THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. 351 



part of their full musical value, or, at all events, prevent the root from standing 

 so emphatically on its own legs, and producing its full dramatic effect. One 

 line from Homer will show this — 



Bov7Tt](T€v Se Trefxoiv apafirjcre Be rev^e in olvto), 



and this may stand to verify the general proposition that the English language, 

 besides being superior generally to either Greek or Latin in the dramatic truth 

 and vigour of its roots, by virtue of its very lack of terminations, has a dramatic 

 power in its daily use, which it is as impossible for Greek to emulate as it is 

 impossible for English to emulate Greek in the volume of sentences and the 

 cadence of periods. 



XII. In the music of language, as the vowels are more sonant than the conso- 

 nants, so the long vowels and the broad vowels, as a and o and u, are more musical 

 than the short vowels and the slender vowels. Next to the quantity or volume 

 of sound, the pitch of sound, accompanied as it naturally is with an emphatic 

 dominance of the accented syllable, has a notable effect on the music of spoken 

 address, and cannot be transposed or neglected without doing violence to the 

 genius of the language. In respect of accent, the Greek, as noted by the ancient 

 rhetoricians, has a decided advantage over the Latin, in allowing the accent to 

 ride freely, according to certain laws, over the three last syllables ; while the 

 Latin, like the Gaelic, altogether excluded the accent from the last syllable of 

 the word, where it is most musical. As the accent is one of the most character- 

 istic, so it is one of the most persistent elements of the vocal life of a people ; and 

 in the case of Greek is, accordingly, prominent alike in the books of the ancient 

 grammarian and in the mouths of the modern people ; a fact which renders 

 inexcusable the practice of English Hellenists in transferring wholesale the 

 Roman system of accentuation to the Greek. We have no more right to tamper 

 with the music of any language than with the colouring of a great painter or 

 the diction of a great poet. 



XIII. A written alphabet, or a body of visible signs significant of sounds, is 

 no doubt a grand invention, and a great convenience, but belongs to the philo- 

 sophy of language only in a very indirect fashion. A written, graven, or 

 printed language is for record primarily, not for expression ; like a photograph, 

 it is an exact likeness, but without the expression which is the soul of the living 

 image. An Orpheus, therefore, and a Homer, the highest form of lyrical and 

 epic poetry, was possible to Greece, if not before a written alphabet was known, 

 certainly before it was used for purposes of writing and reading. Neverthe- 

 less, it seems certain that without the habit of writing and reading books, 

 certain forms of literature which appeal to calm introspection, rather than to 

 present excitement, could not have existed; without a written alphabet, Homer 



VOL. XXXII. PART II. 3 L 



