Υπαγ ̓ ἀθάνατε, στοὺς οὐρανίους. Τετράστιχον τοῦ . . . . πρὸς Νικηταρᾶν τὸν στρατηγόν. *Αλογον μὲ τὴν οὐρὰ In our last No. (p. 274.) an error has inadvertently occurred, which we hasten to correct. Instead of the very classical copy of verses written by the learned and amiable. Dr. Ramsden, on the occasion there specified, a Latin charade was inserted. The whole passage should have stood thus :— Verses written in 1784 by the REV. DR. RAMSDEN, late deputy Regius Professor in the University of Cambridge, on being prevented from reading the grace in the Hall of Trinity College, on Trinity Sunday, (the then Commemoration day,) along with MR. BELL, the distinguished Chancery Barrister, on account of their personal appearance and uncouth dialect. Una ibant juvenes duo Ripam ad flumineam forte; silentium Luctus causa eadem, culpa eadem ; Deus Ne qua verba sonent sesquipedalia. Tum ut par flebile turturum, Alterno incipiunt cum gemitu. B. Scelus Ut me, tu juvenum sancte pater, vetes R. Sprevisti quoque nos; muneris at memor B. At quamvis mihi vox barbara Vandali R. Quamvis et statuâ sum taciturnior, B. Quamvis ore magis cardine dissona, R. Quamvis me superat ventus, ut improbus B. Quamvis non superant Indica tympana Incus pulsave malleo. R. Quamvis me superat pullus avis querens, B. Non flavens meruit dedecus hoc coma, R. Nec nos hoc tulimus jure, quia in genis B. At me Pythagoras seliget, ut suam Doctrinam ex liquido fonte Matheseos. Dum corvi veluti, grex alius strepunt. ON A NEW MODE OF PRONOUNCING THE ANCIENT LANGUAGES. As the following article is one of the chapters of an unpublished work, it may be proper to set down shortly some of the leading principles of the work, and an explanation of some of the marks. Ancient accent the author considers as solely relating to the elevation and depression of the voice, and not to quantity: Modern, or at least English accent, he considers on the authority of Johnson, and of Foster, as simply relating to the length of syllables, and not to their elevation or depression in recitation; those syllables on which our accent is laid, being always (though not equally long) longer than those on which it is not laid. He gives in proof of it, the convertibility of the accentual and of the ancient marks: accented syllables corresponding with the long; unaccented with the short; both marks guiding to the same quantity and cadence. He considers the ictus metricus, with the arsis and thesis, as the ancient guide in recitation, and as incompatible with our mode; the ictus as a stroke or 1 Sc. the choristers. stress given, in hexameters, to the first syllable of every foot which must invariably be long. The pyrrhic has no standard in English, as we accent every dissyllable either on the first or on the last syllable; nor has it any in Greek or Latin, as we accent them in the same manner. A mark which he has placed under the last syllable of every pyrrhic [1] is of a negative kind; it is intended to warn the reader not to lay any accent on the first syllable, as that would check the progress, ipso in limine, of this rapid foot; and likewise to indicate that he is to give the slightest possible touch, and no more than is necessary for articulation, to the last: and, if he passes quickly over the one to the other, and quits the last almost as soon as he has touched on it, he will give to the whole that peculiar lightness, the true characteristic of the pyrrhic, which distinguishes it from the other ancient dissyllabic feet, and of which, the author believes, there is scarcely an example in any modern language. As he wishes to show the effect of our accent, he has placed above the line, the accentual mark over every syllable on which we lay it; and has also placed the ancient mark of long over the same syllable, whether really long or short in the verse and with the same proviso, the mark of short over every unaccented syllable. Below the line he has placed a stroke [-] as a mark of the ictus on the first of every foot in hexameters; and the pyrrhic mark [], wherever a pyrrhic occurs, under the last syllable. He considers it as absolutely necessary to omit the elided syllables in pronouncing the Latin as we do in pronouncing the Greek, as otherwise there can be no metre wherever they occur: every elided syllable, if pronounced, is redundant: there are often two or more in the same line; and it is obvious that there can be no metre with even a single one. L "In a former part of this Essay' I have slightly mentioned a mode of pronouncing the iambus and the pyrrhic, originally, I believe, introduced at the Charter House, which has of late years very much prevailed. The old mode (according to which I have hitherto marked those feet above the line) is to place the accent immediately after the vowel, as pe'ya and magis, equally so whether they were iambi or pyrrhics: the new mode, to place it after the consonant, as μey'a and mag'is, to pronounce them as we should if written peyy'a and magg'is, in which way I shall write them in this particular discussion. The ground of this alteration is, that μe'ya and magis are positive trochees, that the first syllable is evidently long, and that it ought to be made short in pronunciation; than which nothing can be more just; the question, Essay on the Modern Pronunciation of the Greek and Latin Languages. however, is, whether the alteration be an effectual remedy, or indeed any remedy at all. I trust it has been satisfactorily shown in the early part of these pages, that our accent uniformly gives -length to the accented syllable, the unaccented being uniformly short; consequently that all dissyllables accented on the first must be trochees; when after the vowel perfect, when after the consonant imperfect, but still trochees. I have also shown, what indeed is most evident, that we have a number of iambi in English perfect standards for the quantity and cadence of that foot in Latin, though we never make use of them for that purpose, pronouncing the Latin word a'go, not like our English word ǎgō', and this universally thoughout that language. In the Greek we give to some dissyllables (contracted by elision from trisyllables) what I consider as the true quantity and cadence of the iambus, as yuvaik', eeir', accenting them on the final; are they considered in the same light by the advocates of this system? If the answer be in the affirmative, then they are acknowleged standards for the pronunciation of that foot, and there can be only one standard; yet in the same line, a word equally an iambus from the structure of the verse, is pronounced in the new way Beλλos: both cannot be right; and therefore they should consistently either change their pronunciation of the first to αυταρ εππ'είτ' αυτοισι, or that of the second to Běλōs exeπevкes epieis. There can scarcely be a doubt that this last mode should be adopted in this and in all cases, as invariably agreeing in metre and rhythm with the few but exact standards in Greek, and the numerous undeniable standards in English, and as being in all cases consistent. Why then, it may be asked, when so simple, obvious, and consistent, a mode presented itself, was recourse had to a mode which already appears (and will appear more strongly) to be inconsistent with our occasional pronunciation of the iambus in Greek, and our constant pronunciation of it in English? Two causes may be assigned, closely connected with each other: the one, that there is no dissyllable in English really a pyrrhic, which in that case would have been, as so many iambi are, standards for pronunciation: the other, that a number of them are falsely considered as such, and as perfect standards for the quantity and sound of that foot in Greek and in Latin: on this very material point I shall offer some observations, in addition to those I have already made. All such words as body, berry, mon'ey, &c. the accent being after the consonant, are, as I have ventured to assert, falsely considered as pyrrhies, and standards; their first syllable being supposed to be positively, not comparatively, short: such words, when a preceding syllable is added to them, often form a dactyl, as somebody, nobody, strawberry, &c. and it is evident that the two last syllables of a dactyl must be a pyrrhic; and no less so, that in all distinct dactyls we uniformly pronounce them as such, whether in ancient or in modern languages: on these grounds the two last syllables of somebody, strawberry, &c. must be pyrrhics, must have the true sound and cadence of that foot, and be standards ` for its pronunciation. What is that sound? not that of body or berry, but, as every one will perceive who first sounds the dactyls, and then the two last syllables as he did sound them, body, běrry, just like color without the dis. Discólor is at once felt to be no dactyl; why? because our accent is on the second syllable; change it to the first, discolor, the dactyl is restored in the same manner somebody is no dactyl, but an amphibrach; shift the accent, and the dactyl sómebody is restored. What is then the process by which the imperfect trochees body, berry, &c. become pyrrhics? clearly by the accent being taken from 'them, which made their first syllable long, and by its being laid on the first of the compound somebody, strawberry; and our ancestors, when they formed those compounds, seem, by a sort of instinct, to have felt, though they might not know, that accent gave length and thus to have reversed what Madame du Deffand so ingeniously says of the Duchess of Choiseul, "Elle sait qu'elle m'aime, mais ne le sent pas." It may perhaps be said by the advocates for English pyrrhics; admitting that these dissyllables must be deprived of their accent before they can, as pyrrhics, form the ends of dactyls, still they are the only examples you have produced of such a conversion; can you give any of real acknowleged trochees so converted? In answer to the question, which is a very fair one, I shall propose the following examples, in all the different vowels, Mary, rosemary; keeper, gamekeeper; finite, infinite; holder, Stadtholder; jury, perjury. There is at least one instance of an iambus being converted by the same process, as from below, fúrbelow: restore the accent to the iambus, keeping that on the first syllable, the dactyl becomes an amphimacer, the pyrrhic an iambus, fúrbelów. It is thus used in an old catch for the sake of the rhythm, and of the waggery, Adam catch'd Eve by the fúrbelów, And that's the oldest catch I know. I have mentioned the want of any dissyllabic standard for the pyrrhic as a principal cause of the false pronunciation of the iambus; yet it seems strange, that because we have no standard for the one, we should therefore make no use of the numerous and perfect standards for the other: the fact is, that there was a real difficulty and embarrassment respecting the new-fangled pyrrhic, as connected with the new-fangled iambus; thus, for instance, when in our usual method we pronounce the iambus mărī, and the pyrrhic mărě, as trochees, both, though equally false quantities, keep each other in countenance; and so in the new way, though likewise false quantities, do marr'i and marr'e: but if any one were to pronounce the iambus with an accent on the last syllable, as it evidently ought to be pronounced, and the pyrrhic with it |