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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. VIL FEB. 23, 1901.

there is an account of the manner in which by the deep counsel of Balaam the Israelites were diminished. This was a method by which the Hebrews were induced to visit a camp of the beautiful women of Moab and Midian, by whose blandishments they were induced to become idolaters. We read :

"Before her was placed excellent strong wine. She would then say to him, ' Drink this cup of wine for my love, and I will present thee with any precious ornament thou mayest wish.' At this time the wine of the heathen was not yet a pro- hibited thing."

Of the prohibition here implied there ap- pears to be no record in the Scriptures. The incident may be a traditional version of the transaction recorded in Numbers xxiv. and xxv. WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

Manchester.

GREEK PRONUNCIATION. Much has been written about Erasmus's pronunciation ^ of Greek. It seems to me that the collocation of Latin and Greek words in the colloquium 'Echo 'throws some light upon his method of pronouncing both languages. I have transcribed all the Greek words which serve as the echoes of the Latin words preceding them.

echo e'xw. onus o vovs.

invisos to-cos. ariolari Aapoi.

eruditionis oVois. byssinos solos 6'Aoos. astrologi Ao

monachos a^os. grammatici

semideos Seos. farnelici X.VKOI.

sacerdos KepSos. Cicerone 6've.

episcopi KoVot. Ciceronianus

It would seem from the above list that Erasmus's pronunciation of ancient Greek must have resembled the modern pronuncia- tion. The tendency to iotacism is manifest in the riming of -ot with the Latin -i. Again, the practical identification of the sound represented by omicron and omega is remarkable. It is also clear that Erasmus pronounced the Latin c before a vowel as hard : thus sacerdos rimes with /cepSos.

Much may be learnt as to the pronuncia- tion of ancient Greek at different times from inscriptions. I cite a few instances taken from McClure's * Christian Inscriptions,' which probably date from about 300 to 400 A.D. ; the last is from Orelli.

(3 represents the Latin v : thus 'O/cTa/^/AAr; = Octavilla (De Rossi, No. 69).

ov is used to express Latin short u, as l in Lucretius we have

durateus.

Ktr represents Kctrat, as in Mod. Gk. So 7, iotacism of ei (Kirch-

hoff, 9541) ; thus, too, Sijn-oo-eiroys represents depositus (De Rossi, 85), and 6o-eia>s = 6o-io)s (Kirchhoff, 9524).

K is used in the same epitaph to represent Latin c : 7rai<e=pace.

v is omitted in Kcoo-TavTivoTroAiVio-o-a. Modern Greek shows a strong tendency to slur over v in unaccented syllables.

IIeiKei/Tij'^s (Orelli, 6724) represents Picen- tinse. H. A. STRONG.

University College, Liverpool.

4 RULE, BRITANNIA ' : ITS AUTHORSHIP. I do not think the famous question of the author- ship of ' Rule, Britannia,' has been referred to in 'N. & Q.' since the appearance (in 1895) of M. Leon Morel's ' James Thomson, sa Vie et ses CEuvres,' which, according to Mr. Seccombe in the account of the poet in the ' Dictionary of National Biography,' consti- tutes "a pattern biography both in respect to exhaustive research and sound literary criticism." It is certainly an indispensable work to all admirers of Thomson, and should be translated into English. With regard to ' Rule, Britannia/ M. Morel admits that the question of its authorship between Thomson and Mallet cannot be settled on external grounds, but points out that the internal evidence is decisive in favour of Thomson, from the number of passages in close and even verbal accord with lines from his other works. Thus, compare the first strophe with the following passage from ' Liberty ' (part iv., ' Britain,' 11. 460-2) :

Since first the rushing flood, Urged by Almighty Power, this favour'd Isle Turned flashing from the continent aside ;

and these lines from ' Britannia' (191-4) :

This

The native power for which you were designed By fate, when fate designed the firmest state That e'er was seated on the subject sea ;

and 1. 199 :

For this these rocks around your coast were thrown. Again, in ' Liberty ' (' Britain,' 11. 515-16) we have :

happy land ! Where reigns alone this justice of the free !

the resemblance of the idea in which to that in the second strophe of ' Rule, Britannia,' is obvious, as is also that in the third strophe about the oaks to the following in ' Britan- nia ' (11. 201-2) :

For this your oaks, peculiar hardened, shoot Strong into sturdy growth.

In the fifth strophe the words

And every shore it circles thine, referring to the maritime supremacy of