Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/31

 OF JAVA. 17 hand, and for the feebleness, incapacity, and pue- rility which has ever characterized those of Asia on the other, the Javanese are, at this moment, in the same state of advancement in literature that the Greeks were in the time of Homer, and the Caledonians in that of Ossian ; bating the acciden- tal advantage, in the instance of the former, of an earlier knowledge of writing, with the use they have made of it, perhaps in this case, but a dubious one when it is recollected that the tameness of writing is substituted for the animated declamation of oral delivery. Like many nations who have made some pro- gress in civilization, the Javanese are found to be possessed of an ancient and recondite language, in which are buried some relics of their ancient litera- ture and religion. This language the Javanese term Kawi, which, in their acceptation of it, means refined, as opposed to the ordinary or po- pular tongue. The words Kawi and Jowo, or rather Jawi, from the language of deference, here adopted for the rhyming termination, always so agreeable to a rude ear, are correlative terms. The Kawi, in its simplicity of structure, resem^ bles the Javanese, but it has a greater variety and range of consonant and vocalic sounds than the popular language, is harsher in its prosody than what we expect in the genius of the soft tongues of the Indian islanders, and seems, in short, tp VOL, II. B