Thus, by the light of linguistic research, we descend from the exalted cradle of the human race to the prepared field of their first grand development. As we approximate the sphere wherein all faculties are free, and each element of excellence soars rapidly to its culminating height, a historical unity becomes manifest in language, wisdom, arts, sciences, and the most comprehensive civilization. These innumerable facts are no patch-work of incoherent fragments, no chance rivulets flowing in isolated beds, but tributaries to one uninterrupted current, correlative proofs of one and the same grand development. Language, the last struggle of the agonized age of Ham, the first triumph of the reason of Shem, was the magnificent medium perfected by Japhet, and through which, under the auspices of the Periclean age, universal man might see all his glories simultaneously revealed. Five hundred years before the Christian era, all nationalities east of Athens had perished; then and there, in consummate literature, we behold God's vanguard on earth. To the Hellenes, the beautiful of every type was revealed. In fullness, exactness, flexibility and grace, the Greek language surpasses all other linguistic forms, and remains the first great masterpiece of the classic world. As we watch the growth of a tender exotic plant, gradually removed to a higher latitude, and at each stage of its matured beauty experience fresh joy, so the philologist watches the tender shoot of the first European tongue as it unfolds under the mild skies of Ionia, passes to the isles of the Ægean, and finally strikes its strong roots in fruitful Attica. In infancy, it was redolent with the fragrance of festive song; in maturity it scattered abroad priceless worth in every style of literature, art, science and philosophy; till at last, touched by the hand of despotism, its living beauty faded, but even in death, like Medora, is still invested with the lingering charms of youth.