of the Greek Lanziiage 



»35 



it was taught, not by mere illiteiate advent 

 of men, whom Sir Thomas Smith contempt 



not hy a class 

 styles ^^ nesciv 



qui semi-Turcici et ohscuri Gr«cd"*-— nor (as Sir Jo/i»i Chekc 



insinuates, witli a degree of credulity and ilUberality 



thy 



by a confederacy of impostors 



obsc 



and thus mak 



ederacv, which would 



been 



ly 



cable, as a similar one would be among the teachers of a living 



language at the present day.f No ; it was thus taught by the po- 

 lite and well-educated nobles and the learned professors of Con- 

 stantinople; who, being unable to rescue any thing from the wreck of 

 their fortunes, were, like the unhappy exiles of a polite and learn- 

 ed nation in our own times, compelled to resort to the occupation of 

 teaching their language, in order to gain a subsistence; and this 

 pronunciation was then received by the learned throughout Eu- 

 rope, as genuine, and so it continued until the period I am now 

 about to mention. 



In the sixteenth century a new or reformed pronunciation, as 



it was called, was promulgated 



ErasmiiSj and countenanced 



by some other learned men, and at length received in variou 

 parts of Europe. This new pronunciation, It was contended, ap 



* De Recta et Emendata Linguce Grcecm pronnnciaHone ; written in 1542, 

 anu republished by Ilavercamp in his Sylloge Scrtplorum qui cle Ling. Grcec. 

 vera et recta pro nunciatione Commentarios relijueruntj torn. 2. p. 539, Luj^d. 

 Eat. ir40. 



i 



t C/z^.Ve, De Pronuntlatione Grpecpe pntissitnum Lingua Disputatione's cum 

 8tephano Vintoniensi Episcopo; written hetv-"on 1542 and 1555, and republish- 

 ed bj Havercamp in his SijUoge Scriptarum above cited, torn, ii. p. 235. 



r- 



