It certainly seems unnecessary to resort to an analogy to explain fia when its origin can be explained on a purely phonetic basis. There seems to be no reason why fiebat, the imperfect of fieri, should not>fia just as audiebat> udia and veniebat > venia. Whether the imperfect fia used by Dante came from Tuscany or from Sardinia, I see no objection to supposing that it was derived from fiebat. We are not surprised at this survival of the imperfect indicative of fieri when we consider that other forms of this verb were widely used in early Italian as equivalents of the corresponding forms of essere. In the Divina Commedia, for example, Dante uses the future of fieri 3 more frequently than that of essere.

3

14. Shoshonean Dialects of California, by Professor A. L. Kroeber, of the University of California.

The great Shoshonean linguistic family, which in aboriginal times extended from Oregon to Texas and from Wyoming to the Pacific Ocean, occupied about onefourth the area of the state of California. Comparative studies of published and newly collected vocabularies from various points in this territory show that the family is divisible into four branches of very unequal extent. These are the Plateau branch, occupying almost the whole of the Great Basin and territory to the east; the Southern California branch; the Kern River branch in California; and the Pueblo or Hopi branch in Arizona. The first of these held an area which has been constituted into several states. The territories of the last two were exceedingly restricted. The Plateau branch and the Southern California branch are each divisible into three well-marked groups, making a total of eight principal groups for the family. Six of these eight groups were represented within the limits of California. The dialectic differentiation of the family is therefore very much greater within the state than outside. The limits of Shoshonean territory in California are at many points widely different from what has generally been believed. The considerable degree of differentiation of the dialects into distinct groups shows the divisions to be of some antiquity, and makes it highly improbable that all the Shoshoneans in California are comparative newcomers, as has often been assumed. The Hopi of Arizona are an ancient offshoot from the primitive Shoshonean stock, without any direct connection with either Piman or Mexican languages. A comparison of all the Shoshonean groups with the principal groups of the supposed Piman and Nahuatl families, in place of the hitherto usual comparisons between selected single dialects, establishes the opinion that the three are only branches of a single family, the Uto-Aztekan of Brinton.

15. Style and Habit: a Note by Way of Suggestion, by Dr. B. P. Kurtz, of the University of California.

This paper is printed in full in Modern Language Notes.

1 For Sardinian imperfects in -ia compare Meyer-Lübke, Grammaire des Langues Romanes, II, 254.

2 For the extent of the mixing of the forms of fieri and essere compare Dr. G. A. Scartazzini's Enciclopedia Dantesca, under essere; Meyer-Lübke, Italienische Grammatik, 453; id. Grammaire des Langues Romanes, II, 236.

3 Inf. i, 106: Di quell' umile Italia fia salute.

16. The Old French Lay of Eliduc, by Professor John E. Matzke, of Leland Stanford Jr. University.

The paper shows that this lay of Marie de France is based in its main outline on a duplication of the exile formula, which can be found in its simple form in the old French poem Mainet and in duplication in the Song of Horn and Rimenhild and Gautier d'Arras' poem on the adventures of Ille et Galeron. To this formula the resemblance motive as illustrated by the Lai du Fraisne and the Roman de Galeran was joined. This explanation of the Eliduc story gives a new angle for the study of what Gaston Paris has called "The Legend of the Husband with Two Wives," in mediaeval literature. It proves that the present solution of the Eliduc plot belongs to the original story.

To be published in Modern Philology, vol. V.

17. On Lucretius v, 1006, by Professor W. A. Merrill, of the Uni-versity of California.

Improba navigii ratio tum caeca iacebat.

The authenticity of this verse was defended against the objections of all recent editors: I. The verse is not unnecessary and is not disturbing to the sense. Sentences occupying single verses are Lucretian, and this verse is not inconsistent with the context. II. Improba is a good Latin word and is properly applicable to the art of navigation. III. Navigii means “ navigation,” and the use of postclassic meanings of words is Lucretian. No other word for navigation was available. IV. The genitive in -ii is admissible in Lucretius through metrical necessity. It is doubtful if the form navigi ever occurs in Latin literature.

66

This paper is published in full in the American Journal of Philology, XXVIII, 66 ff.

18. The Bucolic Idylls of Theocritus, by Professor A. T. Murray, of Leland Stanford Jr. University.

This paper is printed in the TRANSACTIONS, page 135 ff.

19. Note on the Correlatives of si, by Professor H. C. Nutting, of the University of California.

This paper will appear in Classical Philology, II.

20. The "Clubbruisian Ironrattlian Islands" of Plautus' Asinaria 33, by Professor H. W. Prescott, of the University of California.

The paper was part of a longer article to be published shortly in the American Journal of Philology under the title "Notes and Queries on Utopias in Plautus."

21. The Plot-structure of the Sanskrit Drama, by Dr. A. W. Ryder, of the University of California.

This paper presented an abstract of the most important rules from the Sanskrit works on the dramatic art, in so far as these rules concern the structure of the plot, the character of hero and heroine, and the dominant sentiment.

22. Anthologia Latina (Riese), No. 285, by Professor H. K. Schilling, of the University of California.

The attempts of Luft (Anz. f. d. Altertum, XXIII, 392 ff.) and van Helten (Beitr. zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, XXIX, 339 ff.) to force the Gothic words in the epigram into the metrical scheme of the classic Latin hexameter have led to violent emendations (Luft: geils ; scapi i ia gamatzia) and highly improbable scanning (van Helten: heils; scapi / â mati / am), without, after all, accomplishing their object; even van Helten's alleged "tadelloser Hexameter" closes with a dissyllable after a spondee. Metrical considerations have been urged to a quite unreasonable extent. The author of the epigram had not the requisite freedom of expression to construct a faultless verse; he could not choose the Gothic words to suit the metre, but had to take those most frequently heard at a convivium barbarum; and a glance at these words will show that no possible transposition would have improved the metre. We may grant that the author would not have introduced these words at all if they had not in a general way conformed with the movement of the hexameter; but we must reckon, on the one hand, with the laxity of prosodical practice in that late period, and on the other with the evident fitness, from the Roman point of view, of a somewhat barbarous hexameter composed of barbarian words.

Concerning the meaning of the Gothic words, only that of scapia is still in doubt. Luft's conjecture geils, besides being based upon erroneous premises, is as uncalled for as van Helten's scanning heils, for the reason that in postclassic times the h does occasionally make position with another consonant. Massmann's and van Helten's scapia "waiter" is an assumption ad hoc, and the alternative proposed by Massmann: scapjan = "bring " and adopted, with modifications as to the verbal form, by J. Grimm, Dietrich, Grabow, Möller, and Luft, is based upon evidence too modern to be admissible. Grimm's and Möller's emendation scapjam offers the simplest solution of the textual difficulty; but the verb should be taken in the sense of Lat. haurire, like O.H.G. scepfen. This optative would then be coördinate with the matjam and drincam proposed by Massmann and accepted by van Helten (drincam also by Grimm); the omis sion of the m in two cases and the misreading of it (or of its abbreviation) as n in the third case are the more easily explained because the words were in a language unknown to the copyists. Massmann's reading jah, finally, is unassailable. As thus amended the line reads:

Inter "heils" Goticum, "scapjam, matjam jah drincam”.

a ponderous spondaic verse, to be sure, but an acceptable one in the fifth or sixth century and under the circumstances referred to. The Gothic words correspond

to the modern phrases: "Your health!

Fill up your glass, eat, drink, and be merry!" It is not impossible that, as van Helten suggests, the convivial exhortation there given formed a part of a popular Gothic drinking song; Luft quotes the modern "Ça, Ça, geschmauset," with its refrain "Edite, bibite, collegiales," and other parallels might easily be cited.

23. Heinrich Heine as Prophet, by Professor J. H. Senger, of the University of California.

In the cemetery of Montmartre in the north of Paris lies buried what is mortal of Heinrich Heine. Since the 17th of February of this passing year fifty have sped over the grave of the poet who in spite of all his strictures on the people of the country of his birth and in spite of the vigorous protest on the part of his adversaries, wanted to be a German. For fifty years he has lain quietly in the hospitable soil of France, yet no living man's spirit is more alive in the German-speaking world of to-day than he is.

What Heine's spirit represents in the whole extent of the world's literature must be considered unique; really he seems to be Nature's ära λeybμevov. He is greater than Juvenal in the sovereignty of his thoughts to such a degree that his irony often rises to the higher level of humor; his political insight is deeper than Voltaire's, because his human sympathies were greater; in the seriousness of his political attacks he resembles Aristophanes, who says so aptly

Τοῖς μὲν παιδαρίοισιν

ἔστι διδάσκαλος ὅστις φράζει, τοῖς ἡβῶσιν δὲ ποιηταί.

- Ranae 1054.

And if this were not enough to mark him at once as a superior soul, there is added to all the qualities of genius the fact that he is one of Germany's greatest singers.

The quality of speech on which finally rests the claim of any poet to be called eminently lyric is the musical quality, musical speech in the sense in which the Greeks understood and cultivated it; a quality which has suffered immensely in modern times, especially in Germany, through the development of modern music. There is still another character in which Heine appears; he exhibits a talent which is based on qualities of the mind which are absolutely hostile to a lyrical disposition, viz. the quality of the profoundest insight into and a passionless consideration of the facts of contemporary history, their actual sources and necessary consequences. And this all in the garb of a prose sparkling in all the brilliantly colored reflections of genius, resounding in all the harmonious chords of a melodic language, chatting, telling, blaming, praising, warning, prophesying.

Not without good reason has Heine been called the greatest journalist of the nineteenth century.

The frequent mention by German writers, favorable or unfavorable, of Heine's prophetic gift prompted a critical search which is based on Elster's edition of Heinrich Heine's Sämtliche Werke. It yielded a number of passages which may be designated as prophetic regarding the future of French and German political, economic, and aesthetic life.

The author then quoted a number of the most striking ones.

INDEX.

Arabic numerals indicate pages of the Transactions; Roman numerals indicate pages of the

Proceedings.

Aeschylus, idle actor in: xl; time ele- Budaeus and Pliny: xxii ff.

Aristotle, on time element in tragedy: Demosthenes: 28.