The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1875-01-02
Recent Publications.

/
| Short & Harmon.
| Prof Whitney, who fills the chair of Sans
krit and Comparative Philology in Yale Col
lege, gives us in this second series twelve valu-
able essays, illustrative of the same line Of
thought which inspired the first series. They
are practically critical reviews of the theories
of Max Muller and other eminent writers on
the Aryans and the Vedas.
The subject of the first essay is "The British
in India" This opens with a description of the
| Aryan tribes. 1t premises that the absolute
| Aborigines of India are unknown. That in
the belt which stretches across the country un-
| der the Tropic Of Cancer is a chain of wild
| tribes of dark but not Ethiopian features;
that nearly all the southern half, or the plateau
| of Dekhau, is occupied by the Dravdan or
| Tamulc family. Whether the latter poured
ever the western frontier or crept through the
| passes of the Himalaya; whether they hunted
| the black tribes into the mountains or entered
| along with them, is yet speculation. 1t is
| simply known that 1000 years b. @. these two
races occupied all India; that the Aryans,
nation who occupied the northwest, just be-
| yond the mountains which beset tIe entrance
| to the Cabul valley, threaded the mountain
| passes and took possession of the Penjab.
| These tribes brought with them "the Oldest
| and least altered reflex of that condition and
node of life which was once common to the
| Persian, Greek, Roman, German, Slave and
| Celt," "a religion ef which the myths and the
divinities bear a strange resemblance to those
of earliest Pagan Europe" and "a language of
which the wonderfully preserved elements
and transparent structure explain, to degree
/ horo N nh ft,a
| of European languages, the history of all Ian
| guages.'
This race became the fourders OF eYerythiDg
| now called Indian, and gave to the world the
| hymns of the Veds. shat venerable doeu-
ment, the Oldest, the most authentic, the full
| est of all that are left to illustrate the pre-
| historic history of our brasch of the human
| race The old inhabitants adopted from
| them the Sanskrit alphabet aud litera ture,
| and the Brahminic religion.
THE importance of this language will lie
| seen when we reflect that it goes back to the
| birth of Abraham, less than 400 years after
the Deluge, and that our Oldest Hebrew rec.
ords OF that age were from copies in the Syriac
| characters dating back to 700 B. c.; this was
| in the days of Semramis, too, the early days
OF Babylon; the Shepherd kings then reigned
over upper Egypt while lower Egypt was a
morass; the Sidonans dominated the Mediter-
ranean; Tyre was unborn; the fabulous age
of Greece had not begun; Rome was 1900 years
in the far future, and Troy not to be founded
| for 800 years to come; although we now learn
from recent explorations among its ruins that
the Troans were of this same Aryan race.
The region from which the people came seems
IN Tn1a
the tide of invasion has intermittently burst
out in all ages, and yet it has ever maintained
its own freedom, sometimes crushed, but never
submitting. The results which philologists
have obtained from the study of this language
and it's comparison with others, are brilliant,
They show the faith and the manners of this
ancient race, and the different nations which
have branched off from the parent stock, with
the relative times of their breaking away1
The second essay is "China aud the Chi
nese." China founded its first historic dynas-
ty 1000 b. c., but its language is different from
all others on the face of the earth.
The third essay is on ''China and the West
The fourth is on Mdller's Chips from & Ger.
man Workshop"
The first three essays are strictly historical.
This is a criticisism OF Max Mdler's book
He objects to Mdller's theory Of primitive
Monotheism and Renan's theory OF Semitic
"instinct for "Monothesm, but he says ''two
more eloquent and interesting articles than
those of Renan and Muller upon it are not
easily to be found.' ...
The fifth is on ''Cox's Aryan Mythology"
While he thinks Cox has carried his theories
into the fanciful be gave him credit for being
fan earnest and ingenious writer
"rhe sixth is on Affords Qusens English
aud is sharp and able criticism. We are
pleased to hear so able writer say that "No
other so great linguistic blessing could be con-
ferred upon the English language, and tic
people who speak it as q consistent phonetic
photography"
The seventh is "How shall we spell?" and
i3 strongly in favor Of the phonetic method.
He says, "Every one knows that our own al
phabet goes back through the Latin and
Greek to the Phenician;' and he thinks that
the Phenicians learned to write OF the Egypt
ians, and says their alphabet (alpha bull beth,
house, &c.) began with the sound which each
represents This CORES ponds with the curious
suggestion which we have heard that the
original alphabet of the human race land it is
claimed with some plausibility that the Phe-
nicians antedate ally was composed of the
signs that represent the signs of the zodiac,
and we know that at that time the House of
the Bull, Taurus, led up the consultations and
should commence the alphabet Likewise, we
have read, we think in Souihey's "DoGtor,"
that in the original the Bible reads, 'Ir
the beginning God created the letter of the
heaven and the earth" If this were so there
we're would be some sense in astrologeTs
trying to read the stars by forming words
of the letters which they would represent in
their different positions
He compares Enslsh-speakiug people to
Prince Nosey, in the fairy tale, who was con-
demned TO wear his long nose until be recog-
nized its absurdity, and thinks that our absurd
tiles of spelling will disappear as we recOg.
nize them
The eighth is Elements Of English PrOnun-
cistioa.' But we have taken too much space
already, aud starting WITH ir"rssss" $500
the book was abstruse aud dry, we have found
it very interesting. the ninth is ''The relation
of vowel and consonant," the tenth "BelTs
visible speech" the eleventh on 'the accent
in Sanskrit" (somewhat heavy for general :
reading) the twelfth on "the Lunar Zodiac of
India, Arabia aud China The latter is an ex-
cellent article, but so condensed that we eau
not sketch it. 1t is interesting TO learn that
the Hindoos had among their chronological
periods the Eon of 900 years, and the
Great Age of only 1870, co., with its su5div-
isions, of which the current one, the Iron
Age, began February 18th, 31O2 B. c. But
our author finds, by the initial point of their
system, that it was invented A. d. 552, which
shows that India was not the primitive home
of human knowledge and eultare. The Hin
doc legend cf Orion is new to us. The infa-
nous god Praiapati tOrionl pursues his own
daughter Rohini (Aldebaran) but is saot with
three-headed arrow 1.-THE belt of OrioO) by
the avepging messenger of the Gods (Sirius).
AS Orion is very indefinite in the Greek mythol-
ogy, this additional myth win be interesting.
Calypso's brief story OF him in the Odyssey is
unsatisfactorv and TonofellOW's clOrious poem