LANGUAGE. 
•ISO' 
which time they are found in manufcripts. If our curi¬ 
ous readers would wifh to enter into the theory of accents, 
we nuift remit them to Origin of Language, vol. ii. lib. 2. 
&nd to Mr. Fofter’s Effay on the different Mature of Accent 
and Quantity. And the Greek ftudent who intends to 
penetrate into the depths of this excellent language, will 
endeavour to be thoroughly acquainted with thfe books 
after mentioned. Aril’totle’s Rhetoric and Poetics, his book 
Pe Interpretatione, cfpecially with Ammonius’s Commen¬ 
tary. Ammonius was a native of Alexandria, and by 
far the molt acute of all the ancient grammarians. Dion. 
Halic. De Struclura Orationis, where, amidfl abundance 
of curious and interefting obfervations, will be found the 
true pronunciaion of the Greek letters. Demetrius Pha- 
lereus De Elocutione; a fhort eiTay, but replete with in- 
ftrutiion concerning the proper arrangement of words and 
members in fentences. Longinus, the prince of critics, 
whofe remains are above commendation. Theodoras Gaza 
and the other refugees from Conflantinople, who found 
an hofpitable reception from the munificent family of the 
Medici, and whole learned labours in their native lan¬ 
guage once more revived learning and good tafte in Eu¬ 
rope. Thefe, with fome other critics of lefs celebrity, but 
equal utility, will unlock all the treafures of Grecian eru¬ 
dition, without however difclofing the fource from which 
they flowed. To thefe one might add a few celebrated 
moderns, fuch as Monf. Fourmont the Elder, Monf. 
Gebelin, Abbe Pezron, Salmafius, and efpecially the learn¬ 
ed and induftrious lord Monbcddo. 
We fhall now give a very brief account of the vaft ex¬ 
tent of the Greek language, even before the Macedonian 
empire was erefted ; at which period, indeed, it became in 
a manner univerfal, much more than ever the Latin lan¬ 
guage could accomplifh, notwithftanding the vaft extent 
of the Roman empire. Greece, originally Flellas, was a 
region of fmall extent, and yet fent out many numerous 
colonies into different part of the world. Thefe colonies 
■carried their native language along with them, and itt- 
duftrioufly diffufed it wherever they formed a fettlement. 
The Iones, ^Eoles, and Dores, poffeffed themfelves of all 
the weft and north-welt coaft of the Leffer Alia and the 
adjacent iflands ; and there even the barbarians learned 
that polilhed language. The Greek colonies extended 
themfelves along the louth coaft of the Euxine fea as far 
as Sinope, now Trebifond, and all the way from the weft 
coaft of Afia Minor; though many cities of barbarians lay 
between, the Greek tongue was underftood and generally 
fpoken by people of rank and fafliion. There were Greek 
cities on the north coaft of the Euxine fea to the very 
caftera point, and perhaps beyond even thofe limits; like- 
wife in the Taurica Cherfonefus, or Crim Tartary ; and 
even to the mouth of the Danube, the ftraits of Caffa, &c. 
In the neighbourhood of all thefe colonies, the Greek lan¬ 
guage was carefully propagated among the barbarians 
who carried on commerce with the Greeks. A great part 
of the fouth of Italy was planted with Greek cities on 
both coafts ; fo that the country was denominated Magna 
Grsecia. Here the Greek tongue univerfally prevailed. 
In Sicily it was in a manner vernacular. The Ionians had 
fent a colony into Egypt in the reign of Plammetichus ; 
and a Greek fettlement had been formed in Cyrenia many 
ages before. The Phocians had built Maflilia, or Mar- 
feilles, as early as the reign of Cyrus the Great, where 
fome remains of the Greek language are ftill to be difeo- 
vered. Csefar tells us, that in the camp of the Helvetii 
regifters were found in Greek letters. Perhaps no lan¬ 
guage ever had fo extenfive a fpread, where it was not 
propagated by the law of conqueft. 
The Greek tongue, at this day, is confined within very 
narrow limits. It is fpoken in Greece itfelf, except in 
Epirus, and the weftern part of Macedonia. It is like- 
wife fpoken in the Grecian and Afiatic iflands, in Candia 
or Cr«te, in fome parts of the coaft of Afia Minor, and in 
Cyprus; but in all thefe regions, it is much corrupted 
and degenerated. 
We ftiall conclude this fe£Hon with a brief detail of the 
moft diftinguifhed ftages and variations through which 
this noble tongue made its progrefs from the age of Ho¬ 
mer to the taking of Conflantinople, B. C. 1453 ; a period 
of more than 2000 years. Homer gave the Greek poetry 
its colour and confiftency, and enriched, as well as har¬ 
monized, the language. It feems, from the coincidence 
of epithets and cadence in Homer and Hefiod, that the 
Greek heroic verfe was formed fpontaneoufly, by the old 
ua iJoi, and that Homer and his firft followers adopted their 
verfification. The Iliad and Odyffey have much of the 
air of extempore compofitions; an epithet is never want¬ 
ing to fill up a verfe; and a fet of expreflions are mecha¬ 
nically annexed to fuch ideas as were of frequent recur¬ 
rence. Flence that copioufnefs and wafte of words in the 
old Greek bard, which forms fuch a contrail to the con- 
denied and laboured compolition of Virgil. The Greek 
prole was of a more difficult ftruflure; and it may be dif- 
tributed into different ftvles or degrees of purity. Of the 
profe-authors now extant, the firft and bell ftyle is that of 
Herodotus, and of Plato in the florid or mixed kind, of 
Xenophon in the pure and Ample, of Thucydides and De- 
mofthenes in the auftere. Nothing, perhaps, is fo condu¬ 
cive to form a good tafte in compofition as the ftudy of 
thefe writers. The ftyle of Polybius forms a new epoch 
in the hiftory of the Greek language : it was the idiotic 
or popular manner of expreflion, efpecially among mili¬ 
tary men, in his time, about the 150th Olympiad. It be¬ 
came the model of fucceeding writers, by introducing a 
Ample unftudied expreflion, and by emancipating them 
from the anxious labour of the old Greeks refpedting the 
cadence and choice of words. The ftyle of the New Tes¬ 
tament, being plain and popular, frequently refembles that 
of Polybius, as has been Ihown by Raphelius, and by 
Kirchmaier, de Parallelifmo N.T. et Polybii, 1725. Be¬ 
fore this hiftorian, the Alexandrian Jews had formed a new 
or Helleniftic ftyle, refulting from the expreflion of ori¬ 
ental ideas and idioms in Greek words, after that language 
had loft of its purity, as it gained in general ufe, by the 
conquefts of Alexander. The Helleniftic is the language 
of the Septuagint, the Apocrypha, the New Teftament, 
and partly of Philo and Jofephus. This mixture in the 
ftyle of the evangelifts and apoftles is one credential of 
the authenticity of the belt of all books, a book which 
could not have been written but by Jewifh authors in the 
firft century. See the fine remarks of bifliop Warburton, 
Doflrine of Grace, book i. Critics lofe their labour in 
attempting to adjult the Scripture-Greek to the ftandard 
of Atticilm. The difflion of the Greek hiftorians, and 
geographers of the Atignftan age, is formed on that of 
Polybius; but improved and modernized, like the Eng- 
lifh of the prefent age, if compared with that of Claren¬ 
don or Bacon. More perfpicuous than refined, it was 
well fuited to fuch compilations as were then written by 
men of letters, fuch as Dionylius, Diodorus, and Strabo-, 
without much experience or rank in public life. The ec- 
clefiaftical ftyle was cultivated in the Chriftian fchools of 
Alexandria, Antioch, and Conflantinople; rank and luxu¬ 
riant, full of oriental idioms, and formed in a great mea- 
fure on the Septuagint verfion. Such is, for inftance, the 
ftyle of Eufebius. After him, the heft Chriftian writers 
polifhed their compofitions in the fchools of rhetoric un¬ 
der the later fophilts. Hence the popular and flowing pu¬ 
rity of St. Chryfoftom, who has more good lenfe than 
Plato, and perhaps as many good words. On the Greek 
of the Byzantine empire, there is a good differtation by 
Ducange, De Caufis Corrupts Grascitatis, prefixed to his 
Gloffary, together with Portius’s Grammar of the modern 
Greek. This lall ftage of the Greek language is a mifer- 
able piclure of Turkifh barbarifm. And, which is moft 
furprifing, there is no city of Greece where the language 
is more differer.i from the ancient than at Athens. The 
reafon of that is, becaufe it has been long inhabited by a 
mixed multitude of different nations. 
Of all the nations whofe memory hiftory has tianfmit- 
ted 
5 
