Part 14 (2/2)

Knight preserves a rather diverting anecdote of a preacher who spoke in his serue, and of a conference which Henry caused to be arranged after the discourse, at which in his presence the divine and More should take opposite sides, the fore More did his part, but the other fell down on his knees and begged the King's pardon, alleging that what he did was by the impulse of the Spirit ”Not the spirit of Christ,” says the King to him, ”but the spirit of infatuation”

Hisof Erasmus, whom he assailed fro, ”you are a very foolish fellow to censure what you never read” ”I have read,”

says he, ”so they call _Moria_” ”Yes,” says Richard Pace, ”hness, such a subject is fit for such a reader”

The end of it was that the preacher declared himself on reflection more reconciled to the Greek, because it was derived from the Hebrew, and that Henry dispensed with his further attendance upon the Court

The feeling and taste for Greek culture which Lily, Erased, were promoted by the exertions of Sir John Cheke and Sir Thoe, and by Dr Kay or Caius; and a controversy, al to a quarrel, which Cheke had with Bishop Gardiner on Greek pronunciation, sti public attention to theinto notice many Greek authors whose works had not hitherto been read

The literary contest between Cheke and Gardiner was printed abroad in 1555, and only eleven years later a paraphrase of the _Phnissae_ of Euripides by George Gascoigne and Francis Kinwelmersh was performed at Gray's Inn

III The tract published by the learned John Kay in 1574 on the pronunciation of Greek and Latin is rather pertinent to the presentthe old fashi+on in this respect Kay instances the cases of substituting _olli_ for _illi_, _queis_ for _quibus_, _mareito_ for _marito_, _maxume_ for _maxime_; and in Greek words, the ancients, says he, certainly said _Achilles_, _Tydes_, _Theses_, and _Ulisses_, not, as people sometimes now do, _Achillews_, _Tudews_, _Thesews_, and _Ulussews_ The author likewise refers to the eraphy, as in _hydropisis_, _thermae_, _Bathonia_, and _Hybernia_, which used to be read _ydropisis_, _termae_, _Batonia_, and _Ivernia_ He was clearly no advocate for the latter-day ina_ and _Cicero_

But the fact is that, where there are no positive _data_ for fixing the standard or laying down any general principle, there can never be an end of the conflicting views and theories on this subject, and the best of theuess-work

The es have always probably varied, as they do yet, in different countries; and the Scots adhere to the Continental fashi+on as regards, at all events, the latter

Experience and practical observation seem to shew that every locality has a tendency to adapt its rules for sounding the dead tongues to those in force for sounding its current vocabulary; as a Rou Latin, will instinctively follow his native associations in giving utterance to diphthongs, vowels, and coe, in respect to this point of view, occupies an anomalous position, because it enjoys a partial survivorshi+p in the Neo-hellenic dialect; and it has been natural to seek in the method employed by their modern representatives and descendants a key to that employed by the inhabitants of ancient hellas in pronouncing words and particles, and, in short, to the graulated

It appears, however, that philologists have been disappointed in the results of this test, as the differences between the two idioms are often so wide and material Yet, nevertheless, a Greek of the nineteenth centuryevidence on such a question, as the whole strength of received tradition and a _priives to the long E or ?ta the force of A, and to the diphthong ?? that of E, we grow soht to impose on those particles a different function, especially seeing that the Ionic dialect and the ee of phonetic values I need scarcely advert to the favourite theory that, so far as the Greek long E is concerned, it had its source in the vocal intonation of the sheep, which is, after all, far fro with such thes, so to speak, as he lives within the knowledge of the whole world in a glass house of his own

IV But scarcely any books in the Greek character were printed in England until Edward Grant, head-uae Spicilegiule edition, and is still a co been apparently successful; and the next attelish student, though the work of a native of North Britain; for Alexander Scot published his _Universa Grammatica Graeca_ at Lyons in a shape calculated to invite a yet more limited circulation than the essay of Grant

Perhaps one of the earliest English publications relative to the study of Greek poetry was the _Progymnasma Scholasticum_ of John Stockwood, published in 1596 Stockwood had been e School, a foundation established by the Skinners' Coht out one or two professional works This was avowedly taken froy_ of Stephanus, and presents a Greek-Latin interlinear text

Again, in 1631, William Burton, the Leicestershi+re historian, and a schoolmaster by profession, delivered at Gloucester Hall, Oxford, an oration on the origin and progress of Greek, which ston-on-Thabaine It was a scholarly thesis, and of no educational significance, except that it exhibited the survival of souid interest in the topic at the University

Very few Greek authors found early translators here beyond the selections prepared for schools; but it is remarkable that the example in this as set by a citizen of London, and a member of the Goldsmiths' Company, Thomas Niccols, who in 1550, at the instance of Sir John Cheke, undertook to put into English the History of Thucydides This was almost a century before the version by Hobbes of Malmesbury

The partial translation of the _Iliad_ by Arthur Hall of Grantham, 1581, was taken fro the whole of Hoics_ of Hesiod and the Neo-Greek _Hero and Leander_ At a later date, Thomas Grantham, a schoolmaster in Lothbury, who seems to have been in a state of perpetual warfare with his critics as to the ht out at his own expense, and possibly for the use of his own pupils, the first, second, and third books of the _Iliad_

The grand work of Herodotus was approached in 1584 by an anonymous writer, who completed only _Clio_ and _Euterpe_

But these inter for hellenic literature and history long reard the unsatisfactory character of the translations from the Greek, with rare exceptions, down to the present day, is it hard to see that the as at least as largely due to incapacity on the part of scholars as to indifference on that of the public

Many of the schools employed a small elementary selection from the Greek writers, of which a fifth edition was printed in 1771

When Charles Lamb was at the Blue Coat School (1782-9), the Greek authors read there appear to have been Lucian and Xenophon, the forues_ The present writer, as at Merchant Taylors' School from 1842 to 1850, used Xenophon, Homer, Euripides, Sophocles, and some volume of _analecta_ When the school was founded in 1561, it was difficult to find a boy to read Greek; but in the following century it enters rather prominently into the prospectus on Exareat seminaries differ in their lists; the choice depends on the personal taste of the masters from time to time; and there is a certain virtue in traditional naland, after all, although this language has continued to be taught in all schools of any standing or pretension, the critical study and genuine appreciation of it have always been confined to a narrow circle of scholars; and nowadays there is a growing tendency to prefer the living languages, as they are called, to the dead