Puslapio vaizdai
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base of the columns, while the corrosion of the waters tends to hasten the progress of decay.

An enormous edifice, not approached by any preceding traveller, powerfully arrested their attention.

To finish our examination of the valley we had still to pursue our researches in the north-west, the west, and the south. Our guides conducted us at first to the north, by a ravine which at the opening was wide, and planted with magnificent laurels; it soon, however, became narrow, and was encumbered by rocks of enormous size. We should have found it impossible to go on, had it not been for the footways we discovered at every step, wrought by the indefatigable industry of the ancient inhabitants. Nothing appeared to them too laborious that was calculated to facilitate access to the splendid funereal monuments which they found near the summits of the mountains. Roads sufficiently wide were cut in the rocks, cascades were divested of their ruggedness, and a superb staircase extended over a space of more than fifteen hundred feet, in order to lead to the great tomb, which the Arabs call El Deir, or the Convent.

Burckhardt

No traveller had yet approached this monument. appears to have known nothing of it. Mr. Bankes and his friends were unable to visit it, and were obliged to content themselves with having seen it at the distance of half a league through a telescope. We were, therefore, the first to explore this astonishing work of art.

Sculptured in relief on the rock, it exhibits a compact mass, a monolithe monument, in fact, of enormous dimensions, by way of ornament in front of the mountain. Its preservation is perfect; it would be difficult to say as much for its style. The vastness of its dimensions, however, compensates in some degree for its defects; and even the fantastic character which it presents is curious with reference to the history of the arts, when compared with the different edifices which were constructed about the time of their revival. It forms a link between their decline in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and their restoration in the fifteenth. Upon examination, one would be inclined to conclude that the projectors of this work, inspired by a purer taste than belonged to their age, had recourse not indeed to the fountain head of the arts, nor even to the beauties of some of the monuments which they might have found at home, and which might have served them as models, but only to that stage at which the architects went astray from the true and only path that conducted to perfection. Hence they made but a half step towards it, taking the scale of the art, not from its highest but its lowest degree; thus returning towards purity of style through the same gradations by which it had descended at the period of its decline.

While I was copying this grand architectural production, M. Li

nant took its measurements; we then examined its environs. In front of it there is a lofty rock, to which an artificial ascent is formed; we found on the top, on a level platform, a line of columns, the bases of which are still in their places, and a subterraneous chamber, at the bottom of which there is a niche, sculptured with great care, though in an extremely defective style. From this platform we enjoy a most extensive view; the eye commanding, on one side, the monument of El Deir and the valley of Mousa, and the other, the chaos of rocks which are piled at the foot of mount Hor.

Toward the west are the ruins of a triumphal arch. The debris and fragments of bas-reliefs strowed around appeared to be sufficient to permit a restoration of this monument, which might be easily accomplished. Here also is a colossal temple, whose entire destruction appears to have been spontaneous.

On the south of the town, are two stair-cases formed in the rocks. At the top of one of them is a fort in ruins. The other is not only outside the rock, but within, in a spiral form. Various other interesting ruins are scattered in different directions.

After spending eight days in the valley, the Arab attendants of the travellers became terrified by the notion of the plague, and not finding amongst the ruins any thing of that interest which they had for the Europeans, they seemed to be of opinion that they had fulfilled their engagements. The travellers accordingly proceeded to mount Hor, and thence returned to Akaba.

The volume contains other matters of considerable interest. It also embraces a large and elegant map of the peninsula of Sinai and Arabia Petraea, a portrait of Laborde in his Arab dress, a plan of the ruins of Petra, and fifty-nine other drawings and illustrations. Many of them are executed with great distinctness and beauty. The front and interior views of the Khasné, particularly, are drawn with extraordinary taste and effect. The Journal of the London Geographical Society says that the plan of the ruins of Petra, facing p. 152, is not altogether correct. There is also a sad confusion in some of the descriptions which, we are persuaded, does not belong to the French original.

The believer in the inspiration of the Bible cannot fail, by comparing the views of Laborde with the predictions of the prophets, to receive a strong confirmation of his faith. It is sensible evidence, graven on the eternal rocks, and to endure till

those rocks shall melt in the final catastrophe of earth. The exactness between the fulfilment and the prediction is wonderful. The evidence for the truth of the prophecies is sometimes said to be gradually accumulative; but here we have a new volume opened at once to our view,-a sudden influx of overpowering light. It is a monumental miracle, an attestation to the truth of God wrought into the very frame-work of the globe. "Is not this according to Mr. Hume's own principle a miracle? Have we not here that unexpected kind of physical demonstration, the falsehood of which appears to human reason to be absolutely impossible ?"

ARTICLE X.

ON THE NATURE AND APPLICATION OF THE GREEK ACCENTS.

By Robert B. Patton, Professor of Greek Literature in the University of New York.

WHEN we open an accented edition of a Greek classic, our attention is arrested by a multiplicity of marks, accompanying the letters and words, of various forms and position ;-slanting, perpendicular, and horizontal; curls and counter-curls; presenting to the uninitiated a scene of confusion almost as appalling as a "Hebrew Bible with the points."

The sleepy student, with his leaden eye-lids, can scarcely discern them as objects of distinct vision; and has enough to do to follow the straight line and the beaten track of the text. The halting student finds it difficult to keep his feet, even on level ground; and is completely prostrated, when any such stumbling-blocks are thrown in his way. The lazy student declares there are asperities, and darkness enough already, in all conscience, in Homer, and Euripides, and Sophocles, even in their smoothest numbers; and if, in addition to the load of criticism we now endure, we must be encumbered with accents, apostrophies, spiritus, hiatus, iota-subscript, and what not, the broad shoulders of Atlas would sink under the load. But the inquisitive, ingenuous, grasping student immediately suggests such inquiries as these. What do these marks mean? What assistance do they proffer to the translator, to the critic, and to VOL. IX. No. 26.

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the reader of taste? What light do they throw around the works of ancient Greece, by the aid of which these works may be more advantageously viewed, and their merits duly appreciated? While any thing remains to be known, connected with those works of genius, he pursues his investigations; and proves, by experience, that comprehensiveness, clearness and accuracy of information never detract from our intellectual or literary enjoyment; while narrowness, confusion and indiscrimination are a curse to their possessor and to all within his influence.

What then are the Accents, and how are they to be applied in reading the Greek prose and poetry?

The older Grammarians comprehended under the term " Accents" the following ten marks or signs, viz. the Acute, the Grave, the Circumflex, the signs of length and brevity, the Hyphen, the Diastole, the Apostrophe, and the Spiritus-Asper and Lenis. The first three alone, viz. the Acute, the Grave, and the Circumflex, come under particular consideration at present.

Concerning the antiquity, the nature, the original application, and the present value, of the Greek accents, there has been, from time to time, much warm discussion. The first celebrated dispute, touching the pronunciation of the Greek language, was carried on about the middle of the sixteenth century, between Bishop Gardiner and Mr. Cheke, Greek professor of Cambridge. This dispute was confined, however, to the sounds of the individual letters. But a formal, well planned, and well executed attack was made upon the accents, toward the close of the seventeenth century, by Isaac Vossius, one of the giants of those days. This roused to arms the friends of the accents. Henninius, Sarpedonius, and Gally, took the field, successively, with their literary cohorts, to oust these little intruders from their long unmolested possession; whilst Wetstein, Foster, Primatt, Wagner, and Hermann, succeeded each other as leaders in support of their modest claims. They fought "pugnis et calcibus," with quills and paper, as if the fate of empires was at stake. Such was the state of public opinion, about the middle of the last century, induced by the labors of Gally and his predecessors, that many editions of the Greek classics were issued from the Oxford press entirely free from these obtrusive little marks. This course of things, however, was soon counteracted by the works of Foster and others; and the Acute, the Grave, and the Circumflex, again assumed their place in the

Greek text. Not many years since, a fit of opposition seized a few also of the literati at Cambridge, in this country; and the whole land," from Dan to Beersheba," was deluged with " Majoras," remarkably clean of every thing, excepting typographical errors. The accents are now, almost universally, allowed to retain their station, unmolested, above the lines, and to contribute largely to the pockets of the type-founders, to the vexation of proof-readers, and, perhaps, to the elegance of the editions of the Greek classics, if not to their real utility.

The questions at issue ought to have been simply these. Did the accents exert an influence on the ancient spoken language? When were the accentual signs, or "virgulae," introduced into the written language? Did Aristophanes of Byzantium, who flourished under the Ptolemies Philopater and Epiphanes, about 200 years before Christ, introduce the accentual signs for the purpose of marking the tones accompanying a kind of chant? Was the accent, as to its nature and application, the same as that of the moderns, viz. an elevation and stress of voice? Do the accentual signs at the present day correctly mark the syllables which anciently received the accent? How were the accents related to and affected by Quantity, which we know to have been most rigidly observed by the Greeks? And how are they to be applied in reading the Greek poetry and prose?

Three things of material importance were not sufficiently attended to, in the progress of this dispute; at least until the time of Foster, who published his "Essay on the different nature of Accent and Quantity" in the year 1712.

1. The term "Accent" was employed in too vague and indeterminate a sense; sometimes, for the tone of voice, whether it were a simple elevation and depression, or an intension, or a prolongation of sound; and sometimes, for the signs or marks by which these tones were denoted.

2. The question was then, and is still, a mere question of fact, to be decided by a recurrence to the records of history.

3. It was sometimes gratuitously assumed, that the ancient Greek accent corresponded, in its nature and use, precisely with the accent in the modern languages.

For want of this precision in language, and a recurrence to history, the earlier disputants on this subject dealt their blows at random.

The most important historical facts in relation to the accents are the following.

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