OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

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and the oratory of Tally . 0 The superiority of chap.these masters arose from the familiar use of a LXVI ‘living language ; and their first disciples were in-capable of discerning how far they had degene-rated from the knowledge, and even the practice,of their ancestors. A vicious pronunciation, pwhich they introduced, was banished from theschools by the reason of the succeeding age.

Of the power of the Greek accents they were ig-norant, and those musical notes, which, from anAttic tongue, and to an Attic ear, must havebeen the secret soul of harmony, were to theireyes, as to our own, no more than mute andunmeaning marks, in prose supe-fluous, andtroublesome in verse. The art of grammar theytruly possessed; the valuable fragments of Apol-lonius and Herodian were transfused into their

0 Two of his epigrams against Virgil, and three against Tully, arepreserved and refuted by Franciscns Floridus who can find no betternames than Graeculus ineptus et inipudens (Hody, p. 274). In ourown times, an English critic has accused the ^Ineid of containing multalanguida, nugatoria, spiritu et majestate carminis heroici defecta;many such verses as he, the said Jeremiah Markland , would have beenashamed of owning (praefat. ad Statu Sylvas, p. 21, 22).

p Emanuel Chrysoloras , and his colleagues,are accused of ignorance,envy, or avarice (Sylloge, Sec . tom. ii, p. 235). The modern Greekspronounce the 0 as a V consonant, and confound three vowels (ji t v) taud several diphthongs. Such was the vulgar pronunciation which thestern Gardiner maintained by penal statutes in the university of Cam-bridge; but the monosyllable Bn represented to an Attic ear the bleat-ing of sheep, and a bellwether is better evidence than a bishop or achancellor. The treatises of those scholars, particularly Erasmus,who asserted a more classical pronunciation, are collected in the Sylloge ofHavercamp, (2 vols. in octavo, Lugd. Bat. 1736, 1740): but it is diffi-cult to paint sounds by words, and in their reference to modern use,they can be understood only by their respective countrymen. We mayobserve, that onr peculiar pronunciation of the 0, th } is approved byErasmus (tom. ii, p. 130).

VOL. XII,

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