Particularly of the LETTER 21TMA. 145 



" in that order wherein the feats of precedence are fixed, but 

 " alfo fully underftood the qualities and powers which belong 

 " to each of us. And on you, ye Judges, he hath conferred 

 " the larger portion of honour, inafmuch as you are capable 

 ff of expreffing a found by yourfelves ; on the femivowels, the 

 " next (hare to yours, becaufe they require a fmall degree of 

 " your amflance, in order to be diftinctly heard j and he hath 

 " allotted the lead of all to fome who, by themfelves, pofTefs 

 " no fort of found whatfoever *. Wherefore, it is the province 

 " of you Vowels to be the guardians of thefe laws. 



" But this Tccv, (for I have not a more opprobrious appel- 

 " lation for him than his own name f) who, unlefs, by Jupiter ! 

 two of yourfelves, I mean"AX<pa and T, excellent both, and 

 feemly to behold, had come propitious to his aid, would not 

 even have been heard, — this very culprit dares to injure me 

 in a more atrocious manner than ever any other of the letters, 

 by expelling me from my native nouns and verbs, at the 

 fame time chafing % me away from conjunctions and prepo- 

 litions, infomuch that I am no longer able to endure his ex- 

 " ceflive rapacity. But it is now time to ftate whence, and 

 from what circumftances, thefe outrages originated. 



I once was fojourning at Cybelum, an agreeable enough 

 little town, a colony, as is reported, of Athenians, and took 

 along with me the beft of my neighbours, the robuft 'Pw. 

 " I lodged at the houfe of a certain comic poet, whofe name 

 ■J was Lysimachus, by extraction evidently a Boeotian, but 

 ** who was ambitious of pafling for a native of the very centre 

 " of Attica. While I remained in the houfe of this landlord, 

 " I detected the avarice of this fame Tav. As long as, by de- 

 " priving me of my congenial friends, he feized only on a few 

 Vol. II. T " of 



* See Aristotle's definition of a Vowel, a Semivowel and a Mute, p. 133.. 



f See below, p. 149. 



% I have adopted the reading propofed by Hemsterhuis, viz. i7n~Ka.11** and iK&rv£«», 



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