There is, however, another opinion with respect to the Basque which deserves more especial notice, from the circumstance of its being extensively entertained amongst the _literati_ of various countries of Europe, more especially England. I allude to the Celtic origin of this tongue, and its close connexion with the most cultivated of all the Celtic dialects—the Irish. People who pretend to be well conversant with the subject, have even gone so far as to assert, that so little difference exists between the Basque and Irish tongues, that individuals of the two nations, when they meet together, find no difficulty in understanding each other, with no other means of communication than their respective languages; in a word, that there is scarcely a greater difference between the two than between the French and the Spanish Basque. Such similarity, however, though so strongly insisted upon, by no means exists in fact; and perhaps in the whole of Europe it would be difficult to discover two languages which exhibit fewer points of mutual resemblance than the Basque and Irish. The Irish, like most other European languages, is a dialect of the Sanscrit, a _remote_ one, as may well be supposed; the corner of the western world in which it is still preserved being, of all countries in Europe, the most distant from the proper home of the parent tongue. It is still, however, a dialect of that venerable and most original speech, not so closely resembling it, it is true, as the English, Danish, and those which belong to what is called the Gothic family, and far less than those of the Sclavonian; for the nearer we approach to the East, in equal degree the assimilation of languages to this parent stock becomes more clear and distinct; but still a dialect, agreeing with the Sanscrit in structure, in the arrangement of words, and in many instances in the words themselves, which, however modified, may still be recognized as Sanscrit. But what is the Basque, and to what family does it properly pertain? To two great Asiatic languages all the dialects spoken at present in Europe may be traced. These two, if not now spoken, still exist in books, and are, moreover, the languages of two of the principal religions of the East. I allude to the Tibetian and Sanscrit—the sacred languages of the followers of Buddh and Bramah. These tongues, though they possess many words in common, which is easily to be accounted for by their close proximity, are properly distinct, being widely different in structure. In what this difference consists, I have neither time nor inclination to state; suffice it to say, that the Celtic, Gothic, and Sclavonian dialects in Europe belong to the Sanscrit family, even as in the East the Persian, and to a less degree the Arabic, Hebrew, etc.; {114} whilst to the Tibetian or Tartar family in Asia pertain the Mandchou and Mongolian, the Calmuc and the Turkish of the Caspian sea; and in Europe, the Hungarian and the Basque _partially_.