Should e'er have dullards at the helm!
Far from us be the stolid serf
Who ne'er has trod Arcadian turf,
Nor heard, amid the glimmering trees,
Pan's happy Orestiades.
Probably the exigencies of the metre are responsible for the strange lapse which made Punch substitute "Orestiades" for "Oreades." Greek was not then in the "last ditch," though the following advertisement, which Punch reproduces in the same year, seems to show that its study did not conduce to opulence:—
A Bachelor, elderly and somewhat infirm, having a moderate acquaintance with the Latin and Greek languages and who is likewise expert with a weeding hoe, seeks a Home and Employment. A bracing air and easy access to the services of the Church indispensable.—Address, &c.
Nowadays one of our leading literary weeklies talks of the "Hyperion Spring." But as early as 1891 the question of Compulsory Greek was attracting a good deal of attention, and Punch sided with The Times in expressing his disbelief in "protected studies." He also took occasion to criticize the narrowness of the old curriculum in his picture deriding the ignorance of Dante shown by classical students. It is just as well that he heads the picture "Too much Greek," for no good Virgilian would ever have laid himself open to such a charge.
Too Much Greek
