In this paper the author adverted to the limited attention that was paid in this country to comparative philology, and noticed the principles it had developed and the progress it had made elsewhere of late years.

In illustration of the results thus attained in the Aryan or Indo-Germanic languages, he took as familiar examples the affinities that could be traced between the Latin and the Old English tongues, viewing the Latin as a type of the earlier branches of the family, including the Greek and Indian; and the English as a type of a later branch, consisting chiefly of the Low German dialects. The affinities referred to were not those which connected Latin with English through the romance languages, but those which subsisted between Latin and vernacular English, and which must have arisen from a prehistoric identity or connection.