nouard's Appendix to the Summary of
Grammaire Roman, in the first volume
of his Lexique Roman:

Mais voil que sia castellana,
E qu'ieu la veia la semana
O'l mes o l'an una vegada,
Que si fos reina coronada,

Per tal que non la vis jamais.
This, it may be premised, is what a
school-boy would term an easy bit," and

66

translates into French as follows:

was, Latin was becoming an analytic instead of a synthetic language, marking its cases with the help of prepositions instead of by changes of termination, just as it formed its tenses by the help of auxiliary verbs. Dismissing the word case, then, and premising that the Provençal nouns are principally derived from oblique cases of the corresponding Latin ones, it may be said summarily that, in the singular, s final joined to masculine or feminine substantives end

ing otherwise than in a showed that they were used as subjects; the absence of

"J'aime mieux qu'elle soit châtelaine, pourvu que je la voie une fois la semaine ou le mois ou l'an, que si elle était reine couronnée de telle sorte que je ne lathes, that they were governed. In the

visse jamais."

Or, on the approved "crib" principle so much favoured by young students: Mais voil, I would rather, que sia, that she should be, castellana, a housekeeper, e, and, qu'ieu, that I, la veia, might see her, una vegada, once, la semana, a week, o'l mes, or a month, o l'an, or a year, que, than, si fos, if she should be, reina coronada, a crowned queen, per tal que, so that, non la vis jamais, I should never see her.

Taking this piece as typical, it is quite evident that, while a moderate knowledge of French and Latin would give the general sense of the passage, some little knowledge of the structure of the language is still necessary to open up altogether the mine of lyric wealth compre hended within it. Such knowledge could not be conveyed in a very few words, but a few examples may be cited to show that no insuperable difficulties overlie the study.

plural, vice versa, the subjects received
nos, but this letter was added to the
governed words. Feminine nouns in a,
subjects or objects, took no s final in the
singular, but always in the plural. It
would of course be impossible to go into
details of quasi declension in a short
space; but when once the principle of
the derivation of Provençal nouns from
Latin is mastered, the vocabulary will ex-
pand and the position of the noun in the
There
sentence present no difficulty.
were only the two genders, masculine
and feminine.

In adjectives, the degrees of compari-
son were formed almost as in French,
the comparative taking plus, the superla-
tive prefixing the article: bels (bellus)
beautiful, plus bels, el plus bels. The
comparative was followed by que.
The personal pronouns were:

Ist.

Subj.
Obj.

The following, for instance, is the definite article, sufficiently like the Latin Subj. ille and the various modifications of it in modern languages to prevent any difficulty on that score:

2nd.

Tu.

Obj.

Tu, te, ti.

Vos.

MASCULINE.

Singular.

3rd. Subj. Obj.

Plural.

Subj. Ella, il, lei, leis.
La, lei, leis.

The numerals perhaps show as clearly as any part of the grammar the connection of the Provençal language with its The first predecessor and successors. ten are as follows:

Cardinals: uns, or us, dui, trei, quatre, cinq, sex or sei, set, och or ot, nov, deze or dex.

Ordinals premiers, segons, ters, quarts, quints, seizens, setens, ochens, novens, dezens.

There were three auxiliary verbs in Provençal - aver from habere, esser from esse, and estar from stare. The verbs

were divided into three conjugations, dis- | ant or anz; extra, estra; post, pos, pois, tinguished by the ending of the infinitive, pus, pueis, &c. the first ending in ar, the second in er or re, and the third in ir or ire. The following are the conjugations of the three auxiliary verbs, the indicative mood, viz.

AUXILIARY VERBS.

Estavas.

Estava.

We have here in faint outline the sketch of a language which it will be evident may be mastered in a short time, so far at least as to enable us to gather the sense of the troubadour poetry; while a moderate amount of reading with free use of the dictionary would soon open up even its niceties. The sixth volume of M. Agutz. Raynouard's Lexique Roman supplies all that is necessary in this respect.

Aver.
Avens.

Aven.

A.
Avem.
Avetz.

As.

Ai.
As.

An.

Ai.

Evas.

Eva, er.

Evam.

Estavam.

Aqueven,

A.
Avem.
Avetz.
An.

Aiqui, ail.
Aquist, aquest.

Aquet, ac.
Aquem.

We have not, as in the case of one of the spoken romance languages, the gigantic difficulty of pronunciation to contend with. We only want to read. We want to disentomb from beneath this modern dead language the mine of wealth which would otherwise be accessible only through the medium of modern French. A tithe of the trouble, then, required for a spoken language would enable a goldenhaired girl-graduate to acquire all that was necessary, in order to enjoy the erotic effusions of the masters of the gay science.

Possibly even the slight sketch which it has been possible to give, and especially a knowledge of the connection between Provençal and Latin on the one hand, and modern romance languages on the other, may cause a second extract from the same poem as that quoted above to wear something less of a foreign asAura. pect. Elis proposes dinner to Flamenca, Aurem. who answers joyously:

aquevon.

Aurai.
Auras.

Auretz.
Auran.

Of the undeclinable parts of speech, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions, it may be sufficient to say that their connection with the Latin is close and easily traced. In the first, we find the origin of the French adverbial termination ment to be due to the fact that the Provençal combined the Latin adjective with the ablative of the noun mens; so they said, instead of the classic form durè, durâ mente, durament, which afterwards became durement. Magis, as we have seen in the extract quoted above, became mais. So we had the conjunction si from the Latin sic. The preposition ante became

FROM a report of the English Secretary of Legation at Yeddo, it appears that a law was passed in 1872 by which it was announced that Japan was to be divided into seven educational districts. Each of the inspectors appointed for these districts had the supervision of from twenty to thirty schools, which are respectively classed under the heads of military, high, and elementary schools. Since the

Non; hai pron manjat e begut,
Cant mon amic ai hui tengu+
Entre mos bras, bella Elis.
E cuias ti qu'en Paradis
Aia hom talent de manjar?
De neguna ren non ai fam,

Mas de vezer celui cui am.

Which, being interpreted, is:

"Non; j'ai assez mangé et bu, belle Elis, quand j'ai aujourd'hui tenu mon ami entre mes bras. Penses-tu donc qu'en Paradis on ait envie de manger?... Je n'ai faim d'aucune chose que de voir celui que j'aime."

Surely a very appropriate quotation to conclude a notice of what was par excellence the language of love!

promulgation of this law 1,799 private schools and 3,630 public educational institutions have been opened, in which 338,463 boys and 109,637 girls receive instruction. Besides these, 30,000 students attend classes for higher branches of education, and consequently about 480,000, or nearly one-sixtieth of the entire population, are receiving instruction under the new system.

PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY

LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON.

256

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1

tion. Some nations may seem to be in nearly the same state in ancient and in modern times: as the roving Arabs and Tartars; perhaps even the inhabitants of China and its neighbouring Archipelago. All such people are tacitly excluded from this discussion; roving tribes, because they have no history worth the name; the Chinese nations, because their culture notoriously has become stationary, and, as we have no history of their ear. lier times, we cannot detect such contrasts as may really exist between their present and former state. By modern history we must chiefly mean Christian history, yet not so as to exclude the Mohammedan nations. They too have their strong points of contrast to the ancient military monarchies, and will be treated in their turn; but their history is certainly monotonous. One form of government only military despotism has arisen among them; and, owing to this meagreness, there is less to say about them. The Mohammedan empires, as in chronology they more properly belong to the middle age, so in their actual development appear to be midway between their prototypes in the ancient and their representatives in the modern Christian world. Generally speaking, it is only between things in important senses alike that it is worth while to insist on unlikeness. To contrast things different in kind, is seldom needed; but where similarity is close, to point out dissimilarity is instructive.

THE whole interest of history depends on the eternal likeness of human nature to itself, and on the similarities or analogies which we in consequence perpetually discover between that which has been and that which is. Were it otherwise, all the narratives of the past would be an enigma to our understandings; for we should be without that sympathy which kindles imagination and gives insight; nor would the experience of the ancient world afford instruction or warning to him who is trying to anticipate futurity. With good reason, therefore, the greatest stress is ordinarily laid on this side of the question the similarities to be detected between the past and the present. In the world of Greece or Rome, of Egypt or Judæa, Carthage or Babylon, the same never-ending struggles of opposite principles were at work, with which we are so well acquainted in modern times. The contests between high birth and wealth, between rich and poor, between conservatives and progressists, to say nothing of the purely moral conflicts of patriotism and selfishness, justice and oppression, mercy and cruelty, all show themselves in every highly developed community, in proportion to the fulness of information which we enjoy concerning it. The names and the form often differ, when the substance was the same as now. Nevertheless, it is equally needful to be aware of the points at which similarity ceases and contrast begins; otherwise, our application of history to practical uses will be mere delusive pedantry. This, no doubt, is the difficulty, through which no golden rule can avail to help us. We are thrown back upon good sense to judge of each question as it occurs, and all that the writer of his-the great Republican Union arose, its tory or the philosopher can do for the aid of readers, is, to state broadly what contrasts can be traced between ancient and modern times, leaving it to be inquired how far these may happen to affect any case in hand.

The very expressions, Ancient and Modern History, need a preliminary cau

I. The first topic which we may make prominent is contained in the word slavery. In modern Christendom slavery is an anomaly. It had pined away and vanished in Europe in proportion to civilization. When first it was established in the American colonies, no one foresaw the magnitude it would assume. When

founders would not admit the word slave or any equivalent into the Federal constitution. Believing that slavery must soon die out of itself, they declined any direct controversy about it, and veiled its actual existence under a general term that would include apprentices, criminals under sentence, or even minors; alas!