184 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



have adopted it as a principle, that, having lost both Greek and 

 Latin quantity, by rejecting the Greek accent and substituting for it 

 the Latin accent, we have acquired a true Greek pronunciation. In 

 reality, we do not give the quantity in either Greek or Latin, and we 

 have simply transferred the Latin accent to the Greek. We may per- 

 haps understand the effect of this proceeding by transferring the Eng- 

 lish accent to the French language, and then reading a passage of it to 

 a highly cultivated Parisian. In England it is as much as a man's 

 reputation is worth to pronounce the word av6pco7ros with a Greek ac- 

 cent. The American scholar who should do so at Oxford or Cam- 

 bridge would be set down as a mere barbarian. He only knows Greek 

 who pronounces it wrong, that is, pronounces it according to the accents 

 of the Roman tongue. 



" Following the changes in the pronunciation of the language, the 

 poetical rhythms of the Greek since the tenth or eleventh century, or 

 even an earlier period, have been founded on accent. The first known 

 compositions qf this kind are without rhyme. The poems of Ptocho- 

 prodromos are in unrhymed iambic tetrameter catalectic : most of the 

 Klephtic ballads are in the same measure, which is as much an estab- 

 lished rhythm in the Modern Greek as the dactyhc hexameter was 

 in the ancient. Rhyme, however, has long been naturalized in the 

 Modern Greek. In the poems of Christopoulos, Soutsos, Rangabes, 

 Valaorites, and others, rhymes are as freely and naturally employed, 

 as in those of Moore, Byron, Scott, and Longfellow. 



" We must, therefore, admit that quantity is irrecoverably gone from 

 the Greek language : in this respect, the Modern Greek stands in pre- 

 cisely the same position with the other modern languages. The art of 

 combining accent and quantity is lost, and cannot be restored. Who 

 can recall a departed sound ? Who can revive the music of Linus and 

 Terpander? Ancient sculpture may be reproduced: the models are 

 before us. Ancient architecture may be imitated : there stands the 

 Tlieseum, there stand the glorious ruins of the Parthenon. The lyres 

 of Homer and Pindar are broken : their notes are dispersed in empty 

 air. No living ear has heard them, and no art of the scholar can 

 gather them up again. 



"Ancient rhythms were composed to be chanted. We have sub- 

 stituted reading for the musical delivery of the Greek and Roman 

 poets. For quantity we substitute accent : and it so happens, that in 



