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markable that the modern Greeks pronounced it in the fame 

 way; how can it be otherwife if the acute accent be laid on 

 the firft fyllable, ^■^(pia-f^x. There is a dadyl then in written 

 metre, and a dadyl in pronunciation, and the fame word fliall 

 when written, and when pronounced, be of different meafurc. 

 Apply the fame to verfe. T^(p«rf*a; is an Antibacchius for the puf- 

 pofe of the poet in meafuring his verfe, but it doth not follow 

 that he may not pronounce it as a dadyl. I dare to fay if 

 Longinus had been fpeaking, not of the mode in which De- 

 mofthenes and all Grecians pronounced the word, but of the pes 

 of the word, he would not have faid it was a dadyl. The poet 

 in conftruding his verfe muft take the fyllables as he finds them, 

 and has no power to alter beyond a very little poetic licenfe, for nude 

 conflrudion doth not admit of emphafis; but the fpeaker, or the 

 writer are not fo confined, and it was probably to mark their varia- 

 ons to the barbarous nations which overwhelmed Greece that ac- 

 cents were introduced, if they really were introduced at fo late a 

 period. 



To illuflratc what has been faid, let any man try how eafy it is 

 to make a verfe in perfed meafure that fh«ll be grating or unmu- 

 fical to the ear, and another without meafure, agreeable and mufical. 

 For inftance, who can difcover mufic in this line, 



O Fortunati Mercatores, gravis annis, 

 or who would know it was poetry without being told fo. 



Colitur 



