Henry Gally

Henry Gally combined English clerical work with classical scholarship on Greek literature and language. Educated at Cambridge, he held several livings and became a chaplain in ordinary to George II. He translated the Characters of Theophrastus and added notes on character writing. A Dissertation Against Pronouncing The Greek Language According To Accents appeared anonymously in 1754, with Gally’s authorship established in later bibliographic records. The study entered an eighteenth-century debate over whether written Greek accents should govern spoken pronunciation, distinguishing questions of accent from those of syllabic quantity. Gally returned to the controversy in a second dissertation answering John Foster, and both pieces were later printed with Foster’s work. The book therefore represents a specific branch of his classical scholarship: close attention to how ancient notation, prosody, and classroom practice were understood by modern readers and teachers.