Greek accents; but very difficult to point out any nation whose particular accents have been likely to work this corruption, or any particular spot where such corruption has left stronger traces than elsewhere. Let us leave generalities, and take a local habitation for the scene of our controversy. In the island of Corfu, all people, from the noble to the peasant, when they assent to a proposition, say μáλiora. You say this is a corruption: the ancient Corcyræans, who understood quantity, called it uaλiora. From whom then did they learn to lay the accent on the first syllable? The foreigners, with whom they first came in contact, were the Romans; but from them they could not have learned to place the accent on the first syllable, because the Romans would have agreed with them in laying it on the second. The next masters of the island were the Venetians would they teach this throwing back of the accents? Dr. Gally would seem to think they might. He says, "As some parts of Greece were under the dominion of the Venetians, it is probable that the modern Greeks learned this method of accentuation from the Italians, who sometimes place the accent upon the fourth from the last; as séguitano, vísitano, desiderano, considerano." (p. 101.) In the first place, this reasoning proves too much, as the Greeks never do throw the accent further back than the antepenultimate. But it is evident that the modern Italians in these words place the accent on the

same syllable with their ancestors, desiderano being only a corrupt or vulgar modification of desiderant. If the Venetians had ever pronounced cónosco or rágasso, these would weigh something in the argument. Again, how should the Venetians, who resided principally in the city of Corfu, have introduced their accentuation all over an island through which there were no carriageroads till after its occupation by the English? But supposing the Corfiote to have derivedμáðra from the Venetians, from whom had he Xpieróc? How could the Venetian, who always lays his accent on the first syllable, have taught the Corfiote to lay it on the last? If the theory of Dr. Gally had been, that the pronunciation was originally Χριστός, and changed by corruption to Χρίστος; there would have been some ground for laying this corruption to the charge of the Venetians, who say Cristo. Cristo. But the theory is just the reverse; and the use of oxytones cannot surely be traced to those who have none in their own language. Here again the Turks are out of the question, having never succeeded in making themselves masters of this island. Neither is there any ground for supposing that a complete extinction of ancient learning had taken place in Corfu at the time when the Turks possessed themselves of Greece. Hody mentions several learned Corcyræans who flourished about that time, and particularly Eparchus, who was Greek professor at Venice about 1445, and afterwards

returned to his own country, where he passed his old age in literary pursuits. He possessed a collection of one hundred Greek manuscripts, and composed elegiac verses on the Turkish conquest. (Hodius de Græcis Illustribus, II. 10.) And yet the accentuation of the Corfiotes is precisely the same as that of the inhabitants of other parts of Greece, who have changed their masters oftener; all of them agreeing with the marks of the manuscript of Theophilus, and all of them therefore having remained unchanged for six centuries. These remarks, drawn from what we know of the later period of the history of Greece, ought to make us careful in admitting the sweeping assertions of Dr. Gally and others, that the Persian invasion, the Greek dynasties in Asia, the Roman conquest, the Gothic irruption, or the Turkish despotism, must have had the effect of corrupting the accents. Against such assertions, it is surely a fair course of argument to canvass each of these events by itself, and to dispute the probability of that event having had the effect imputed to it, But I admit that, on either side of the question, such speculations weigh but little against positive testimony of grammarians. If from that testimony it can be collected that the marks or the accents have been altered, all conjecture derived from history falls to the ground; and it only remains to inquire, whether the alteration is to be attributed to a succession of political events, not one of which by itself seemed likely to effect it ;

or whether we should seek for the roots of it in the silent working of other causes, which history has been less careful to record. So that I again turn back from the balance of probabilities, whichever way that balance may be thought to incline, to the only safe guide, namely, the positive authority of grammarians who wrote before any corruption could have commenced: and this positive authority I contend we have in support of the marks in the manuscripts to an extent which forms a proof falling little short of certainty; a proof which at once destroys the most plausible conjectures of modern scholars, and which will one day overcome the habits and prejudices of our schools and universities.

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CHAPTER VI.

1. MODERN GREEK.-2. ACCENTUAL POETRY.-3. ENGLISH

POETRY.-4. CONCLUSION.

MODERN GREEK.

1. BEFORE I quit the subject of the Greek language, I wish to call the attention of my readers, and particularly such of them as have leisure for travelling and for a more extended course of study on the subject, to a source of information which most modern classical scholars have fastidiously passed by. Notwithstanding the low state of literature and taste to which Greece has been reduced, I think, not only that our knowledge of the pure Hellenic may be improved by the conversation and writings of modern Greeks, but that it is very imperfect without them.

I have, for the reasons stated at the outset, supported my arguments by passages taken exclusively from authors born before the second century. But I feel satisfied, that any impression, which these quotations may have produced, will only be strengthened by a judicious inquiry into the works of later authors. The date, which I have assigned to the continuance of the purity