ess
Ze fledgling srost lispess
Ze slombroos vav ootvelless
Ze babblang ronnel creespess
Ze ollov grot replee-ess
Vere Claribel lovlee-ess."

This, as nearly as I have been able to render it in English spelling,
was the way in which a French gentleman of really high culture was
accustomed to read English poetry to himself. Is it surprising that he
should have failed to appreciate the music of our musical verse? He did
not, however, seem to be aware that there existed any obstacle to the
accuracy of his decisions, but gave his opinion with a good deal of
authority, which might have surprised me had I not so frequently heard
Latin scholars do exactly the same thing. My French friend read
"Claribel" in a ridiculous manner; but English scholars all read Latin
poetry in a manner not less ridiculous. You laugh to hear "Claribel"
read with a foreign pronunciation, and you see at once the absurdity of
affecting to judge of it as poetry before the reader has learned to
pronounce the sounds; but you do not laugh to hear Latin poetry read
with a foreign pronunciation, and you do not perceive that we are all of
us disqualified, by our profound ignorance of the pronunciation of the
ancient Romans, for any competent criticism of their verse. In all
poetry, in all oratory, in much of the best and most artistic
prose-writing also, sound has a great influence upon sense: a great
deal is conveyed by it, especially in the way of feeling. If we do not
thoroughly know and practise the right pronunciation (and by the right
pronunciation I mean that which the author himself _thought in_ whilst
he wrote), we miss those delicate tones and cadences which are in
literature like the modulations of the voice in speech. Nor can we
properly appreciate the artistic choice of beautiful names for persons
and places unless we know the sounds of them quite accurately, and have
already in our minds the associations belonging to the sounds. Names
which are selected with the greatest care by our English poets, and
which hold their place like jewels on the finely-wrought texture of the
verse, lose all their value when they are read with a vicious foreign
pronunciation. So it must be with Latin poetry when read by an
Englishman, and it is probable that we are really quite insensible to
the delicate art of verbal selection as it was practised by the most
consummate masters of antiquity.

I know that scholars think that they hear the Roman music