PLACE AND POWER OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 289 



in England, from his having lived and died at London as an attache* of the 

 Belgian ambassador at the court of Elizabeth. He was, besides an able diplo- 

 matist, an accomplished scholar, and in the year 1576 published a Discourse " de 

 vera et rectd pronuntiatione linguae Greece"* which seems to have given the first 

 impulse to the paradoxical movement which caused the Greek accentuation, so 

 laboriously preserved by the Alexandrian grammarians, to be thrown overboard 

 in the general practice of scholars, and the vulgar Latin accentuation substi- 

 tuted in its place. The principal part of this work is occupied with the ques- 

 tion which then loomed most large, whether the Byzantine vocalisation should 

 be retained, or a reformed one introduced, as suggested by Erasmus ; but, in a 

 short appendix, the doctrine of accents is stated succinctly, and, what is more 

 important, the author's practice with regard to their observance. In the first 

 place, he tells us the important fact that, in his day, Greek was so read by 

 many, confounding accent and quantity, as altogether to destroy the perception 

 of any poetical rhythm. " Manifestos est eorum error qui tonos cum temporibus 

 confundunt, ita ut qucecunque acuenda vel Jlectenda est syllaba, earn producant : 

 qucecunque deprimenda vel cequabiliter pronuncianda, earn corripant. Ex quo Jit 

 ut in Grcecd oratione vel nullum vel potius corruptum numerum intelligas, dum 

 multas breves producuntur, et contra plurimce longce corripuntur ; ut pcene prcesti- 

 terit Groeca vel Latina non legere quam ita /cede depravare" (p. 175). And no 

 wonder ; if, as he says, the accent was allowed such a power that, in the second 

 line of the Iliad, zd-qKtv was read as a dactyle, and the two final syllables of 

 ovXofxevrjv as a spondee. And then he tells us of a general practice of school- 

 masters, which by the way prevails in England almost universally to the present 

 hour. " Solent enim pcedagogi vulgo ita suos erudire ut in omnibus dissyllabis 

 penidtimam producant." Just as in Eton and Harrow the boys had, till very 

 recently, if indeed they are not still, taught or carelessly allowed to say, bonus, and 

 not bonus. He then goes on to show how this practical assumption that a penul- 

 timate accent must necessarily lengthen the vowel has no foundation in the real 

 nature of accent and quantity, of which the one expresses the quality of the 

 sound, the other the dimensions. And then anticipating an objection often 

 made in modern times, he goes on to say, " Neque tamen nego brevi syllaba? 

 temporis aliquid accedere, quando acuto signo signatur, quantum scilicet necesse 

 est in acuenda syllaba consumi ; $ed, ut minus sit brevis quam antea, minime tamen 

 consequitur habendam esse pro longd, sicutab Us habetur qui malus arbor em a malo 

 adjectivo non distinguunt" (p. 178). This is exactly what Erasmus had said ; and 

 one should think it would be sufficiently patent to all ears, except those of stupid 

 schoolmasters, careless schoolboys, and bookish scholars, whose learning is all in 

 their eyes, and not in their ears. But things easy in speculative thought become 

 in the hasty practice of life, sometimes tolerably difficult ; and, in fact, a just 



* Reprinted in " Havercamp's Sylloge." 1736. Vol. i. p. 9. 

 VOL. XXVI. PART II. 4 F 



