As a general rule, the power of inflec tion adds greatly to the copiousness of a language ; and although some enthusi asts, in their admiration of our own. have maintained that the process of conjugat ing or declining by auxiliary words and particles is more convenient, and affords more variety and harmony- than that by changes in the termination of the verb or noun, it is probable that few candid rea soners will hold the same opinion. But there are distinctions in language, aris ing out of relations simply imaginary, which may be pronounced unnecessary and cumbersome. Sneh are the genders, common to almost all languages of the Indo-European family except our own, but for which it would be difficult •to as sign either utility or beauty.
Another and a more substantial disad vantage of language rich in inflections, if the fact be true, is to be found in the greater difficulty which common people are supposed to have in framing their speech gramma Den Ily and accurately uudor this system than the other. The greater the niceties of a language, it has been urged, the greater the difference must inevitably be between the variety spoken and written by educated men that in use among the uneducated ; and it has been contended that in ancient Italy, for instance, the rustic language was altogether different from the written Latin. But the facts on which this rea soning rests may be pronounced extre.nely controvertible. There are certainly some grounds for the suspicion that there was an unusual difference between the vu] gar and the polished Roman tongue, at least in the later times of the empire ; but if this was always the case, it is sin gular that Plautus and 'Terence should nowhere furnish us, by way of heighten ing the ludicrous, with instances of un grammatical locution. The language of ancient Greece was more refined and in flective than that of Rome ; and there is no appearance that there was a greater diversity between the speech of the peas ant and the philosopher and rhetorician than in any modern country. In Attica
the very reverse seems to have been the truth, since its most elegant writers and orators appear carefully to have modelled their language on the common dialect of their countrymen. And, finally, the wild Indians of America speak with purity a language often surpassing in variety of inflections those of the most civilized and illustrious nations of the Old World. LANGUEN'TE, in music, a direction to the performer, when prefixed to a composition denoting that it is to be per formed in a languishing or soft manner. LAO'COON, in fabulous history, the priest of Apollo or Neptune during the Trojan war. While be was engaged in sacrificing a bull to Neptune, two enor mous serpents sent by Minerva, in re venge for his having endeavored to dis suade the Trojans from admitting the famous wooden horse within their walls, issued from the sea; and having fastened on his two sons, whom he vainly endeav ored to save, at last attacked the father himself, and crushed him to death in their complicated folds. This story has gained immortal celebrity from its forming the subject of one of the most beautiful groups of sculpture in the whole history of ancient Art. The composition is py ramidal, and represents Laocoon and his two sons writhing and expiring in the convulsions of the serpents. Agony in an intense degree is exhibited in the countenance and convulsed body of La ocoon, who is attempting to disengage himself from the serpents ; and the sons are represented as imploring assistance from their helpless parent. This famous group of sculpture was discovered at Rome among the ruins of the palace of Titus, at the beginning of the 16th cen tury, and afterwards placed in the Far nese palace, whence it found its way to the Vatican. It was executed by Poly dorus, Agesander, Athonodorus, the three celebrated artists of Rhodes.