28 PROFESSOR BLACKIE ON THE 
macy on those very syllables of the word where its emphasis was marked by 
the grammarian, ARISTOPHANES of Byzantium, in the early days of the Ptolemies; 
and the circumstance that, wherever a word is curtailed by dropping an initial, 
or final syllable, or both, the accented syllable always remains, as containing, to 
use DiomEpE’s phrase, “the soul of the word ;”* this circumstance of itself were 
sufficient proof, though all others were wanting, that emphasis or stress, in the 
modern sense, and not mere elevation, as some English scholars hastily assume, 
was the essential element in that affection of articulate speech which the Greeks 
called révos (stress or strain, from teivw). When we reflect what extensive 
changes in English accentuation have taken place with us since the time of 
CHAUCER, we shall consider this persistency of the same element in the Greek, 
during a period of more than two thousand years, a phenomenon not a little 
remarkable, and we shall rejoice to think that the great Byzantine grammarian, 
if not in the general practice of English scholars, certainly in the living 
tradition of his people, and in the practice of the national Chureh, has received 
the reward which he deserved. But the accent, like other strong forces, having 
lost the salutary control of a hereditary school of music, has not only maintained 
its position, but invaded the domain of quantity; so that with the modern 
Greek the word dv@pw7os, for imstance, is pronounced not like the English 
word ldndhdlder, as it was by DEMOSTHENES, but like the English word abbacy, or 
atrophy, that is, with the middle syllable curtailed of its natural volume of sound. 
The fact of the matter is, that there is in all language a popular tendency 
to cheat the unaccented syllable of its full quantity, especially when it comes 
immediately after an accented syllable ; and to this tendency Latin yielded at 
an early period (as we see from the short final 6, in Martial) and Greek probably 
about the same time. Along with this abuse, there crept in also in Greek 
that other one of, in many cases, dwelling upon the accented syllable in such a 
manner as to change its natural quantity from short to long; just as the Scotch, 
who as a rule speak slower than the English, draw out the accented syllable in 
many words, such as majesty, national, which the English pronounce short. 
The consequence of this excessive emphasis of the accent is, that in their 
rhymed poetry, the Greeks find no offence in echoing aiva by &a, pévos by 
pjvos, and so forth ; which is just the same as if we were to abolish the differ- 
ence between hare and her, mane and men, pope and pop. Then again as to 
the vowel sounds. In the face of the distinct gamut of the vowels given by 
Dronystus of Halicarnassus (De Structurd Orationis, xiv.), it is impossible to main- 
tain that the itacism now universally prevalent was considered correct speaking 
(though it might perhaps have been the vulgar fashion) in the days of Augustus 
Cesar. We must say, therefore, that the present fashion of pronouncing y like 
ee is a corruption and an enfeeblement of the classic speech, in so far as it 
* Accentus est anima vocis.—DiomepE., “ Pulsch. Gr. Lat. Auct.,” p. 425. 
