and Sicily seem to have been the first to cultivate their dialect to any great extent. The Eolian, departing least of all from the primitive form, continued to retain most traces of the rudeness and harshness of the ancient tongue; yet this was the language in which Sappho, Erinne, and Corinna sang. Anacreon struck his lyre to the softer sounds of the Ionian; esteemed most musical of all the four.

"As out of one common language these four dialects by degrees arose; so each particular dialect in process of time underwent considerable change. It is obvious, however, that this must have been gradual; and that it cannot be easy to determine with accuracy the limits between old, and new; or old, middle, and new, for so they are distinguished. Every living language must be in a state of change; and though its motion be slow and imperceptible, yet, being constant, it produces in time very sensible effects.

"As each of these dialects changed, from time to time, its general character; so did it also, at any given time, vary from place to place. And these varieties were called local dialects. The Grecian writers, however, seldom used with all its local peculiarities, the language of the particular place or people to which they happened to belong; but adopted, in greater or in less degree, the dialect of which their vernacular tongue was a local subdivision. Thus Pindar did not write the language spoken at his native Thebes; nor Theocritus that used at Syracuse; but they adopted, though in different degrees, the general Doric dialect of the period at which, respectively, they lived and wrote.

"It is further to be observed, that writers living at the same time, in the same place, and making use of the same dialect, modified it variously, and adopted more or less of its peculiarities, according as the nature of the subject required them to descend to or rise above the familiar phraseology of ordinary life. The dialect, moreover, in which an author wrote was not always that of his country, or that he was accustomed to employ in speech; but his choice was regulated by the nature of his subject, the place at which he chanced to be, or the persons whom he wished to gratify. Thus the same writer, perhaps, would use the Ionic-poetic dialect, as that of Homer has been called, if he wrote heroic verse; the Doric, in a pastoral poem; and Attic, if he attempted tragedy. The dialect of Pindar was not that of his fair countrywomen Myrtis and Corinna. Simonides of Ceos, who on other occasions used Ionic, when at the court of Hiero, and writing for Doric patrons, adopts their dialect. Callimachus, too, when he writes at Argos, makes use of the dialect prevailing there; as in his hymn on the Bath of Minerva, and in that addressed to Ceres. Herodotus and Hippo

crates, though both Dorians, adopt in their writings the Ionic dialect, because in that the earliest prose compositions were contained.

"The choral parts of Grecian tragedy adopt in some particulars the Doric dialect; a fact for which, as yet, no reason altogether satisfactory has been assigned. But there have been different conjectures; as that, these Doricisms are traces of the original rusticity of the chorus; that they add to the language a certain dignity; that, the most eminent lyric poets having used the Doric dialect, it had in consequence, become more appropriate to the lyric parts of tragedy. Since almost the only Doricisms are occasional substitutions of the letter a for the long vowels and ; and since the music of the choral parts was, as shall be shown hereafter, of a more impassioned character than that by which the dialogue was accompanied, and appears to have differed from it somewhat as the airs and choruses of the Italian serious opera do from the recitative; one motive for the adoption of the Doric dialect, in the limited extent just mentioned, may have been that the letter was especially suited to the musical divisions of the chorus; as the same vowel sound has by modern musicians been preferred to any other, for that same purpose of running their divisions. An ancient Greek writer upon music, Aristides Quintilianus, observes, that of the doubtful vowels, a is best adapted to melody; being, because of the broadness of its sound, most easily prolonged; and that of the consonants, which, to avoid hiatus, must of necessity be united with the vowel sounds, the best is r. We find him, therefore, pointing out as best suited to musical modulations the very syllable rα, which is still a favorite with musical composers.

α

"But to return from this digression. It was observed that a writer of heroic verse among the Greeks would adopt the dialect of Homer. It will be proper to extend somewhat our remarks upon this head. This dialect or language of Homer, which has been called Hellenic, was no one of the dialects we have been considering; but the common source of all. It was the language of the country and the age in which he lived; and, because of his great excellence, it continued to be that of poetry, especially of epic and heroic poetry; through all succeeding times. But though the language of Homer continued to be the language of that kind of poetry to which it had been consecrated by his use, it gradually ceased to be the tongue of any one people. Some terms and forms of words were retained in the dialect of one place or people; others in that of another. Some forms and modes of expression became obsolete, except in so far as they were retained in use by poets, in imitation of their great exemplar. These were called

poetic licenses; and characterized the poetic dialect. Of the ancient Homeric language each dialect preserved some part, that

in the kindred dialects fell into disuse; and in after times grammarians spoke of such Homeric forms, as being according to this or that dialect in which they were so preserved. And when it

has happened that a particular word survived only in some single tribe, or state, we hear of the Baotian dialect, the Cyprian, Pamphylian, Sicilian, Chalcidian, Cretan, Tarentine, Lacedæmonian, Argive, Thessalian, and others. Hence we may discover the reason why

"Smyrna, Rhodos, Colophon, Salamis, Chios, Argos, Athenæ "

could all lay claim to the honor of having given birth to Homer. He used a language which had once been common to them all; but afterwards the language spoken at Rhodes and Argos was called Doric; at Colophon and Chios the dialect used was Ionic; and at Salamis and Athens, Attic; distinctions in the tongue of these several cities that grew up amongst them after Homer's age.

"Viewing the matter in this light, we shall easily account for the difference of opinion between those who maintain that Homer was an Ionian; and call his dialect, Ionic-poetic; and those again, who think he was an Eolian, and that the basis of his language is Æolic. It will be evident that Homer, as respects his dialect, was neither Æolian nor Ionian; but used a language, which contained the germs of all those peculiar dialects that afterwards

arose.

"Until after the conclusion of the Persian war, or during the first of the periods before mentioned, the dialects chiefly cultivated were the Ionic, the Eolic, and the Doric; and in the first of these dialects, towards the close of this period, Grecian prose was first written; either by Anaximander, or by Cadmus of Miletus, or by a disciple of the former, Pherecydes of Syros, who, though commonly regarded as the earliest prose writer among the Greeks, died less than forty years before the battle of Salamis.

"During the second of our periods, or from the Persian war until the death of Alexander, the genius of Athens shone forth with such brightness as to throw into shade the literature of every other part of Greece; and the drama, history, philosophy, and eloquence, having been all brought to perfection in the polished dialect of Athens, it has to them, consequently, ever since remained appropriate; and upon the wide diffusion of the Greek language through the extensive regions over which Alexander's successors reigned, the Attic dialect, in consequence of the superiority of Attic literature, became the basis of the general language of composition; though certain kinds of poetry still continued to retain the dialect that had ever been appropriated to them. Athens, it is true, lost together with her political independence her literary pre-eminence; but her language still maintained its

empire, even at the court of the Ptolemies; where Grecian arts and letters again revived, after their almost extinction during the wars that succeeded the dismemberment of the Macedonian empire." - pp. 87-94.

The remainder of this lecture is occupied with some particulars concerning the Romaic or Modern Greek; a dialect that, from its intimate relations with the ancient, and from its lately acquired importance, as being spoken by the people of an independent kingdom, bids fair to become one of the most interesting languages of Europe. The principal changes it has undergone from the ancient forms are the following. It has adopted the use of auxiliaries to nearly as great an extent as the languages of Latin parentage. The terminations of cases are fewer; prepositions are constructed with different cases, and in different senses, from the ancient; modern particles are parts of old Greek words, as d from ivdiv, và from ivà; ancient Greek words are changed by adding Turkish terminations; derivative or secondary, or accidental meanings of old words, are made the ground-meanings of the new. Mr. Moore gives several striking examples of this change. Besides this, a large body of words, borrowed from Italy and Turkey, have been incorporated into the Romaic, and many terms, expressive of ideas and combinations unknown to the ancients, have been added by the obvious necessity of the case. But yet, the language is radically and substantially the same as the ancient, to a surprising degree, when we consider the political changes which that unhappy people have been subjected to during so many centuries. It can be accounted for only by the fact, that a portion of the Grecian people guarded themselves with jealous care from the polluting contact of their barbarian oppressors, and preserved the fire of the Greek character unextinguished amidst the storms that swept with desolating fury over their devoted land.

The modern Greek is daily drawing nearer to the form and character of its venerable parent. Educated writers take great care to lop off the barbarous additions of the Turks, and are gradually bringing back the variety of ancient declension. They borrow largely from the Hellenic, not only words in their old meanings, but the elements to compound new words. This process will undoubtedly go on until the language has assumed a permanent form, and adapted itself to all the exigen

cies of polished literature. The rhythmical beauty of the ancient is unquestionably lost. The united flexibility, complexity and simplicity, which gave it its unexampled harmony, can never be restored. Ancient versification can never lend its variety and majesty to the Romaic. We must be content to leave the union of accent and quantity, to which the Attic ear was so exquisitely sensible, among the lost secrets of antiquity. But the Romaic is equal to the French in logical clearness of construction, and almost to the Italian, in the music of its sound. If it has lost the charm of quantity, it has gained the attraction of rhyme. If it has lost something of the stateliness of antiquity, it has gained the simplicity and copiousness, which belong to modern times.

Mr. Moore is hardly correct in saying that the modern Greeks have no literature. The Greek language has been used by innumerable writers, both of prose and poetry, at every period of its history since the capture of Corinth. Within the last fifty years authors of no mean merit have sprung up in almost every department of letters; logic, philosophy, theology, have not been unattempted by them. Dramatic and lyric poetry have been cultivated, the former with moderate, the latter with remarkable success. The Aspasia of Ritzos has been republished in America. The language of this work is polished and pure. The verse is modelled after the French Alexandrian, and like the French, it has even the modern ornament of rhyme. In imitation of the ancients, the author has introduced the chorus. In the conception and delineation of character, it must be confessed that Ritzos never rises above mediocrity; that in essential dramatic talent, in creative poetic genius, he is utterly deficient; and that the Aspasia with all its rhymes and choral songs is rather hard reading.

But there is a large class of poems, peculiarly modern, and essentially popular; the Klephtic songs. These have grown out of the singular condition of the mountain tribes, who maintained themselves in a wild independence, beyond the reach of Turkish despotism. They are mostly short, commemorating some striking event or wild exploit, and are full of picturesque beauty, breathing a fiery genius worthy of the best days of the Grecian lyre. Of late years they have excited a lively interest among men of letters in Europe.

The lively genius of the Greek has given birth to a great variety of other popular songs. The elegant Anacreontics of