PANSLAVIC SKETCHES.
The idea and conception of Panslavism are the produce of the latent political events on the Continent, viz. the idea of a re-crystallisation of a race of people comprising even now sixty millions, and which in former epochs extended from Archangelsk to Tissalonichi, where it bordered on the abodes of the Hellenic race. Having lost their primeval (Indian) civilisation by migrations which extend to times historical, the only monuments testifying to their most ancient origin are the languages of these various tribes,—the Russians, Czechs, Poles, &c. But these languages have all acquired a more modern type, by a great susception of Greek, Tartarian, Latin, Turkish, and German phrases and constructions. Fortunately, however, there have been other branches of this huge nation-tree, which, settled on the shores of the German ocean, afar from the tracts of migration and the stations of war, have escaped the influence of the changes contingent on the contentions and intercourse of men. And thus, the Old Prussian, the Lithuanian, and the Lettish tongues (dialects) have escaped, as it were, the changes of improvement, and have remained, in the mouth of aboriginal inhabitants, such as they were many centuries ago. If the mythology of the Slavian nations, and their universal complex of languages, are undoubtedly Indian (Sanscrit), the above-named three dialects have retained most of their primordial type. I subjoin the Lord's Prayer, written in these three ancient Slavonic dialects, now hardly understood by any other save those very same tribes. The approximation to Sanscrit is most striking, and deserves the notice of philologists. As a number of persons conversant with Sanscrit, and even the dialects spoken in India, are to be met with in the British capital, their attention is most respectfully called to these venerable remains of old Panslavic tongues.
DR. J. LOTSKY, Panslave.
8. Robert Street, Hampstead Road.