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modern Greek too, whose poetry is modulated exactly on the same principles as ours.

I shall not extend this digression further, but shall content myself with remarking, that, whether the poetry of modern language be founded simply in accent, as I think any one with an unprejudiced ear must allow it is, or whether it be founded on quantity coinciding with accent; in either case it is so entirely unlike the metrical rhythm of the ancient Greeks, as to make it unsafe to assume that any proposition is true of the one because it is true of the others.

CONCLUSION.

4. I would not wish, in thus calling the attention of scholars to the language of modern Greece, to be considered as passing an encomium on its purity. Such praise would be scarcely less unphilosophical than the sweeping charge of barbarism, which fastidious critics have fastened upon every term which they do not find in the index of their school-books. My aim is, to point out how wide and interesting a field is still open to a judicious scholar, who shall choose, after a patient study of the ancient authors, to visit their descendants, and sift and separate the barbarisms and corruptions, which have adhered externally to the language, from the inherent beauties which it has never lost. I am persuaded that its language, like its architecture, still retains in its ruins enough at once to instruct and to humble us. Such an in

quiry, too, if conducted with true candour, would perhaps not be altogether useless nor unacceptable to the Greeks themselves. From indiscriminate censure, from arrogant ridicule of their mode of writing and speaking, they naturally turn away with disgust. But I think they would be found to be willing listeners to the well-considered and temperate criticism even of a foreigner, who has studied their language with attention. Neither do I consider the language as so irrevocably debased by vulgarism, but that a great part of its essential beauties may be restored, when security of property shall have produced industry, and industry wealth, and wealth leisure. Their language is essentially the same as it was in the time of purity, and they have the models of the time of purity to refer to. The possibility of such a restoration is so far from being chimerical, that it may rather be said to have already begun. There is less difference in language between Plutarch and Coray than between Chaucer and Pope. And though the metrical rhythm of the ancients be now no more, Greece is the only country in which I should not despair of its revival. A Greek will begin his inquiry into the subject of quantity without any prejudices respecting accent, or rather his prejudices will be all on the right side. Then the acute perception, the discriminating ear, the lively feeling which brought forth the Greek rhythm, still live in the race; and these, when

polished by civilization, and informed by study, may yet revive that exquisite combination of music and poetry which has slept through centuries of barbarism.

It is cheering to observe in the best-informed of the Greeks themselves a sanguine anticipation of a renewal of the glories of their language and literature. Economus (p. 192) compares the present state of the language to that of Ulysses in disguise :

Κακά χροὶ εἵματ' ἔχοντα,

“ Αλλ' ὅμως τοῦτο τὸ σῶμα, ὁ πατροπαράδοτος προφορικός λόγος τῶν Ελλήνων, εἰς τὴν Ελλάδα ζῇ, καὶ λαλεῖ, καὶ βαδίζει, καὶ κατ ̓ ὀλίγον ἀναλαμβάνει καὶ ἀναῤῥώνυται. Ἡ ἀργὰ ἢ γρήγορα θέλει, τέλος, τὸν ἐνισχύσει ή πάνσοφος Πρόνοια μὲ τὴν πάγχρυσον ῥάβδον τῆς ἀγαθότητός της, καὶ θέλει πάλιν τὸν μεταμορφώσει, ὡς ἡ Αθηνᾶ τὸν Οδυσσέα, εἰς ἄνδρα νεόν καὶ καλὸν, καὶ ἰσχυρὸν, καὶ πάλιν τὸν ἐνδύσει τὴν καθαρὰν τῆς ἀρχαίας του δόξης στολὴν, · δέμας δ' ὀφελεῖ καὶ ἥβην. ὥστε καὶ αὐτοὶ οἱ Ερασμίται, τὰ τέκνα τῆς παλαιᾶς τῶν Ελλήνων σοφίας, βλέποντες τελείαν τὴν ἤδη προχωροῦσαν μεταβολήν του, νὰ ἐκφωνήσωσι μετὰ θάμβους καὶ χαρᾶς, ὡς ὁ Τηλέμαχος περὶ τοῦ Οδυσσέως, τὸ

Αλλοῖός μοι, ξεῖνε, φάνης νέον ἠὲ πάροιθεν.

ταῦτα σὺν Θεῷ ἐλπίζουσιν οἱ Ελληνες, ἐλπίζουσι δὲ καὶ πάντες οἱ φιλέλληνες.”

THE END.

Printed by RICHARD and JOHN E. TAYLOR, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street.

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