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Several investigators laid their foundation on hearsay, and unauthenticated evidence; they then endeavoured to assist this testimony by modelling the extraneous circumstances which could not be passed over, in order to make them coincide; if, notwithstanding all this, difficulties still occurred, they borrowed Alexander’s sword, and cut the knot which no milder means could undo.

That this has been the mode of proceeding hitherto, will be frequently proved in the course of the work. Even had the imagination not magnified any thing, nor modelled circumstances agreeably to its own fancy, yet the following, which is taken for granted, “that two people resembling each other in one or two particulars, must be descended from the same stock,” is an over-hasty conclusion. In the first place, reject that the most different nations may agree in some points; further, make the allowance for various parts of the world producing inhabitants of similar shape and colour;—What, then, remains to prove that the Gipseys are descended from any one of the people from whom they have been traced?