On the one hand, it expanded into the literary dialect under the hands of the Graecising aristocracy; on the other, it ran its course as a popular idiom, little affected by the higher culture for several centuries until, after the decay of classical Latin, it reappears in the fifth century, strikingly reminding us in many points of the earliest infancy of the language. The _lingua plebeia, vulgaris_, or _rustica_, corrupted by the Gothic invasions, and by the native languages of the other parts of the empire which it only partially supplanted, became eventually distinguished from the _Lingua Latina_ (which was at length cultivated, even by the learned, only in writing,) by the name of _Lingua Romana_. It accordingly differed in different countries. The purest specimens of the old Lingua Romana are supposed to exist in the mountains of Sardinia and in the country of the Grisons. In these dialects many of the most ancient formations were preserved, which, repudiated by the classical Latin, have reappeared in the Romance languages, bearing testimony to the inherent vitality of native idiom, even when left to work out its own development unaided by literature. APPENDIX. _Examples of the corrupted dialect of the fifth and following centuries._ [20] 1. An epitaph of the fifth century. "Hic requiescit in pace domna domina Bonusa quix ann. xxxxxx et Domo quae vixit Domino Menna quixitannos ... Eabeat anatema a Juda si quis alterum qui vixit annos Habeat anathema omine sup. me posuerit. Anatema abeas da trecenti decem et hominem super habeas de trecentis octo patriarche qui chanones esposuerunt et da s ca Xpi patriarchis canones exposuerunt sanctis Christi quatuor Eugvangelia" Evangeliis 2. An instrument written in Spain under the government of the Moors in the year 742, a fragment of which is taken from Lanzi. The whole is given by P. Du Mesnil in his work on the doctrine of the Church. "Non faciant suas missas misi portis cerratis: sin peiter seratis (minus) pendant decem pesantes argenti. Monasterie quae sunto in eo mando ... faciunt nummos Monasteriae faciant Saracenis bona acolhensa sine vexatione neque forcia: vendant sine vectigalia? vi pecho tali pacto quod non vadant tributo foras de nostras terras." nostris terris 3. The following is the oath of fealty taken by Lewis, King of Germany, in 842 A.D. "Pro Deo amur et pro Christian poble et nostro comun salvament Dei amore Christiano populo nostra communi salute dist di enavant in quant de isto die in posterum quantum