PLACE AND POWER OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 281 



against all excellency of organism in articulate speech. We shall only say 

 generally, therefore, that it is always an imperfection in language when words 

 are so accented as to produce a lumbering unwieldy heaviness in the march of 

 syllables ; and we may say also that accents ought, if possible, to be so placed 

 as to admit of suffixes or prefixes being added without changing the intonation 

 of the word. In this view, contemplative is a more convenient accentuation 

 than contemplative, because it admits of a substantive contem'plativeness, and an 

 adverb contemplatively, being formed from it, without the necessity of either 

 advancing the accent or allowing it to remain on the fifth syllable from the end 

 of the new word, where its influence on the following syllables must naturally 

 be feeble in proportion to their remoteness from the point of vocal energy. 



Of the effect of fashion and whim and caprice, in determining the accent of 

 certain words, and even of whole classes of words, contrary to every principle 

 whether of significance, euphony, or convenience, I say nothing, because such 

 arbitrary freaks belong not to the domain of scientific knowledge, and are 

 merely noticeable as casual aberrations or monstrosities. 



Such are the grand principles of the general doctrine of accents, so far as I 

 have been able to discover them. It will be observed that they are based 

 on a wide induction, and apply to Latin and Greek as well as to Gaelic or 

 Italian. It is, however, a point which has been long maintained in the 

 learned world, that the Greek accents have something altogether peculiar, and 

 not peculiar only, but peculiarly mysterious about them, which prevents 

 them from being used along with examples from any modern language as illus- 

 trations of general propositions about accent. It is against this notion — a notion 

 peculiarly English, and prevalent in high quarters — that I must proceed now 

 to make a distinct and deliberate protest ; for, till it be removed, it will be impos- 

 sible to say a single sensible word on the doctrine of accents, from which the most 

 interesting language in the world shall not be withdrawn as an example. I pro- 

 ceed, therefore, to show, both from the nature of the case and from the most 

 authoritative evidence, that there is not the slightest ground for the imagination 

 that accent in the classical languages meant anything substantially different from 

 what it means in English, or Italian, or modern Greek ; and, as a natural sequel 

 to this, I will trace the long course of scholarly opinion on the subject, from the 

 doctrine of Erasmus to that of Professor Munro, Mr Geldart, and other English 

 scholars ; and conclude by showing practically, what I have proved in the actual 

 work of teaching, how all the strange contradictions of this singular controversy 

 can be reconciled, and all the imaginary difficulties be made to disappear. 



As a foundation for all argument on this subject, we may assume — what no 

 well-instructed scholar in the present state of learning will question — that the 

 accentual marks now seen in every Greek book were first invented by Aristo- 

 phanes of Byzantium, about 250 b.c, for the very same purpose that the marks 



VOL. XXVI. PART II. 4 D 



