PHILOLOGICAL GENIUS OF THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE. 37 
combination of internal faction and external aggression, which may at any 
moment break it up, there is nothing in the antecedents of any of the great 
powers into whose hands a dismembered Greece might fall, to warrant the 
apprehension that they would employ any severe measures for the purpose of 
stamping out the national language. Russia certainly, which in religion is full 
sister to Greece, would have neither desire nor interest to look upon the lan- 
guage of Athens with the same jealousy that she looks on that of Warsaw. 
Under Russia the Greeks might readily become the founders of an enlightened 
Broad Church party in that country, just as under the Turks they became first 
the necessary interpreters, and then the wise governors of great and important 
provinces. As for the form in which it seems most desirable that this noble 
language should be transmitted to distant ages, it seems necessary, on the one 
hand, to warn against any forced and affected recurrence to the classical type, 
and on the other to invite literary men to the culture of the popular dialect as 
the fittest for a certain style of lyrical and essentially popular poetry. As in 
Scotland the language of popular song runs in its own channel, apart from the 
English, used as a general literary medium, so the Greek of Corags and the 
newspapers might still; continue to occupy a middle place between the Greek 
of classic tradition and the Greek of the popular ballads. Variety was one of the 
distinguishing features of the Greek family of languages from the beginning, 
and it may well remain so to the end. Whether or not the course of affairs 
shall ever be so ordered by Divine Providence, as that, according to the pious 
aspirations of Monsieur p’EIcHTHAL, and other eminent French Hellenists, it 
may at no distant period be prepared to take the place of Latin as a catholic 
medium of correspondence between cultivated men of all countries, it seems 
in vain to speculate; but, in the form that it has now assumed, and in all 
likelihood will maintain for centuries, there is no reason why it should not 
be much more extensively studied by all classes than at any previous period. 
When our classical scholars shall have become ashamed of their false methods 
and narrow prejudices, and when a succession of intelligent. travellers shall 
have been practically convinced that it is as easy to learn Greek in Athens, 
as to learn German in Berlin, or French in Paris, the sons or grandsons of 
Monsieur D’EtcuTHa. and his French associates may behold with joy the pro- 
bable advent of that kingdom of Pan-Hellenic brotherhood of which it is now 
only permitted to dream. 
VOL. XXVIII. PART I. K 
