160 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
order of words, suggesting that every author worth reading must 
have some reason for the way in which he disposes his words and 
sentences, and that the preservation, so far as possible, of such 
order and sequence is often a great aid to his right understanding. 
Enough has been said to show the extent of ground which the 
lecture covered, and the rigour of the principles it laid down. If 
some should be ready to take exception to this rigour, as tending 
to deprive a translation of all ease and life, to make it wooden and 
mechanical, let such, in conclusion, observe the purpose which the 
lecturer had in view. That purpose he told all his hearers plainly 
enough was a very definite, albeit it might be a very humble one : 
it was to give hints for furnishing the student in the very outset 
of his studies with something which might stand him somewhat in 
the same stead as the scales and exercises before referred to in the 
case of the student of music. These scales and exercises require 
the skill of a master to compose ; they are discarded when pro- 
ficiency in the art is attained ; but their utility, nay more, their 
necessity, in the early stages is undeniable. The lecturer illus- 
trated his paper by quotations from a metrical rendering of the 
tenth book of the Odyssey, which he had himself made, subject to 
all the rules he sketched in the paper in question ; and this trans- 
lation, as well as some others which he referred to, curiously 
illustrate the comparative terseness of the English language, if 
measured by the number of syllables which it takes to express 
itself. This, as Mr. W. C. Green (late Fellow of King's College, 
Cambridge, perhaps the ablest editor of Aristophanes who exists), . 
has well pointed out in the preface to his metrical version of the 
first two books of the Iliad, is a far truer test than that of the 
number of words ; but it may surprise some to hear that, tried 
by this standard, English will bear comparison with Latin itself. 
The lecturer expressed his conviction that the true worth of all 
scholarship was its bearing upon Holy Scripture. Whatever tends 
to improve the accuracy of our scholarship must therefore be 
valuable as tending to improve our acquaintance with that sacred 
book. If he had pointed out certain ways in which this accuracy 
might be secured, he hoped he had done some service to a cause 
which was very dear to his heart ; and he would commend to abler 
and better read scholars the discussion and improvement of the 
principles he had endeavoured (however imperfectly) to enunciate 
and follow. 
