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]

[Footnote 22: 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.]

[Footno