MURRAY, ALEXANDER, a distinguished orientalist, was born at a place called Dunkitterick, in the county of Galloway, on the 22d of October 1775. His father, Robert Murray, had been a shepherd all his days, and his mother, Mary Cochrane, was the daughter of a person in the same humble condition of life. From the circumstances of his parents, therefore, it may be inferred that their means of educating their offspring were extremely limited; indeed it appears that the subject of this notice was in a great measure self-taught, having learned the alphabet by copying the printed letters, and thus acquired simultaneously the elements both of reading and writing. In 1784, he was put to school at New Galloway, where he made rapid proficiency; but in a short time he was seized with an illness which obliged him to leave school, and he saw no more of it for four years. He continued, however, to pursue irregularly the process of self-tuition, devouring everything that came in his way, including ballads and penny histories; and, in the course of the year 1788, he was engaged by the heads of two families in the parish of Kirkowen to teach their children to read and write, an employment which he rendered subservient to his own improvement. He afterwards went to school at the village of Minigaff, where he extended his acquisitions, chiefly by his own indefatigable exertions, learned a little French, and in a short time mastered the rudiments of Latin. He compared French and Latin, and by this practice he riveted in his memory the words of both languages. His reading now became extremely various; but he confesses that, although he certainly knew "a great deal of words and matters," his prosody was bad, and his English neither fluent nor elegant. Indulging uncontrolled his appetite for knowledge, accuracy was scarcely to be expected; he always strove to seize the sense, yet did not weary himself by analysing every sentence he read; and thus he ranged through a multitude of authors, sufficient, if carefully studied, to have occupied a considerable portion of a lifetime. To such a knowledge of Latin as might be acquired in this desultory manner, he added a smattering of Greek, and at length set about learning Hebrew, the alphabet of which he already knew. He also amused himself with writing songs and pieces of poetry, some of which, particularly a ballad, "excited more admiration than it really merited." After several years spent in the same course of vigorous but irregular application, he came to Edinburgh, where he was kindly received by Dr Baird, to whom he had brought a letter of introduction. On the day after his arrival in town, he underwent an examination in the presence of Dr Baird, Dr Finlayson, and Dr Moodie, and, on this occasion, read and explained a passage of a French author, an ode of Horace, a page of the Iliad, and a Hebrew psalm. His uncommon acquirements excited admiration, and not only procured him the direct advantages of academical instruction, but likewise obtained for him such pecuniary aid as seemed necessary for the pro-
secution of his studies. At the end of two years he obtained a bursary from the town; and about the same time he engaged in private teaching, which he looked to as a chief source of support. His views being directed to the church, he of course applied himself to those particular studies which are prescribed to candidates for the sacred office; but, whilst thus occupied, he devoted every leisure moment to the prosecution of his favourite studies, investigating every language to which he had access, and not only making himself acquainted with the dialects of Europe, but even extending his researches into the languages of Asia, particularly Sanscrit. Nor was his attention confined to words merely. He studied antiquities, and the philosophy of grammar. Conceiving it to be impossible to investigate the history of any one language without a competent knowledge of all the idioms directly or collaterally connected with it, he sought to discover the source and elements of all the modern dialects of Europe by an analytical examination of the languages which had prevailed in that quarter of the globe, and thus attempted to throw light on the origin, early history, and affiliation of the various nations by which it is inhabited. "I have been gratified," says he, "to find, what has often been vaguely asserted, that the Greek and Latin are only dialects of a language much more simple, elegant, and ancient, which forms the basis of almost all the tongues of Europe, and, as I hope to demonstrate on some future occasion, of Sanskrit itself."
At this time Murray was not known beyond the circle of a few select friends, by far the most eminent of whom was John Leyden, a man of the same age, and of congenial habits and pursuits. Indeed there was no one in Edinburgh with whom Murray felt so much afraid to contend in languages and philosophy as Leyden; and it is not a little remarkable, that the latter was heard to express a similar apprehension of Murray. Leyden, who had already a high reputation, closed his bright and brief career in the island of Java, where he died of fever in August 1811. Murray had yet to lay the foundation of his renown, and an opportunity was ere long afforded him of bringing his great and various acquirements into public notice. Having been for some time an occasional contributor to the Scots Magazine, he was at length appointed editor of that work, and had also an opportunity afforded him of contributing several articles to the Edinburgh Review. He was engaged by Mr Constable to superintend a new impression of Bruce's Travels to discover the Source of the Nile; an undertaking for which his previous acquisitions had singularly qualified him, inasmuch as he not only understood Abyssinian, but had even mastered the two principal dialects of that language as actually spoken in the country. He commenced his labours in September 1802, and the work appeared in July 1805. During this interval, he resided chiefly at Kinnaird House, where he had access to Bruce's papers and manuscripts, and devoted himself with unremitting assiduity to the completion of his task. This edition, consisting of seven large octavo volumes, was enriched by Murray with a life of the traveller, together with notes and an appendix containing curious and learned discussions on philology, antiquities, and a variety of other subjects illustrative of the author's narrative. In the meanwhile Murray had been licensed as a preacher, though without any prospect of obtaining a living in the church. But having been strongly recommended to Dr James Muirhead, minister of Urr, who wished to have an assistant and successor, he was appointed to this charge in 1806, and, on the death of Dr Muirhead two years afterwards, became minister of the parish. In 1808, he published separately his Life of Bruce; and, in 1811, he was applied to, at the suggestion of Mr Salt, to translate a letter in Geez, from the governor Tygre to the king of
Murray. Great Britain, a task which he performed in a very satisfactory manner. He continued to perform his clerical duties and prosecute his literary researches till 1812, when, the professorship of oriental languages in the University of Edinburgh having become vacant by the death of Dr Moodie, he was proposed as a candidate for the chair, and, after a keen contest, elected by a majority of two votes. The other candidates were Dr Alexander Brunton, Dr David Dickson, and Dr David Scot. In consequence of this appointment, he removed to Edinburgh in November 1811, and immediately entered on the duties of his class, for the use of which he had published Outlines of Oriental Philology, a small work, containing a meagre epitome of the grammatical principles of the Hebrew language and its cognate dialects. His class was attended not only by theological students, of whom some knowledge of Hebrew is required, or at least expected, but also by several literary men, who were anxious to cultivate or renew an acquaintance with that ancient language under the guidance of so celebrated an orientalist. Dr Murray, however, was not destined long to enjoy his preferment. His constitution was not robust, and a pulmonary complaint, with which he had previously been affected, becoming aggravated by the exertion required in preparing his academical lectures, at length assumed a dangerous character, and, on the 15th of April 1813, terminated his existence, in the thirty-seventh year of his age.
Dr Murray was an estimable, and, in several respects, a remarkable man. Born in a humble station, he had been indebted for his advancement in life not less to the strict propriety of his conduct than to the extent and variety of his literary attainments. Being in a great measure self-taught, especially in early life, he had ranged through a vast field, without perhaps being thoroughly master of any subject, and had become more remarkable for the diversity than the accuracy or precision of his acquisitions. If he had been spared, he would no doubt have rectified the defects inseparable from such a desultory course of application, and narrowed the sphere of his labours, in order to proceed with greater certainty of ultimate success; but it cannot be doubted, by persons conversant with philology in its more improved and scientific form, that he often mistook fanciful speculation for inductive reasoning, and erected premature generalizations upon the uncertain basis of an arbitrary analysis.
Dr Murray left behind him in manuscript a work entitled History of the European Languages, or Researches into the Affinities of the Teutonic, Greek, Celtic, Slavonic, and Indian Nations, which was published in 1823, in two vols. 8vo, under the auspices of Sir Henry Moncrieff, who enriched it with a life of the author, whilst Dr Scot of Corstorphine performed the duties of editor, and contributed a preface. The task undertaken in this work is truly gigantic, and, in prosecuting it, the author labours to prove, or rather states as the result of his researches, that all the languages of Europe may be traced to a single radical dialect; and that this dialect, again, may be analytically resolved into a few monosyllables, nine in number, some of which, according to the author, may even be considered as variations of the others; indeed he is of opinion that oy and teag were probably the first articulate sounds. Now this, to say the least, is a very bold generalization; and, if it were inductively deduced from a rigid analysis of all the languages which the author attempts to resolve into nine monosyllabic elements, it would unquestionably be a more wonderful triumph of human ingenuity than even the discovery of an alphabet. But it is impossible not to feel that such an analysis is completely beyond the reach of any single mind, even supposing its practicability, abstractly considered, were admitted; and, on the other hand, in following the author through what he considers
as his inductive method of reasoning, it is equally difficult to avoid the conviction, which is forced upon us at every step, that his assumptions are gratuitous, his deductions fanciful, and his results altogether hypothetical and imaginary. In inductive reasoning analysis precedes and ministers to synthesis, furnishing those elements which, by composition, may be arranged into something that is distinct and demonstrable. But it cannot for a moment be maintained that this may be truly predicated of Dr Murray's investigations. His results, even if they were true, are such as admit of no general conclusion being deduced from them, because it is impossible, by any known process of reasoning, to produce synthetically out of his nine elementary monosyllables any definite or recognised form of human speech; and, by the known laws of permutation, it may be proved that the rudest and the poorest dialect ever found amongst mankind could not, by any process of art or ingenuity, be generated out of such elements. So far, therefore, is "Dr Murray's system" from being "demonstrated truth," or even "looking very like it," as his editor has fondly imagined, that it appears to be equally absurd, fanciful, and visionary,—a sort of solemn, though of course unintentional, burlesque on the extravagancies of etymologists; and, independently of all other considerations, it is liable to this insuperable objection, that it proceeds upon an assumption of identity amongst languages which differ entirely in their grammatical structure and composition, as well as in their vocabularies, and which have nothing in common except some few terms which have been interchanged in the course of war, conquest, and commercial relations. A posthumous work, however, ought not to be judged too severely; and it may readily be believed that, if the author had lived to prepare it definitively for the press, he would have seen cause, as his views enlarged, to modify and improve much that now appears exaggerated or defective, and to impart to his system that method and unity which are altogether indispensable in such investigations. (A.)