cannot be pronounced according to accent, i. e. according to that acute accent, which we use, without spoiling the quantity." This would be readily conceded by every one who has attended to the first principles of the question; because in our own language, quantity and accents usually go together: "the longest syllable in almost every word being that on which the accent falls." (Hors. p. 4.) Dr. G. should have shewn that they were not separated, nor separable in the Greek language.—If, as he asserted, elevation necessarily implied prolongation, some one of the syllables in λεγε, λέγετε, λεγομενα must be long; the acute must be placed on one of them; but which would be lengthened? (Foster, 265.)

:

The prejudice against the Greek accents, (the defenders of them remark) seems to have arisen from supposing that, because in most modern languages a long time is commonly connected with elevation of voice, they were necessarily connected in the languages of Greece and Rome. "You are deceived," says Melancthon, "if you say that acute and long, or grave and short are the same. The generality of grammarians are apt to blunder wretchedly in this affair. All long syllables are not acuted in Virgilius, Vir is long, but not acuted; nor all acuted long; in Virgilius, gi is acuted, though short." (Foster, 120.) The distinction between accent and quantity, in Greek, as well as their use in ordinary pronunciation and discourse are pointed out by Dionysius in the following passage: "When we are taught our letters, we first learn their names, then their forms and powers:—after this, he adds, we proceed to whole words, with their particular modes and qualities. I mean the length, and shortness of them, and their accents." Tepi Zvv. (Foster, 160.)

In answer to a question asked by Dr. G. whether an acute accent may be sounded in such a manner as will not make the short syllable on which it is laid, appear long, Dr. F. replied, that he would elevate and shorten the penultimate of Kupiov in the judgment of any ear that can distinguish a high from a low tone in as easy, and discernible a manner as he could shorten the

grave penultima of maximos.” He quoted Cheke's words, who said that many of his Greek scholars were capable of expressing the true sound of the letters, their quantity, their accent, with great ease. He had already referred to the words of Michaelis, who approved of the opinion of Gesner, "that the accents do

not at all determine which syllable is to be pronounced longest; that the accent for instance of avepwrоs being placed on the first syllable doth not oblige us to pronounce the word as a dactyl; thus as the Greeks spoke somewhat more musically than we, they pronounced some syllables more distinctly than others; they raised their tone and dropped it; and the accents are evidences of this." The learned translator of Michaelis was informed by Professor Reiz, that he had frequently heard Eugenius a Greek priest, afterwards Archbishop of Cherson, read Greek verse, and that he marked by his pronunciation both accent and quantity. Marsh's Mich. Vol. II. p. 901.

It is to be regretted that some of those eminent scholars who were well qualified to treat this subject with great accuracy and clearness, have only left us a few remarks upon it. Bentley uses the words, Ratio hodie præpostera atque perversa Græcorum accentuum. (Epist. ad Millium, p. 82.) He seems to have thought with Dawes, that the use of them now would be wrong, because it would be difficult to apply them without vitiating the quantity of the syllables. But whatever was his opinion in the passage we have cited, in a later work, as Foster remarks, written professedly on Metre and Rythm (de Terent. metris) he considers the Greek accents as differing from the Latin, without hinting the least suspicion of their present visible system being vicious or corrupted.

Valckenaer allowed that they were to be used, as being necessary to "determine a diversity of signification in words," but was of opinion that no one verse of a Poet, or sentence of an Orator, should be read according to them. Vid. Dawes. Misc. Crit. edit. Burgess. p. 369.

D'Orville thought they were formerly used, non quantitatis indicandæ causa, sed ad pronunciationem et rythmum regendum. Crit. Vann. p. 333.

The remarks of Gerard Vossius (c. x. 1. 2. de A. Ģ.) shew that he thought the Romans shortened and sharpened the penultimate of calefacis, tepefacis, saying, κaλepákis, temepákis, but that the moderns either pronounce, καλεφάκις, τεπεφάκις, οι καλέPAKIS, TETÉPAKIS; similar errors, he says, pervade our pronunciation of Greek. Hodie quisquis Poeta alicujus versus recitat, aut accentus tantum rationem habet, aut solum quantitatis. Veteres, me judice, longe aliter, qui utriusque rationem habebant.

Markland, in a letter to Dr. Taylor, thinks, they were designed by those who left Greece to settle in a nation of a different tongue, and were desirous that their children or successors should continue in the knowledge or use of speaking the Greek language; and in a letter to Dr. Foster, he says, he has long been satisfied of the antiquity of the Greek accents; he thought no real scholar could ever doubt of it; and adds, "the present common way of quoting Greek without accents, I always took for nothing more than a subterfuge for ignorance."

Those who have directed their attention to the subject of accent, cannot have forgotten the two remarks made by one of the most judicious and accurate scholars of modern times: ou the negative particle, was pronounced in the age of Aristotle öğutóvws, but we never find it acuted in the middle of a sentence again; the same particle ov, and the adverb où, aspirate and circumflexed, were confounded in pronunciation in Aristotle's time. (Tyrwhitt in Aristot. Poet. Sec. 46.) As nothing can be collected from the treatises on accent which we have examined, we should be glad to see some solution of these difficulties.

If, after all that has been written, we might venture to offer an opinion, we should say, that the pronunciation according to the marks invented by Aristophanes, was attended to by the Alexandrians and their successors; that a gradual abuse of the power of the acute was introduced, and at last prevailed to a great degree. Part of the evidence which we should bring to prove this, would be taken from many verses in Greek, in which we find the acute lengthening the syllable over which it is placed. That this tone in the days of the Scholiast on Hephaestion, and Eustathius, was considered by some as affecting the metre is evident from the passages we have referred to. We have no doubt, that if we were to attempt to use the accents, the same erroneous pronunciation would be adopted, which has been established among the Greeks for many centuries. If a modern Greek was to recite the following verse of Archilochus, it would be impossible to discover the second and fourth Iambic feet πεπαρμένος δι ̓ ὀστέων. In alterutrum vitium incidebant omnes, qui, me audiente, accentuum vim in Græcæ linguæ pronunciatione exprimere conati sunt; aut enim, voce sublata et sono intentiore, vocalem producebant; aut ictu vel impetu quodam vehementiore

;

articulandi, consonantem secutam conduplicabant'. The abuse of the accents in their poetical compositions is one of long standing among the Greeks, and must have arisen from a wrong application of them in common discourse. Mr. Mitford remarks" that we are no way positively assured whether the Greek restorers of Grecian learning in the West expressed exactly the ancient quantities of syllables; but we know that in poetical composition they were justly attentive to them." We cannot agree with him in this observation, because instances of metrical inaccuracy, which we shall on a future occasion produce, are to be found not only in the writings of C. Lascaris and Philelphus, but in the works of Greeks who preceded them more than a thousand years.

1. Knight, Proleg. 88.

R. W.

ON THE

DRAMATIC REPRESENTATIONS

OF THE

GREEKS.

THE following account of the origin and progress of dramatic representations amongst the Greeks, is intended principally for our younger readers, and has no other merit than that of comprizing in small compass the most important of the information which is widely scattered in different books relating to this subject. The labours of Casaubon, and of the Commentators on Aristotle, have left but little to be added to what is already known respecting it : but the great attention which is paid by scholars of the present day to the remains of the Greek drama, induces us to hope that a summary view of the leading facts in its history may be permitted with advantage to occupy some portion of our Journal.

I.

On the Origin of Tragedy and Comedy.

The ancient Greeks met annually in their villages (kwμai) at the end of harvest or vintage; to offer sacrifices to the Gods, and to partake of relaxation and festivity; διὰ τῆς συντονίας ἀνάπαυ ow, as Aristotle says1. The principal object of their reverence was Alóvvoos, Bacchus, the inventor of wine, and an important personage in the most ancient mythology of the Greeks; who was worshipped together with Ceres in the Eleusinian mysteries, as joint patron of agriculture, and who was perhaps the most ancient of all the Grecian deities. He seems to have been typical of the first generating principle; and therefore his most conspicuous emblem was the paλλos. At these meetings two kinds of poetry were naturally introduced; the one in honour of Bacchus, which Aristotle says was ὑψηλὸν καὶ ἐγκωμιαστικόν ; the other ludicrous and satyrical, interspersed with mutual sarcasms and jests; yeλolóτερον καὶ ἰαμβίζον. Versibus alternis opprobria rustica fundens. But this species also was in honour of Bacchus, although of a lighter and more familiar cast than the former.

The loftier and more poetical song was afterwards termed SOúpaußos, a term, of which no satisfactory explanation has yet been given❜.

1. Eth. Nicom. VIII. αἱ ἀρχαῖαι θυσίαι καὶ σύνοδοι φαίνονται γίνε σθαι (1. γενέσθαι) μετὰ τὰς τῶν καρπῶν συγκομιδάς, οἷον ̓Απαρχαί. μάλιστα γὰρ ἐν τούτοις ἐσχόλαζον τοῖς καιροῖς. Horace applies this account of the origin of poetical contests to his own country. "Agricolæ primi," &c.

2. Proclus says, ὁ δὲ διθύραμβος γράφεται μὲν εἰς Διόνυσον, προσαγορεύεται δὲ ἐξ αὐτοῦ, ἤτοι διὰ τὸ κατὰ τὴν Νύσαν ἐπ' ἄντρῳ διθυράμβῳ τραφῆναι τὸν Διόνυσον· ἢ διὰ τὸ, λυθέντων τῶν ῥαμμάτων τοῦ Διὸς, εὑρεθῆναι αὐτόν· ἢ διότι δὶς δοκεῖ γενέσθαι. p. 382. ed. Gaisf. Instead of én ävτрæ dilupauß, which is nonsense, we should read, from the Scholia on Plato p. 158. ὑπ ἄντρῳ διθύρῳ. The words ἴαμβος, θρίαμβος and dilupaußos, seem to be related to each other. Perhaps they are corruptions of Egyptian words; for the worship of Bacchus was unquestionably of Egyptian origin. Alupaußos was an ancient title of that deity, as Пaiav was of Apollo; and both terms were afterwards applied to songs in honour of their respective possessors. The oldest mention of the dithyramb is in a fragment of Archilochus, ap. Athen. XIV. 628. p.