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to take the most unfavourable view, for in the poets of 

 the Augustan age it \vould be difficult to find a single 

 example where o is short : and in quandoque, qudn- 

 docunquf, the vowel is always long. But add qui- 

 dem, and they say quandoquidem has the same vowel 

 always short. "So also si in siquidem, according to their 

 views, loses its length the moment the enclitic attaches 

 itself to it. If our views be right, the true pronunciation 

 of these three words maybe represented by something like 

 eke, quandoke, slke ; the last corresponding to the Greek 

 yt . We will here observe in passing, that our pronuncia- 

 tion of quidem suggests a correction of a corrupt passage 

 in Persius, Sat. i. 10 : 



' Littera. Per me quiiiem sint oranin prolimu alb.' 



The current reading is equidcm ; and relying upon one 

 error the editors have allowed the same equidem to stand 

 with dubili's in Sat. v. 45, when the context, as well as 

 grammar, requires dubitem. 



But to return to the subject before us. It is not uncom- 

 mon with critics to imagine to themselves that the laws of 

 Greek and of Latin verse are based upon principles essen- 

 tially different from those of modern languages ; the 

 former depending, they say, upon the length of sylla- 

 bles, the latter upon accent. This distinction we believe 

 to be wholly without foundation. We rely little upon 

 the fact that Priscian's treatise headed 'De Accentibus' 

 is only a schoolboy-like scanning of the first lines in the 

 ' .SJneid,' because, as has been already said, that writer's 

 authority is not of great weight in what concerns the 

 spoken tongue ; and in fact, for the same reason there is 

 little dependence to be placed upon the dogmas of the 

 other so-called grammarians, such as Diomedes. Our 

 views upon this subject are rather derived from the perusal 

 of Terence and Plautus themselves, and are confirmed to a 

 considerable extent by the hexameters of Virgil and the 

 lyrics of Horace. They also seem to be supported by the 

 general principle* of language. We will endeavour briefly 

 to state the results at which we think we have fairly ar- 

 lived. 



I. In words of more than two syllables, if, according to 

 the received prosodies, two or more short syllables, ex- 

 clusive of the final syllable, occur together, the second of 

 those short syllables was slurred over. For instance, in 

 some cases the changing a vowel i or e into the sound of a 

 y, or of a vowel into the sound of a w, would be 



the simplest mode of effecting such a result. Thus ad- 

 tribuert, pcrTimus, comiltiim, would upon our theory be 

 pronounced udtribin rf. jwryinntx, cnnxiliiinn, the last of 

 which is confirmed by Horace's use of the same word in 

 his odes, and the Italian consiglin, Vr. enns/ril, Sp. 

 consejo ; and at any rate our pronunciation of the two 

 former is more consistent with the quantity of the vowels 

 than the mode usually adopted, viz. prr-l-iitms, adtribuere. 

 Bentley has himself observed (Euti., ii. 2, 36) that the 

 words mui rin. Sec. are always so placed in Te- 



rence as to have the accent on the first syllable ; which, by 

 the way, is consistent with the Italian mog/if, and the 

 Spam We doubt however whether the dative 



plural would be found to obey the law laid down by 

 Bentley. In those cases where the second short vowel is 

 followed by a consonant, the abbreviation proposed be- 

 comes impracticable, if at least that consonant be really 

 <o be sounded. In such cases the right course is probably 

 to drop the syllable altogether. Thus mi>eria,famiUa,sta 

 such words, Hermann r Di> Hi- M'-lrirn) truly says, are to be 

 pronounced with the accent on the first syllable, and this in 

 defiance of the law laid down by all the grammarians, that 

 the accent cannot be carried farther from the end of a 

 word than the antepenult. Hermann has not attempted 

 to reconcile the two assertions, but they fall at once into 

 agreement if we are right in dropping the second syllable, 

 for then the first becomes an antepenultimate ; and we 

 are only doing what is common in our own language, as in 

 every, lovely. This principle moreover may be clearly 

 traced in forms acknowledged to be Latin. Thus from 

 pnpulux should be formed populicus, but that becomes 

 poplictu- er publicus. If pello has a perfect pepiifi, mil,, 

 a perfect cecidi ; the compounds with re should strictly 

 give us repepuli, rececidi ; but we find reppuli, rec- 

 cidi. Again, in connection with opifex we ought to have 

 npificium and opi/lcina ; but these have been supplanted 

 by offlcium, officina. So too the Greek cirtiriSov becomes 



in Lafm oppiditm, as opposed to the arx, or citadel ; and 

 the adverb 7ri7reJwj takes the form of oppido, an equi- 

 valent in meaning to plane. 



II. The accent of a Latin dissyllable or polysyllable will 

 fall upon the penult if long. Where that penult is long 

 by the nature of the vowel, and at the same time the final 

 syllable is short, the accent upon the penult is called a 

 circumflex ; in other cases an acute accent. Secondly, if 

 the penult be short, put an acute accent upon the ante- 

 penult, always performing the previously mentioned ab- 

 breviation, if need be ; the necessary effect of which is to 

 give us a long antepenult, if the penult itself be short. 



III. The preceding rules dispose of every case except 

 two classes of words, viz. dissyllables with a short penult, 

 and monosyllables. The former are either to be pronounced 

 as monosyllables, or else to be attached to the preceding 

 or following word ; and the double word thus formed to 

 be accentuated as a polysyllable. When a word is attached 

 in pronunciation to that which precedes, it has already re- 

 ceived in common use the name of enclitic. Hermann, 

 who first observed that there are also words which attach 

 themselves to those which follow, has proposed to give them 

 the name of proclitics. The Greek article, for instance, 

 belongs to this class, as also not unfrequently the Latin 

 hie, haec, &c. The same is true of prepositions, when 

 really prepositions, that is, when they precede their noun ; 

 and the Latin non or <?, like the Greek ow, should 

 perhaps in many cases be pronounced in immediate con- 

 nection with the following verb, just as we, who are ac- 

 customed to place our not after a verb, write cannot as a 

 single word. Many little conjunctions also may probably 

 require such treatment, as si, ut, &c. Again, the list of 

 enclitics should be extended so as to include most of the 

 conjunctions which require to be placed second in asentence, 

 and even conjunctions in general, together with the re- 

 lative itself when they are forced, if the word may be used, 

 into a second place, as, for instance, in the first line of the 

 ' JEneid,' which acquires additional power by the pronun- 

 ciation Troiae-qui. In the same way a postponed pre- 

 position becomes an enclitic, as in the phrase altis-de 

 montibus. In this way many dissyllables and monosylla- 

 bles will coalesce into polysyllables, and be accentuated 

 accordingly. We even entertain a strong suspicion that a 

 verb in the middle of a sentence must often be treated as 

 an enclitic to give tone to some important word before it. 

 But a statement of our grounds for this belief would require 

 too much room. 



IV. The principle of elision will often modify the accent 

 of a word. Thus cumprlmum, scribendum, argumcnto, 

 would in ordinary circumstances have the accent as 

 marked. But if elision take place, they sometimes have 

 the accent displaced. In this way the first and eleventh 

 lines of the Prologue to the 'Andria' should be read: 

 ' Pota cum-prim Sm' adscribend' adpulit ;' and ' Non yt' 

 dissim'li sunt argument' et tamen.' It should also be ob- 

 served that elision often destroys the initial vowel of the 

 second word, instead of the final syllable of the preceding 

 word, as nunc tudmst officium, rather than nunc tw fst 

 officinal. 



If now the principles we have assumed on the grounds 

 above mentioned be applied to the plays of Terence, we 

 arrive at the result, that the verses, with very few excep- 

 tions, acquire the desired rhythm ; and that there should be 

 exceptions must be expected where the text of an author 

 is not yet established upon a careful comparison of manu- 

 scripts, and where even the transposition of two words will 

 often alter the accent. Moreover it should always be re- 

 collected that in the comic drama it may be even desirable 

 to avoid the purer rhythm of verse, and approach somewhat. 

 to the prose of natural conversation, as Cicero has himself 

 remarked (Orator., 55). That what we now say may be put to 

 the test, we will give a list of those words requiring abbre- 

 viation which most commonly occur, observing at the 

 same time that a word at the end of an iambic trimeter, or 

 after a monosyllable, is often to be pronounced with all 

 its syllables, though elsewhere liable to contraction. Of 

 this an example may be seen in the tenth line of the 

 prologue already referred to, which contains both noverit 

 and norit. 



senex = ten. Compare the genitive. 

 pater = pere. Compare parricida. 

 soror = soeur, as in French. 



voluntas = vountas. Compare vis = vbtts and invitus. 



2G2 



