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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 January 2013
The Society has lately been delighted with the discovery of organic remains in our vicinity, which prove, that, at some distant period of unrecorded time, the fertile plains of Mid-Lothian must have furnished food and habitation to beings very different from those which now draw life and enjoyment from their productions. Yet it must be regretted, that, in the conclusions derived from the existence of such remains (with the exception of a few general principles, leading us to regard with deeper feelings of awe and reverence Him who has made all things so wonderfully and fearfully), we have little with which we can sympathise, and still less that can link our existence with that of those of which we see nothing but these imperishable monuments. I confess, however, with the partiality naturally felt by every man for that study to which he may have principally devoted his time and attention, that I regard with far deeper feelings those fleeting sounds—those επεα π˥εζοεν˥α—which, after passing from lip to lip uninjured during the lapse of so many ages, are, when carefully examined, found to have been component parts of those languages, falsely denominated dead, and which can be usefully adduced in illustration of the written records of those mighty spirits who have as yet as far surpassed us in the science of mind, in the purity of their taste, and the perfection of language, as we have surpassed them in the severer sciences—in unfolding the mysterious powers of matter—in discovering the laws according to which they operate—and in subjecting them to the dominion of man. It is with these feelings, and also from a wish to contribute to the great work now so admirably carried on by the German scholars, and by some distinguished fellow-labourers in this country, that of uniting the present and the past, the remote and the near, by proving the consanguinity of the great Caucasian branch of the human family, that the following statement has been drawn up on the force of the Latin particle ve or (as it was written by the more ancient Romans) vae.
page 64 note * “Ve, particula quæ in aliis atque aliis vocabulis variatim per has duas literas, cum a litera media immissa dicitur.”
page 64 note † “Ve enim syllabam præponebant parvæ rei, unde Vejovem, parvum Jovem.” —Valpy's Delphin. p. 1005. under Vesculus.
page 64 note ‡ “Ve pro pusillo utebantur.”—Ibid. eod. pag. under Vescus.
page 65 note * “Ve enim particula * * * duplicem significatum eundemque inter sese diversum capit. Nam et augendæ rei et minuendæ valet.”
page 66 note * “Ab Augusto nepotibus ejus præceptor electus transiit in Palatium cum tota schola, verum ut ne quern amplius posthac discipulum reciperet.”—Suet. De Gram.
page 66 note † Cato, his “Origines,” and many other dissertations on similar subjects.
page 66 note ‡ Varro, his great work “De Lingua Latina,” of which we still have a portion.
page 66 note ∥ Julius Cæsar, his work “On the Analogy of the Latin Language.”
page 66 note § The eloquent Messala of Horace, called also by him Corvinus. He wrote a book “In Explanatione Auguriorum, &c. duodecim tabularum;” also, “De Dictis involute.”
page 66 note ¶ Claudius Pulcher, he wrote a book concerning “Scientia Auguralis.”
page 66 note ** Sinnius Capito.
page 67 note * The Roman who had recourse to the Greek language alone, for a solution of his difficulties, was as helpless as the English scholar, who, neglecting the Anglo-Saxon, expects to find all the necessary knowledge in Latin and French.
page 67 note † “Cum propositum habeam ex tanto librorum ejus numero intermortua jam et sepulta verba, atque ipso sæpe confitente nullius usus aut auctoritatis, præterire, et reliqua quam brevissime redigere in libros admodum paucos.”—Festus, under the word Prqfanum, Delph. ed. Valp. p. 554.
page 68 note * “Cupiens aliquid vestris bibliothecis addere, quia ex proprio perparum valeo, necessario ex alieno mutuavi. Festus denique Pompeius, Romanis studiis affatim eruditus, tam sermonum abditorum, quam etiam quarundam causarum origines aperiens, opus suum ad viginti usque prolixa volumina extendit, ex qua ego, prolixitate superflua quæque et minus necessaria prætergrediens, et quædam abstrusa penitus stylo proprio enucleans nonnulla ita ut erat relinquens, hoc vestræ Celsitudini legendum compendium obtuli.”
page 68 note † “Is liber indoctis viris adeo placuit ut pro Festo in omnibus bibliothecis substitueretur”—Valp. Delph. Fest. p. 12.
page 68 note ‡ “Unde brevi factum est ut verus Festi liber non amplius apparuerit.”—Ibid, p. 7.
page 71 note * 
cor, cordis, heart.
page 72 note * “Aliis cor animus videtur, ex quo vecordes, excordes, concordesque dicuntur, et Nasica ille prudens Corculum.”—Tusc. i. 9.
page 72 note † “And the Lord gave Solomon largeness of heart.”
page 72 note ‡ 'Διος, dius, dies, day (originally light); hence daze, dazzle, dawn, longer form Dianus, pronounced and written at a later period Janus.
page 72 note ∥ “Vedius, id est Pluton, quem etiam Ditem dixere.”—Lib. ii. p. 40.
page 73 note * “Dium fulgur appellabant diurnum quod putabant Jovis, ut nocturnum Summani.”—Under Dium, p. 227.
page 73 note † Jovis, from juvo, to aid (anciently Jovo, in composition Ju, Cimbric, Jou). The Latin deities were originally male and female. Hence, from Dianus and Janus, Diana and Jana; and, as rex, regis, makes regina, so the original female deity of Jovis was first Jovina, shortened into Juno, on the same principle as Jovis became Ju.
page 74 note * “In antiquis spectionibus nomina hæc Deorum inesse animadvertimus, Dijovis et Vejovis. Est autem etiam ædes Vejovis Romæ, inter arcem et Capitolinum; suorum nominum rationem hanc esse comperi. Jovem Latini veteres a juvando appellavere, eundemque, alio vocabulo juncto patre dixerunt. Nam quod est, elisis aut immutatis quibusdam literis, Jupiter, id plenum atque integrum est Jovispater, sic et Neptunuspater, et Saturnuspater, et Marspater (hoc enim est Marspiter); itemque Jovis Diespiter dictus est, et Lucetius. Quum Jovem igitur et Dijovem a juvando nominassent, eum quoque Deum contra, qui non juvandi potestatem, sed vim nocendi haberet, Vejovem appellaverunt,”—Noctes Atticœ, lib. v. cap. 12.
page 74 note † “Jupiter est juvenis juveniles aspice vultus,
Adspice deinde manum fulmina nulla tenet.”
page 75 note * “Nec vereor, ne, dum futuo, vir rure recurrat,
Janua frangantur, latret canis, undique magno
Pulsa domus strepitu resonet, vepallida lecto
Desiliat mulier, miseram se conscia clamet.”
Hor. Sat. lib. i. sat. 2. ver. 126. et seq.
page 75 note † “Marcus Antoninus objecit fœminam in cubiculum obductam, rursus in convivium, rubentibus auriculis, incomtiore capillo reductam.”
page 75 note ‡ “Egressus triclinio cum maxime placitam sevocasset, paulo post, recentibus adhuc lasciviæ notis, reversus.”
page 76 note * The different forms under which sanus presents itself are very extraordinary. Its oldest Greek form is the Homeric σαος, which must have been a secondary form, as may be inferred from the Teutonic safe, verb save, which retains the digamma rejected by the Greek. Σαος is also σῶος in Homer; and it is remarkable that this latter form, when used for mental saneness, kept its digammated sound, Σοφος. The Latins introduced a liquid before the v, as salvus, then dropped the digamma in the noun salus, from which, by substituting one liquid for another, they made a new adjective, sanus, and a new noun, sanitas. It is from the last adjective that the various forms of sain, sano, sound, gesund, sund, zond, in the French, Italian, English, German, Danish, and Dutch languages, have been derived. With salus and salvus are cognate hail, health, weal, wealth, with their innumerable offspring.
page 76 note † Esca, from edo, supine esum.
page 76 note ‡ “Aliter enim Lucretius vescum salem dicit, ex edendi intentione: aliter Lucilius vescum appellat cum edendi fastidio.”
page 77 note * Σβεηνυμι, σβεσω (root σβεω), English, quench (provincial squench). When the Greeks threw the qu out of their alphabet, they replaced it in general, although not in all cases, by π or β. Replace the qu, and the identity of σβεννμι with the English quench or squench becomes immediately visible. I am preparing an essay upon that wonderful reform of the Greek alphabet, by which they threw out all guttural and drawling sounds, and replaced them by the long vowels and double consonants. I shall submit the leading facts in a paper to the Royal Society, before I publish the work.
page 77 note † Ειν Αςιμοις οθι φασι Τνφωεος εμμςναι ευνας. This is the only allusion in the Homeric writings to volcanic action.
page 78 note * “Sic ubi vi cæca tandem devictus ad astra
Evomuit pastos per sæcula Vesbius ignes.”
Lib. xvii. ver. 597.
page 78 note † “……………Chalcidis
Littoribus fractas ubi Vesbius erigit iras.”
Silv. lib. iv. carm. 4. ver. 79.
page 79 note * Σαχχος saccus, said to be the most general of all names. The Anglo-Saxon saec comes nearest in sound and form to the sica of vesica. The Greek σαχχος originally a hide or skin, took a secondary form, with one sigma, to denote an inflated hide or bladder, Ασχος.
page 79 note † “Nomen antiquæ consuetudinis per unum c enunciari, non est mirum, quia nulla tunc geminabatur litera in scribendo; quam consuetudinem Ennius mutavisse fertur utpote Græcus. Græco more usus, quod illi æque scribentes ac legentes duplicabant mutas semivocales et liquidas.”—Festus, under Solitaurilia, p. 878.
page 79 note ‡ “Illæ autem piscinæ nobilium magis ad oculos pertinent quam ad vesicam et potius marsupium domini exinaniunt quam implent.”—De Re Rust. lib. iii. cap. 17.
page 79 note * Σφηξ, from σφαξ or ὸιασφαξ, cut in two, corresponding with the Latin Insecta.—De Animalibus, lib. ix. cap. 28.
page 79 note † Specio, specere, spes, spero, old German, spehan, English, spy, Ital. spiare, Span, espiar, French, espier, and many other forms, all signify to see. Even the Scottish spaewife corresponds with the old English word seer.
page 81 note * Lib. ix. cap. 4.
page 82 note * “Fruteta densa, dicta a similitudine vestis.”—Festus, under Vespices, p. 1006.
page 82 note † Æn. ix. ver. 384.
page 82 note ‡ Fasti, lib. vi. ver. 102.
page 83 note * “Pleraque sunt vocabula, quibus vulgo utimur, neque tamen liquido scimus quid ea proprie atque vere significent, sed incompertam et vulgariam traditionem rei non exploratæ secuti, videmur magis dicere quod volumus quam dicimus; sicuti est vestibulum, verbum in sermonibus celebre atque obvium, non omnibus tamen qui illo facile utuntur satis spectatum. Animadverti enim quosdam haudquaquam indoctos viros opinari vestibulum esse partem domus priorem, quam vulgus atrium vocat. C. Ælius Gallus, in libro “De Significatione Verborum quæ ad Jus Civile pertinent” secundo, “vestibulum esse dicit non in ipsis ædibus, neque partem ædium, sed locum ante januam domus vacuam, per quem a via aditus accessusque ad ædes est.” * * * “Atque ipsa janua procul a via est, area vacanti inter sita.”
page 84 note * “Qui domos igitur amplas antiquitus faciebant, locum ante januam vacuum relinquebant, qui inter fores domus et viam medius esset. In eo loco qui dominum ejus domus salutatum venerant, priusquam admitterentur consistebant, et neque in via stabant neque intra ædes erant.”—Lib. xi. cap. 5.
page 84 note † “His, qui communi sunt fortuna, non necessaria magnifica vestibula, quod hi aliis officia præstant ambiundo.”—Lib. vi. cap. 8.
page 84 note ‡ De Legibus, lib. ii. sect. 24.
page 85 note * Σ⌉ιζω, σ⌉ιξω, σ⌉ιγμα, stimulus. The verb stigo was itself Latin, as may be seen in the compound instigo, to goad on, from which simple verb stigium was immediately formed. The word is found in all the Celtic and Teutonic dialects, in the sense of the English to stick, i. e. to stab or puncture, Germ. stechen, Cimbric, ystigaw, the verb; stich, Germ. the puncture, Anglo-Saxon stice, &c.
page 85 note † Vossius, Etym. under the word.
page 86 note * Bell. Civ. lib. ii. c. 26.
page 86 note † Cap. ix.
page 86 note ‡ Lib. iv. c. 25.
page 86 note ∥ Grandis, a term borrowed from the swelling or rounding of the grains (grana) of corn, afterwards applied to the full growth of other objects. It is peculiar to the Latin language.