ry. Much deep study and learned research have
found plentiful employment in the endeavor to point out the land of
their origin; and the views taken have consequently been many and
various. It appears to the writer that all the well-known views on this
subject are far from the truth; and he desires to assert for the Gypsies
an origin quite different, as he believes, from any ever yet suggested:
at least, what he believes to be the real origin of this singular race
is not even hinted at in the more celebrated treatises. Conscious of the
diffidence with which any one should approach a matter which so many
learned men have labored over, he advances the plea of the proverb, that
they who study the stars will stumble at stones,--a plea, that much
learning and genius may fail, where less would not be at fault.

It has been maintained that the Gypsies are Egyptians, and even that
they are the followers of Pharaoh, perhaps not yet gotten home from that
Red Sea journey. Otherwise that they are the descendants of the vagabond
votaries of Isis, who were in Rome just what the Gypsies are in modern
Europe. It has been argued that they were Grecian heretics; that they
were persecuted Jews; that they were Tartars; that they were Moors; and
that they were Hindoos, Grellman accepted (as it suited his theory) the
assertion that they entered Germany from Turkey, though he rejected,
without examination, the assertion, made on equally good authority, that
they entered it from Spain, from Italy, from Denmark, and from Sweden.
We find, by comparison of accounts, that they appeared within the space
of a few years at every point of a circle of which Germany was the
centre, and everywhere they were regarded as foreigners,--even in Egypt.

Later times have concluded that the Gypsies are Hindoos, and it is
generally acknowledged that Grellman and Borrow have proved this. The
evidences adduced are, that the Gypsy tongue is strikingly like some
Hindoo dialects and the parent Sanscrit,--that the races are similar in
complexion, shape, disposition, and habits,--distinguished by the same
vagrant nature, the same love of idleness, music, dancing, and thievery.
In this course of argument, that founded, upon the language is of course
the really strong one.

Without denying any of these evidences,--assenting, indeed, to every one
of them,--I yet assert that the Gypsies are not of Asiatic origin, and
not, as the sturdy Dutchmen call them, the "heathens,"--u