310 PROFESSOK BLACKIE ON THE 



been such a bugbear to our teachers. Now, with regard to this problem, it is 

 one of those to which, as Geldart says, the old adage applies, solmtur ambulando. 

 What appears impossible in theory, is often easy in practice. If you wish to 

 learn how to use your legs, just rise up and walk. If you imagine that there is 

 any difficulty in saying Soj/cpaV^s without saying S^/cpaV^s, or bon'us without 

 saying bonus, just put yourself under a master of elocution for five minutes, and 

 you will shortly be drilled out of your difficulty. But why should the ears of 

 teachers be haunted by such a hallucination as that by placing the Roman 

 accent on the penult of all dissyllabic words, they are furnished with some sure 

 spell against the violation of quantity ? Is it not quite evident, rather, that the 

 short quantity of the first syllable of /8109, a bow, is much more easily preserved 

 by the natural oxytone accent than by the Latin accent /3i'os on the penult ? 

 And if the quantity of the long penult in the verb Scarpi'Su is more effectively 

 brought out by the accent on that syllable than if it had been on the last, is it 

 not manifest that the same syllable, being short in the substantive BiarplQij, is 

 more certainly pronounced short — according to the argument of the Latinising 

 Hellenists themselves — with the native oxytone accent than with the imported 

 Latin one % Take, again, the word /capapa, a vault, where all the vowels are 

 doubtful, and where, of course, the quantity of each syllable can be recognised 

 only by utterance. According to the current method, the accent, laid on the first 

 syllable of this word, should inform me, that the syllable is long by virtue of the 

 stress, and it does inform me also, if I am to believe my ears, that the other two 

 syllables are short. But three parts of the information thus given are false ; for 

 the accent is not on the first syllable, and the quantity of the first syllable is short, 

 and that of the last long. On the other hand, if I pronounce the same word 

 according to the principles laid down in this paper, I learn not only where the 

 accent is, but that the two first syllables are short, and the last long. The fact of 

 the matter is, that, while the Greek accent, rightly placed, informs the ear rightly 

 both as to the accent and the quantity of the syllables of which a word is com- 

 posed, the Latin accent inverts and perverts both, and teaches, with regard to 

 accent and quantity, only what must be unlearned. The opponents of accents, 

 who absurdly call their Latinising method the quantitative pronunciation of 

 Greek, ought to bear in mind that, in practical teaching, next to pronouncing 

 the long syllables long and the short short, the best way to teach quantity is to 

 pronounce the accent, which either stands upon the long syllable and favours 

 its prolongation, or stands in such a definite relation to that syllable that the 

 quantity of the unaccented syllable is known from the place of the accented. 



But the great practical difficulty to which teachers allude is, perhaps, rather 

 rhythmical than prosodiacal. The pronunciation of the Latin accent, says Mr 

 Clark, is the only way we have of teaching our pupils to appreciate the 

 measure of classical verse. Abolish the Latin accentuation of Greek prose, 

 and you turn the organ of Homer into a hurdy-gurdy. Now, with regard to 



