2G6 HISTORY OF GUEECE. that a man, who, like Herodotus, had heard almost every varietj of Greek, in the course of his long travels, as well as Egyptian, imply that it was essentially foreign, had he not spoken quite as strongly in another passage, where it is impossible to ascribe a similar meaning to his words. When he is enumerating the dialects that prevailed among the Ionian Greeks, he observes that the Ionian cities in Lydia agree not at all in their tongue with those of Karia; and he applies the very same term to these dialects, which he had before used in speaking of the remains of the Pelas- gian language. This passage affords a measure by which we may estimate the force of the word barbarian in the former. Nothing more can be safely inferred from it, than that the Pelasgian language which Herodotus heard on the Hellespont, and elsewhere, sounded to him a strange jargon ; as did the dialect of Ephesus to a Milesian, and as the Bolognese does to a Florentine. This fact leaves its real nature and relation to the Greek quite uncertain and we are the less justified in building on it, as the history of Pelasgian settlements is extremely obscure, and the traditions which Herodotus reports on that subject have by no means equal weight with statements made from his personal observation." (Thirlwall, History of Greece, ch. ii. p. 60, 2d edit.) In the statement delivered by Herodotus (to which Pr. Thirlwall hern refers) about the language spoken in the Ionic Greek cities, the historian had said (i. 142), TXtiaaav 6e ov TIJV avrrjv OVTOI, vevouiKaai, a/J.a T/aorrcvf recruroaf Jtapaytryeuv. Miletus, Myus, and Priene, Iv TIJ Kapi-y KaroiKrii'- -zi Kara Tavru diaheyouevai a(j>t. Ephesus, Kolophon, etc, avral ai iroTiCif TJr"t Ttporepov ?.x&eiaTiat bfj.o7Mys.ovai Kara yhuaaav ovtJev, afyl 6e 6fj.o<f>uve- ovot. The Chians and Erythraeans, Kara ruvrb diateyovTai, "Zuuioi 6s in" luvruv fioiivoi. OVTOI ^apar^pec yhaaaris Tt-vaeper -yiyvovrat. The words yhuaarjf x a P a * T *lP (" distinctive mode of speech ") are common to both these passages, but their meaning in the one and in the other is to be measured by reference to the subject-matter of which the author is speak- ing, as well as to the words which accompany them, especially the word /3ap/3opof in the first passage. Nor can I think (with Dr. Thirlwall) that the meaning of J3upi3apoc is to be determined by reference to the other two words: the reverse is, in my judgment, correct. BapfJapor is a term definite and unequivocal, but yl.uaarie x a P aKT VP varies according to the comparison which you happen at the moment to be making, and its meaning is here determined by its conjunction with /?dp/?apof. When Herodotus was speaking of the twelve Ionic cities in Asia, he might properly point out the differences of speech among them as so many different x a P aKT ^( >f ^ yhuaaijc : the limits of difference were fixed by the knowledge which his hearers possessed of the persons about whom he was epeaking ; the lonians being all notoriously Hellens. So an author, describ- ing Italy, might say that Bolognese, Romans, Neapolitans, Genoese, etc. hart different xapanrfipts yhuaaris ; it being understood that the difference was iuch as might subsist among persons all Italians. But there is also a x a t )aKT 'IP y3.w<K"7C of Greek generally (abstraction
