49 Bentley, however, is of opinion that the College of Augurs, whose divination was made from observations of birds, was of Roman institution, being founded by Numa, and that the skill and province of the Haruspices of Etruria reached to three things, _exta, fulgura, et ostenta_, entrails of cattle, thunders, and monstrous births, but did not include auguries from the flight of birds. “It often happened,” he adds, “that this pack of Etruscan soothsayers gave their answers quite cross to what the Roman augurs had given, so that the two disciplines clashed.”—(_Remarks on a late Discourse of Freethinking_, p. 241, Lond. 1737.) 50 Valerius Maximus, Lib. I. c. i. Ed. 1533. Cicero, _De Divinatione_, Lib. I. c. 41. Ed. Schütz. _ 51 Origin, &c. of Language_. Part I. book iii. c. 11. _ 52 Diversions of Purley_. Part II. c. iv. Wakefield and Horne Tooke had undertaken in conjunction a division and separation of the Latin language into two parts, placing together, in one division, all that could be clearly shewn to be Greek, and in the other, all that could be clearly shewn to be of northern extraction, including, I presume, both Teutonic and Celtic originals. This design, we are informed, was frustrated “by the persecution of that virtuous and harmless good man, Mr Gilbert Wakefield.”—_Divers. Purley_, II. 4. See also on the origin of the Latin Language, Ginguené, _Hist. Littéraire d’Italie_, Tom. I. _ 53 De Novi Instrumenti Stylo_, c. 1. London, 1648. _ 54 De Lingua Latina_, lib. IV. c. 10. 55 Remondini, _Dissertaz. sopra una iscrizione Osca_, p. 49. ed. 1760, Genoa. Some writers have even asserted, that the Twelve tables were originally written in the Oscan dialect. Terrasson, _Hist. de la Jurisprudence Romaine_. Baron de Theis, _Voyage de Polyclete_, let. 15. 56 It would be foreign to the object of this work to enter into the inquiry, whether the Etruscan arts were the result of indigenous taste and cultivation, or were derived from the Greeks. The latter proposition has been maintained by Winckelman and Lanzi—the former by Tiraboschi and Pignotti. (_Storia di Toscana_, T. 1. Ed. Pisa, 1815.) 57 Forsyth’s _Remarks on Italy_, p. 141. 58 “La grandeur de Rome,” says Montesquieu, “parût bientòt dans ses edifices publics. Les ouvrages qui ont donné, et qui donnent encore aujourd’hui la plus haute idée de sa puissance ont été faits sous les Rois. On commençoit déjà a batir la Ville eternelle.” _Grandeur et Decadence des Romains_, c. 1. 59 Dempster, _Etruria Regalis_, Lib. III. c. 80. 60 Horat. _Epist._ Lib. II. Ep. 1. 61 Ennius, _Annal._ _ 62 De Die Natali_, c. 5. _ 63 Saggio di Ling. Etrusc._ Tom. II. p. 567. _ 64 De Ling. Lat._ Lib. IV. c. 9.