1801. ] Mr. Cogan 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
R. WAKEFIELD, inhis Noées Car- 
\' ceraria, amidft other very curious 
matter, has favoured the world with an 
acute obfervation on Greek Profody, 
which he once did me the honour to com- 
municate wiva voce; namely, that an 
hiatus frequently occurs in the third foot 
of an hexameter, as in the following line of 
Homer : 
AN axeera uaSnoo, ecm OS emimesses muta. 
I was much gratified to find that the 
-folution which Mr. Wakefield gives of 
this peculiarity coincides with the expla- 
nation which had previoufly fuggefied it- 
{elf tomy own mind. This is, the frequency 
of the paufe which the grammarians have 
called xara TprTov TpoKatoy. 
‘The tollowing line of Virgil is a {peci- 
men : 
Ingens : et fimulacra modis pallentia miris. 
This is what Mr. Carey wouid ingeniouf- 
ly call the /ef/quicefura in the third foot. 
I know not how this paufe may affect 
others ; to my ear it is {weet beyond mea-_ 
fure or comparifon. I-could almoft fay of 
every line that contains it, what Mr. 
Wakefeld fays of the following exquifite 
verfe of Lucretius : 
Unum labundi confervans ufque tcnorem, 
that Achilles might have foothed his for- 
row by the repetition of them as effectu- 
ally as by the mufic of his lyre. Were I 
to endeavour to account ‘for the ineffable 
fweetnels of this paule, I fhould attribute 
it to its immediately fucceeding the fyl- 
lable where the cefura is ufually found ; 
or, to adopt the convenient term of Mr. 
Carey, I fhould fay, that for the fame:rea- 
fon that the cefura is peculiarly agreeable 
in the third foot, the /e/quicafura is fo like- 
wife ; which reafon appears to be, that, in 
the words of Herman, ita verfum dividit, 
ut nec pulmonibus moleftiam creet, et aures 
numeri varietate deleciet. 
Mr, Carcy obferves, that whenever the 
Sefquicafura thus occurs in the third feor, 
harmony requires that there fhould bea 
cefura in the fourth, as in the following 
line: 
Dumque fitim fedarecupit, fitis altera crevit. 
Mr. Wakefeid remarks, that this paufe 
fometimes makes a line tolerable where 
the cefurais neglected. It will be curi- 
ous to notice, that in two of the moft ex- 
quifite lines that ever were penned, this 
pauie is tubftituted for the ordinary c@- 
fura. 
MONTHLY MAG, NO, 73. 
on Profody. 389 
Avutic emeita medovde xvdAwdero Anas avaidnc, 
Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis evum. 
Now I am on the fubject of harmony, 
I am induced to notice a ceniure of Brunks 
on Eur. Phen. v. 852. in which he attri- 
butes /eaden ears to all thofe who prefer 
j4or to €or, where it is optional to write 
either. I cannot help pleading for an 
exception in favour of this pronoun, when 
ufed redundantly, asin the following line of 
Mofchus, Meg. 88. 
wy Se poor orverat, K.T. A. 
The eva has, to my ear, an emphafis 
which is inconfiftent with the fenfe, or ra- 
ther the feeling, which the redundant pro- 
noun is intended to convey. And my 
opinion is confirmed by this confideration, 
that I have met with no paffage (except 
one fomewhere in Ariftophanes) where, 
from the meafure of the line, it was necef- 
fary to write the redundant pronoun exes. 
Another word, and I have done. In 
Mr. Carey’s Analyfis of the Hexameter, © 
p- 174. it is obferved, ** that words of 
two or three fyllables require no particular 
obfervation; they may be placed any 
where, confiftently with the proper atten- 
tion to cefura and fefquicefura.” Whe- 
ther the following obfervation be new or 
not, I cannot tel]: it is, that the Latin 
poets are not fond of ufing words of this 
meafure “~~ as Amantés, except at the end 
of the hexameter; and when they do 
occur elfewhere, it is perhaps generally in 
the fourth foot. That they conftitute the 
favourite termination of the hexamcter 
verfe, every man’s recollection will inftant- 
ly inform him. And this renders the 
Jefquicafura in the fifth foot,—what Mr. 
Carey oblerves it to be, highly pleafng 
and elegant, as 
Me mea paupertas vite tra\dicatinerti. 
Che/hunt, 
March 12, 1801. 
on, ie 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, . 
Bs the obfervationin my laft, refpe&ting 
the ufe of fuch words as amdantés, in 
the Latin poets, I would add, that when 
they occur fo as to form the termination 
ot the fourth foot, which they very rarely 
do in Virgil—in Ovid pretty frequently 
—they are generally found preceded by a 
hort monofy!lable, as 
I am, Sir, your’s, 
E. CoGANn. 
Obftrepuere fonis et adunco tibia cornu, 
The Greeks, who clofe their hexameter 
with greater variety than the Latins, do 
not fo generally referve words of the above 
3E 7 quantity 
