402 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
that the practice so common among classical teachers, both in 
England and Scotland, of allowing short syllables to be pronounced 
long and long short, except in penultimate syllables, is worthy of 
all reprobation ; nor is there the slightest scientific foundation for 
the practice recently introduced into some English academies of 
pronouncing the long vowel, as in mater, with a decidedly different 
quality from the same vowel when short, as in pater. The long 
vowel is merely a prolongation of the identical sound heard in the 
short vowel, as in joh^ Job^ and many familiar English examples. 
With regard to accent, it is quite certain that both the English and 
Scottish scholars are altogether wrong ; and that the living practice 
of the G-reeks in this matter is the only one that harmonises at 
once with historical tradition, and with the conclusions of philolo- 
gical science. That the classical G-reeks pronounced their language 
with an exact observance of the accent is a point on which the 
ancient grammarians are quite decided : they all assume that cer- 
tain determinate accents are as much the law of living Greek 
utterance generally as certain quantities are the law of rhythmical 
composition. Neither do they leave us in the slightest doubt as to 
what the nature of accent really is. The name acute given to 
the ruling accent plainly marks an elevation of the pitch of the 
voice on a certain syllable, and the words eTrtrao-ts and auecrcs tech- 
nically applied to the acute and grave accents, meaning tension^ 
stress, or strain-, and relaxation or remission, plainly point out the 
element of emphasis, which gives one syllable of a word a marked 
preponderance to the ear above the rest. The whole doctrine of 
enclitics also marks emphasis or stress as an essential element of 
the Greek accent ; and the accented verses of the Byzantine popular 
poetry and the pronunciation of the modern Greeks all drive us to 
the same conclusion, which only obstinate prejudice, ignorant con- 
ceit, or stolid stupidity can resist. This conclusion is that when 
Olympian Pericles thundered against Spartan insolence, and De- 
mosthenes against Macedonian aggression, they emphasised the 
thunderbolts of their speech in the same manner that Greek words 
are now emphasised by an orator in the modern Greek Parliament, 
or a muleteer on the ridge of the modern Greek Parnassus. 
X. The practice by which the British school of Greek scholars 
has hitherto been distinguished, of pronouncing Greek by the laws 
