Greek clergy are derived from Church-lands and fees; tithes seem never have been paid to them in any age.

Greek Monasteries.-Greek monasteries are divided into two classes: 1. Cœnobia (kowóßia-i. e. where all live in common); 2. Idiorhythmic (îðóóóvēμa—i. e. where everyone lives in his own way). In the Coenobia every single member is clothed and lives alike; and the government is strictly monarchical, being administered by an abbot ('Hyouμevos). But the Idiorhythmic convents are not monarchies, but rather aristocracies: or, as a monk of Mount Athos remarked to Sir G. Bowen, "constitutional states, like England." These last are under the administration of wardens (Enirρono), two or three of the fathers annually elected, like the officers of an English college, and who have authority only over the finances and general expenditure of the society; bread and wine being issued from the refectory to all the members, who add to these commons, in their own cells, what each can afford to buy.

The primitive idea of monasticism was simply retirement from the world for the purpose of devout contemplation. This idea is still to a certain extent realised in the Greek convents; learning and intellectual exercises belong to some of the Western orders. St. Bernard has remarked that "the words of St. Peter, 'We have left all to follow thee,' are those which first founded cloisters and peopled deserts." The earliest monks renounced literature altogether, devoting themselves entirely to religious exercises, and to that contemplation which suits so well the climate of the East, and It was in after ages, and when the the temperament of Orientals. increase of their wealth had rendered unnecessary all manual labour (still practised in the East), that some of the Western orders, and especially the Benedictines, betook themselves to secular studies, particularly such as tended to the service or defence of the Church and Pope. There are a few convents for women also in Greece; but their inmates resemble rather the Sisters of Charity than the recluses of the Romish Church.

Greek Churches.-The churches and chapels of Greece are all erected, more or less, after the Byzantine type, of which the most complete development is embodied in the celebrated Sta. Sophia, or Church of the Divine Wisdom, at Constantinople. Some Eastern churches partake more of the Basilican character, and exhibit, partly, the earliest arrangements of the West: but "A true Byzantine church," says Mr. Neale, "might most fitly be defined as a gabled Greek cross, with central dome, inscribed in a square, or quasi-square. This square has on the west an addition, not usually under the same roof, and sometimes a mere lean-to; and is on the cast, externally for the most part, and almost always internally, triapsidal.

The three apses are, that on the north for the chapel or Prothesis; that in the centre for the altar; that on the south for the sacristy." The interior arrangement involves a fourfold division:-1. The Narther, or vestibule, properly set apart for catechumens or penitents, divided from the rest of the church by a screen, and often forming the western addition alluded to above. 2. The Nave. 3. The Choir. These two divisions are less distinctly, and often not at all, separated; sometimes there is a low wooden barrier between them, corresponding to the rood-screen in Western churches. The choir is surrounded by stalls, as is also often the nave. 4. The Bema, or Sanctuary, is the distinguishing characteristic of Greek churches. In all of them, even to the smallest chapel or oratory, a solid wooden screen, reaching to the roof or ceiling, cuts off the apse or apses at the east end. This screen is called the Iconostasis (ElkovéσTaσis), from the icons, or holy pictures, on its panels, and answers to the altar-rails in our churches. The inner space, corresponding with the Holy of Holies in the

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Jewish temple, contains the altar, and is entered through one central and two side doors pierced in the Iconostasis.

There is but one altar in a Greek church; and the ancient division of the sexes is strictly maintained, and generally architecturally carried out -a women's gallery extending over the narthex, or west end. It is to be observed that all pictures in Greek churches are executed after a traditional and conventional model, which has been enjoined by ancient ecclesiastical authority, and specifies exactly the colour of the hair and eyes, the size of the features, &c. However ill executed in poorer or more remote districts, the same type is always preserved, resembling, in a measure, the countenances of the earlier Italian painters, e. g. of Perugino. For to the Greeks it appears profanity to exhibit those objects which are proposed for their veneration with the expressions of earthly, every-day humanity: and, consequently, they regard as irreligious and debasing the ideal paintings of saints and angels which decorate Latin churches, and the "eyes of most unholy blue" which beam from the canvas of the Italian masters.

All Greek ecclesiastics let their hair and beards grow to their full length, which, coupled with their dark caps and flowing Eastern robes, give them a very primitive and striking appearance. Some of the vestinents worn in the celebration of the sacred offices are rich and splendid. Priests and Deacons are allowed to be married if they entered upon matrimony previously to taking Holy Orders; but Bishops must be unmarried or widowers. The learning of the Greek clergy at the present day resembles that of the English clergy at the time of the Reformation; or even, according to Lord Macaulay, in the age of Charles II.; i. e. there are many learned men in the hierarchy, in the chief cities, and in the Universities and Colleges, but the great body are illiterate.

An

The best authority on all subjects connected with the Greek Church is Neale's History of the Holy Eastern Church,' to which we refer our readers. Mouravieff's History of the Church of Russia' (translated by the Rev. R. W. Blackmore) contains much useful information. excellent summary of the history and present condition of the Eastern Church in its various branches will be found in the Edinburgh Review,' No. 218 (for April, 1858). The Byzantine architecture of Greece is scientifically explained and illustrated in the work of a French architect -Choix d'Eglises Byzantines en Grèce, par A. Couchaud (Paris, 1842). See also Fergusson's ' Handbook of Architecture,' Book X.

n. OBSERVATIONS ON THE MODERN GREEK LANGUAGE.

Gibbon (chap. lxvi.) has remarked that "in their lowest servitude and depression, the subjects of the Byzantine throne were still possessed of a golden key that could unlock the treasures of antiquity; of a musical and prolific language that gives a soul to the objects of sense, and a body to the abstractions of philosophy. Since the barriers of the monarchy, and even of the capital, had been trampled under foot, the various barbarisms had doubtless corrupted the form and substance of the national dialect." Still, in the Preface to his 'Researches in Greece,' Colonel Leake observes as follows:-"The modern dialect of the Greeks bears the same comparison with its parent language, as the poverty and debasement of the present generation to the refinement and opulence of their ancestors. In regard to practical utility, however, it has the advantage of being the spoken dialect of two or three millions of people at the present day, and of being actually in use by a greater or smaller proportion of the inhabitants in every part of the Turkish empire. A perfect knowledge of it cannot be acquired without

the previous study of Hellenic; but it would be a very suitable appendage to the customary academical pursuits, and by leading to a better understanding of the physical and national peculiarities of Greece and its inhabitants, as well as to a variety of analogies in the customs and opinions of the ancients and moderns, it will introduce us to a more correct acquaintance with the most important branch of ancient history, and to a more intimate familiarity with the favourite language of Taste and Science." Even in its most vulgar use, we may add, Modern Greek is rather to be considered a dialect of the old Hellenic than a separate tongue or a corrupted jargon. There are, indeed, numerous instances in which the most ancient forms and meanings of words are preserved in the modern dialect with less change or corruption than in many of the Hellenic authors. Homer differs more widely from Xenophon than Xenophon differs from an Athenian newspaper of the present time.

The universality of the language in its present form would be a convincing proof, if other arguments were wanting, that it must be, in its essential features, as old as the time of Justinian, anterior, at least, to the dismemberment of the Byzantine empire. This appears sufficiently from the name Romaic having been applied to it; so the Greek peasantry still generally call themselves Romans (Pwuaîoi), not Hellenes. Many of the most common words in the vulgar dialect are undoubtedly ancient. Thus ψωμίον, bread, and ὀψάριον, fish, (contracted colloquially into ψωμί and vapí, are found in the Greek Testament; and repór, water, is connected with raw, to flow, and with Nereus, Nereides, &c. So again, the adoption of many Latin terms (census, custodia, speculator, &c.), in the Hellenistic Greek, is an exemplification of the usage which led in later times to the adoption of Venetian and Turkish words.

At the present day, throughout the whole extent of the countries where Greek is spoken-from Corfu to Trebisond, and from Adrianople to Crete -the only dialect essentially different from the ordinary language is that of a small mountainous district between Argos and Sparta, vulgarly called Tzakonia (TČakovía), a corruption of Laconia, of which it formed the northeastern frontier. Increased facilities of communication are causing the Tzakonic dialect to fall rapidly into disuse. It is not now spoken by more than 1500 families, chiefly in and near the town of Leonidi. The Tzakonians retain some slight vestiges of the ancient Doric, some Hellenic words which are not found now in common Greek, and some grammatical forms of a distinct nature; but it is a matter of great doubt whether these peculiarities be relics of the dialect of the Cynurians, who, as Herodotus informs us (viii. 73), were, like the Arcadians, original inhabitants of the Peloponnesus, and consequently of the Pelasgic race, or of those Laonians called Oreatæ, whose traditions, according to Pausanias (Lacon. xxiv.), were different from those of the other Greeks. The reader will find full information on this curious subject in Leake's 'Researches in Greece' and 'Peloponnesiaca; and in Thiersch, 'Ueber die Sprache der Tzakonen' (in the Transactions of the Royal Academy of Munich).

The spoken Greek of the present day is more or less mixed by the vulgar with Turkish, Italian, or Albanian words, according to the geographical position or political condition of each separate district. "In the Ionian Islands," says Leake (‘Researches,' chap. i. sect. 2), “most ideas above the ordinary usage of the vulgar, and even many of the most common phrases, are denoted by Italian words with Romaic terminations and inflexions; and thus the language of these islands is one of the most corrupt in Greece." But the substitution in 1852 of Greek for Italian as the official language has made a great change there. Among seafaring Greeks both in the Ionian and Egean seas, many nautical phrases and technical

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terms, borrowed from the Venetians and Genoese, are still in use. whole, there are dialectical and local varieties in Greece, as in all other countries; but it may safely be asserted that the dialects of Modern Greece have not so marked a difference as those of distant provinces in France and England. The vulgar dialects least removed from the ancient tongue are naturally to be found in the most remote and primitive districts, just as the purest Anglo-Saxon is now spoken by the peasantry of the mountainous parts of the north of England and south of Scotland.

It has been the usual practice of writers and travellers to assert that Modern Greek bears the same affinity to the language of the Ancient Greeks as Modern Latin-if Italian may be so called-to the language of the Ancient Romans. Doubtless the spoken dialects of both languages exhihit many parallel corruptions; but there is a vital distinction between the two cases. In Modern Greck such corruptions have never been reduced to a system, as in Italian; they are merely colloquial, and are now generally repudiated by well-educated Greeks. The origin of this distinction is the fact that Latin was lost as a living language as early as the sixth or seventh century; whereas Hellenic was written and spoken by the learned of Greece down to the Turkish Conquest. Even the degraded condition of Greece under the Ottomans has operated powerfully to preserve the affinity of the ancient and modern dialects, by preventing that methodising and refining of the language, which produced the Italian as a distinct tongue at the revival of letters in Italy, where literature was fostered by a remarkable concurrence of advantages, by the arrival of fugitive scholars from Constantinople, the recent discovery of printing, the establishment of libraries and academies, and, above all, by the protection and encouragement of the Dukes of Milan and Ferrara, the houses of Medici and Sforza, and certain of the Popes, and of the Doges of Venice.

"It is natural," says Leake (chap. i. sect. 2), "to ascribe the changes which the ancient Greek has undergone to the same causes which have transformed Latin into Italian. It would be impossible to fix the period of the first operation of these causes, or to trace their exact progress; but there is every reason to think that the irruption of the barbarous nations of the East and North into Greece and Italy corrupted the ancient languages of both countries nearly at the same time and in the same manner, by forcing the conquered people, already speaking a dialect corrupted in phrase and simplified in arrangement, to accommodate it still further to the forms used in the barbarous countries from whence the invaders came; to adopt the use of articles and auxiliary verbs, instead of the more elegant discrimination of inflexions, moods, and declensions; together with a syntax or construction, deprived of those transpositions and inversions which distinguished ancient Greek and Latin for elegance, expression, and harmony." During the last half-century, and particularly since the emancipation of Greece, the language has been reformed and purified on the old Hellenic model; Greek terms have been coined for the expression of modern ideas, and of the technical phraseology of modern arts and sciences; and thus Greek has acquired the character and style which it now assumes in the writings and conversation of Greeks of learning and judgment. This style may, with tolerable accuracy, be defined to consist in Hellenic words, arranged in some degree according to the syntax of modern Europe, with a grammar mainly Hellenic, but partly modern. Inversions and transpositions occur, as every scholar may perceive by casting his eye over an Athenian newspaper, with about the same degree of frequency as in Italian; and the arrangement in general is not much more complex than that of our own language. In short, an English scholar travelling in Greece will find little difficulty except on two main points:-1. How to reconcile pronuncia

tion by accent with pronunciation by quantity. 2. How to pronounce the letters of the Greek alphabet, so as to be understood by the Greeks themselves. It is necessary, therefore, to make some practical remarks on these subjects, referring those who wish for full and methodical information to1. Leake's Researches in Greece;' 2. An article, ascribed to Bishop Blomfield, in the Quarterly Review,' No. 45 (for May, 1820); 3. Tennent's Modern History of Greece,' chap. xiii.; 4. Pennington's excellent volume on the Pronunciation of the Greek Language;' 5. Blackie 'On Greek Pronunciation;' 6. Corpe's or Donaldson's Modern Greek Grammar.'

The study of Greek was revived in western Europe by the Greek scholars who fled from Constantinople on its capture by the Turks, and who naturally taught their own language according to their own pronunciation. This method was afterwards successfully impugned by Erasmus, after whom the pronunciation still in vogue in England-but of late years very generally discarded in Germany and elsewhere on the continent-is denominated the Erasmian system. Its introduction was long and violently opposed in our Universities, especially by Bishop Gardiner, Chancellor of Cambridge, who in 1542 fulminated a furious decree against the new-fangled heretical method and all who encouraged it. But it worked its way, perhaps quite as much as a badge of Protestantism as of true philology; and since the time of Elizabeth-to quote honest old Thomas Fuller-"this new pronunciation has prevailed, whereby we Englishmen speak Greek, and are able to understand one another, which nobody else can.'

The pronunciation of Greek, whether prose or verse, is regulated by the Greeks themselves solely according to accent, no regard being paid to quantity. Indeed, the prosody of the ancient language is little studied by the moderns, except as a matter of antiquarian curiosity. In England we are generally negligent of accents, because they interfere with quantity; whereas in Greece they are generally negligent of quantity, because it interferes with accent. An English scholar, who, for the first time, hears a Greek read or recite his own language, will probably consider his accentuation destructive of every kind of harmony. If asked by the Greek on what principle we pronounce in England, he will, in all likelihood, reply, “According to quantity." But the Greek will soon prove to him that it is not 80. For instance, Englishmen say Miltiades, not Miltiades, as they should, if they adhered to the principles which they profess. Again: take the two first lines of the Iliad;;-an Englishman places the accent on the first short syllables of eà and ovλoμévŋy; whereas the Greeks, by placing the accent on the final syllable of eá, adapt the pronunciation to quantity in an instance where an Englishman does not so adapt it; and, by accenting the third syllable of the dactyl in ouλoμévny, they recede from quantity only in the same degree as the Englishman. In fact, we Englishmen, in reading Hellenic poetry, fall into the very same error of violating the quantity, of which we accuse the Greeks; for we have come, according to the practice of our own language, to throw back the accent as often as possible on the ante-penultima; in other words, we do pronounce Greek chiefly by accent, and not quantity; but we put our English accents on Greek words, disregarding the traditional accentuation of the Greeks themselves. The truth probably is, that the elevation and depression of tone in a syllable-in other words, its accent-has no necessary connection with its quantity, i. e. its extension. Thus there is no reason why the accent on the first syllable of Oxvμπos should make that syllable long in point of time, any more than there is any reason why the accent on the first syllable of the English word honestly should make that syllable long, or the second syllable short. Moreover, if any practical Englishman-after reading Pennington's and Blackie's