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probably belonging to the Roman municipium, as did the marble columns which now adorn the modern post-office in Rome. At the southern extremity of the site of Veii is a flat oblong hill connected with it by a sort of isthmus, and called by the peasants 'Piazza d' Armi.” In its present state it might serve as an exercise ground for troops: in one corner excavations have brought to light the foundations of some houses. In the small valley dividing the "Piazza d' Armi" from the hill of the city is a very perfect flight of steps leading from the town down to a spring. On the southwest side the hill is very steep and the descent rapid to the Acqua Thermale, which we crossed a little above the junction of that stream with the Cremera. On quitting Veii for Rome, in order to get out of the valley we passed through what is called the Arco di Pino; this is formed by the perforation of the rock where had been originally a huge cave, the entrance to which had probably been closed with masonry now gone; but in the natural roof of the cavern is a hole wide enough for a man to pass through, and lined with bricks; one would suppose this was to give light and air to the vault beneath, but what was originally a cave is now converted into a natural arch. Moreover, the cut where the old road passed from the plain above into the valley is distinguishable.

From this point we were soon able to gain the Via Cassia, and resume our journey to Rome.

F. BUXTON WHALLEY.

ON THE RHYTHMICAL DECLAMATION OF THE

ANCIENTS.

“ΠΑΤΗΡ μέτρου ῥυθμὸς καὶ Θεός,” says Longinus, or whoever he be that wears the privilege of this name in the notes to Hephaestion, "The Father of metre," as we may render it a little more antithetically and more philosophically also, "is RHYTHM, the Father of Rhythm is GOD." The principle of order, indeed, in all things is the necessary expression of that unity which is the characteristic of mind; and mind, through whatever complicated machinery or multiplied personality it may reveal itself, is at bottom the mere instrument and tool of the divine energy. To shew how this divine principle of order manifested itself in the enunciation of articulated speech among the ancient Greeks and Romans, is the object of the few following observations.

The subject is not, as some may be apt to imagine, a trifling one. Nothing in God's world is trifling except in the hands of a trifler. It is a curious subject, out of the way a little perhaps, but not on that account destitute of interesting human bearings, or barren of important practical results. Minute metrical and grammatical studies have done essential injury to the character of British scholarship, not because they have been pursued eagerly, but because they have been pursued exclusively-because they were rested in as an end, not used as a means. "Non obstant ha disciplina per illas euntibus sed circa illas hærentibus," says Quinctilian. Whatsoever relates to the music of speech, to the harmonious expression of high thought in a living soul, must ever be a subject not merely of curious remark to the scholar, but of subtle inquiry to the metaphysician, and of sublime contemplation to the philosopher.

The subject is also, to a certain extent, a difficult one; but the difficulty happily does not lie so much in any essential and inherent obscurity as in these merely relative circumstances: (1). That of the few men who devote themselves to speculating in any country, the majority will naturally prefer speculations on the faculties of the human mind themselves, to the philosophy of that which is merely the expression of these faculties, viz. Language. (2). Of the few who devote themselves to the study of language, whether as philosophers, scholars, or practical elocutionists, very

few possess that combination of speculative ingenuity, erudite research, and living experience, which is necessary to avoid onesided, and to acquire comprehensive views of so curious a subject. Scholars are not always-the scholars of the English Porsonian school certainly were not-very profound philosophers; and English elocutionists, even when, like Thomas Sheridan and Walker, they may philosophize most ingeniously in their own department, are very seldom profound scholars; while, from the strange neglect or preposterous subordination of the English language, long too common in British grammar-schools, it has happened most seldom of all that our great Greek and Latin scholars were good practical elocutionists. When to all this we add, that some notion of music, and of its general relation to poetry, is essential to the proper understanding of the philosophy of ancient rhythmical recitation'; we shall not be surprised to find that within the narrow compass of the human throat and mouth there has been found matter for a more cumbrous up-piling of erudite blunders, and busy weaving of ingenious crotchets, than the domain of any remotest and most extensive province of metaphysical speculation exhibits. Nihil est tam absurdum quod non dixerit aliquis philosophorum :—the greatest recorded nonsense in the English language is to be found in the books of learned men who have spent their lives in a solemn academical jugglery with accent and quantity, Penthemimeral caesuras and Cretic endings, Dochmiac verses, and Antispastic strophes.

In the remarks which follow we shall cut a long discussion short in the threshold, by setting out with one or two definitions. What do we mean by ACCENT?

What do we mean by QUANTITY ?

What do we mean by RHYTHM?
And what by METRES?

FIRST, as to Accent. ACCENT means the following things. (1). It means the pitch of the voice as high or low, acute or grave, the tune or tone of articulated speech; and this it means in a triple application. First, it has this meaning with respect to the syllables of a word; the syllabic accent. Second, it has this meaning with respect to the word or words of a sentence, the clause of an oratorical period. One clause of a period we say

1 "Tum nec citra musicen grammatice misque dicendum sit." QUINCTILIAŃ potest esse perfecta, cum de metris ryth- 1. 4.

is spoken in a high key, another in a low. Thirdly, it has this meaning, partly at least, in respect to the character of national or provincial enunciation. Thus when we talk of the Scotch accent, or the Glasgow twang, we mean a certain tone or tune to which the Scotch or the Glasgow people are accustomed as it were to sing their sentences.-That the pitch of the voice, as high or low, in a series of syllables compared among themselves, is the proper and original signification of accent, will be immediately shewn; in the meantime we may only remark, that this is the sense in which the word is used by Mr. Steele in his very ingenious work the Prosodia Rationalis, and also by Mr. Thelwall, Mr. Chapman, and all writers, both English and foreign, who have approached the subject of rhythmical language from its proper portal, Music. Mr. Foster also, the Cambridge scholar, author of the famous controversial work on Accent and Quantity, uses the word accent in this sense.

(2). Accent means superior stress or energy of vocal utterance given to certain syllables of a word, or words of a sentence, in comparison of those with which they are connected. In the case of syllables, the accent is specially called syllabic; in the case of sentences, it corresponds with what is perhaps more commonly called the oratorical emphasis. This is the sense in which accent is commonly used in our pronouncing dictionaries, when we say, for instance, a word is accented on the penult, or on the antepenult. In this sense, accordingly, it is exclusively used by Mr. Walker; the other phenomena of voice, which Mr. Steele and his followers express by the term accent, he discusses not less philosophically under the title of the rising and falling inflection. Thomas Sheridan, also, in his ingenious and excellent work, The Art of Reading (2nd edition. London, 1781), uses the word exclusively in this sense.

2 "Cantus quidam dicendi," Cicero. See below, note 12, a well-known passage. 3 The very ingenious and philosophical works where elocution is treated on musical principles, which I have consulted, are these :

(1) Prosodia Rationalis; or an essay towards establishing the melody and measure of speech to be expressed and perpetuated by peculiar symbols, by Joshua Steele. London, 1775, 2nd edit. 1779.

(2) Illustrations of English Rhythmus, by John Thelwall. London, 1812.

(3) The Musick or Melody and Rhythmus of Language, by the Rev. James Chapman. Edin. 1818.

(4) Rhythmical Grammar, by the same. Ditto, 1821.

(5) The Principles of Rhythm, both in Speech and Music, by Richard Roe. Dublin, 1823.

Accent, with modern writers on music, is employed to denote that prominence which, by means of a more marked tonic impulse ("rhythmical pulsation:" ROE), is given by a singer or player to one note of a series of notes called a bar, above the other notes of the bar. The accented and unaccented, or, as they are frequently termed in modern phraseology, the strong and the weak parts of a bar, correspond to the béois and apots of the ancient musicians; the éois being the position, or laying on of the tonic stress, the apois the taking off, or uplifting of the same- -Niedertakt and Auftakt, as the Germans say, the down part and the up part of the bar. It is remarkable, and carefully to be noted, that Bentley and the modern metricians use these technical terms in an exactly opposite sense; they by arsis understanding the accented syllable, the syllable whereon the metrical accent (ictus metricus) falls, and by thesis the unaccented. Let this serve as a specimen of the perplexities in which the grammarians, acting for themselves independently of their lawful masters, the musicians, have involved every part of the plain and simple doctrine of Rhythm.

SECOND, as to Quantity. QUANTITY (if we except Scaliger's wide use of the word") has happily only one meaning on paper. The confusion begins only with many persons when reference is made to the ear, the original and only proper witness in the case.

4 I have called the accent a more marked tonic impulse. I do not say it is in all cases necessarily a stronger impulse. "When we listen to the beats of a watch we are at first disposed to reckon them by pairs; and we invariably find that the first of each pair is considered by us as a strong and the other as a feeble sound. We may be easily satisfied, however, that this is not owing to any real inequality in the force of the sound; because we can often reverse this order by fixing the attention upon one of our feeble sounds, and considering it as the first of a parcel. After we have listened for some time to the beats according to this new arrangement, we still find that the first of each pair is strong and the other feeble." Essay on Rhythmical Measures, by Walter Young, Minister of the gospel at Erskine: Edinburgh Royal Society Transactions, Vol. II. part ii. p. 61. Aristides'

account of musical accent is quite to the same effect. Ρυθμός ἐστι σύστημα ἐκ χρόνων κατά τινα τάξιν συγκειμένων. Καὶ τὰ τούτων πάθη καλοῦμεν ἄρσιν καὶ θέσιν, ψόφον καὶ ἠρεμίαν. καθόλου γὰρ τῶν φθόγγων διὰ τὴν ὁμοιότητα τῆς κινήσεως ἀνέμφατον τὴν τοῦ μέλους ποιουμένων πλοκὴν, καὶ εἰς πλάνην ἀγόντων τὴν διάνοιαν τὰ τοῦ ῥυθμοῦ μέρη τὴν δύναμιν τῆς μελῳδίας ἐναργῆ καθίστησι. De Mus. p. 31. Meibom. i.e. It is the business of accent to emphatize a continuous succession, distinguishing it into a succession of strong and weak parts.

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