[118] I gladly avail myself of this opportunity to acknowledge the valuable assistance on many points which I have received, in the form both of information and of suggestion, at the hands of this distinguished philologist and traveller. I am but speaking the common feeling of the learned of every country, when I express a hope that, before long, the world may be favoured with the results of his long and laborious researches in the language, literature, and history of Ethiopia.
[119] Journ. Asiat. 3me., Serie, Vol. VI. p. 79.
[120] Under this head are included all the members of the German family—Dutch, Flemings, Swedes, Danes, Swiss, &c. I have found it convenient, too, to include Hungarians (as Austrian subjects), although, of course, their proper ethnological place should be elsewhere.
[121] Better known by his Grecised name, Capnio (καπνιον, Rauchlein, “a little smoke.”)
[122] Bibliander was a Swiss, born at Bischoffzell about 1500. His family name was Buchmann (Bookman), which, in the fashion of his time, he translated into the Greek, Bibliander.
[123] Duret says they were “beyond numbering”; but so vague a statement cannot be urged too literally. Thresor, p. 963.
[124] Zurich 1545. It is a small 12mo.
[125] Gesner’s Mithridates is perhaps remarkable as containing the earliest printed specimen of the Rothwälsches, or “Gipsy-German.” He gives a vocabulary of this slang language, of about seven pages in length. It is only just to his memory to add that in his Epilogue, which is a very pleasing composition, he acknowledges the manifold imperfections of the work, and only claims the merit of opening a way for inquirers of more capacity and better opportunities of research.
[126] Mithridates, I., 649.
[127] Biographie Universelle, Vol. VIII., 485.