The following note shows Mr. Browning in a more pronounced attitude
towards the opponents of the new Greek spelling than does that which, by
his desire, I inserted in my first edition; but the last mood was in
this case only a natural development of the first:--
"I have just noticed in this month's 'Nineteenth Century' that it is
inquired by a humorous objector to the practice of spelling (under
exceptional conditions) Greek proper names as they are spelt in Greek
literature, why the same principle should not be adopted by
'Ægyptologists, Hebraists, Sanscrittists, Accadians, Moabites, Hittites,
and Cuneiformists?' Adopt it, by all means, whenever the particular
language enjoyed by any fortunate possessor of these shall, like Greek,
have been for about three hundred years insisted upon in England as an
acquisition of paramount importance, at school and college, for every
aspirant to distinction in learning, even at the cost of six or seven
years' study--a sacrifice considered well worth making for even an
imperfect acquaintance with 'the most perfect language in the world.'
Further, it will be adopted whenever the letters substituted for those
in ordinary English use shall do no more than represent to the
unscholarly what the scholar accepts without scruple when, for the
hundredth time, he reads the word which, for once, he has occasion to
write in English, and which he concludes must be as euphonic as the rest
of a language renowned for euphony. And, finally, the practice will be
adopted whenever the substituted letters effect no sort of organic
change so as to jostle the word from its pride of place in English verse
or prose. 'Themistokles' fits in quietly everywhere, with or without
the _k_: but in a certain poetical translation I remember, by a young
friend, of the Anabasis, beginning thus felicitously, '_Cyrus the Great
and Artaxerxes (Whose temper bloodier than a Turk's is) Were children
both of the mild, pious, And happy monarch, King Darius_,'--who fails to
see that, although a correct 'Kuraush' may pass, yet 'Darayavush'
disturbs the metre as well as the rhyme? It seems, however, that
'Themistokles' may be winked at: not so the 'harsh and subversive
Kirke.' But let the objector ask somebody with no knowledge to subvert,
how he supposes 'Circe' is spelt in Greek, and the answer will be 'with
a soft _c_.' Inform him that no such letter exists, and he guesses,
'Then with _s_, if there be anything like it' Tell him that, to eye and
ear equally, his own _k_ answers the purpose, and you have, at all
events, taught him that much, if little enough--and why does he live
unless to learn a little?"
"R. B."
_Jan. 4, 1866._