[ 359 ] . 



Some OBSERVATIONS upo?i the GREEK ACCENTS. By 

 ' ARTHUR BROWNE, Efq. Senior Fellow of Trinity College, 

 Dublin, and M. R. I. A. 



JTIAVING lately had an "opportunity of converfing with December 

 fome modern Greeks, it appeared to me, that it might not be '''■ '■'^^ 

 unacceptable to the Academy to communicate fome obfervations 

 which I made as to their mode of ufing and applying the 

 accents, about the proper meaning and application of which fo 

 much controverfy has arifen. 



To make thefe obfervations intelligible, I muft briefly recal 

 to the recolledlion 'of the Academy fome of the mofl celebrated 

 opinions which have been urged concerning thefe accents, both 

 as to their ancient exiftence and as to their ufe. 



Grjevius, Stevens, and Ifaac Voflius in an exprefs treatife on 

 the fubjedl endeavoured to prove them of modern invention, in- 

 fifting that none are to be found in either infcriptions or mami- 

 fcripts antecedently to the period of about 1 70 years before Chrift. 

 Hennin imagines that they were the invention of the Arabians 



fo 



