PLACE AND POWER OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 279 



pounded with the element mor, signifying great, which may be divided into two 

 classes, those in which the termination mor, recognised in its full significance, is 

 accented, and those in which it falls under the category of the German lich and 

 our y — in Gliicklich and lucky — being used for flexional purposes without a distinct 

 appreciation of its meaning, and therefore naturally unaccented. Of the one class 

 of words, Liosmor and Ben More, i.e., large garden send great mount, may serve as 

 familiar examples; of the other, sultmhor,/at,})ronou.ncedsvltur, sendgrasmhor, 

 gracious, pronounced grdsvur, are excellent illustrations. For in these two last 

 words we see that the adjective mor, in losing its separate significance, loses both 

 its quantity and its natural accent ; and the compound word becomes a paltry 

 pyrrhic s-, instead of a respectable iambus, ~— , or a majestic spondee, -. 



Under this head it only remains to mention the extraordinary theory of 

 Bopp with regard to the place of the accent both in Sanscrit and Greek. 

 That illustrious philologer, in a work entitled " System of Comparative 

 Accentuation, or concise Exhibition of the Points of Agreement between Greek 

 and Sanscrit in the Doctrine of Accent, Berlin, 1854," lays it down as a ruling 

 principle, that the most perfect kind of accentuation generally, and that which 

 prevailed originally in the Sanscrit language, was that in which the acute 

 intonation is placed as nearly as possible to the beginning of a word, however long. 

 Into the historical proofs of any such system of accentuation ever having existed, 

 of course only a profound student of the Vedas could enter. I am authorised, 

 however, by Professor Max Muller and Professor Aufrecht to say, that the 

 theory of Bopp is universally recognised as baseless ; and this is just what 

 might have been expected. The mere assertion of such a principle to a man 

 whose ears have been trained to a rich and various orthoepy is monstrous. If the 

 accentuation of the first syllable, as in the well-known case of the Greek voca- 

 tives of the third declension, Yldrep, "AttoXKov, and such like, may well be 

 explained by the eager energy with which the call was made ; it does not there- 

 fore follow either that eager energy is the only thing to be looked at in a good 

 orthoepy, or that such oxytone words as ayadrj and #ed? may not be so enun- 

 ciated as to carry an intense expression of energy to the ear of the hearer. Let 

 this notion of Bopp, therefore, stand as only another instance of the great 

 blunders to which great wits are subject, and which, as large experience teaches, 

 are the natural consolation of the dunces. 



That variety is a necessary element of all aesthetic presentation of the highest 

 order, needs no special proof. Variety is both an indication of wealth and a 

 preventive of monotony ; and as such is no less a natural source of delight to 

 the recipient of aesthetic pleasure than of just boast to the producer. 



Alles in der Welt lasst sich ertragen, 

 Nur nicht eine Reihe von schoncn Tacjen 

 says Goethe, 



