es to a caste by
themselves. And an Egyptian hierophant would as little have thought
of associating with himself a Pelasgic priest, as a Bramin would dream
of making a Bramin caste out of a set of Christian clergymen. But if
no Egyptian hierophant accompanied the immigrators, doubly ridiculous
is it to suppose that the latter would have raised any of their own
body, to whom such a change of caste would be impious, and still less
any of the despised savages, to a rank the most honoured and the most
reverent which Egyptian notions of dignity could confer. Even the
very lowest Egyptians would not touch any thing a Grecian knife had
polluted--the very rigidity with which caste was preserved in Egypt
would forbid the propagation of castes among barbarians so much below
the very lowest caste they could introduce. So far, therefore, from
Egyptian adventurers introducing such an institution among the general
population, their own spirit of caste must rapidly have died away as
intermarriage with the natives, absence from their countrymen, and the
active life of an uncivilized home, mixed them up with the blood, the
pursuits, and the habits of their new associates. Lastly, If these
arguments (which might be easily multiplied) do not suffice, I say it
is not for me more completely to destroy, but for those of a contrary
opinion more completely to substantiate, an hypothesis so utterly at
variance with the Athenian character--the acknowledged data of
Athenian history; and which would assert the existence of institutions
the most difficult to establish;--when established, the most difficult
to modify, much more to efface.

[72] The Thessali were Pelasgic.

[73] Thucyd., lib. i.

[74] Homer--so nice a discriminator that he dwells upon the barbarous
tongue even of the Carians--never seems to intimate any distinction
between the language and race of the Pelasgi and Hellenes, yet he
wrote in an age when the struggle was still unconcluded, and when
traces of any marked difference must have been sufficiently obvious to
detect--sufficiently interesting to notice.

[75] Strabo, viii.

[76] Pausan., viii.

[77] With all my respect for the deep learning and acute ingenuity of
Mueller, it is impossible not to protest against the spirit in which
much of the History of the Dorians is conceived--a spirit than which
nothing can be more dangerous to sound historical inquiry. A vague
tradition, a doubtful line, suffice the daring