[25] Corpe’s Neo-Hellenic Greek Grammar. London, 1851. See also a notice of this work in the Athenæum for last year, where I am happy to observe that the opinions advocated in this paper are supported.
[26] Greek Grammar. 1851, sect. 44, 45. Donaldson (Greek Grammar, p. 17) says, ‘The accent is the sharp or elevated sound with which one of the last three syllables of a Greek word is regularly pronounced. This “regularly” is as significant as Mr. Jelf’s “ought.”’
[27] Of course I except Professor Masson of Belfast, whose complete mastery of the living dialect of Greece is the object of admiration to all who know him.
[28] Classical Museum, vol. i. p. 338.
[29] There is also a greater emphasis or stress given to the accented syllable, as is manifest from the pronunciation of the modern Greeks, and from the striking fact that in the modern dialect, the unaccented syllable has sometimes been dropt, while the accented constitutes the whole modern word, as δὲν for οὐδὲν, μᾶς for ἡμᾶς.
[30] Quinctil., lib. i. c. 5; Diomed. de Oratione, ii.; Putsch. i. 426.
[31] Jelf, in the Preface to his Grammar, calls the doctrine of accent “a difficult branch of scholarship.” The difficulty is altogether an artificial one, made by scholastic men who will insist on teaching by the eye only and the understanding, what has no meaning at all except when addressed to the ear. The doctrine of accentuation in English has no peculiar difficulty, plainly because men learn it in the natural way by hearing.
[32] “Si quis igitur vestrum ad accuratam Græcarum literarum scientiam aspirat, is probabilem sibi accentuum rationem quam maturrime comparet, in propositoque perstet scurrarum dicacitate et stultorum derisione immotus,” ad Med. 1, apud Jelf, vol. i. p. 37. I wonder if Porson himself pronounced according to the accents. If he did not, he is just another instance of that extraordinary incapacity of apprehending a large principle that is so characteristic of the English mind.
[33] I may insert here the whole of the passage of Boissonade, from which the words in one of the prefixed mottoes are taken. “Nisi quod maxime cupio, in omnibus academiis nostris, gymnasiis et scholis hodierna Græcorum pronuntiatio recipiatur. Nam cum prorsus perierit antiqua pronuntiandi ratio qua Demosthenes, et Sophocles, vel ipsi Alexandrini sub Ptolemæis utebantur, et fere ridiculum sit unumquemque populum ad suæ linguæ sonos, atque etiam ad libitum, Græcorum quos legit librorum pronuntiationem efformare, id saltem boni, admissa neotericorum pronuntiatione, lucrabimur, non solum ut Gallus homo et Germanus Anglum intelligant Græce loquentem et ab illo Græce ipsi loquentes intelligantur, sed id etiam ut cum Græcis doctis et scholastica institutione politis confabulemur verbis antiquorum et facillime, si velimus, hodiernæ linguæ cognitionem ac usum assequamur.”—Herodian, Epimerisni, Boissonade. London, 1819. Prefat.
[34] History of the University of Cambridge, Section vii.