this immense emigration, and then of its subordinate results in the actual progression and final settlement of the true Hellenic populations. The former part of this subject is discussed in the third, fourth, and fifth chapters of the volume; the sixth introduces us to the Hellenes.

The term Hellas was derived from the range of mountains in Beloochistan, called the Hela mountains, which are connected by another range with the lofty region of Affghanistan. The chiefs of the country were denominated Helaines, or chiefs of the Hela. Mr. Pococke expresses a confident persuasion, that both the name of the mountain and that of the chiefs was of a secondary form-namely, Heli, the sun,' proving that they were of the genuine race of Rajpoots, who were all worshippers of that luminary. The formation of the term Helenes in Sanscrit, would be identical with the Greek. Helen, the Sunking, is said to have left his kingdom to Aiolus, his eldest son, while Dorus and Xuthus were sent to conquer foreign lands. Haya was a warlike tribe of Rajpoots, the worshippers of Bal, or the sun. They were also called Asii, or Aswa, and their chiefs Aswa-pas. The Aswas descended from the Amoo, or Oxus-the Oxud-racæ, or Rajos of the Oxus, and their kingdom was Oox-ina, or Euxine. This sea was said to be called Axeinos, or the inhospitable, and was then changed to Eu-xeinos, the hospitable. Ooxa with ina, will, by the rules of Sandhi, exactly make the old name Ookshainos (Avos). Thus the Greek Myth, observes our author, is Aženos, the inhospitable' (sea); the Sanscrit History, Ookshainos, the chiefs of the