AMARYLLIDACE.i£. 
327 
The coarse figure given by Clusius was intended to 
represent a specimen with such knots ; but they 
are very ill represented, and the excrescences mag- 
nified by successive copyists from a had original, 
have assumed a most extraordinary appearance in 
the figure given by Parkinson, which has no resem- 
blance to a Narcissean plant. 
I have accented the name serotina (late-flowering) on the 
o, in conformity with the authority of Hilary of Arles, who 
has the i short. I should have considered that the analogy 
of the words vespertin us and matutinus, also expressing time, 
would have overborne his authority ; if Prudent! us,* who 
has much weight with me, had not used another adjective of 
time, diutinus, with the i short, and perhaps Plautus also. 
It is desirable to have a clear understanding as to the accen- 
tuation of the many botanical adjectives ending in inus. 
Greek adjectives in bios have the i generally short, though 
it is used both long and short in oporinos , therefore all ad- 
jectives derived from a Greek word, as calathinus, calycinus, 
crocinus, faginus, murinus (from muros, Gr.), must bear the 
accent on the antepenult, or syllable preceding the i which 
is short. The few adjectives in inus derived from the names 
of vegetables, of which the accentuation has been ascertained 
by their use in verse, as faginus, crocinus, are, to the best of 
The deviations of Prudentius from the quantity of such Greek words as 
eidola, whicli he wrote idola, did not arise from ignorance or false pronunciation, 
but because the Greek word had the o long, but the accent nevertheless on the 
first syllable, which was contrary to the law of Latin pronunciation ; and, as it 
was necessary, in order to reconcile it, to depart either from the accent or the 
quantity of the original word, he sacrificed the latter as the least deviation from 
the original sound. There had been a gradually increasing preference for accen- 
tual sounds, which (as I pointed out many years ago in an article on the harmony 
of language in the Edinb. Rev. v. 6) at first limited the temporal metres of the 
Romans, and at last superseded them, by the establishment of the accentual 
cadences which regulate the verse of modern Europe. In the days of Virgil the 
quantity of the syllables was deemed more important than the accent, and we 
learn from a note by Pierius (Georgic. i. 59.) that when Virgil introduced the 
Greek word E'piros, his meaning, in preserving the Greek termination os, was to 
preserve the Greek accentuation on the first syllable, though the i in the second 
was long ; whereas if he had written the word with Latin orthography Epirus, 
the rule of Latin pronunciation would have thrown the accent on the i. Such a 
departure from the Roman habits of speech could not be generally adopted, and 
we find in the words introduced from the Greek at that period, the accent was 
changed rather than the quantity ; in a later age the quantity was sacrificed to 
preserve the accentuation. 
