of Edinburgh^ Session 1864-65. 403 
of Latin accentuation, transmitted to us through the Koman Catholic 
Church, while at the same time the real Grreek accents are care- 
fully marked on every printed page, and taught minutely as a 
matter of learned indoctrination, is one of the most curious instances 
of combined carelessness and perversity in the whole history of 
learning. Had the G-reek accents not been marked so curiously 
on every Greek word in every page of printed G-reek for the last 
four centuries, some excuse might have been found for a practice, 
for which the vis inertice of human nature and the Latinised habi- 
tude of academic ears so powerfully plead ; but as the matter now 
stands, the persistence in a perverse practice, refuted by every fact 
in historical tradition, and every argument in philological science, 
stands as a staring absurdity alone in the annals of scholastic life. 
The aversion which the English scholars generally have to acknow- 
ledging the truth in this matter appears to me to have its origin 
partly in a gross habit of ear, which renders them unable to appre- 
ciate certain musical and elocutional distinctions which underlie 
the subject, partly in a sort of unreasoning conservatism, which is 
the backbone of their whole scholastic and academic system, partly 
also, and principally, perhaps, from a vague imagination they 
entertain that the spoken accent of Greek prose has something to 
do with the rhythmical recitation of G-reek verse. Now, it is quite 
certain that, however distinct the accented syllable was in G-reek 
oratory, in the composition of Greek verse the duration of the vowel 
sounds was the only element necessarily taken into account, while 
the spoken accent was either silent altogether or heard with a 
marked subordination to the accent of the rhythm. And, as a 
matter of educational practice, nothing is more easy for a boy who 
has an ear — and he who has none need never read verse — to pass 
from the accented pronunciation of prose to the quantitative mensu- 
ration of poetry without confusion. Even the daily practice of our 
schools teaches that a hoy cannot read a single distich of Ovid 
rhythmically without putting a stress on the last syllable of the 
final dissyllable, which is quite contrary to the natural accent of 
the same word when pronounced in prose. 
XI. In conclusion, I have to observe that the pronunciation of 
all Greek words indiscriminately according to the monotonous 
Latin accentuation, is merely a part of an entirely false method of 
