2"d S. VI. 146., Oct. 16. '68.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



313 



able the inscription, " Alfred commanded me to 

 be made." What! a bauble! a toy! an orna- 

 ment ! No, he commanded me to be made as 

 something of importance ; the head of his sceptre, 

 and emblem of bis authority. 



But I have peculiar satisfaction in being able 

 almost to confirm my suggestion. The seal of 

 Philip Augustus of France, 1180, bears the repre- 

 sentation of that sovereign seated on the throne 

 of Dagobert, wearing on his head a crown of 

 fleur-de-lis, in his right hand a fleur-de-lis held 

 between the thumb and finger, and in his left a 

 sceptre, the staff" of which is quite plain, and the 

 head only differs from Alfred's by exhibiting a 

 fleur-de-lis within a lozenge instead of an oval- 

 shaped margin. The counter-seal of Philip Au- 

 gustus is oval, with a single fleur-de-lis. Later 

 seals of the French kings represent the crowns 

 with strawberry-leaves, sceptres with hands or 

 crosses, and counter-seals having numerous fleurs- 

 de-lis. One word more : ought not this interest- 

 ing and valuable relic of the Saxon regalia to be 

 remounted on a rod, and placed with the regalia 

 of England ? What a pleasing arrangement would 

 it be if this unique sceptre of England's great 

 and good Saxon sovereign could be placed in the 

 band of our good and gracious Queen, his succes- 

 sor, when next she visits Oxford I I am persuaded 

 nothing would be more grateful to her feelings 

 than to wield the veritable sceptre of Alfred the 

 Great. Herbert Luther Smith. 



ENGLISH MODE OF PRONOUNCING LATIN. 



(2"'» S, vi. 267.) 



The following is extracted from Fiske's Trans- 

 lation of Enchenburg's Manual, v. ^ 297. : — 



" But with reference to the sound of the letters, the 

 vowels especially, there is not such agreement. Many 

 think it proper to adopt what are called the Contineutnl 

 sounds of the vowels, while others choose to follow Eng- 

 lish analogy. The latter is the custom at most of the 

 seminaries in the United States, particularly the nor- 

 thern. 



"It is worthy of remark that the Frenchman, German, 

 and Italian, in pronouncing Latin, each yields to the an- 

 jdogies of his native tongue. Each of them may condemn 

 the other, while each commits the same error, or rather 

 follows in truth the same general rule. Erasmus says he 

 was present at a levee of one of the German princes, 

 where most of the European ambassadors were present; 

 and it was agreed that the conversation should be carried 

 on in Latin, It was so ; but vou would have thought, 

 adds he, ' that all Bahet had come together.' Cf. C. Middle- 

 ton ' De Latinarum Literarum Proniinciatione,' in his 3Iis- 

 cellaneous Works, London, 1755, 5 vols. 8vo. (vol. 4th) 

 [4to. ed. ii. p. 445.] See Andrews and Stoddard, Lat. 

 Grammar, under Orthoepy." 



Zumpt, in his Latin Grammar, says that " the 

 true pronunciation of the Latin language being 

 lost, the different nations of Europe generally 

 Bubstitute tiieir own." 



One instance of diversity may be mentioned : 

 the Roman orator (Cicero) is called by the Eng- 

 lish Sissero, by the French Sesaro, by the Ger- 

 mans Tsetsaro, and by the Italians Tclietcharo ; 

 but by the Greeks and Ron;!ans he was nauied 

 Kekai-o (the italics representing the English pro- 

 nunciation.) What is above stated accounts for 

 the English pronouncing the Latin a like the 

 Italian e. How the English came to adopt the 

 sound a (in fate) instead of a (in father), as 

 the proper name of that letter (for the latter is 

 the more frequent sound), may be explained by 

 the prevalence of the Anglo-Saxon, Friesic, and 

 German diphthong cb in these languages. So also 

 the English name i is the diphthong ai, ei, oi, and 

 eu of the same languages *, from which the Eng- 

 lish was derived, or of which it is the first or 

 second sister or cousin. 



To recover the ancient pronunciation, an in- 

 duction will be required from an investigation of 

 the Italian, the Proven9al, the Sardinian, Catalo- 

 nian, Spanish, Portuguese, and French tongues, 

 compared with the Greek and other ancient 

 languages which have preserved Latin words in 

 their vocabularies. There are many Latin words 

 in the New Testament Greek, 



Due regard should be had to the pronunciation 

 of the services in the Latin church, to that of 

 Fiume on the Adriatic, where the Latin is still a 

 living language f, as also to the Hungarian mode, 

 their Diet having used this tongue in their de- 

 bates up to the time of Kossuth. T. J. Buckton. 



Can any of your correspondents, who have 

 written so ably on this subject, supply me with in- 

 formation with regard to a tradition related to me 

 some time ago by an aged Roman Catholic priest? 

 It is to this effect : that in England, as well as in 

 other countries, the pronunciation of Latin was 

 originally the same as that of Italian ; but that it 

 was altered in the reign of Elizabeth or James to 

 the present method, for the purpose of detecting 

 anyone who had been educated (as most of the 

 priests were at that time) in a foreign University. 

 If this be so, I can only say, however convenient 

 it might have been at that time to detect " Semi- 

 nary Priests " or " Popish Recusants," it is ex- 

 tremely inconvenient now. That language which 

 should be universal among scholars, and be a pass- 

 port among the learned of every nation, has be- 

 come practically useless to the English from this 

 circumstance. With Greek it is still worse. I 

 remember having the honour to present the priest 

 at that time attached to the Greek Embassy to the 

 late lamented Bishop Blomfield. His lordship 



* How absurd to scan vClIu as my-eye! 



t My sole authority is that of a merchant long resi- 

 dent at Fiume; but it is possible he may have mistaken 

 the Italian for Latin, or he may have referred to the lari' 

 guage of the Diet, 



