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ON LATIN PRONUNCIATION. 



BY JAMES LOUDON, M.A.. 



MATHEMATICAL TUTOR AND DEAN, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, TOEOKTO. 



AiuoDg the questions which have agitated the learned world since 

 the revival of classical studies there is one still remaining, unsolved 

 and perhaps insoluble, the correct pronunciation of the Latin language. 

 With the scanty materials which have descended to our time, it becomes 

 us to be cautious rather than conSdent; and yet there is perhaps no 

 subject upon which ^Tscholars express themselves with greater temerity 

 than this concerning which we know so little. The glory of ancient 

 Rome has long been dimmed. Her pomp and state — her invincible 

 arms — her haughty spirit, have passed away; her very language is num- 

 bered with the departed dialects to be spoken no more amongst the 

 nations of the earth. Had some prophetic voice foretold to the senate 

 that, in the progress of ages, the time was approaching when ali these 

 things should be accomplished, we may imagine the scorn and contempt 

 which would have overwhelmed the seer. On that menaorable occasion 

 when the doom of conspirators was the subject of debate, when Cicero 

 vehemently demanded their esecution, and when Csesar and Cato deni- 

 ed or jeered at the immortality of the soul, the fate which awaited Rome 

 could not have found a place in their wildest dreams. That fate over- 

 took her in its appointed course, levelling her pride with the dust, and 

 reminding nations of the truth which Edmund Burke applied to indi- 

 viduals — " what shadows they are and what shadows they pursue." I 

 have said that the Latin language is no longer a living tongue. 

 Prouder, however, than the memory of ten conquests, nobler than 

 her works of art, the monuments of Roman intellect remain, the de- 

 light and admiration of a distant age. Being dead Rome yet speaketh, 

 to the eye, if not to the ear. She became the fruitful mother of a 

 family of nations, but her language has fared ill with posterity. 

 Ecclesiastics adopted it, literary men employed it as " the language of 

 the learned." In it were composed the prayers of the Western Church, 

 and the writings of the fathers and divines of that communion. But 

 it was not the Latin of the ancient Republic or the early Empire. Its 

 vocabulary was extended without being enriched; the strictness of 



