THE BIBLICAL REVIEW. VOL. IV. JULY, 1847, TO APRIL, 1848. LONDON: ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD. THE BIBLICAL REVIEW. JULY, 1847. I. COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR.* THE primæval history of man has always been a subject of interest to the various nations of the earth. In antiquity, as well as in modern times, there was no end of speculation respecting the origin of man, his dispersion over the earth, and the foundation of the early monarchies in the East. But on no subject has speculation run to greater riot, and on none have we had more fanciful theories and more absurd conjectures. With the exception of the brief records in the first chapters of Genesis, and the account of Abraham and his descendants in the other parts of the Pentateuch, we know absolutely nothing of the early history of mankind. Some writers endeavour, by patching together the traditions of various nations, and by catching at some similarity in ethnographical names, to make out something like a history of those times. But to a person accustomed to critical studies, and who has gained the historical sense, to borrow an expression of Mr. Grote's, all such attempts are idle and worse than useless. There is, however, one torch which can dispel some of the gloom in which the early history of man is shrouded, and that is Language. *A COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR of the Sanscrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Gothic, German, and Slavonic Languages. By PROFESSOR F. BOPP. Translated from the German principally by LIEUTENANT EASTWICK, M.R.A.S. Conducted through the press by H. H. WILSON, M.A., F.R.S., Boden Professor of Sanscrit in the University of Oxford.' London: 1845. |