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[ See Constantine de Administrando Imperio, c. 3, 4, 13, 38-42, Katona has nicely fixed the composition of this work to the years 949, 950, 951, (p. 4-7.) The critical historian (p. 34-107) endeavors to prove the existence, and to relate the actions, of a first duke Almus the father of Arpad, who is tacitly rejected by Constantine.]
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[ Pray (Dissert. p. 37-39, &c.) produces and illustrates the original passages of the Hungarian missionaries, Bonfinius and Aeneas Sylvius.]
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[ In the deserts to the south-east of Astrakhan have been found the ruins of a city named Madchar, which proves the residence of the Hungarians or Magiar in those regions. Precis de la Geog. Univ. par Malte Brun, vol. i. p. 353.—G.——This is contested by Klaproth in his Travels, c. xxi. Madschar, (he states) in old Tartar, means “stone building.” This was a Tartar city mentioned by the Mahometan writers.—M.]
With this narrative we might be reasonably content, if the penetration of modern learning had not opened a new and larger prospect of the antiquities of nations. The Hungarian language stands alone, and as it were insulated, among the Sclavonian dialects; but it bears a close and clear affinity to the idioms of the Fennic race, [22] of an obsolete and savage race, which formerly occupied the northern regions of Asia and Europe. [2211] The genuine appellation of Ugri or Igours is found on the western confines of China; [23] their migration to the banks of the Irtish is attested by Tartar evidence; [24] a similar name and language are detected in the southern parts of Siberia; [25] and the remains of the Fennic tribes are widely, though thinly scattered from the sources of the Oby to the shores of Lapland. [26] The consanguinity of the Hungarians and Laplanders would display the powerful energy of climate on the children of a common parent; the lively contrast between the bold adventurers who are intoxicated with the wines of the Danube, and the wretched fugitives who are immersed beneath the snows of the polar circle.
Arms and freedom have ever been the ruling, though too often the unsuccessful, passion of the Hungarians, who are endowed by nature with a vigorous constitution of soul and body. [27] Extreme cold has diminished the stature and congealed the faculties of the Laplanders; and the arctic tribes, alone among the sons of men, are ignorant of war, and unconscious of human blood; a happy ignorance, if reason and virtue were the guardians of their peace! [28]
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[ Fischer in the Quaestiones Petropolitanae, de Origine Ungrorum, and Pray, Dissertat. i. ii. iii. &c., have drawn up several comparative tables of the Hungarian with the Fennic dialects. The affinity is indeed striking, but the lists are short; the words are purposely chosen; and I read in the learned Bayer, (Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom. x. p. 374,) that although the Hungarian has adopted many Fennic words, (innumeras voces,) it essentially differs toto genio et natura.]