[ 36o ] 



fo late as the eighth century, and were ufed only in poetry, and 

 intended to afcertain the pronunciation of the Greeks, and to 

 oppofe the barbarifm of nations who raifed and deprefTed the 

 tone of the voice according to the cuftom of their own language 

 without any regard to the true quantity of fyllables.* 

 Wetftein, the learned profeflbr of Bafle, in his Diflertatio de 

 Accentruum Gr^corum antiquitate & ufu, argues for the ufe of 

 accents from the earlieft days, and thinks that when the mode 

 of writing was in capital letters equi-diftant from each other, 

 without diftindlion either of words or phrafes, that accents noted 

 by vifible marks were abfolutely neceffary to diftinguifli am- 

 biguous words, and to point out their proper meaning. 



The writers of the laft century were no lefs divided as to the 

 ufe of the accents than as to their antiquity ; fome infifting that they 

 marked tones or intonation — the ralfing or lowering of the voice 

 in pronouncing certain fyllables of words ; while others confound 

 them with quantity, or at leaft afferted that quantity was in- 

 fluenced or affedled by them. 



These difputes have been revived with no fmall ardour in our 

 own times. About 1754, a learned anonymous treatife appeared 



upon 



* This fcems abfurd, becaufe the accents do not accord with quantity, and therefore 

 would fo have fet them wrong inftead of right. No, the ufe of the accents muft have 

 been to prevent their pronouncing always according to the quantity of the fyllablc, 

 and to fliew them when the Greeks did not do fo. 



