great CÆSAR, a little before the Christian æra, and ended shortly after. This is what is called the "Augustan age," and is considered, of all others, the most glorious, as it was a period when the Latin language was written and spoken in its greatest purity and elegance.

In the first centuries of modern times the Latin language began to decay; and when the barbarians had taken possession of all Europe, but especially of Italy, and when the arts and sciences were in a manner annihilated, which happened in the 5th century, the Latin, as a pure and living language, soon became obsolete.

From this untoward period, for nearly a thousand years, the whole world remained in a state of literary "somnolency" till about the end of the 15th century, which will be ever memorable for the restoration of letters, of science, and the arts, and for a "bright and beautiful" development of the powers of the human mind.

At that period the manuscripts of the Greek and Latin writers were become scarce, and highly valuable; so that but few persons were able to procure them. But since the discovery of the "sublime" art of printing, in the year 1441, copies of their celebrated works have been rendered very plentiful and easy of attainment.

There are, manifestly, two great inconveniences which attend the Latin and all dead languages.

The first consists in the pronunciation, which varies with different nations, each imagining that to be the most proper which is pronounced with the accent of its own language.

The second inconvenience is the deficiency of the Latin language, in regard to ourselves, as it has not terms whereby to express those inventions and discoveries that have been made since the existence of the Roman empire.

There are no Latin words indeed for much of the furniture that surround us; for many of the dishes that come upon our tables; for our various dress; for our instruments of war and navigation; for civil and military employments; nor for many of our daily occupations, &c.

THE MARTYR STUDENT.

O what a noble heart was here undone,

When Science' self destroyed her favourite son!

Yes! she too much indulged thy fond pursuit,—

She sowed the seeds, but Death has reaped the fruit.-BYRON.

LIST not Ambition's call, for she has lured
To Death her tens of thousands, and her voice,

Though sweet as the old syren's, is as false!
Won by her blandishments, the warrior seeks
The battle-field, where red Destruction waves
O'er the wild plain his banner, trampling down
The dying and the dead! On Ocean's wave
Braving the storm-the dark lee-shore-the fight-
The seaman follows her, to fall-at last
In Victory's gory arms! To Learning's sons
She promises the proud degree-the praise
Of Academic senates, and a name

That Fame on her imperishable scroll

Shall deeply 'grave. O, there was one who heard
Her fatal promptings-whom the Muses mourn
And Genius yet deplores! In studious cell
Immured, he trimmed his solitary lamp,
And morn, unmarked, upon his pallid cheek
Oft flung her ray, ere yet the sunken eye
Reluctant closed, and Sleep around his couch
Strewed her despised poppies. Day with night
Mingled, insensibly, and night with day ;-
In loveliest change the seasons came-and passed-
Spring woke, and in her beautiful blue sky
Wandered the lark,-the merry birds beneath
Poured their sweet woodland poetry,-the streams
Sent up their eloquent voices ;-all was joy,
And in the breeze was life. Then Summer gemmed
The sward with flowers, as thickly strewn as seem
In heaven the countless clustering stars. By day
The grateful peasant poured his song,-by night
The nightingale ;-he heeded not the lay
Divine of earth or sky-the voice of streams-
Sunshine and shadow-and the rich blue sky;
Nor gales of fragrance and of life that cheer
The aching brow, relume the drooping eye,
And fire the languid pulse. One stern pursuit-
One giant-passion mastered all-and Death
Smiled inly as Consumption, at his nod,

Poisoned the springs of life, and flushed the cheek
With roses that bloom only o'er the grave;
And in that eye, which once so mildly beamed,
Kindled unnatural fires !

Yet Hope sustained

His sinking soul, and to the high reward

Of sleepless nights and watchful days-and scorn
Of pleasure, and the stern contempt of ease,
Pointed exultingly. But Death, who loves
To blast Hope's fairest visions, and to dash
In unsuspected hour the cup of bliss

From man's impatient lip-with horrid glance
Marked the young victim, as with fluttering step
And beating heart, and cheek with treacherous bloom
Suffused, he pressed where Science oped the gates
Of her high temple.

There, beneath the guise
Of Learning's proud professor, sat enthroned

The tyrant-DEATH;-and as around the brow

Of that ill-fated votary, he wreathed

The crown of Victory-silently he twined

The cypress with the laurel ;-at his foot

Perished the " MARTYR STUDENT."-J. T. CARRINGTON.

THE MODERN LANGUAGES.

If we call all the various dialects of the nations that now inhabit the known world, LANGUAGES, the number is truly great; and vain would be his ambition who should attempt to learn them.

We shall name here only the principal. There are three which may be termed original, or "mother languages,” and which seem to have given birth to all that are now spoken in Europe. These are the Latin, the Teutonic, or Gothic, now called the German, and the Sclavonic.

From the LATIN are derived the existing languages of all those nations which inhabit the southern countries of Europe; viz. the Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and French.

From the TEUTONIC, GOTHIC, or GERMAN come the languages of those nations without any exception, which inhabit the middle and north of Europe; and from the SCLAVONIAN, all the languages of the people who occupy the eastern part of Europe and the western part of Asia.

The Sclavonian is commonly spoken from the Adriatic Sea to the Northern Ocean, and almost from the Caspian to Saxony.

From the TEUTONIC, GOTHIC, or GERMAN is derived the modern German, which so little resembles the ancient, that it is with much difficulty we read the authors of the 14th century.

From the Gothic, or in truth, German, are also derived the Saxon or low German, the Dutch, the original English, the Danish, the Norwegian, the Swedish, Dalecarlian,* and the Laplandish.

Of the Gothic, the only reminiscence of consequence is a copy of the Gospels, somewhat mutilated, which, from the silver with which the characters are adorned, is called the Silver Book.

The very earliest traces of the Teutonic, Gothic, Germanic dialects, are to be found in the works of ancient schools; namely, those of the Greeks and Romans.

The language of the people of the mountains between Norway and Sweden.

The whole fabric and scheme of the English language is Gothic or Teutonic; it is a dialect of that tongue which prevails over all the northern countries of Europe, except those where the Sclavonian is spoken. Of these languages Dr. Hickes has thus exhibited the genealogy :

The Angles and Saxons, who conquered England from the Britons, spoke dialects nearly allied to one another, as well as to that of the Danes, with whom they seem to have easily combined after the settlement of the latter in the north of England. At the same time, the languages of these several people must have had great similarity with the language of the Franks; for we are informed that the missionaries whom St. Augustin sent from Italy to England for the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, were enjoined to take a Frank interpreter with them from Gaul; and as, on the other hand, we see, at a subsequent period, English missionaries going to Scandinavia without any interpreter at all, we have evident proofs of the closeness of affinity existing between all those languages at that time. The Anglo-Saxon began to decline from the time of Edward the Confessor, by the education of the English youth in France (which, indeed, had been the practice for several previous centuries), but principally by the introduction of several Norman officers and nobles at the court of that prince; and it may be said to have received its death-blow at the Conquest.

The father of the high German language was Luther, who is generally considered as the Dante of Germany. Born and bred in Upper Saxony, the language of which province had been formed by a mixture of all the other principal dialects of the country, he seized upon it with a power and mastery of which none but a mind like his was capable. Into this language he translated the Bible, and in it he wrote his other numerous works; and was assisted in his great undertaking, chiefly by his countrymen, or such as had been educated at Wittenberg with him.

The Dutch is very much like the German, both in words and structure.

The several languages or dialects which have been derived from the Goths, have been designated variously Gothic, Germanic, and Teutonic; but the most general name has been the Teutonic, so called from the Teutones (a tribe of the Goths), a people of great antiquity, who inhabited the northern part of Germany. Many of these languages perished before they had ever been reduced to writing. Those now extant are spoken by the several nations in the centre and north of Europe.

From the period of the destruction of the Goths till Charlemagne restored the throne of the Western Empire, no trace of literature is to be found among the Teutonic or Gothic nations, in any of their settlements. This was the real age of darkness; barbarism and desolation had then overspread the earth, and the "tithe of learning" that remained in the western world was almost exclusively confined to the monasteries, especially those of Scotland and Ireland, and that little was in MS. in the Latin language. From those countries, the Christian religion, and, with it, the first elements of civilization, were brought into the woods of Germany, and the desolated plains of France.

Most, if not all, the languages of the several nations in the middle and north of Europe evidently imply a common origin, not only in their words, but in their grammatical construction and modes of expression; and there is, in the disposition and feelings, if not in the customs and manners, of these different people, a similarity so striking, that, even without any reference to language, we should feel inclined to admit a community of descent. Of the numerous facts which might be produced in support of this theory, we need only mention that of the Reformation, which, beginning among a nation of the Teutonic race, has extended to all the other nations of the same language, and has, as yet, been almost exclusively confined to them.

From the SCLAVONIAN are derived the Polonese, with a mixture of the ancient Sarmatian, the Bohemian, Hungarian, Transylvanian, Moravian, the Vandalian or Prussian, the Croatian, the Lithuanian, the Russian, and the language of the Calmucs and Cossacks, with about thirty-four other different dialects of nations who inhabit the north-east parts of Europe, and the north-west parts of Asia.

To the above may be added the modern Greek, or that which is spoken in Greece in the present day; and the mo