The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon [1862]
[Footnote 21: Pray (Dissert. p. 37 - 39, &c.) produces and illustrates the original passages of the Hungarian missionaries, Bonfinius and Aeneas Sylvius.]
[Footnote *: In the deserts to the south-east of Astrakhan have been found the ruins of a city named Madchar, which proves the residence of the Hungarians or Magiar in those regions. Precis de la Geog. Univ. par Malte Brun, vol. i. p. 353. - G.
This is contested by Klaproth in his Travels, c. xxi. Madschar, (he states) in old Tartar, means "stone building." This was a Tartar city mentioned by the Mahometan writers. - M.]
With this narrative we might be reasonably content, if the penetration of modern learning had not opened a new and larger prospect of the antiquities of nations. The Hungarian language stands alone, and as it were insulated, among the Sclavonian dialects; but it bears a close and clear affinity to the idioms of the Fennic race, ^22 of an obsolete and savage race, which formerly occupied the northern regions of Asia and Europe. ^* The genuine appellation of Ugri or Igours is found on the western confines of China; ^23 their migration to the banks of the Irtish is attested by Tartar evidence; ^24 a similar name and language are detected in the southern parts of Siberia; ^25 and the remains of the Fennic tribes are widely, though thinly scattered from the sources of the Oby to the shores of Lapland. ^26 The consanguinity of the Hungarians and Laplanders would display the powerful energy of climate on the children of a common parent; the lively contrast between the bold adventurers who are intoxicated with the wines of the Danube, and the wretched fugitives who are immersed beneath the snows of the polar circle.
Arms and freedom have ever been the ruling, though too often the unsuccessful, passion of the Hungarians, who are endowed by nature with a vigorous constitution of soul and body. ^27 Extreme cold has diminished the stature and congealed the faculties of the Laplanders; and the arctic tribes, alone among the sons of men, are ignorant of war, and unconscious of human blood; a happy ignorance, if reason and virtue were the guardians of their peace! ^28
[Footnote 22: Fischer in the Quaestiones Petropolitanae, de Origine Ungrorum, and Pray, Dissertat. i. ii. iii. &c., have drawn up several comparative tables of the Hungarian with the Fennic dialects. The affinity is indeed striking, but the lists are short; the words are purposely chosen; and I read in the learned Bayer, (Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom. x. p. 374,) that although the Hungarian has adopted many Fennic words, (innumeras voces,) it essentially differs toto genio et natura.]
[Footnote *: The connection between the Magyar language and that of the Finns is now almost generally admitted. Klaproth, Asia Polyglotta, p. 188, &c. Malte Bran, tom. vi. p. 723, &c. - M.]
[Footnote 23: In the religion of Turfan, which is clearly and minutely described by the Chinese Geographers, (Gaubil, Hist. du Grand Gengiscan, 13; De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 31, &c.)]
[Footnote 24: Hist. Genealogique des Tartars, par Abulghazi Bahadur Khan partie ii. p. 90 - 98.]
[Footnote 25: In their journey to Pekin, both Isbrand Ives (Harris's Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol. ii. p. 920, 921) and Bell (Travels, vol. i p. 174) found the Vogulitz in the neighborhood of Tobolsky. By the tortures of the etymological art, Ugur and Vogul are reduced to the same name; the circumjacent mountains really bear the appellation of Ugrian; and of all the Fennic dialects, the Vogulian is the nearest to the Hungarian, (Fischer, Dissert. i. p. 20 - 30. Pray. Dissert. ii. p. 31 - 34.)]
[Footnote 26: The eight tribes of the Fennic race are described in the curious work of M. Leveque, (Hist. des Peuples soumis a la Domination de la Russie, tom. ii. p. 361 - 561.)]
[Footnote 27: This picture of the Hungarians and Bulgarians is chiefly drawn from the Tactics of Leo, p. 796