admitting that we have something like the aorist in English, at any rate we have no participles which in one word convey the ideas of action and time together; then we have no particles which enable one word to express a whole sentence as here—" exposing themselves to dangers in warding off a meditated attack;" or "for the common safety of Greece"-and, lastly, we have few or none of those words which so fill the ear as to render a variation of the idea, by adding other words, superfluous. With them a word often produced the whole effect desired; while we must supply the defect of strength by addition. It must, on the other hand, be allowed, that our language gains considerably in delicacy what it loses in force. While many of the words in most ordinary use among the ancients, recalled, by their structure, their very base origin, and were indeed powerful in proportion to the plainness with which that origin was perceived, we question if there be one word in use among us, in serious composition, which savours of an indelicate etymology; and even the expressions allowed in lighter works, are only indelicate to those who know the foreign language they come from. At the same time, we are aware that a certain violence of expression, in which Demosthenes and Eschines both indulge, may, independent both of the structure of the language, and of the difference of manners, be deemed to partake of coarseness. To this charge, perhaps, the saying of Dr. Johnson may afford a concise and not unjust answer" Big thinkers require big words."†

* Independent of the phrases of unequivocal grossness which ancient manners allowed to be bandied about in debate, words of an impure original were transferred to an ordinary acceptation, the etymon being however plain to every Greek who heard them—as καταπτυστος, βδελυρος, &c. Such words as rascal, gadso, &c., with us, are of foreign origin, which veils their grossness.

When Demosthenes describes (in the oration upon the Embassy) the attempts of Philip to corrupt the Orator, he uses the word dwdwvirs, tried or sounded by making the money tinkle or chink in their ears; a figure taken from the manner of trying horses by ringing a bell near

It may not be unfit to close this article, as we did a former one upon Roman eloquence, with a few words upon the pronunciation of the language among the ancients themselves. A passage in Quintilian then furnished us with the clue; and the Greek Quintilian may render the same service on the present occasion. Dionysius of Halicarnassus plainly indicates, in a chapter of his treatise on composition, which treats of the Letters, that the Greeks pronounced in a manner wholly different from our Southern neighbours, and much more nearly resembling our own method, and that used upon the Continent. Thus, he says, a is, when long, the most sonorous of the vowels, and is pronounced by opening the mouth as wide as possible (ανοιγμένου επι πλειστον), and raising the breath upwards, προς τον ουρανον, which commentators consider as a metaphor for the palate; v is pronounced, he says, by contracting the lips greatly, and stifling (TVIYETα) the breath, and issuing a small sound; the sound of, in like manner, is described exactly as the Scotch and foreigners pronounce it; n is described differently from both the English and Scotch pronunciation, and resembling the Continental, if we mistake not, being the sound of the Latin e both in this and foreign countries. Of ε, no distinct account is given, nor any account at all of the diphthongs. Of the consonants, x was evidently pronounced as the Scotch and foreign nations sound it; for, of the three, K, X and y, it is placed at the opposite extreme to к, y being put as the middle between them, whereas the English confound it almost entirely with K. About there may be some doubt; for, in one place, we are

Χ.

*

them. Another "big thinker," in the Impeachment of 1806, said of the defendant-"Does he see money when it shines? Does he hear it when it chinks?"

* The use of the diphthong av, av, in Aristophanes, to express the barking of a dog, as we say bow, wow, clearly shows the diphthong to have been sounded in the Scotch and Continental manner.

told that it consists of σ and 8* mingling, but so as to have the sound of both; and, in another, it is described as much more pleasing to the ear than the other double consonants. It appears, therefore, to have had a sound more soft than our Scotch pronunciation, which preserves the 8 and distinctly, but not quite so near the soft s as the English pronunciation makes it. Of certain sounds peculiar to the English pronunciation, no trace is to be found in this author's remarks; † as the short, and also the long sound of the same vowel, if indeed that be not rather a diphthongal sound. But persons more learned in these matters than we can pretend to be, may aware of other authorities. The well-known saying of Milton, against pronouncing Latin in the English way, was, by him, confined to that language; but there can be no doubt that his practice extended to Greek also.

be

* The is put before d; though, in describing the other two double consonants, it is put after d. Is this an error in the transcriber—or is it a Doricism?-For we know that the Doric transposed the in 4.

† Dion. Hal. de Struct., Orat., sect, xvi.

ENGLISH ORATORS.

ERSKINE.*

WE regard the publication of this collection as an event of great importance, both in a literary and political view. The orations which have been given to the world in modern times, under the sanction of the person who delivered them, or in such a manner as to secure a tolerable share of correctness, are lamentably few. Perhaps Mr. Burke's are the only speeches of note which have been printed in an authentic shape, in an age teeming with orators, and, though prolific of much bad eloquence, adorned by some of the greatest geniuses that ever practised this divine art. When we consider how great the difference is between ancient and modern eloquence, how much of that which peculiarly marks the latter was utterly unknown to the ancients-we mean, the extemporaneous reasoning and declamation known by the name of debating,-and when we reflect how much more adapted this talent is to the business of real life than the elaborate and ornate compositions of antiquity, we cannot fail to lament, that almost all our great masters of the art have died, without leaving a trace of their genius behind them; and

The Speeches of the Honourable Thomas Erskine (now Lord Erskine), when at the Bar, on Subjects connected with the Liberty of the Press, and against Constructive Treasons. Collected by James Ridgway. 2 vols. 8vo, pp. 854. Ridgway, London, 1810.

This publication is understood to have been superintended by Mr. Cutler Ferguson, who wrote the Preface or Introduction.

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that if, unhappily, the free constitution of England were destroyed, the speeches of Mr. Burke alone would leave to posterity any means of conjecturing what powers had been exerted to avert its fate. To those immortal specimens of modern popular eloquence, must now be added the most perfect examples of the eloquence of the Bar which are to be found in any age; for the volumes before us both collect and preserve the fugitive publications of Mr. Erskine's speeches formerly in circulation, and add, in a correct and authentic form, several which had been most scantily and inaccurately reported.

These volumes, which we rejoice to learn will be followed by another, embrace the most celebrated speeches, from the case of Captain Baillie in 1779, when Mr. Erskine, in the very outset of his brilliant career, astonished the legal world with a display of talents, which was outshone, indeed, but not obscured by his own riper efforts, down to his celebrated defence of Mr. Perry in 1793, when, having long stood unrivalled among English lawyers for eloquence, for skill and conduct, for knowledge of the constitutional law of the realm, and for dauntless love of liberty, he put forth his matured genius with a power that carried everything before it, and bore down the utmost efforts of the court against the independence of the British press. The speeches are twelve in number; and they are prefaced with such explanations of the subjects, extracts from the pleadings, and reports of the speeches of the Crown lawyers to whom Mr. Erskine replied, as serve to render the matter of them perfectly intelligible to every reader. Where it is of importance, the address of the judge to the jury is likewise inserted; and many anecdotes which occurred at the trials are added,-with the verdict,-motions in arrest of judgment, and conversations at delivering the verdict, where anything of this kind took place. The prefatory statements