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64 CHRISTIAN GREECE AND LIVING GREEK. also the case prior to Demosthenes' day can be shown by Hephastio, who says of the comic actors that they, in imitating life, spoke accord- ing to accentuation, not metrically rov ^^p ^^^^^ '^^^'^^ fitfioufxeuot diXoofft dtaXsXo[xi'^(o<s diakiyeiv ^ xat fii) k[j.[iirp(o<s. If, then, the comic actors, in imitation of every- day life, did speak verses — poetry — as people spoke in every-day life, it is evident that people did not speak metrically, but according to accen- tuation, as they do to-day. Of late we have had two societies of learned and prominent men who have worked with great zeal for the encouragement of the study of the living Greek with a view to have it adopted as the universal language of scholars. The first of these societies was founded by Gustave d'Eich- thal, a Philhellenist with the zeal and soul of Byron, in the year 1867, for the study and practi- cal use of Greek in France. The transactions and the other publications of the members of this society were collected in Gustave d'Eichthal's work, printed in Paris in 1887. Among the members were the Marquis de Saint-Hilaire, M. Renieri, Nefftzer, Fr. Dlibner, A. Campeaux, E. Littre, Ch, Mendelssohn-Bartholdi, Robert Blackie, I. N. Valettas, Baudry, Louis Mallet, Basiadis, and last but not least, D. Bikelas.