I think it likely that in a farther investigation of Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanefk poetry, to which might be added that of the Italian and Sicilian dialects, and of all other daughters of the Latin, fome curious elucidation of the natural connection of mufic and poetry would refult; but this labor I must leave for thofe who, with more leifure, have alfo much more familiarity with those fpeeches.

ARTICLE 4.

Of the modern and middle-aged Greek.

I HAVE heard of a differtation, which I never met with, on the feventy-two dialects of the modern Greek. A language fo extensively spoken as the Greek, among countries where other languages were alfo fpoken, could not but acquire various fhades in various parts, and would be likely to become, in fome places, fo altered, that it might be hard to fay whether it remained Greek or no. Yet the Greek has not, like the Latin, branched out into daughter languages. The litterary Greek, remaining the language of the polite to the final overthrow of the Greek empire, is ftill looked up to, by the well educated, as their proper tongue; and all modern deviations from it, how

ever unavoidably to be practifed for the common purposes of life, are confidered rather as jargons than dialects. The modern Greck, therefore, tho capable of being rendered, by cultivation, equal perhaps at least to any modern European fpeech, has remained almoft uncultivated. No nation upon earth however probably is without its popular fongs; and popular poetry can exift only in the common language of the people. For popular preaching alfo the fpeech of the many alone will ferve. In popular poetry therefore almost only, and popular preaching, the language of modern Greece is to be found committed to writing.

In treating of this language I fhall ftill prefer the method taken for our own fpeech, tracing the ftream from the moft modern examples upward toward its fource. Thus we fhall be led through what is commonly called the middle-aged Greek, which differs from the claffical by numerous new words, required by new circumstances, but not by anything characteristical in the language, fo that it will not require here any diftinct confideration.

The most recent examples of the modern Greek language, to which I can refer, are of the predicatory or oratorical kind, the proclamations of Bonaparte, and of the patriarch of Conftantinople, to the maritime Greeks; both published with the intercepted correfpondence of the French army in Egypt. The former is of the feventy-two dialects, and yet exhibits strong marks of the fuperior language

guage whence it originated. The other is the po lite fpeech of Conftantinople at the present day.

The poetry however only of the language is our proper object here, and of this the most modern examples that have fallen in my way are those given by Monfieur Guys in his Voyage Litteraire de la Grece. When at Marfeille, feven and twenty years ago, I had an advantageous introduction to Mr. Guys, but it flood me in little ftead. He was a man dipofed to retirement, and his fituation was awkward. It is indeed not easily described in our language; becaufe as the circumftances have no existence with us, terms are of courfe wanting. Mr. Guys was of a bourgeoife family, and having acquired wealth, had purchased a nominal office under the crown, that of fecretaire du roi, which conferred what the French called nobleffe, meaning the rank and condition of a gentleman. He was thus raised above the hofpitable fociety of the rich merchants of the then highly flourishing city of Marfeille, and yet would be looked upon with no refpect by the poor and proud noblesse of Provence, into whofe rank he had obtruded himself. He lived therefore at Marseille, where, unlefs in office, no others of his new rank would live, in a manner infulated among his books; and to me, who had paffed from a polite and hofpitable reception at the house of one of the oldeft familics of Provencial nobleffe to the ready civilities of the Marseillefe merchants, and might pass again and repaís (a privilege how

ever almoft peculiar then to English travellers) Mr. Guys was at a loss how to show civility. My acquaintance with him therefore has been almost only through his book.

Mr. Guys' long refidence among the Greeks, his opportunities for communication among them, and his tafte and learning, fuperior as a merchant, gave him advantages for felecting the fpecimens. which he has given of modern Greek poetry. Unfortunately however, they have been printed with an incorrectness which feems to be accounted for only by his distance, at Marseille, from the prefs of Paris. Unfortunately alfo his tranflations of them, tho in prose, are so loose, even beyond the ordinary licentiousness of French tranflators, that they fcarcely affift at all toward correction of the original. Nevertheless, in the want of other fpecimens, they are valuable, and, for my principal purpose, nearly perfect, because the measures are everywhere clear. They are all obviously accentual, all adorned with rime, and no way effentially differing from Italian and English measures. The following lines begin a fong which Mr. Guys calls the moft modern, compofed in compliment to a young woman his neighbour:

Φῶς του ἡλίου ἔκλαμπριν, λάμψις ὡραιοτάτη,
Ρίψε καὶ εἰς τοῦ λόγου μου, ἀτὴρ καθαρωτάτη,

̓Απ ̓ τῶν ματιῶνσου, τᾶις βολᾶις, ἀκτίνα χρύσην μίαν,
Νὰ ἔυρω ἐἰς τὰ πάθημου καμίαν θεραπείαν.

The accentual marks, reprefenting, in modera Greek writing, exactly the fame affection of pronuntiation as the fame marks in English and Italian dictionaries, can leave no difficulty for the measure of thefe verfes to the English or Italian reader.

Perhaps the claffical fcholar, unverfed in modern Greek, may be furprized, and yet pleased, to find the first line of this modern ballad fo completely claffical Greek. He would, I think, in vain look for an equally complete Latin line among Italian fongs. For interpretation of the others he will want some affiftance. Pi is the imperative of Pi, a common corruption of the claffical word Ρίπω, which is itfelf not obfolete. Εις του λόγουμου is a very common modern phrafe, meaning no more than is us. The French have a phrafe ἐς nearly analogous, de ma part, meaning no more than de moi, and the Spaniards ufe ordinarily nofotros, vofotros, with no other fignification than nos and vos. In both editions of Mr. Guys' book the next word is corrupted, and his tranflation does not help in the leaft toward correction. In writing as I have done my best only in conjeure. Maria is genitive plural from pár, the common word for an eye; curioufly formed by fyncope fore and aft, if a fea-phrafe fo exactly applicable may be allowed, from ὀμμάτιον. - Σπίτι, the common modern word for a houfe, is formed in the fame manner from the Latin hofpitium.