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the third volume. They are totally unconnected, have each their distinct preface, and may very possibly belong to the large collection mentioned by M. Galland. On the supposition of the French translation being made from MSS. not very different from mine, the liberty assumed of amplification seems to me, on a cursory perusal, far to exceed that of M. Galland in his version of the Arabian Nights.

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"Qui cavet, ne decipiatur, vix cavet, cum etiam cavet; Etiam cum cavisse ratus est, sæpe is cautor captus est.' Plaut. Capt. A. 2. s. 2.

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I KNOW few subjects of classical inquiry upon which we have attained to less certainty, than the doctrine of accent and quantity; and yet there are probably few subjects more interesting to the accomplished scholar. Accent and quantity are generally presumed to be things totally different in themselves; but there are not wanting critics, and those of high name, who doubt this complete difference. Accents are these; the acute, and the grave, simple signs of sound; and the circumflex, compounded of both. The two first are frequently placed upon short syllables without altering their quantity. Yet how this should in reality be the case, I cannot readily comprehend.

A short syllable is, by custom and authority, pronounced in as short a time as is consistent with distinction of sound. If therefore, a note of accent make any alteration in such a syllable, what, I would ask, must the alteration be? Certainly not to accelerate the pronunciation. But it will possibly be objected, that, though accents do not accelerate the pronunciation, yet they evidently increase the tone and energy of the syllable. But can the tone and energy of a short syllable be increased without increasing the time? If any learned reader will try the experiment, I believe he will find the undertaking somewhat difficult.

There are many words in the learned languages of which the modern pronunciation appears to be scarcely consistent with the rules of quantity. For reasons well known to

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scholars, the accent cannot with propriety be thrown farther back than the antepenultima even in the longest words. This, in polysyllables, will often occasion the stress or elevation of the voice to be placed upon those members of a word which are by nature or position short.

In the words Pontifices, Hermione, Urceolus, Filiolus, and, indeed, all others consisting of a choriambic under one combination, accent and quantity are worse friends than becometh such near neighbours. The following passage of Juvenal places the stress of the sound upon a short syllable. "Frigida circumagunt pigri sarraca Bootæ."

Again, in Virgil*, we find,

Sat. V. 1. 23.

"Emicat Euryalus, et munere victor amici."

En. V. I. 337.

Similar instances every where abound. What shall we say then? Does the accent upon a short syllable produce any variation in the time? And, if so, in what consists the essential difference between accent and quantity? This is a question much easier to propose than to answer.

Port Royal Grammar upon the Latin tongue, and Dr. Forster upon Greek accent, are critics of unexceptionable merit; and yet observe how widely they differ upon this subject. The former says, "As accents were invented for no other purpose than to mark the tone of the voice, they are therefore, no sign of the quantityt of syllables,

*How are we to reconcile the following contradictory quantities of the same verb, from high authority? 1 fear we must have recourse to that powerful classic lever, a licence, to remove the difficulty.

"Stridere apes utero, et ruptis effervere costis."

"Cogaris, pressoque diu stridere molari."

Georg. IV. I. 556.

Juv. Sat. V L 160.

if we examine it atAs the profound and conformable with ac

This reasoning appears close and conclusive; yet tentively, we shall discover, I think, a latent fallacy. excellent author elsewhere admits a variation of time, cent, amongst those syllables that are marked short, may not the same variation also exist amongst those that are marked long? In polysyllables, where the penultima is long, the accent, he observes, lies upon it: but a similar words, where both peuultima and antepenultima are short, the accent is placed upon the antepenultima, because two short syllables are equivalent to one long one. Here then the accent is placed according to time; if not according to the outward measure, certainly according to the inward computation.

whether long or short; which is evidently proved, because a word may have several long syllables, and yet it shall have but one accent; as, on the contrary, it may be composed entirely of short ones, and yet shall have its accent, as "Asia, Dominus," &c. P. R. b. II. p. 54.

The latter thus expresses himself, p. 67: "No man can read prose or verse according to both accent and quantity; for every accent, if it is any thing, must give some stress to the syllable upon which it is placed; and every stress that is laid upon a syllable, must necessarily give some extent to it: for, every elevation of the voice implieth time, and time is quantity. Ούτε χρονος χωρίς τους ευρίσκεται, ὅτε τονος χωρις χρονι.” MS. Bib. Reg. Ang. p. 2.

To be plain, then, there is much weight in the last argument; and the observations of Dr. Forster, although made upon Greek accent, are, in many instances, applicable to Latin. And here let us not conceive that the present is a mere question of words, and therefore undeserving of notice; since, upon a just knowledge of the beauties of pronunciation depends much of that exquisite pleasure which we derive from polite literature. If we may judge of the difficulty of any accomplishment by the rarity of its attainment, to pronounce Latin is more difficult than to translate it. For one person who can read it correctly, even according to present rules, we find about five who can translate it so.

To what shall we attribute this defect? Shall we say that men, considering the pronunciation of Latin as a secondary and inferior acquisition, pay all their attention to the construing of it; as we sometimes meet with great writers who cannot spell? But what is more unworkmanlike, or inelegant, than to see scholars by profession stumble at the very threshold of the Muses? And herein, I think, consists one advantage, amongst many, of public schools; namely, that in such seminaries boys are well grounded in the principles of quantity, although by some they have been thought to spend too much time upon this pursuit.

Our rules of quantity give us, accurately enough, the

*As we politely accommodated our continental neighbours by adopting, anno 1752, their method of reckoning time, so of late we seem disposed to accommodate them still farther, by adopting, in part, their method of pronouncing Latin. This is chiefly observable in the full and open enunciation commonly given to the vowel A. We are told of Milton, that he affected the foreign pronunciation; and was accustomed to observe, that "to read Latin with an English mouth is as ill a hearing as low French." Lives of the Poets, vol. I. p. 174.

proportion of sound that syllables bear to each other in the two extremes of long and short; but this knowledge will not give us the general time. They teach us that two short syllables are equivalent to one long one; but can we hence collect, whether the whole movement was quick or slow, the tone variable or monotonous ?

Port Royal conceives, and with great appearance of probability, that the discriminating ears of the Romans were not contented with the present arrangement of long and short syllables only, but that they had an intermediate measure, consisting of a time and half, upon which the accent in polysyllables* often lay. He farther observes, that there was a considerable distinction in pronunciation between syllables short by nature and short by position. As the matter at present stands, it does not appear that learners derive any material advantage from mere accents. The compound A may indeed be of some service, because it is now connected with quantity; but the grave and the acute seem but little to facilitate true pronunciation. In autographs or MSS. they are rarely used, and readers find no great loss of them. What then, the intelligent reader will observe, do you altogether reject the use of accents, so generally received? And would you reduce pronunciation to one dull monotony? Certainly not; although I conceive, with submission, that accents, as they are now managed, may in some cases be nugatory, and in some detrimental. I would distinguish, however, between the use and abuse of these modern signs of sound, and would assign to them their proper merit. It is true, I believe, that accents, by encroaching on quantity, may enable a judicious Latin reader to introduce some slight distinction into the sound of his voice? but it is also true, that they are highly inadequate to convey to us any just conception of the variety, the richness, and the extreme

Is it lawful to suggest, without offending Latin ears, that, strictly speaking, there can be no such thing as a polysyllable consisting wholly of short feet,

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that is, of feet of equal times? Danaides, Periphrasis, Hominibus, Opiparus. In pronouncing a word of many syllables, it has been observed that there must necessarily be some foundation for the voice to rest on; to which point of support all the other parts of the sound recur, as to a common centre. On the other hand, to consider any syllable as absolutely long, which the poets have agreed to consider as short, would be to contradict their authority, and to fall into fatal heresy. What, therefore, remains in this merciless dilen ma between accent and quantity, but to agree with P. R. respecting the intermediate measure of a time and half? Upon these grounds we shall treat our polysyllables and choriambics handsomely; and not, like Bays, having Introduced them on the stage, leave them to get off again as they can

accuracy, of tone and time, with which the Romans, we are informed, pronounced their language.

It now only remains to consider our first proposition, namely, that accents in some cases are nugatory, and in some detrimental. They are nugatory, then, when they are not of sufficient weight to excite attention, and so teach nothing. They are detrimental where they tend to introduce confusion into the minds of learners, or lead them to make false quantities. On the other hand, they are useful where they come in aid of quantity; they are useful where they serve to distinguish one word from another, spelt in the same manner, or different inflexions of the same verb, They are also useful where they serve to mark prepositions and adverbs.

1800, July.

WENMAN LANGTON.

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