Romulidæ Cannas ego Varnam clade notavi;
Discite mortales non temerare fidem:
Me nisi Pontifices jussissent rumpere foedus
Non ferret Scythicum Pannonis ora jugum.”
“Halloo!” said the jockey, starting up from a doze in which he had been indulging for the last hour, his head leaning upon his breast, “what is that? That’s not high Dutch; I bargained for high Dutch, and I left you speaking high Dutch, as it sounded very much like the language of horses, as I have been told high Dutch does; but as for what you are speaking now, whatever you may call it, it sounds more like the language of another kind of animal. I suppose you want to insult me, because I was once a dicky-boy.”
“Nothing of the kind,” said I; “the gentleman was making a quotation in Latin.”
“Latin, was it?” said the jockey; “that alters the case. Latin is genteel, and I have sent my eldest boy to an academy to learn it. Come, let us hear you fire away in Latin,” he continued, proceeding to re-light his pipe, which, before going to sleep, he had laid on the table.
“If you wish to follow the discourse in Latin,” said the Hungarian, in very bad English, “I can oblige you; I learned to speak very good Latin in the college of Debreczen.”
“That’s more,” said I, “than I have done in the colleges where I have been; in any little conversation which we may yet have, I wish you would use German.”
“Well,” said the jockey, taking a whiff, “make your conversation as short as possible, whether in Latin or Dutch, for, to tell you the truth, I am rather tired of merely playing listener.”
“You were saying you had been in Russia,” said I; “I believe the Russians are part of the Sclavonian race.”
Hungarian. Yes, part of the great Sclavonian family; one of the most numerous races in the world. The Russians themselves are very numerous; would that the Magyars could boast of the fifth part of their number!
Myself. What is the number of the Magyars?