224 



" But," he proceeded, " when we consider the untrustworthiness 

 of each of these sources of evidence taken singly, and when moreover 

 we find them often in conflict with one another, it cannot be ex- 

 pected that the result should be very certain or very satisfactory. 

 There are also other considerations which enhance the difficulty of 

 the inquiry. As there were very marked dialectic varieties in Greece, 

 so there may have been local variations even in Attica itself. 



" The pronunciation, too, changed from time to time. Plato gives 

 us proof of this in the ' Cratylus.' " 



After quoting several instances, and showing that great changes 

 both in pronunciation and spelling had taken place in modern lan- 

 guages, French, Spanish, and English, " it would," he said, " be 

 hopeless to attempt to determine the pronunciation of any language 

 by a reference to its orthography at a time when both were perpe- 

 tually changing. But in the history of every nation there arrives a 

 time when the creative energy of its literature seems to have spent 

 itself; when, instead of developing new forms, men begin to look 

 back and not forward, to comment and to criticise. Then it is that 

 a language begins to assume, even in minor and merely outward 

 points, such as pronunciation and spelling, a fixity and rigidity 

 which it retains with scarcely any change so long as the nation 

 holds together. Such a period in Greek history was that which 

 began with the grammarian sophists in the fifth century B.C., and 

 culminated in Aristarchus and Aristophanes of Byzantium. In the 

 spelling and pronunciation of Greek there was probably very little 

 change from that time to the end of the third century a.d." 



October 19. 1860. 



Dr. Paget made a communication " On some Points in the Physio- 

 logy of Laughter." 



November 12, I860, 



The Public Orator read a paper (a sequel to that on May 21) "On 

 the Accentuation of Ancient Greek." 



The question of accents was not discussed in the lleuchlin and 

 Erasmus dispute. At that time all pronounced according to the 

 system of accents introduced by the Greeks of Constantinople, who 

 first taught the ancient language to the Italians. 



It was probably in Elizabeth's reign that we began to disuse the 

 old pronunciation of vowels both in Greek and Latin ; and concur- 

 rently with this change we, as well as the other nations of Europe, 

 began to pronounce Greek, not with the modern Greek, but with 

 the Latin accent. The reasons were : — 



1 . Teachers speaking the modern Greek were no longer required, 

 so the tradition was not kept up. 



