PLACE AND POWER OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 303 



that accentual verse, at so very early a date, came to usurp the place of quanti- 

 tative, which only we now acknowledge as classical. In making this explana- 

 tion, Professor Munro lays down the following propositions : — 



(1.) That the acute accent of the ancients was a mere elevation of the voice, 

 without any stress on the accented syllable. 



(2.) That in the composition of Greek and Latin verse, the metre was 

 determined by quantity alone, and that accent had no influence on it direct or 

 indirect. 



(3.) That, nevertheless, the quantity of syllables was a matter which swine- 

 herds in the days of Homer, and ploughmen in those of Plautus, had imbibed 

 with their mother's milk, and could discriminate with the nicest precision. 



(4.) That by some strange and, to us, unaccountable process, the nature of 

 the Greek and Roman accent was suddenly changed in such fashion that, from 

 being a mere raising or sharpening of the tone, "it became a stress," "a mere 

 stress," " a stiff and monotonous stress," a stress which is always accompanied 

 with " the lengthening of the quantity," having nothing in common with the 

 genuine classical accent except the name ; and that by this strange and inexpli- 

 cable plunge, the accentual poetry of the mediaeval hymns, and the whole of our 

 modern metrical system, so early as the third century had started into recog- 

 nised existence. 



So much for the theory of the matter. With regard to the strange and un- 

 scientific practice of the English great schools and colleges, the following 

 passage is notable : — 



" It appears from what has been said, that we English, in reading Latin, 



place the accent generally, but by no means always, on the proper syllable. 



But then, we have entirely changed its nature, making it a mere stress, instead 



of a simple raising of the tone, without any lengthening of the quantity. And 



Pr^ecilius and his cotemporaries already did the same. From them, and their still 



more degraded descendants, the Italians, and other western nations, we inherit 



this debased accent, which had usurped and overthrown the rights of quantity. 



In the second line of the iEneid we read Italiamfdto profugus with the accent 



on the right syllable ; but on the same principle we ought to say — and Pr^ci- 



lius, indeed, and the Romans for centuries after him, did say — Lavindque, with 



the accent on the second a. We flatter ourselves that we thus preserve the 



quantity, but that is a mere delusion. It we feel by a mere mental process. 



Whether we pronounce profugus or profugus, quantity is equally violated. In 



the same way we read Greek with this debased Latin accent, and fancy that 



we preserve the quantity while sacrificing the accent. The modern Greeks 



read old Greek with the ancient Greek accent, debased in the same way into a 



mere stress. We think them, they think us, in the wrong ; and in different 



ways we are both equally in the wrong. M.r)va> aei'Se dia in an English or 



