1797-] 
dernefs and pleafantry in the fubjeét 
correfponds with the flowing eafe of the 
conftruétion, JS 
er 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
, SUR! /)5 
Hy? your correfpondent H. M, given 
Metronarifton that attentive perufal, 
which its found arguments, as well as ge- 
nuine ridicule, certainly deferye, fuch a 
difficulty as he ftarts in your daft Number, 
could have hardly prefented itfelf, and the 
line of Ovid, | 
Vir precor uxori frater fuccurre foror?, 
if really read according tothe rules of Me- 
kerchus, would have appeared a rhyming 
bexameter to him no lefs than rothe critic, 
whofe reprehenfion it incurred on that ac- 
count. With regard to the word wxor1, 
and the divifion of the laft fyllable from 
the two former, he would have feen that 
Mekerchus,. as wellas his difciple, while 
they recommend a {trig attention to quan- 
tity, at the fame time caution us, in ex- 
. prefs terms, not to read as if we were 
{canning the yerfe, and never to make a 
paufe in the middle of a word. Let them 
{peak for themfelves: $i hoc modo pronun- 
tiaris, fervatafyllabarum quantitate, efam 
ut verfusnondigeras in pedesquistamen,’egorv 
& %o1y non audiat, & fuavifima borum 
verluum gravitate non capiatur*>? We 
are wont likewife to talk—by no figure 
but that of abfurdity—of thar fyllable (the 
fyllable preceding the cztura) being as it 
were detached from thofe which precede 
it, in.the word it terminates, becaufe, for- 
footh, that fyilable begins the fucceeding 
foot. This is an error we have been led 
into by the common method of {canning, 
or by an ill-founded notion of reading ac- 
cording to fcanning, which, whatever the 
{canning be, would ruin every thing, and 
make Pope appear to be fpeaking to his 
footman, inftead of a diftinguifhed peers : 
Awake, | my Saint ] John, leave | all meaner 
| things +>. 
Having now fettled this point, with re- 
gard to which H: M. will find that he 
was not perfeétly accurate, let us next 
proceed to reétify his pronunciation of 
foroxvt, his great ftumbling block, that 
monfter of his own creation, which he 
employs as the tyrant, Procruftes, did his 
iron bed, as a ftandard to which by cruel 

* Mekerchus, as quoted by Metronariiton, 
page 119. 
7 Metronarifton, page 63, 
Metronarifton vindicated, 

44i 
torture he reduces the metre of the verfe, 
For according to the Englifh line, which 
he produces as an exaét counterpart in 
point of rhyme, 
Raifing more high, Britain’s glory, 
the laf@ part of Ovid’s verfe muft be read 
a trochee ; a pronunciation countenanced 
neither by profody,, Mekerchus, nor any 
authority, but fcholaftic prejudice. Bur, 
why does not he adhere as fcrupuloufly to, 
the quantity in the Jaft fylable of the verfe, 
as in all the reft? Surely the rules laid 
down in Metronarifton afiord no ground 
forfuch exception. On the contrary, they 
teach us that a particular flrefs owght to 
be laid on the fart and laf& fyllables of 
every hexameter, and the author clearly 
adverts to this, when be mentions (p.83) 
the few lines of Hamer, which by chance 
we are lucky enough to read right in 
every other refpeét, except not giving due 
length to the concluding half foor. Pro- 
nounced, therefore, as according to thefe 
rules it ought, Ovid’s line anfwers more 
nearly to ituch an Englith one as the fol- 
lowing. 
Raifing more high, Britain’s outery. 
and the rhyme becomes much more ob- 
vious than after the ufua) manner of read- 
ing, as the laft fyllables, on which alone it 
is intended to fall, are uttered more fully 
and forcibly. jag he 
I: is indeed furpnifing that this mode of 
reading Greek and Latin poetry thould be 
objeéted toon the feore of rhyme, fince, if 
rhyme there be, in this made enly at is pers 
ceptible. Take any ef the numerous ex- 
amples that occur in. Ovid’s pentameters, 
the very line, for inftance, fucceeding that — 
in queftion : 
Inftant officio nomina binatuoz; 
pronounce it according to the—pretended 
genius of the Latin tongue—that is, with 
the laft fyllable of every word fhort ; then 
in the manner propofed by Mekerchus 5 
and ‘the difference with regard to the 
rhyme will be ftrikingly obvious. In 
thofe verfes, called Leonine, itis true (of 
which that quoted by H. M. is one) and 
in thofe only, tke rhyme is percepuble by 
the common pronunciation, becaufe it ex~ 
ifts in the fave laft fyllables.of each he- 
miftich, the former of which being the 
fir of the fi€titious trochee, is confe- 
quently long. But this is a poor confider~ 
ation, for it is the very fpectes which the 
ancients difapproved of, and feldom ad- 
mitted into their poetry. The other, 
which to modern ear is entirely loft, was 
3M. Ne both 

