One of the many instances how little the laboured researches of philologists into the origin of languages are to be depended upon, is the variety of opinions entertained by French authors concerning the formation of the Gallic Romance. A learned Benedictine[AJ] first starts the conjecture, and then maintains it against the attacks of an anonymous writer, that the vulgar Latin became the universal language of Gaul immediately after Caesar's conquest, and that its corruption, with very little mixture of the original language of the country, gradually produced the Romance towards the eighth century. Bonamy,[AK] on the other hand, is of opinion, that soon after that conquest, a corruption of vulgar Latin by the Celtic formed the Romance, which he takes to be the language always meant by authors when they speak of the _Lingua Romana_ used in Gaul. The author of the Celtic Dictionary[AL] tells us, that the Romance is derived from the _Latin_, the _Celtic_, which he more frequently calls Gallic, and the _Teutonic_; in admitting of which latter he deviates from most other authors,[AM] who deny that the Teutonic had any share in the composition of the Romance, since the Franks found it already established when they entered Gaul, and were long before they could prevail upon their new subjects to adopt any part of their own mother tongue, which however appears to have been afterwards instrumental in the formation of the modern French. Duclos,[AN] guided, I imagine, by du Cange,[AO] whose opinion appears to be the most sober and best authenticated, maintains that the vulgar Latin was undoubtedly the foundation of the Romance; but that much of the Celtic gradually insinuated itself in spite of the policy of the Romans, who never failed to use all their endeavours in order to establish their language wherever they spread their arms. Among this variety of conjectures and acute controversies, I find it however agreed on all hands, that the vocabulary of the Roman, and the idiom of the Celtic, have chiefly contributed to the formation of the Gallic, Romance, which is sufficient to prove that it partakes of a common origin with that of the Grisons.