to me, as I have no sufficient means of fastening the window-shutters of my room. On the night of the 20th of January we had a good deal of snow, and on the following morning every thing was covered. About the middle of February we frequently saw heavy clouds, and rain or snow falling on the mountains. The thermometer has never been so low as 30°, and it is well that it seldom approaches even to the freezing point, for on such occasions the effects are very unpleasant; no milk, no eggs, no linen can be washed; in fact nothing proceeds, and all the shops are shut; while at home, the chambers pervious in all directions to the winds, formed a very poor protection against the keen north-easter, which made the latter part of February and the earlier part of March, very much like a March month in England. We had even a little snow on the 20th. I found soon after my arrival that Mr. B. had engaged a Greek master, who as he said, put him in a fever whenever he came. I therefore engaged our consul to recommend another, who was, as I discovered on his first visit, hardly able to speak a word of Italian; what was worse, he did not at all understand the art of teaching, nor was he ready in comprehending what was required of him. Neither Mr. B.’s master nor mine have any distinct notions of grammar, and perhaps the modern Greek, or Romaic, can hardly be said to have a grammar, or even to be a written language; for the books published by Coray and others in Germany and Italy, are written in a compound of ancient and modern, which each author makes for himself, and which a Greek of these degenerate days can understand very imperfectly, unless he be acquainted with the ancient Hellenic. After twelve lessons, in which I made very little progress, I dismissed my teacher, and S. is now trying his hand with him. He has at least the merit of being very good tempered, and so willing to teach, that he never leaves us till he is fairly turned out of the room. Nothing can be more different in sound than the ancient Greek, as spoken by one of their descendants, and the language called Greek by us; and this is owing to two circumstances: the attention which the moderns pay to accent rather than quantity; and the pronunciation of the vowels. An Englishman, I believe, entirely disregards all the marks of accent, and places the principal stress upon the penultima, if it be long; and on the antepenultima, if the penultima be short; thus transferring to one language, the arbitrary rule acknowledged in another, and with whatever authority there is, decidedly against him. The marks of accent are said to have been of late invention, but they were surely intended to denote something in the intonation of the language. If ancient, they might have lost their meaning at an early period, and have been preserved by habit; but if they were additions, they had reference to a pronunciation which then existed, and probably to one which had long existed, for we all