stical Slavonic was to be considered as the _mother_ of
all the living Slavic dialects; and there are indeed even now a few
philologians and historians who still adhere to that opinion. The
deeper investigations of modern times, wherever an equal share of
profound erudition and love of truth has happened to be united in the
same persons, have sufficiently proved, that the church Slavonic is to
be considered, not as the mother of all the other Slavic languages,
but as standing to them only in the relation of an elder sister,--a
_dialect_ like them, but earlier developed and cultivated. The
original mother-tongue, from which they were all derived, must have
perished many centuries ago. But _where_ the Old Slavic was once
spoken, and which of the still living dialects has been developed
_immediately_ out of it,--an honour to which all the nations of the
eastern stem, and one of the western, aspire,--is a question which all
the investigations and conclusions of able historians and philologians
have not hitherto been able to answer in a satisfactory manner. The
highest authorities in Slavic matters are divided on this point. The
disputes relating to it have been conducted with a degree of zeal,
little proportioned to its intrinsic importance; nay, recently, with a
passion bordering upon fierceness; and what is still more to be
regretted, without that regard to truth and candour, which ought to be
the foundation of all historical researches. The great political
questions which in the East of Europe have already disturbed the peace
of nations--the idea of Panslavism, the disputed preponderance of
Austria or Russia, the jealousy of the Slavic races against the
Germans and among each other--have been allowed to exert a decided
influence even on this purely historical question.

The claims of the Russians in this matter have long since been given
up as easily refuted; being indeed destitute of any historical
foundation. The circumstance, however, that the language of the Slavic
Bible was, in Russia, until the reign of Peter the Great, exclusively
the language of books, confirmed the natives for a long time in the
belief, that the old Russian and the church Slavic were one and the
same language; and that the modern Russian was the immediate
descendant of the latter; until modern criticism has better
illustrated the whole subject.[1]

The great similarity of the _Slovakish_ language with the Old Slavic,
especially of the national