320 ADVANCEMENT OP LEARNING. [bOOK VI. 



All the accidence of words, — as sound, measure, accent, — 

 likewise belong to grammar; but the primary elements of 

 simple letters, or the inquiry with what percussion of the 

 tongue, opening of the mouth, motion of the lips, and use of 

 the throat, the sound of each letter is produced, has no rela- 

 tion to grammar, but is a part of the doctrine of sounds, to 

 be treated under sense and sensible objects." The gramma- 

 tical sound we speak of regards only sweetness and harsh- 

 ness. Some harsh and sweet sounds are general; for there is 

 no language but in some degree avoids the chasms of concur- 

 ring vowels or the roughness of concurring consonants. There 

 are others particular or respective, and pleasing or displeasing 

 to the ears of different nations. The Greek language abounds 

 in diphthongs, which the Koman uses much more sparingly, 

 and so of the rest. The Spanish tongue avoids letters of 

 a shrill sound, and changes them into letters of a middle tone. 

 The languages of the Teutonic stock delight in aspirates, and 

 numerous others which we have not space to cite. 



But the measure of words has produced a large body of 

 art ; viz., poetry, considered not with regard to its matter, 

 which was considered above, but its style and the structure 

 of words ; that is, versification ; which, though held as 

 trivial, is honoured with great and numerous examples. 

 Nor should this art, which the grammarians call prosodia, be 

 confined only to teaching the kinds of verse and measure ; 

 but precepts also should be added, as to what kind of verse 

 is agreeable to every subject. The ancients applied heroic 

 verse to encomium, elegy to complaint, iambic to invective, 

 and lyric to ode and hymn ; and the same has been pru- 

 dently observed by the modern poets, each in his own 

 language : only they deserve censure in this, that some of 

 them, through affectation of antiquity, have endeavoured to 

 set the modern languages to ancient measure ; as sapphic, 

 elegiac, &c., which is both disagreeable to the ear, and con- 



•' Dissertationes Philologicse de Origine Linguarum et quibusdam earum 

 attributis;" Thorn. Hayne **De Linguis in genere, et de varianim 

 Linguarum Harmonia," in the appendix to his " Grammaticae Latinaa 

 Compendium," and Dr.Wallis's " Granimatica Linguae Anglicanse." £d. 

 " This is the subject which J. Conrad. Amman has prosecuted with 

 great diligence, in his "Surdus loqueni," and^'DissertatiodeLoquela]" 

 fefgt prin^ *t Amsterdam in 1692. ar-'v? the J^st in 170Qt ^A(»w. 



