400 Mr MUNRO, on A METRICAL 



Italian. In an old inscription in Gruter occurs this line Hunc quoque tristes veniunt et 

 laett recedunt. Pater became quite as long as mater, frater. Compare the Italian padre, 

 madre, frate, and the French pere, mere, frere. The o in popolo from populus is perhaps 

 longer than in pioppo from populus. The strongly accentuated a in argentariam made the 

 first two and the last syllables so much the shorter; the same may be said of the i in 

 exibui. Even professed Grammarians like Priscian and his contemporaries, when they 

 are expounding the rhythms of prose sentences, often pronounce the accentuated i of words 

 like exMbui, hospitibus, perspicere to be long. The same may be said of the u in luaiuria 

 of V. 6. 



In V. 5 the unaccentuated non was naturally short to Praecilius especially after the 

 caesura, when the movement of the verse suggested it, just as in the noninveni of verse 7. 



The movement of v. 6 was to Praecilius identical with Arma virumque cano placida 

 composta quiete. The sound of n or m before c in cuncaris was we know something between 

 an n and g. So was that of n in anquiro or angelus; of •y in 0776X09. 



Again the first clause of v. 7 has the rhythm of Arma virumque cano, Praecilius' 

 favourite trochaic canter. The unaccentuated post, like other prepositions, was closely 

 connected with the noun it governed and formed indeed one word with it. Compare the 

 postempus, pomeridianus, etc. of the old writers, of Cicero and Virgil. Obitus was pro- 

 nounced obtus ; domnus, domna were early corruptions. Compare dompna, donna, dame. 

 The editor of the new poem of Commodian calls himself on the title page Domnus Pitra. 

 In all periods of the language this tendency to contraction was very strong. With obtus 

 compare doctus, raptus etc.; with domnae lamna for lammina, autumnus, vertumnus and 

 fifty similar words. The quantity of Valiriae in this verse appears at first sight the most 

 difficult point to explain in the whole epitaph. The last two syllables are of course con- 

 tracted into one as in argentariam, luxuriam. The accent therefore of Valeriae is espe- 

 cially emphatic. I offer the following explanation. Gellius tells us that it was an 

 exceptional peculiarity of the Latin language to accentuate the short penultimate of the 

 genitive and vocative in words like Valerius, Vergilius, and to pronounce Valeri, Vergili . 

 The singular pertinacity with which Servius and other grammarians point out this fact, 

 proves it to have been something very unusual. Thus Praecilius would have read in Horace 

 Contra Laevinum Valeri genus, unde Superbus ; and this and similar verses might well 

 have been impressed on the rich banker's mind, if his wife Valeria was used to recount 

 the ancient glories of her name. The whole verse therefore had to him the same flow 

 as Arma virumque cano Valeri nee amare pudice. Of non inveni I have already spoken. 



In V. 8 habui is a dissyllable like the Italian ebbi, and the whole verse had the 

 cadence Vitam cum potui memor ire per omnia saecla. 



In V. 9 the metrical value given to the first syllable of honeste and of felices is 

 solely due to their position in the verse. Even before quantity was totally lost, there was 

 a strong tendency to shorten the final e in adverbs, as had been done from the earliest 

 times for bene and male. But Praecilius would have given himself little concern about such 

 matters. To him almost every final syllable was as essentially short, that is to say as 

 unaccentuated, as in modern Italian. Meos is a monosyllable, as it so often is in Ennius, 



