ntarily subjected itself.

His next attempt is, on Languages, and particularly the Saxon Tongue.
He discourses with great learning, and generally with great justness,
of the derivation and changes of languages; but, like other men of
multifarious learning, he receives some notions without examination.
Thus he observes, according to the popular opinion, that the Spaniards
have retained so much Latin as to be able to compose sentences that
shall be, at once, grammatically Latin and Castilian: this will appear
very unlikely to a man that considers the Spanish terminations; and
Howell, who was eminently skilful in the three provincial languages,
declares, that, after many essays, he never could effect it [86].

The principal design of this letter, is to show the affinity between
the modern English, and the ancient Saxon; and he observes, very
rightly, that "though we have borrowed many substantives, adjectives,
and some verbs, from the French; yet the great body of numerals,
auxiliary verbs, articles, pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions, and
prepositions, which are the distinguishing and lasting parts of a
language, remain with us from the Saxon."

To prove this position more evidently, he has drawn up a short
discourse of six paragraphs, in Saxon and English; of which every word
is the same in both languages, excepting the terminations and
orthography. The words are, indeed, Saxon, but the phraseology is
English; and, I think, would not have been understood by Bede or
Elfric, notwithstanding the confidence of our author. He has, however,
sufficiently proved his position, that the English resembles its
paternal language more than any modern European dialect.

There remain five tracts of this collection yet unmentioned; one, of
artificial Hills, Mounts, or Barrows, in England; in reply to an
interrogatory letter of E. D. whom the writers of the Biographia
Britannica suppose to be, if rightly printed, W. D. or sir William
Dugdale, one of Browne's correspondents. These are declared by Browne,
in concurrence, I think, with all other antiquaries, to be, for the
most part, funeral monuments. He proves, that both the Danes and
Saxons buried their men of eminence under piles of earth, "which
admitting," says he "neither ornament, epitaph, nor inscription, may,
if earthquakes spare them, outlast other monuments: obelisks have
their term, and pyramids will tumble; but these mountainous monuments
may stand, and are like to have the sa