three thousand years old, and another, that in Homer's time the scores were called ëπτα, őкtw, and evvea, I might think both the assertions somewhat rash, but I am sure that the former has much more probability on its side than the latter.

While on the subject of modern language, I may observe, that what Quinctilian says of the variety of the Greek and the monotony of the Latin accent, is not less strongly confirmed to this hour by the Italian than by the Greek pronunciation. Still does every word in the Italian language, with few exceptions, end with a grave accent. Most, if not all, of the exceptions are caused by a cutting off or contraction of the last syllable, necessità standing for necessitate, and virtù for virtute. The accent of words above two syllables seems still to depend on the rule handed down from their ancestors :. tírano, tiránno, Cápua, Sorrento. The only exceptions I ever observed were the words O'tranto and Táranto, the inhabitants whereof, in the names of their native cities, lay the accent on the first syllable: a peculiarity which would have gone a long way towards convincing me of their Grecian origin, even although history had been silent on the subject. Surely facts like these ought to make us slow in giving assent to a sweeping assertion, that a whole people has been misled by the blunders of copyists into altering the system and genius of the accentuation of their ancestors.

263

CORRUPTION OF ACCENTS.

2. Enough, perhaps, has been said to show the absurdity of supposing that the accentual marks have been corrupted by later copyists. And in truth, none of the writers in question have attributed the corruption of the accent to this cause singly: but as the ignorance and carelessness of later grammarians and copyists are enumerated among the causes of corruption, it is of importance to show that no such cause can have had any extensive agency. The only theory then, which can be supported in opposition to the manuscript of Theophilus, is, that since the time of purity the accents themselves have been corrupted. And this theory admits, and indeed generally supposes, that the marks are so far faithful, that they represent the pronunciation of the time when they were made. Now a person who maintains this theory, and gives it as a reason for not pronouncing the words as they are marked in the manuscript, virtually affirms that Plato and Demosthenes pronounced πόλλοι, πράγ μάτων and ἐδόξαν, and that the contrary pronunciation has been introduced by corruption. And now let us ask, to what are we to attribute this corruption? The cause most commonly assigned, and into which the others seem virtually to resolve themselves, is, contact with other nations. To deny that the Greeks, from their earliest times, were a people addicted to navigation and to com

merce, would be to overlook the plainest evidences of their history, as well as the authentic traditions of their numerous and distant colonies. And in later times, besides their intercourse with foreigners on foreign shores, they saw on their own soil strangers from various countries, whom they received as guests, called in as allies, or submitted to as conquerors.

Dr. Gally says, "It is no improbable conjecture to suppose, that a corrupt manner of pronouncing some words in the Greek language was occasioned by Alexander's expedition into Asia. His army might have learned to accent some words according to the manner of the Asiatics; and as it is reasonable to think that many Asiatics went with them when they returned into Greece, these, we may be sure, were very faulty in this respect. Upon the death of Alexander two great empires were formed out of his conquests: one in Egypt under Ptolemy, and another in Asia under Seleucus. In both these kingdoms the pronun ciation of the Greek language must have been greatly corrupted; and this corruption must have infected Greece itself, considering the intercourse and correspondence which was carried on between Greece and the two new kingdoms. Alexander died in the first year of the 114th Olympiad; upon which Ptolemy immediately began his reign, as Seleucus did his twelve years afterwards. In the first year of the 153rd Olymp., i. e. 156 years after the death of Alexander, Paulus Æmilius

conquered Greece and made it a Roman province, by which the genuine pronunciation and accentuation of the Greek language must have been further corrupted." (p. 128.) This is a specimen of the ease with which a favourite theory may be assumed by an author by no means deficient in learning or acuteness. Dr. Gally cites no authority to prove that the expedition of Alexander, and the foundation of the empires of his successors, had in fact the effect of corrupting the language; nor is it easy to see how such an effect could have been produced. Alexander led thirty thousand men, the greater part probably Macedonians, to the banks of the Indus; and though the news of his success no doubt drew after him great numbers of European as well as Asiatic Greeks, attracted by the search of military adventure, of commerce, or of knowledge, this was only a new direction to migration, and not an alteration in the habits of the people. Wherever they went they carried with them a strong spirit of nationality, and a contempt for barbarians, which the recent victories of Alexander were not likely to diminish. And of all their national distinctions, there was not one of which they were more proud than their language. Why then should they learn so hastily to corrupt it by the introduction of barbarous phrases and accents? Was the Spanish language corrupted by the conquest of America? or have the English learned, since the extension of their empire

in Hindostan, to pronounce their own tongue with Persian or Hindoo accents? And with respect to the Greeks themselves, it may be asked, how they were employed during the time when they were bringing their language to that exquisite degree of perfection which it had attained in the time of Demosthenes? They were engaged in commerce, in navigation, in founding colonies among nations whose pronunciation must have been as faulty, if differing from Greek be a fault, as that of the Egyptians or Persians, and keeping up constant communication with those colonies. The kingdoms founded by the Macedonian soldiers were only new colonies; nor is it probable, in the absence of direct evidence, that they should have had an effect on the mother-country, which was confessedly not produced by several previous centuries of extensive colonization. Neither is it by any means clear that the foundation of the kingdoms of Seleucus and Ptolemy must have had the effect of corrupting the Greek language at all. Is it not more reasonable to suppose, that so considerable an extension of the countries in which it was spoken, and that, too, just at the time when it had reached its perfection, would have a material effect in preserving it from corruption? In Egypt particularly, the munificent patronage of literary men, and the foundation of the Alexandrian library, seem likely means, if not of improving the language, at least of preserving it from corruption. Alexandria under the Ptolemies produced a series