Series 1 > Journals of Sir John Lauder, Lord Fountainhall, with his observations on public affairs and other memoranda, 1665-1676

PRONUNCIATION OF THE CLASSICS
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fear that the whole race of beasts sould soon or sin1 be totally
exstirpated wt the multitude of hunters, if al ware permitted
to hunt. 2do, Least to many (as we sie at present) being to
much taken wt the plaisir of the sport sould forget their
businesses of consequence. As to that obiection, that hunting
being from the right of natur, which is unchangable, it cannot
be prohibited by any civil Law, I say hunting is not from
the rights of nature commanding but permitting.
Its a custome in France that when a young woman un¬
married is condemned to dy for some offence (unlesse the fault
be al the grivevuser) that if the hangman be unmarried he
may sick hir in marriage and get hir hir life that way: that
their hes bein seweral that have refused it and choosen rather
to die. This hes great resemblance wt that custome in
England that a man being sentenced to dy, if a common
whore demand him in marriage she wil get him; it being
a charitable work to recal a whore from hir loose and
prophan life by making hir marry. Yet surely both the
on custome and the other is but a corruptel and a mocking
at Justice.
The accent the French gives the Latin is so different from
ours that sometymes we would not have understood some of
them (for the most patrt I understood them weil enought), nor
some of them us. Ether we or they most be right, but I dout
not to affirm but that the accent they give it, straining it to
the pronuntiation of their oune language, is not natural, but
a vicious accent, and that we have the natural. My reason is,
because if their be any wayes to know what was the Accent
the ancient Romans prononced the Latin wt it is the Accent
that the Italians gives it and their oune language, which is a
degenerated Latin, who he the Romans posterity; but so be
they give it the same very accent that we do : the French ware
never able to answer me this.
As to ther pronuntiation of the Greek I could never keip
myselfe from laughting when they had occasion to read Greek
or any Greek sentence, even their Doctors of Law: vitnesse
le Berche at Orleans whom I attended 2 moneths, that Greek
Sooner or later.