be interrupted with something that grates and jars. Are the names of liberty, &c., to be addressed?-it is "O the dear name of liberty! O the excellent laws of our republic! O the Porcian, &c. O the power of the Tribunes," (p. 263); much as Hostess Quickly says, "O the father!" If any exclamation is made on the torments of the prisoners, it is, "O their unhappy destiny! O their insupportable agonies!"-p. 236. Then, in the 2d page, Verres is already "that fellow."-"Sed mehercule, judices" is " But, in troth, my lords," p. 271;-and "delecto consilio" is "this honourable court."-Ibid. Modern phrases are most injudiciously used. Thus, verdict passim, and four times in one page, p. 175; lectica is always a lettiga; and we have speronaras passim; feluccas, p. 208; cash, p. 201; ridicule, p. 180 (reticulum); bondon, p. 187. These things are not trifling in a work of mere composition. We repeat once more, that if Mr. Kelsall had any other plan in view, our remarks are at an end.

After contemplating the rich remains of ancient eloquence, through which this work has carried us, we are not unnaturally led from reflecting on the kind of feelings which it addressed, and the effects it produced, to consider its mere external qualities or accompaniments. We do not mean to enter upon the vexata quæstio of the tones and delivery, whether the orators were not, in the finer passages at least, in the habit of using somewhat of recitativo intonation. Certain it is, that some of the musical effects ascribed to the rhythm of those passages seem scarcely intelligible, if we imagine the same manner of speaking to have been used then as among us, and that a pitchpipe was sometimes used as an accompaniment in their assemblies (which, however, A. Gellius treats as a vulgar error*); while, on the other hand, we know that

*Noct. Att. I., c. 11. Cicero's own account of the matter applies also rather to the notion of a pitch-pipe, De Orat. iii., c. 60. Indeed, the idea derided by A. Gellius was not strictly what we call an accompaniment, but rather a continued modulation.

their delivery could not have been much slower than ours, by the time said to have been consumed by several of the orations still preserved. But we will say a word or two upon the mode of pronunciation; and without meaning at all to infer from thence that any change would now be advisable, we cannot help thinking it quite clear, that the foreign, and to a certain degree the Scottish-perhaps most of all the modern Italian manner of pronouncing approaches much nearer the Roman than that which is peculiar to England.

For this position, various general reasons may be given. The very circumstance of the English mode being peculiar, is a strong one. It is improbable that all other traditions should be wrong and this right. The place, moreover, where we might most reasonably expect a correct tradition is Italy. Again, in the chief peculiarity of the English method, the sound of the letter I, a third reason occurs: the English make it a diphthong. Now, that any one vowel should be either long or short is intelligible; but that a diphthong should be sometimes short, appears quite anomalous.-But there seems to be more precise and conclusive proof still, in the writings of the ancient critics.

*

If we examine the directions given by Quintilian respecting the hiatus, and the remarks on the force of the vowels, on which his rules are founded, we shall find that they accord more nearly with the Italian than any other mode of pronouncing them, and are most of all inconsistent with the English. Thus, "E plenior littera est, I angustior;" but he adds what is decisive, that these two vowels coming together at the end and beginning of two consecutive words, make no great hiatus from the nature of their sounds; that they easily run into each other-a remark wholly inapplicable to the sound of E, I, in English, when

* Lib. ix., c. 4.

66

they thus follow, as omne idem. Thus, too, the use of the ecthlipsis by Cato, who used "to soften m into e in diem hanc." If the e were sounded as in English, there would be the most complete hiatus here; it would scarcely be possible to sound the two words without the m; and still more, if both the i and e were so pronounced: but pronounce the i and e as in Italian, or the former as the English do e in ego, and the latter as they do a in amo,* and the ecthlipsis melts the vowels into each other completely. So Quintilian tells us, that the final m is scarcely sounded in" multum ille" and "quantum erat;" being used only as the mark of a pause between the two vowels ne coeant." Were those vowels, or were the u only, sounded as in England, there would be no fear of them running into each other, nor would there be a possibility of pronouncing the u, and dwelling upon it, without the m-so where the m is cut out after u, and before a consonant, as serenum fuit. The soft sound of s, as in ars, and its differing from the sound of the same letter at the beginning of a word, is equally inconsistent with what Quintilian says of the rixatio of similar consonants. a following s he says is badbut "tristior etiam (rixatio) si binæ collidantur stridor est, ut ars studiorum." Similar inferences may be drawn from other sources, particularly several parts of the Orator, as c. 48, with respect to the guttural in ch. See, too, A. Gellius, VII., c. 20; XIX., c. 14.‡

With respect to the letter I, we ought to mention that some authors have held that it had one sound among the ancients similar to its English pronuncia

* We mean the Eaton, not the Winchester mode.

† It is not quite clear whether it is the guttural or only the aspirate that is ridiculed in the well-known epigram of Catullus, "Chommoda dicebat," &c., but probably the aspirate-a charge frequently made against the modern Tuscans.

The latter passage, and others which might be cited, show that the pronunciation was different, in some letters, from all modern usage.

tion; and J. Lipsius says, that he understands this sound only to be preserved in Britain. The ground of the opinion is, that a long I is sometimes found in ancient monuments written for E I; and that in old books ei is used where later ones have i. But the examples which he gives, and especially the first from Cicero, are equally applicable to the two modes of pronouncing both the letters. We must, however, repeat that we draw no inference, practically, against the English method, nor in favour of a narrow-minded adherence in this country to the old Scottish one; on the contrary, the assimilation of our mode of pronouncing is highly expedient, indeed necessary, as a matter of convenience; and we believe there are few persons of the present day so bigoted in admiration of antiquity as to feel with Milton, that "to read Latin with an English mouth, is as ill a hearing as law French."

* De Recta Pronunciatione Latina Linguæ, cap. 8.

GREEK ORATORS.

DEMOSTHENES.*

In our former article upon the two first volumes of this work, we promised to resume our remarks upon the merits of the French translation, and to lay before the reader some specimens of an English version. But before we proceed to this conclusion of the discussion into which the appearance of Mr. Planche's book has led us, we must be permitted to dwell yet a little upon a topic, in itself truly inexhaustible, the prodigious merit of the immortal original. And we pursue this course the rather in these times, when a corrupt or a careless eloquence so greatly abounds, that there are but few public speakers who give any attention to their art, excepting those who debase it by the ornaments of a most vicious taste. Not, indeed, that the two defects are often kept apart; for some men appear to bestow but little pains upon the preparation of the vilest composition that ever offended a classical ear, although it displays an endless variety of far-fetched thoughts, forced metaphors, unnatural expressions, and violent perversions of ordinary language;-in a word, it is worthless, without the poor

* Euvres Complètes de Démosthène et d'Eschine, en Grec et en Français. Traduction de L'Abbe Auger de l'Académie des Inscriptions et BellesLettres de Paris. Nouvelle édition, revue et corrigée par J. Planche, Professeur de Rhétorique au Collège Royal de Bourbon. Tomes iii., iv., V., vi., et vii. Paris, Verdière. 1820.

This was an able and learned article of Mr. Justice Williams on the same edition of Demosthenes.-Edinburgh Review, January, 1820.