νόμασας, ἃ μαραί νει με χρίουσα κέν τροισι φοιταλέοις ; ἓ, ἕ. σκιρτημάτων δὲ νήστισιν αἰκίαις λαβρόσυτος ἦλθον, Ἥρας 620 legitur κραιπνόσυτον in anapæsticis. τε pro δὲ habent Ald. Rob. et MSS. quidam. 620. κέντροισι omnes ante Burneium ; recte. 621. φοιταλέοισιν omnes. Monuit Censor Trimestris (Q. R. V. p. 223.) legendum esse φοιταλέοις, secunda producta, conferens Eur. Orest. v. 321. ubi φοιταλέον. φεῦ μόχθων. respondet versui antistrophico 337. δεινών πόνων, ὡς πόντου. 623. Idem Censor vocem "Hpas, quæ vulgo deest, e Scholiasta A. inserendam esse primus animadvertit; nec aliter Hermannus apud Seidler. de Dochm. p. 164. 624. Ita recte edd. vett. μήδεσιν Pauw. ἐπικότοισιν Burn. 629. Fluctuant libri inter τί μὴ χρή, τί με χρή, et τί μοι χρή. obelo notavit Porsonus. Feliciter, ut opinor, conjecit Elmsleius τί μηχαρ, observans utrumque μήχαρ et μήχος non male per απαλλαγή explicari posse. In Stropha, si modo recte a nobis divisa sit, e metris dochmiacis constant versus 593. 595. 597. 599. 604. 611. Cretici dimetri sunt vv. 598. 600. 601. 609. 612. E creticis et dochmiacis conjunctis constant vv. 594. 605. e cretico et ditrochæo v. 596. J. H. M. STATEMENT OF SOME OPINIONS RESPECTING THE GREEK ACCENT. THE question respecting the pronunciation of the Greek language has divided itself into two distinct parts, one relating to the sound of the vowels, diphthongs, and consonants; the other referring to the manner which should be adopted in the prolation of words with a proper regard to accent. In the controversy which arose on the former part of the subject many scholars of the Continent were engaged: among our own countrymen, Bishop Gardiner, Professor Cheke, and Sir T. Smith took the most active part. The diversity of opinion which has been entertained on the expediency or inutility of attending to the information pointed out by the Greek accents, has produced many treatises the works of Primatt, Gally, Foster, Horsley, and Mitford are those of our own country, which contain the most detailed information on the subject. ; It is probable, that on neither one, nor the other of these questions will the learned world ever come to an entire agreement : accents will still be considered by many mute and unmeaning marks;" (Gibbon): nor will the most strenuous advocates for the use of them either understand clearly, or be able to explain to others satisfactorily, "That secret power of Harmony and Tone'," which was so pleasing to the ear of a Greek. With respect to the pronunciation of the letters of the language, the various nations of Europe differ from each other, and all differ, in a greater or smaller degree, from the right mode. In England, we are almost singular in the erroneous and vitiated pronunciation of some letters; we Englishmen," says Milton in his Tractate on Education, being northerly, do not open our mouth in the cold air wide enough to grace a southern tongue." Scaliger was once complimented by an Irishman in Latin; but the sound of the words was so unlike any thing to which the ears of that scholar had been accustomed, that he supposed the stranger was addressing him in his native idiom; and in answer to his address, he replied, Domine, 66 1. Milton. non intelligo Irlandice. If it could be possible to cite the best scholars in Europe before the 'HXiaia at Athens, or the assembled senate of Rome, we suspect that few entire sentences of a pleading of Isæus, or a Verrine oration would be so spoken by them, as to be comprehended by their audience.-These questions must, from the nature of them, continue to be involved in doubt and obscurity; and although some light may be thrown upon them from what we find in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Grammarians and Scholiasts, yet there will be many things, which, to use the words of Sanctius, fugient nostras aures. The first opponent of the propriety of accents was Isaac Vossius; for it does not appear that Scaliger doubted whether these virgula were properly placed, as we find them; he observed only, that if the nice tonical pronunciation of the antients could be expressed by a modern, it would be disagreeable to our ears. (Foster.) But Vossius questioned their situation upon the words, and thinking them inconsistent with the short syllables, he removed them to those which were long. It has been remarked, that in examining the question concerning the use of accents, we ought to attend to the testimonies which the antients themselves afford; for they alone are competent to give proper evidence on the subject. Did they, then, consider them as opposed to quantity? The defenders of the accents, answer in the negative; for quantity is the foundation on which the accentual system stands; it is the circumstance which the most general rules for the seat or species of accent, regard. (Hors. 39.) "The antient Attics, says Eustathius (Od. H. p. 284.) made the final ā of such words long; wherefore they acuted their penultima, and said ayvoía." (Foster, 339.) The opponents of the accents say, that in the time of Aristophanes the grammarian, and his immediate successors, they were placed according to quantity, but that afterwards, the grammarians departed from that system, used them in a different manner, and assigned to them their actual position. Vossius contended that until the time of Antoninus and Commodus, and indeed to the seventh century, accents and quantity agreed, and that the marks were employed for instruction in metre. But the observations of Ælius Dionysius, Apollonius, Herodian, and other critics of the time of Hadrian, shew that they read their copies of the antient writers by the same visible notation of accent which was used by the grammarians of Alexandria; and the scholiasts and commentators of subsequent ages to the times of Eustathius, Lascaris, Gaza, agree with those who preceded them. The chain of evidence on this part of the subject is unbroken. Bishop Horsley endeavoured to shew, that the accentual system, as handed down to us was not phonetical merely, before the time of Aristophanes, but was a written notation used in Greece. The decision of this point does not appear very important. If it be asked, why accents were not used in writing, as in pronunciation, before the time of the Alexandrian critics, a visible notation, it is answered, was not wanted: this was necessary at Alexandria, not at Athens; it was of use to strangers and the children of strangers learning Greek, but not to those who were acquainted with it as a vernacular idiom. Mr. Blomfield has observed, that in the Venetian Scholia, when mention is made of the grammarians who succeeded Aristophanes, they are said to use the accentual marks; but that nothing of the kind is stated, when the names of those who lived before him are referred to; and this, he adds, is a strong presumptive proof in favour of the common opinion which ascribes the first introduction of them to that grammarian. But accent (podía) it is said, had a reference to music only; it is defined, τóvos πρos öv adoμer-This, it was replied, is only one part of the definition; the other adds, kai Toùs Xóyovs TOLοúμelα, which extends it to reading and speaking1. Dionysius also, when he mentions the constituent parts of perfect writing or speaking, uses the words τάσεις φωνῆς, αἱ καλούμεναι προσωSia, diapopo, "different tones of voice, that are called accents," Пepi Evve. They were musical marks.-Ans. This is not true; music had its own marks, namely characters formed from alphabetical letters. (Hors. 37.) They were metrical marks.-Ans. Quantity had its own separate marks. The literary researches which are now actively carried on at Naples, will inform us whether the Virgulæ are observable in the Herculanean MSS. Villoison', on the authority of Winkelman quotes the word OYKOYN from the treatise of Philodemus on Rhetoric, as having accents. They have been seen on no inscription of the cursive character, of old date; for that which was said to have been discovered on a wall at Herculaneum, is now con sidered by the best scholars on the continent as spurious. (Schow de P. B. 112.) In the following words which we give from Gruter, we find a rare instance of an accented inscription in uncial letters. ΑΙΔΗΜΩΝ Variorum Corrigenda. CCCXLVII. That the want of a visible notation of them might sometimes lead to a misapprehension of a passage in the antient writers, is evident from the instances quoted by H. Stephanus, of the confusion of διαβαλών, διαβαλῶν, διαβολῶν in a passage of Plato. (Foster, $41.) Origen, we are told, read the words OYAIZOIXOPAZIN as if they meant, "Woe to thee, land of Zin," instead of "Woe to thee, Chorazin." We may add, that Jerome confounded aryvos and ἁγνὸs, and understood by ΚΑΘΑΙΡΕΙ, subvertit (καθαιρεῖ,) when the meaning of the passage requires, xabaíper emundavit. (G. Vossius, de A. G. L. 2. c. 8.) It was contended by those, who asserted that accent affected the syllable, over which it was placed, that the scholiast on Hephæstion quotes this line of Homer in the 12th Iliad, and adds that the acute in opw lengthens the first syllable. Τρώες δ' ἐῤῥίγησαν, ἐπεὶ ἴδον αἰόλον ὄφιν. and that Eustathius on the line (Od. K. v. 60.) Bv eis Aióλov Kλvтa duaтα, says, there is a violation of the metre, of which the acute in Aióλov is to be the Oepareia, the restorative medicine. (Foster's Reply, 38.) Ans. The scholiast's explanation is wrong upon this principle; that if accent had made any part of the doctrine of quantity, it is strange that Hephaestion professing to treat on the latter, should not have mentioned the former in the course of his work, (Horsley, 137.) With respect to Eustathius, it appears, says Foster, that he was far from being satisfied with his own explanation. The two words were probably pronounced on wv, Aioúλov. The reader will find in Mr. Gaisford's Hephaestion two passages cited from Eustathius and Scaliger, respecting the first of these words (pp. 181, 182.) In examining the work of Dr. Gally, we may remark that a great part of it is irrelevant to the discussion of the question between himself, and Dr. Foster: for he observes towards the end of it, that his chief object was to shew," that the Greek language |
