'  Pelasgian  language.*  This  passage  affords  a
measure  bv  which  we  may  estimate  the  fotca
of  the  word  barbarian  in  the  former. Nothing
more  can  be  safely  inferred  from  it,  than  that
the  Pelaagian  language  which  Herodotus  heard
on  the  Hellespont  and  elsewhere,  sounded  to
him  a  strange  jargon,  as  did  the  dialect  of
Ephesus  to  a  Milesian,  and  aa  the  Bolognese
does  to  a  Florentine."— (Thirl wall,  vol. i.,
p. 53,)

Mr. Grote,  after  some  judicious  remarks
upon  the  improbability  of  one  langu^
being  totally  displaced  by  another,  as  He-
rodotus supposed  to  be  the  case  with  the
Pelasgian  in  Attica,  accepts  with  confi-
dence the  Greek  historian  a  statement  of
what  he  heard  with  his  ownear« — the  bar-
baric language  spoken  by  the  Pelasgi  ex-
tant in  his  day — and  observes  on  Thirl-
wall's  softening  away  of  thLs  statement;
"  To  suppose  that  a  man  who,  like  Hero-
dotus, had  heard  almost  every  variety  of
Greek  in  the  course  of  his  long  travels,
as  well  as  Egyptian,  Phcenician,  Assyrian,
Lydian,  and  other  languages,  did  not  know
how  to  distinguish  bod  Hellenic  from  non-
Hetlenic,  is,  in  my  judgment,  inadmissible;
at  any  rate,  the  supposition  is  not  to  be
adopted  without  more  cogent  evidence
than  any  which  is  here  found,"  And  he
continues  the  ailment  in  a  not«. With  his
usual  accuracy  of  discrimination  : —

"  The  words  yXiitfrfijE  yafoxriif  {distinc-
tive mode  of  speech)  are  common  to  both  theN
passages,  fof  Herodotus,]  but  their  meaning  in
the  one  and  the  other  is  to  be  measured  by  ref-
erence to  the  subject-matter  of  which  the  au-
thor is  speaking,  as  well  as  to  the  worda  which
accompany  them — especlaUy  the  word  |8ap/3«-
pof  in  the  first  passage. Nor  can  I  think,  witb
Dr. Thirlwail,  that  the  meaninii;  of  ^af^nf*S
is  to  be  determined  by  reference  to  the  other
two  words :  the  reverse  la  in  my  judgment  eot-
rect  Bop^npof  ia  a  term  definite  and  nne-
qnivocal,  but  ytMiSilttt  ^MfXiM^p  varies  te-
cording  to  the  comparison  which  you  happen
at  the  moment  to  be  making,  and  its  meamng
ia  here  determined  by  its  conjanction  with  jSotp-
^apof. When  Herodotus  woa  speaking  of


*  The  passage  referred  to  here  by  Dr. 