PLACE AND POWER OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 311 



this matter, I would observe, in the first place, that if the young gentlemen 

 who usually come to our universities were to lose all the rhythmical apprecia- 

 tion of Greek verse that really lives in their ears, and not merely in their 

 understanding, they would lose little that is worth keeping. For what are the 

 facts of the case % The observation of the Latin accent facilitates the rhythmical 

 reading of the two last feet of a hexameter verse ; this is an accident of the 

 Latin language, that is all. But not even in the reading of Latin does the 

 reading, according to the Latin prose accents, prevent the constant occurrence 

 of a clash between the spoken accent and the rhythmical beat. In the Ovidian 

 pentameter such a clash must always occur twice, and in the two most marked 

 places of the verse, And, if the absence of the oxytone accent causes this 

 opposition in Latin, is it not strange that we should banish this same accent 

 from its natural place on a Greek word, in order, as we say, to avoid, but 

 actually in a great number of cases to produce, a collision between the rhyth- 

 mical beat and that accent ? Take, for instance, this second line from " the 

 Wasps " of Aristophanes — 



" <£>v\aKr)v KaTokveiv WKTepivrjv SiSacr/co/AezA," 



and it is plain that in the only two places where a clash does occur between 

 the spoken accent and the rhythmical beat, according to the Latinised accent, 

 that clash disappears the moment the words are read according to their natural 

 Greek accentuation. And so, not only in Iambic verse, but in every verse whatever, 

 the introduction of the Latin accent must jar with the rhythmical flow of the 

 line wherever the rhythmical stroke falls, as it constantly does, on the last 

 syllable of a word. This practical objection therefore vanishes in smoke. That 

 gross-eared and ill-trained persons may be enabled to receive the harmonies of 

 the two last feet in a Homeric line, with a little less trouble, or with no trouble 

 at all, no wise educator can deem a sufficient reason for invading the whole 

 inherited intonation of the finest language in the world, with sounds which, 

 however proper on the banks of their native Tiber, on the banks of the Ilissus 

 must be felt to be a gross barbarism. The rhythmical objection from the prac- 

 tical side is, in fact, only an ingenious apology to cover carelessness, to prop 

 prejudice, and to mask with an attitude of apparent utility a pedagogic pro- 

 cedure, alike unscientific in principle and self- contradictory in practice. 



Finally, if those who delight themselves in exaggerating imaginary difficul- 

 ties have any honest desire to see how they disappear in the actual business of 

 teaching, let them come to me ; for I am a practical man, and speak from the 

 experience of half a lifetime. I teach Greek on the principle that the ear is the 

 natural and legitimate organ which must be addressed in the first place. I 

 pronounce every word according to its just accent and quantity, allowing its 

 own natural emphasis to sway the proper syllable of the Greek word, just as 

 the Latin accent emphasizes the proper syllable of the Latin word, taking 



