Particularly tf the LETTER 2irMA. 127 



" places, efpecially the aorifls of verbs, it may be pronounced 

 " either as a fimple or a double letter*." This reafon is inge- 

 nious ', but, upon examining it narrowly, it does not appear to 

 be fatisfactory. Indeed Dr Clarke himfelf does not feem 

 quite fatisfied with it, and offers it only as a conjecture. There 

 is no doubt, however, of what this accomplifhed fcholar has 

 elfewhere f fnewn, that the penult of the firfl aorifl of fuch a 

 verb as tzhLZu is fhort, but that the poets, as Homer has fre- 

 quently done, may make it long, by doubling the <r, or rather 

 by restoring the <r, which had been thrown away in the forma- 

 tion of the firfl future %. Nor is it improbable, that when the 

 poems of Homer were firfl committed to writing, the <r was 

 fet down fingle, even when the verfe made it requifite to pro- 

 nounce it double. It happens, however, that this privilege of 

 being occasionally doubled, is not peculiar to the <r. We find, 

 among the poets, other confonants, mutes as well as liquids, 

 frequently in the fame fituation. Thus, 



And 



Here 



* mixuacri.'] " Ita jam fcribendum, necefiarid ; quia nihtttri fecundam corripit. Dubitari 

 •' tamen poteft, utrumne Graeci antiquiores ifto modo fcripferint. Nam quum «-, fuce po- 

 " tejlatis literam dixerunt, haud fcio an hoc fibi voluerint ; literas £ |, 4", neceflario qui- 

 " dem duplkes efle ; confonantium reliquas omnes, Jimplices ; unicam autem <r, iftiufmodi 

 " efle, ut permultis in locis, ac pracipue in verborum Aoriflis, Jimplex duple xve ex aequo 

 " pronunciari poffit.'' Ad Iliad. /, 1. 



f Vide ad Iliad, a,, 140. £', 432. 



X According to the rule, which directs, that, in verbs not liquid, the firfl: future 

 fliould arife from the prefent, by inferring a r before a, vtxoifyi, which is the fame with 

 TriKciticru, would have in the firfl future wiidtft,), or iriXa^a-au. But a fpecial rule directs, 

 that before 01 we muft, in the future, throw away t, £, 9, a-, which makes that tenfe of 

 vrAet^u to be wtha.au' hence the firfl aorift esrsAaW, to which reflore the rejected a t and it 

 becomes htiKivv*. Vide Moor Element. L. Gr. p. 128.. 



|| Iliad. «', 33. 



§ Ibid. 1,406, 



