S53 Mr. Pickering on the Pronunciation 



wrote with no contemptible ability in reply to Sir John CheJce, 

 and by an Edict as head of the University, positively forbade the 



F 



teaching of the new or Erasmian method ; Gregory Martin^ who 



made a learned reply to Mekerchus ; and Erasmus Schmidt^ a 

 German^ whose concise, but learned and able treatise will be 

 more particularly noticed in the course of this inquiry. Of these 

 three writers^ Martin alone seems to have attempted (and that 

 not with complete success) to answer specifically the argument 



I 



from Cicero. He agrees with MeJcerchiiSj that the Latin and 

 Greek words are made alike in sound by Cicero ; but he asks him 

 to point out^ in what part of them the similarity exists. *' Si tu pog- 

 nes (says he) de /3, quod sonandum sit lit B, ego de g/ contendo, 

 quod in eodem loco pronuncietur ut i/' &c, ^' If you contend, 

 that the resemblance in sound lies in the (3, which is therefore to 

 be pronounced like &, I maintain that it lies in the si, which is to 

 be pronounced like the letter i. If you reply, that the letter i 

 anjong the Romans sounded like g;, take care lest^ while you are 

 over-solicitous to make them alike, you inadvertently establish 

 a difference between them. For ^ivsi in Greek you yourself, I 

 presume, read hinei ; but bini in Latin, according to your own 

 opinion also, must be read leinei ; so that there is a marked dis- 

 tiaction between the two.''* The argument thus far does not 

 seem by any means satisfactory ; for if, as he contended (and as 

 was the case) the u and i were alike in sound but differed only 

 in qmntity still unless the Greek j2 and the Latin B very close- 

 ly resembled each other, there could hardly have been room for 



Gregor. Martin, De Gipecaruui Literarum Pronunciatione op. Tfavercamp. 

 Syllog. torn. ii. p, 587. 



