to believe that the depopulation of Spain was the consequence of the emigration to the provinces in America; for the number of emigrants to the new world was on the whole but small. Granting that in the course of time a few hundred thousand emigrated, the men who arrived there entirely without families, exercised such an influence upon the language of millions, that at present not a man in the city of Mexico speaks Mexican, and the native language exists only in the remotest districts; the commonest Indian speaks Spanish. There are even large provinces in New Spain where the ancient language has entirely disappeared, without its being possible to show that any considerable immigrations ever took place. In the Baltic provinces of Mecklenburg and Pomerania, where the ruling families have always remained the same, where the nobility consists for the most part of Wendish families, and where the Germans have never appeared as conquerors, the Wendish language is entirely lost, merely because the introduction of Christianity from Germany was in the course of a few centuries followed by the German language. The ancient Tyrrhenian language may, even before the conquest, have become unsettled and shifting, as the Umbrians occupied the interior of the country while the Tyrrhenians inhabited the coasts. The inquiries into the Etruscan language have hitherto yielded no results at all; all the alleged explanations by Mazzochi, Passeri, and Lanzi are mere delusions. I must direct your particular attention to the incredibly small compass of what is commonly called learning. Common sense has often been most disgracefully trampled under foot, and intuitive truth has been overlooked and disregarded; and this has been the case more particularly in the inquiries about the ancient Italian languages. People have been extremely anxious to discover the Etruscan language, and who should not be so? I would readily give a considerable part of my property as a prize to any one who should discover it; an entirely new light would thereby be thrown upon the character of the nations of Italy. But desirable as this object is, it does not follow that it is attainable; it is deplorable, however, if people assume it to be attainable without examining as to whether the method they adopt be the correct one. Passeri and Lanzi enjoy quite an undeserved reputation; they have treated the ancient Italian languages of the Etruscans and Umbrians in quite a disgraceful manner; and I have many years ago expressed my indignation at the absurdity with which the inquiry is pursued. Lanzi assumes that Etruscans and Tyrrhenians are the same,—a fact which has never been doubted—that Tyrrhenians are Pelasgians, and that Pelasgians are ancient Greeks: he then proceeds, without having any general principle to guide him, to interpret words merely according to some remote resemblance in sound to Greek or Latin words, and by this process he elicits a sense