The idea and conception of _Panslavism_ are the produce of the
latent political events on the Continent, viz. the idea of a
_re-crystallisation_ of a race of people comprising even now sixty
millions, and which in former epochs extended from Archangelsk to
Tissalonichi, where it bordered on the abodes of the Hellenic race.
Having lost their primeval (Indian) civilisation by migrations which
extend to times historical, the only monuments testifying to their most
ancient origin are the languages of these various tribes,--the Russians,
Czechs, Poles, &c. But these languages have all acquired a more modern
type, by a great susception of Greek, Tartarian, Latin, Turkish, and
German phrases and constructions. Fortunately, however, there have been
other branches of this huge nation-tree, which, settled on the shores of
the German ocean, afar from the tracts of migration and the stations of
war, have escaped the influence of the changes contingent on the
contentions and intercourse of men. And thus, the _Old Prussian_, the
_Lithuanian_, and the _Lettish_ tongues (dialects) have escaped, as it
were, the changes of improvement, and have remained, in the mouth of
aboriginal inhabitants, such as they were many centuries ago. If the
mythology of the Slavian nations, and their universal complex of
languages, are undoubtedly _Indian_ (Sanscrit), the above-named three
dialects have retained _most_ of their primordial type. I subjoin the
Lord's Prayer, written in these three ancient Slavonic dialects, now
hardly understood by any other save those very same tribes. The
approximation to Sanscrit is most striking, and deserves the notice of
philologists. As a number of persons conversant with Sanscrit, and even
the dialects spoken in India, are to be met with in the British capital,
their attention is most respectfully called to these venerable remains
of old _Panslavic_ tongues.
DR. J. LOTSKY, Panslave.