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f ^ • .

AN ESSAY

ON 7H1

ENGLISH ELExMENTS,

&c. &c.

/ tc

f-i^e^nA'//

o,^

■^e/iA !/. ^J-JiC.

i=l

/?.

^y-*^ ^.,._^^

-y^^^^-y^'^ ,y^^ Oct a.

ESSAY

ON THE

Elements, Accents, 8r Prosody,

OF THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE;

Intended to have been printed as an Introduction to .

Mr. BOUCHER'S
Supplement to Johnsons Dictmiary,

By JONATHAN ODELL, M. A.

SECRETARY OF THE PROVINCE OF NEW BEU*N3WICK,

AND FORMERLY A MISSIONARY IN THE SERVICE

OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION

OF THE GOSPEL IN FOREIGN PARTS.

Ne quis tanquam parva fastidiat Grammatices Elementa.

An cujuslibet auris est exigere literarum sonos ? Non hercule
magis quam nervorum.

PRINTED FOR J. BUDD,CROWN AND MITRE^PALL MALL}
By G. Sidney, Northumberland Street, Strand.

1805.

PREFACE.

The substance of the following
Essay had lain {inembranis intus
positis) unseen, but by the partial
^jes of friendship, long before I
had any thought of sending it to
the press; and my motive to the'
publication now is very sincerely
stated in the conclusion; namely,
the hope that some persons, of more
leisure and ability, may be induced
to give every part of the subject
a thorough investigation.

A 3

R I 3 4» 3

I.!

So far as relates to the Elements
of our language, I am willing to
believe, that my system will meet
with general approbation. It is
simple, and I think inxjontestibly
true. It is also, r?iutatis mutandis,
universally applicable to every lan-
guage.

On the subject of accents, I
have done little more than com-
ment on the text of Mr. Steele ;
yet the reader may find, in the
comment, some ideas both new and
worthy of attention.

In the chapter of Prosody, I
have again been obliged to ex-

Vll

plore my own path ;— with what
success, I must now submit to the
opinion of that tribunal before which
I have ventured to appear, and of
which the judgment, sooner or later,
will be right.

If the life of the late Mr. Boucher
had been a little longer spared, this
Essay would have been much more
advantageously presented to the notice
of my judges, and in a state more
worthy of their approbation. But,
alas, how unimportant is this, when
compared with the general loss which
Itarning and religion have sustained
in the premature death of tliat excel-
lent man !

i \

? t

f^tV

'.)i ,

'i'f;)'

•1 .. I.

LOH!

iii

( ' )

■EMGJLISH ELEMENTS.

"^BT

1. The vocal and nniculate sounds, of
" ,?" '''""='" speech is composed, are bv

~''™f---"nnmbar/TonaLI
-.guage, therefore, and ascertain those eleven!
t-y sounds, which, by various cornbi Ltr„"
consftute the .hole of its vocab.Jary, w dd

em to be no very difficult undertaj; t
cer a„.. However, that we have yet no perfe

tect and irregular spelling. '

• ^5^ '^'"''' ^'""mies /,//,ry are meant ,„,!

lo-t-mes the W. of which those Je::::;:-

pecfvely the arbitrary signs. But.surely, things in
he,r nature so essentially different ought to have
d.stmct appellations. For the present, I beg leave
to use these names constantly i„ one sense, to
«pa,fy noT ktler.; but sounds only, which are the
r!cma,s of sp.,!, , and the principal reason of
, our present uncertainty respecting those elements,
m our own language, is,- that we have endea-
voured to ascertain then, by tracing the* various
powers of the letters «nich we read, instead of
comparing and classiiig the sounds which we
liear. ■

} 1

3. The vowels, in English, are represented
sometimes by single letters, and often by two or
more letters, combined; and, whether single or
combmed,the same characters frequently represent
different vo^vels. But, however represented, every
vowel m our language, except one, is subject to
the distmction of long and short, independently of
the other accidents of torn and emphasis. Man,
for instance, is a short syllable, and ma^^e a long'
one ; and, hence the first has been considered as
an example of the short, and the second an ex-
ample of the long vowel a. So also men and
mene, /W/and mo/e, exemplify what have been
called the short and long voive/s e and o. Let the >f

words, however, be compared, not as written cha-
racters, but as audible sounds; and if men and mane
be alternately pronounced with attention, they
will be found to differ in nothing but the length
of the vowel. So also moll, being only length-
ened in sound, becomes mawh, and by the same
process, the short syllable bam is drawn into
balm 5 bin into bean. Sec.

*• By this simple experiment we shall find,
.hat however clifFcrentljr represented, by single
letters, or otherwise, the v^e/s (always meaning
the vocal sounds) in every word or syllable of
the same class, in the following list, are constantly
the same, excepting only the diiTerence of .«a,>-
t'ty, which is marked in the usur! manner

- i

11 >

: I'f

; M / ««

List of Jiords classed according to
^ their respective Foiveh.

i. B6t, b6aght; coll, call; don, diwn 5 not,
naught; &<:.

2. Pan, paim; Igp, JaQ^h; rat. rHft ; Sam,
psalm; papa, &c.

3. Wn, bane; dell, dale ; wren, nam ; &c.

4. Bin, berin ; dim, deem ; deceive ; redeem, re-
veal ; &c.

5. No, known ; jocose, morose ; &c.

// 6. Book, b55n; pull, p66l ; loose, 15se ; do,
doom ; &c.
T. But, bun, done, son, &c. always short.

Of thei^e vowels, the last has been thought
peculiar to the English tongue. It is, in one re-
^ spect, an imperfect vowel, as it is incapable of
being prolonged, or forming a long syllable. It
is, however, very nearly the same with the Italian
chinsoy which is probably the same with the
ancient o///,<p:v ; nor does it differ sensibly from
the sound of e in the French monosyllables je,
me, te, se, que, le, &c. and in the final syllables
of the words gloire, victoire, &c. &c. when they
occur in poetical composition. See, on this sub-

-^rding to

lawn ', not,

i; &c.
redeem, re-

lose; do,
Drt.

n thought
in one re-
capable of
liable. It
the Italian
with the
sibly from
llables je,
1 syllables
^hen they
I this sub-

jcct, n leticr from Voltaire, subjoined to the
Abbe lyOl'wQt's Prosoc/ic Frangoisc.

h IS tins same short Imperfect vowel that wc
1-iear, though denoted by several clillerent letters,
in many of our fmal syllables, and others, whicli
have been sometiir-es ilistinguished by the epi-
tliet ofjhU-i such as over, under, better, liavoc,
)>!tot, atom, venom, jealous, mutinous, pillory,
coinmoner, thunderer, piUar, media-, &c. Lc,

For my own jiresent use, I must beg leave
to denote the seven vowels here specified by some
appropriate characters, for which purpose I shall
of course employ our present letters, with as little
deviation as possible from the respective uses to
which custom has already assigned them.

As our short syllables are more numerous than
the long ones, it will be convenient to make each
naked letter stand constantly for a short vowel,
and always to use the same letter, with the usual
mark of a long syllable, to represent the same
vowel when it is long.

Thus the second, third, fourth, and fifth vowels,
—I. «....., „ai bedcnoiea Dy the letters a, e,

B 3

». ; and the same vowels, when lon^, by a, c,
^ o. For the sixth vowel I take w, which as I
shall presently have occasion to prove, is already,
whenever it is sounded at all, the representative
of the short vowel which is heard in the words
>//, pull, &c. ; and therefore I would beg leave
by this simple sound, to denominate that letter
which, notwithstanding its form, and the nanl
so long assigned to it, is no more a double u, than
the ancient digamma, the parent of our F, was a
douhk g*

For the seventh vowel there remains our short
u ; and for the first, the most convenient resource,
aftordedbyour present alphabet, is to take our
black letter a. And thus every vowel will Juve
its own appropriate character, as in the following
hst : in tvhich the name and sound of each letter
is expressed in the cc...mon spelling.

'9' I

<-.

IJst of English Vowels.

N») Name Sliort. Long, r.xamples. Sound as commonly «pelt

1. aw. a. a Snl.Sal. Sol. Saul.'

ban. bam.
pen. pen.
tin. tin.
no. non.
pwl. pwl.

ah.
a.
e.
o.

00.

a.
e.
1.
o.

a.
e.
I.
6.

w. w.

ban. balm,
pen, pane,
tin. teen,
no. known,
pull. pool.

7. *ut. u. cul.cum.cuvur. cull, come, cover.

. 6. We have, in this list, examples of every
English vowel ; and of every vowel, indeed, that
cm be distinctly uttered by the human voice, ex-
cepting the french u, which I take to be the
same with the ancient -J^^n,, and which we have
not in our language. So £ir, therefore, as respects
the quality of sound, or the peculiar imdification
by which ihe organs of speech are so wonderfully
enabled to make one vowel constantly distinguish-

This seventh vowel can hardly be distinctly uttered by
tfelf. I therefore call it ut. But, in pronouncing this name,
the sound of t is not to be heard. It is only intended to cut
sliort the sound of the vowei denot^rl ;« »»,:, i:.. u., ,u .
letter u. ^

B 4-

ogc her are cloarJy tl.e same, and differ only i„
.7--/V Cut every vowel is, in so.ne dogL
-fl-,ed by articulation with different consonants

Dicunsius, in Itls celebrated Treatise on the sub-
ct of con,posu.on, has given a description of
>e var.ous positions .nd „,ovemen,s by which
')>e organs of speedx perform their office

His first observation, respecting the forn>ation
of the vowels is. « th=t they are all pronounced

by .neans of the larynx compressing thebre»,h.
„ '°g«her w,th a simple conformation of the

mouth, while the tongue contributes nothing,

but remains at rest."* '

This is true, if it be understood as n,eanlng "
only, that neither the conformation of the mouth
IS cha„gcd, nor the tongue ,mv.d, during the utter
ancc of any one paticular vowel : but as every
vowel requu-es an apprcpri^t, conformation of the

n.^o..,r.,. ,„ r«„r,x „„„, „, «,^^,„^ ^„^ ^^

•ns »,)„ 7rf^-,.«„ri:,,«.,o »«' «fv«™. Sect. XIV.

mouth, so is there an appropriate position ^ and
even />;•/;/, both of tlie tongue and lips, neces-
sary to every such oral conformation. Differ-
ent vowels, therefore, uttered in succession, re-
quire, in the shape and position of these parti-
cular organs, certain changes, which, though con-
siderable, are yet effected with such facihty, that
they escape observation, unless they are watched
with minute attention. Now every consonant
requires an appropriate motion either of the tongue
or the lips. 'V\:;i.en, therefore, any consonant is ut-
tered after a vowel in the same syllabi e,the motion,
whether of the lips or tongue, which is necessary
to the formation of the consonant, must cause
some small variation in the distinctive modifica-
tion of the vowel.— This, though in general
scarcely perceptible, is remarkable in articulations
with a subsequent r j as in the words airy ear, ire, '
ore, our, your, &c. But as this effect, in any par-
ticular combination, is uniform and constant, it

requires no alphabetical notation It is sufficient

that we know the elementary component sounds
denoted by their respective characters: for, in
combining these clemeius, the organs of speech
will naturally give to each particular articulation
Its proper utterance.

B 5

{

From this, however, there may seem to be
one exception. Our short second vowel, a,
IS a httle broader than the long one a, when
closed by this particular consonant ; as may be
observed in the words far, bar, „,,r, 8.c.
compared with/?/;-, l„ar, mare. See The differ-
ence between the several syllables here compared
IS so perceptible, that we seem to hear a vowel,
of intermediate aperture, between that of the
second and third above specified; but if we
try to pronounce this seemingly intermediate
vowel' by itself, we shall find it impossible. Is
It, then, the third vowel e, that we hear in
these long syllables ? All the English pronounce
ing dictionaries that I have seen tell us, indeed,
that it is. But this is certainly a mistake. Let
any one pronounce, in immediate succession, the
English word pair, for instance, and the French
word pere, and he will perceive them to differ,
in quality of sound, much more sensibly than the
English words par and pair ; yet there can be no
doubt that, in the French word, we distinctly
hear our long third vowel ; as in our English
monosyllable err, and in the first syllables of
merry, very, &c. we hear the short vowel of the
same class. In the words bear zndba/m, pair and
pa/m, therefore, we hear but one and the same

!■

seni to be
vowel, a,
? a, when
IS may be
T7mry 8^:c.
"he differ-
comparcd
r a vowel,
It of the
ut if we
ermediate
sible. Is
hear in

I indeed,
ke. Let
sion, the
? French

differ,
th?.n the
m be no
listinctly

English
ables of

1 of the
pair and
^e same

■J

vowel, which, though not quite so brond as in
Ifar and/^r, is certainly not e but a.

It is of some importance to place this fact in a
clear light, because, if the dictionaries above
mentioned arc regarded as accurate guides, the
mistake here pointed out may lead to practical
error, and to a gradual innovation, injurious to
the melody of our speech ; exchanging a nobler
for a feebler sound in a numerous class of words,
including some in which the vowel, though fol-
lowed byr, is not in the same syllable ; as in the
word panvu, for instance, which we are directed,
by Sheridan and others, to pronounce petrnty ac-
cording to my notation of the vowels above speci-
fied. So :iUo daring,- g/arhig, &c. must be minced
and stjueezed into Jeri^g, glerifig^ &c.

Some of these dictionaries direct our second
vowel a to be sounded, instead of the ^v<p:o,olccro,
ro n, in the word ivrathy by which this word is
debased in sound, and confounded with the ad-
jective rath.

T. A diphthong is a sound compounded of two
vowels, which are so blended, in their utterance,
as to form but one syllable. .Sometimes the

.»

couiponent vowels »,x. prono.mreJ so r.uMW
that they are hnrjly dlstinf.n.l.able ; but every

than usual, will be found to continue in a soun.l

J 'M-emfro,„ that in which it began, or from
Its diphthong sound."

By this test, Mr. Steele, the uutl.or of a very
-nge«;,.us work intitlej, P,w,W A'„/;Wu, has
l"-oved that the sound, connnonly consideretl as
a simpk^owcl. and denoted by the letter i, or y,
'" "^'-ords /, „,v, h, uUe,Ji,u, &c. is a real
d.phlhongi for if this sound be produced a little
beyond the usual time, it will constantly be per-
co.ved to run into the fourth vowel, i, in the list
above exhibited, as it is heard in the words /..,

'"n ^; ^^ '''° "'"' '''""'' ^^' ^^'' commonly
called the sound of our long u, he shows to be

evidently a complete diphthong, compounded of
our fourth and sixth vowels.

In both these he is undeniably right j but he
Also hnds a diphthong in the words ««,, ,„,,, &<-
ind „i hut, a,t, &c. ; in both which he is, by his
own test just now mentioned, as certainly mis-
taken.

It is always easy, by Mr. Steele's test, to ascer-

tain the sound in which a diphthong terminates ;
but tlie two component sounds of the diphthong
/, in particular, are so /apidly blended and com-
pressed together, that it is very difficult to catch
and distinguish the first of them. Dr. Wallis,
who also had perceived that / was certainly no;
a simple vowel, took it to be compounded of
what has been called e feminine and y, meaning
the short sound of this last letter. This, in my
notation, would be «/', very rapidly pronounced ;
Avhich, indeed, is nearly the sound commonly
given to it by foreigners, who always find it
difficult to catch the true English pronunciation
of /, ;«;•, niifie, &c. Mr. Steele conceives this
diphthong to be compounded of our first and
fourth vowels a, and i ; but these are evidently the
component sounds of the diphthong which is
heard in the words joy, cuy, &c. The same may,
indeed, be also the components of /, and the
diftcrence of these two diphthongs may possibly
consist merely in this circumstance, that in the
one, the first vowel is pronounced with the
utmost rapidity, and, in the other, is much
more distinctly sounded. To me, however, the
diphthong / seems to consist of the short u very
rapidly melted into i, the seventh and fourth
vowels above specified.

i'::

The diphchopRs. in o„r own and i„ „„„,
^nS-ge, ,.e .nucl. .....e numerous than gran .

-runs have, con.n^only supposed. In En„,is .

Z: '"'= r '-^''^ "- -ghteen. of which'.,
f"llow„,g l,s. contains a co.nplete exempliHcation ;
the component vowels being denoted by tl,e a,>-
P.opmte cl>arac,ers above n,en,.:one.l. an,l their
<i.Wvt ong sound expressed ,n the common

8. Li at of English Diphthongs.

1. «i. win joy, a'loy, coy, boy.

'2. aw .... bough, Qf)W, now, thou.

^- ai to be f iind now only I ■ the word aye.*

4. ui.....l, my, thy, fine, line 8i;;;n.

-'>■ iit ynwl, yawn, yacht, yoik.

(>• »a yard, yarn, yam, yarrow.

"■ if yffa, yell, yelp, yearn.

"•"^ u ye, yes, yean, year. -♦- it

9. io yoke, yeoman, yore.

10. iw.... use, muse, you, dew, pure, cure.

11. ■* iu ...yon, yonder, young. # t4X

12. wa....wad, war, wall, squall, squ.it.

1.3. wa....wag, wax, wear, swagger, twang.

14. we.. ..way, well, swell, quell, dwell, wed, went.

15. wi we, will, wee', wit, weet, quill, squeal, twist.

16. wo.. ..woe, vvoad, woke, worn, sworn.

17. WW... woo, wood, wool, wolf, woman.

IS. wu....won, one, wont, Avord, worthy, worship,

* This diphthong, ai, is supposed to have been anciently
'r v^uent in : i.giish. Mr. Nares, in his Elements of Orthoepy,
observes, that it %vas probably heard in all such words as^r^jr,
m 'V, day, jay, nay, fail, bail, mail, main, rain, &Cv He laments
the loss of it, as of " a rich and masculine sound, which
" could not fail to give strength and energy to our language."
He remarks, that, in some provincial dialects it is still
p-eserved.

V:
fit' <

Tne first, third, .m,th, and sixteenth of those

^Plui,„n,, are alway.,o„g,,,e second, eleven,
-d eighteenth always sltort, and the rest are

tae characters above selected, would require to be
occa.„na,,, distinguished., the .^^^^^^

y^ b,e_; as ,n those words, i.t,irn;ie,,ie,f
"ed,wcdi wm,win; wwd, wrvdj &c.

9. Here a question presents itself, in the dis-

cuss,on of which gran.,n.rians seen, to have be,
-gey bewildered. The two ietcers w, and v
;" ""' '"^«'™"'g "f ^ -liable, lK,ve been ta'Ken
for consonants. This w.is ,/.,r/.„/«/ bv IV T r
but he d,d not g,ve the question a thorough consi- '
tieration. °

I-ike Cher Engli,h letters, w is frenuentlv
-...where it is not W,... But every'

"r :"■ "'" '^"''' "-' -'-never it ,> sounded
-V .ether „, the beginning or end of a sv.labie,

-con,tant!y one and the sa,ne sound ; „an,ey,
t of our s.xth vowel rapidly pronounced. At!
he re., on of ,ts be.ng always thus pronounced U

th=t.t has Intherto been used as a letter pe,-fec-;
edumlant. denoting no sound whatever, exceptl
■'.g the con,ponentpart of some diphthong; and

custom luiving thus, by chr^ice. abstained from
using this letter otherwise than in combination
with some other, it has been supposed incapable
of being sounded by Itself, and therefore that it
must be a consonant, iiy sounding a letter^ it is ob-
vious that we can only mean the utterance of the
sound of wliich that letter is the sign ; and as w
IS the sign of a sound .vhich can be pronounced
by Itself, and prolonged ad libituniy it is the sign
not of a consonant ^ but of a voixjeh

Y is not exactly in the same predicament. We
are accustomed to use it, like any other sign of a
simple vowel, either singly, or in combination.
In short, it is merely .a substitute for the letter i,
whetljer as denoting a vowel or a diphthong.
'1 lius he and lis are representatives of the same
sound, and the first syllables of cynic and sinner
are perfectly similar. So also in the words
verily, merrily, &c. tiiese two letters, i and y,
are signs of one and the same vowel. And Ben
Johnson says, (as quoted by Mr. Nares, p. 41)
" We might write iouth, ies, ioke, ionder, iard,
*' lelk, as well as youth, yes, yoke, Sec;
** but that we choose y for distinction's sake."
This remark Mr. Nares acknowledges to be true ;
but, instead of admitting the inference that v

1 i

.Lerefore cannnot be the sign of a consonant, he

ratherth,nks«thati, as well as y, assumes the

^^ power of a consonant when united by rapidity

„ «^P'-onunciation to another vowel that follows

It. In a subsequent passage, however, (p. (J5)

^e says « there is a diaculty ...ending such
syllables ,which I have never solved entirely to
^_ my own satisfaction. This sound, which I
^^ luve considered as that of y conspnant, differs,
I am sensible, so very little from the very
short sound of i. or y, as vowels, or even e.
^' that I know not how to insist upon the dis-
tmction/' The true and satisfactory solution
of th.s dtfficulty is to be found only by admitting
the fact, th..t this y c.,s.„a„f. as it has been
called ,s a v.W, forming a part of a gt;„uine
d'phthong, the essence of which consists in the
" union of one vowel with another following it "

andblendedwithsurh«rapidityofpronunciatL."
as of the two vowels to form a sound differin?
more or less, from the separate and distinct
effect of etther , but especially of the first, which
.s always uttered more rapidly than the second :
exceptmg in ai and a:, the first and third of the
diphthongs above enumerated, in which the first
vowel IS most distinctly sounded."

Mr. Nares has himself observed (p. 79) of the
words you, and youth, « that though the full
" sound of our long u is heard in them, the
" completion of that sound is owing to the initial
" y i and that the words would be spoken ex-
" actly as they are, if they were written yoo,
" yooth, &c." This is a testimony in point, and
directly confirmatory of my doctrine, or rather
of bishop Lowth's doctnne,~so far as respects the
letter y. For the very same " full sound of our
long u," that is of our diphthong- u, compounded
of the short sound of y (i or e) and oo is heard in
the words uscy nenvsy meivs, &c. ; and the only
difference, for instance, between nezus and noose
is, that the former contains this compound, or
" complete full sound " of y and oo, so blended
as to form a perfect diphthong, and the latter
has only the simple vowel oo.

The converse of this diphthong u, or, accord-
ing to my notation, iw, is wi. Thus, in the
words commonly spelt lucy you; willy lieu ;
iviru ne^ i the same alternate diphthongs are
clearly perceived, and the same sound of w is
heard in the beginning of each antecedent, and
an the end of each subsequent example. Dr.
'•■"*"'^" J V/UOV-* vauuii, uicrcrure, mat " m wed and

" d^iv, tlie two sounds of w have no resemblance
" to each other" is a mistake. i:>.'w, indeed, is not
the converse of 'wed. The difference, however, is
not in the sound of w but of e, which in nved
has the sound of our third ; and, in deiu, has that
of the fourth vowel. llie one denoted in my
manner, is wed, and the otiier is dkv ; and w has
exactly the same sound in both, excepting only,
tliat in this as in other instances, it is uttered more
rapidly in the beginning than in the close of a
diphthong.

This observation, respecting the sound of w
in the words wed and dew, was adduce4 by Dr.
Johnson, in support of what he had suggested
as the « chief argument by which w and
" y appeared to be always vowels; namely,
<* that the sounds which they are supposed to
" have, as consonants, cannot be uttered after a
" vowel, like that of all other consonants." But
liad he traced and ascertained the sounds which
those letters actually and constantly do represent
in all the cases in which they have been consi-
dered as consonants, he would, I am confident,
have anticipated my assertion — that they are, in
all those cases, component parts of real diph-
thongs.

!|t

•21 . . ■

Mr. Nares (p. 43) from this argument makes a
contrary inference, namely, « that these pre-
" tended vowel sounds cannot be uttered at all
** without the assistance of some vowel ;'* and he
mentions dwell as an instance. « Dwell (he
says) « is a word ; but dwll cannot be pro-
« nounced. So 2\so^ cynsym syllables, which do <:yn,jjrm^
" occur, must be given up as not to be spoken, f
" unless we give to the y in them the sound of
" i ; or some sound of a different nature from
" that which it has in youth, &c." At the'
same time, he says, in a note, " it must be owned,
" on the other hand, that this sound is very

nearly allied to a vowel sound, since several
" vowels take it when rapidly pronounced."
He proceeds, however, in the next page, to state
a second argument of similar import respecting
w. «« The effect of w (he says) is heard dis-
" tinctly enough in the use of the letter q ;
" but without some other vowel besides the,
" attendant u, which seems there to have the
" power of w, nothing vocal v/ould be formed :
" qurty qun, qullty, &c. are words which no one
" will attempt to utter ; so that qu may, perhaps,
" be properly considered as a double consonant."
But what is the sound of q ? Precisel)* that of
our guttural c, or k. It is true, that, in our cus-

({

III

tomary spelling, we never see this letter « with
"out its attendant u.» Yet, as this author justlv
observes, (p. 1 1 8) « we have many words in which,
in mutation of the French pronunciation, q«
^^ l^as merely the sound of k j as antique, conquer,
coquette, hquor, harlequin, oblique, &c. &c " in
many of which he very judiciously proposes to
eaend the practice, already adopted in some of
them, of writing k instead of que. But whatever
may be the letters which we -tvrite, the elemen-
tary sounds, represented by our letters, will be the
same, so long as our pronunciation continues
unaltered. At present we hear, in the word /w-
leqmn, nothing but harlekin. Oblique is nothin^r
more than oblike, ^nd liquor might be spelt lihX
In the word conquer, also, qu is merely k ; that is
to say, in all these words the attendant u is per-
fectly silent. But, in obliquity, in liquid, and in
conquest, q does not, indeed, with its attendant u,
form a ^' double consonant,'' but it has the simple'
effect of k articulated with the diphthongs ui and
ue, equivalent to wi and we ; for u, in its office
of an attendant upon q, not only " seems to
^'* have," but evidently/.^/, the sound and "power
" of w." 7 here can be no reason, therefore
to say, that du^ll '^ cannot be pronounced," but
only that we have been accustomed to see w

'23

always mute, unless when it makes a part of a
diphthong ; and the only reason for saying that
qurty qim, &c. " are words which no one will
*' attempt to utter," is, that q being never used
without its attendant u, hs real separate power, as
the representative of a consonant, has been over-
looked.

From this passage an inference is obvious,
whicli fully confirms what I have advanced re-
specting the vocal power of w. Q, or k, like any
other of the mute consonants, can be sounded
only with a vowel or diphthongs that is, with
cither a simple or a compound voivel j by which
terms, consonant, vowel, and diphthong, I con-
stantly mean, not the letters, but the sounds
wJiich they represent. If q, then, that is, the
sound of which q is tlie sign, be prefixed to
the words wciil, %uill, ween, wit, they will be-
come quail, quill, queen, quit ; or, as they might,
with equal propriety, be spelt, qwail, qwill, &c. ;
and c or k, put instead of q, would be perfectly
equivalent. In like manner we have wall, squall-,
ivcll, dwell; will, twill- wain, twain, &c. ; wa,
ive, wi, &c. a:e therefore diphthongs : for they
give utterance to the consonants d, k, and t.
Apong modern languages the Spanish and

I Jl

Italian are preeminent In point of orthographical
simplicity and uniformity ; and they furnish many
examples, which might here be pertinently cited,
of the same diphthongs giving utterance to
almost every consonant in the alphabet.

In the conclusion of the passage above men-
tioned, the author says, « we may add a further
" argument, from Dr. Johnson himself, that w
" and y, as consonants, follow a vowel without
" any hiatus, as frosty winter, rosy youth." To
wliich I answer, that they follow, not as comomints,
but as other vowe/s and diphthongs often do,
which in like manner are capable of utterance in
succession without any hiatus. Of this the word
vowel is itself an example ; and similar examples
are numerous. Witness, for instance, the Druid's
hdy oak, his haughty air, fiery eye, bloody offerings^
mistaken piety, absurd theology, &c. &c. to satiety,

10. It \?, part of the definition of a diph-
thong, that the coniponent vowels are sometimes
pronounced so rapidly as to be hardly distin-
guishable by the ear. -But as we can ascertain the
second by prolonging the sound, so may we
detect the first by slowly and repeatedly uttering
the whole diphthong. For, though

t t

impossible to describe the relative position of
the jaws, lips, tongue and throat, in such manner
as to convey, in writing, a clear idea of any
particular vowel ; yet it is certain that, by the
same speaker at least, each vowel is comiantly
uttered with the same position of those
organs, and the same manner of compress-
ing and emitting the breath. If, then, in
slowly repeating a diphthong, we watch atten-
tively the manner in which we begin the sound,
we shall be able to compare it with what we
observe to take place in pronouncing any one of
the simple vowels ; and thus we may perceive
either their agreement or their difference. But
this is most perceptible, as I have already hinted,
m alternate diphthongs. Thus, in yot* and 'we,
or, according to my notation, inv and tt;/, slowly
and repeatedly pronounced in succession, as if
they were syllables of one word, the sameness
of the sound, which terminates the first and
commences the second diphthong, may be/.//
as well as heard. So also, when their order is
changed, the same observation is perfectly appli-
cable to what we /../ and har, in slowly and
repeatedly pronouncing^.., yow, nvin, new, &c.

21.

Iherc is yet one particular, respecting

! Mi

the transition from the first to the second vowtl
of a diphthong, or the melting of the one into
the other, which remains to be considered.

Here I feel the want of terms to express my
meaning. The word articulate^ as a grammatical
term, seems to be used to denote only that
sound which is heard when a vowel or diphthong
is uttered in connection with a consonant in one
and the same syllable. But, in our scarcity of
words applicable to this subject, I beg leave to
make a more extensive use of articulation.

When two vowels constitute distinct syllables
of a word, without an intervening consonant, I
would consider them as sounds articulated, or, as
it were, jointed with each other, like parts of a
waving line divided but not separated. But in a
diphthong there is no such articulation. The
one component vowel is run into the other with
a sort of jerk in the organs of speech ; and I
presume it is this that has led Mr. Nares to think
the y, in youth, &c. has a different sound from
that which we give it in thesyllables cyn, sym, &c.
The somid is not different : it is only a rapid
transition from the one sound to the other that

question is begun with exactly that position of
the organs of speech whidi takes place in pro-
nouncing the simple fourth vowel i. A diphthong
may therefore be compared to a line not divuhl
but bfnt into an angle, more or less acute, or
with an inflexion more or less rapid; and,
though compounded, the component sounds are
not articulated but blended together, in such
manner as to produce a sound still perfectly vocal,
yet different from that of either taken'separately,
or of both when uttered in succession, as vowels
foi^ming two syllables. Hence we can, and do,
form diphthongs by suddenly melting a simple
vowel Into its own repeated sound, as in the
words ye, yes : and ivoo, -wool, &c. of which the
one consists of the short vowel i, rapidly blended
with an i following it, and the other of w, in
like manner doubled and melted into one..,;//W^
though compounded sound.

If it be said that this yV/-^, with which y is run
into the sound of oo, in you, youth, &c. is inca-
pable of being produced without the concurrence
of a vowel, and therefore that both y and w
when thus uttered, are consonants, I answer that!
by the same argument, fl must also be a conso-
nant, for it certainly is uttered in the same manner

c 2

in the second diphthong aw, as we hear it in tli€
words howf noiv, &c.

12. I have dwelt much longer on this head than
I should have done, but I thought it requisite to
bring full proofs of a point, on which I dissent
from such respectable auihority. But, after all,
the question will probably occur, cnI kotto ? What
real benefit can result from these minute investi-
gations ? I answer, — greater, perhaps, than we
are at present aware of. The various uses of
speechf that wonderful gift of heaven, are so im-
portant to the social, intellectual, moral, and religi-
ous concerns of mankind, that nothing can be of
little moment, which may in any degree contri-
bute to a more perfect knowledge of it. — Be-
sides, a living language must be always liable to
gradual changes. These may be either for the
better or the worse ; and a thorough knowledge
of its existing eltements and analogies, for the time
being, would always give to any language a ten-
dency to amelioration. For such a knowledge
must bring both its beauties and defects into con-
stant notice j and, in proportion as these were
generally felt and acknowledged, there would be
a general endeavor to imj)rove the one and cor-
rect the other.

Lcar it in tli«

13. IViphthongs are sounds compounJetl of
three vowels blended in one syllable. Of these
we have three. The first compounded of our
sixth vowel ; and the fourth diphthong ui, as in
^uincf ivild, luise, &c. The second of the same
▼owel, and the diphthong aw, in ivoundy the pre-
terite of ivhid. The third is compounded of the
fourth vowel i, and the diphthong ui, but occurs
only when articulated with one or other of the
guttural mutes, k, or g, as in kindy guide, guile,
guise, and their derivatives, 'i^his last triphthong
is reprobiited as a corruption, \ Mr. Nares. It is,
however, a genuine English sound ; and it is
remarkable that the same consonants, k and g,
have a similar effect on oar pronunciation of a,
the second of our vowels, whenever it follows
either of them in the same syllable. Thus, in
the words cmi, calm; gap, gape; card, guard;
&c. we constantly hear the same short i, very ra-
pidly, yet very perceptibly sounded, and forming
with the vowel a, in this articulation, a real diph-
thong j namely, the sixth in the list above cxhi-
l>Ited. And this effect is- so universal, that,
without early and attentive practice, it is difficult
for English organs to catch the true sound of
such foreign words as include the snme articula-
tion, or to nronnnnr<» *V.^ T*„i:„., _

uii.ui vvfjri

corxit

c 3

=! II

*/mr, for instance, so as to make It distinguishable
from chiaro, clear.

There is, in some provincial dialects, a triph-

tliong compounded of - and aw, by which the

words cow, council, gcivn, gout, &c. are strikingly

perverted. But this is, indeed, a very corrupt

pronunciation j and it has a companion, so like in

M.nmd as to be commonly mistP.ken for the same,

n tiie words how, now, our, pcwcr, &c. But this

KSin fact, a change of the diphthong aw, into one

compounded of the second and sixth vowels, aw, a

diphthong of which we have no example in any

word correctly pronounced.

14. Having shewn that y is always the sign
either of a simple vowel or of a diphthong, and
in both cases exactly equivalent to i, I cannot but
wish these two letters might, in our common
spelling, be appropriated to distinct uses ; i to
denote constantly and only the fourth vowel j
and y to be the constant and sole representative
of the fourth diphthong. As to the use of this
letter. In distinguishing words of Greek etymo*
logy> I think it has done more harm than good ;
especially when joined with k, to which, in the
form of c, wc so often, and so absurdly, give the
sound of s. By the use we make of these twa

letters, in pronouncing words borrowed from a
language supposed to have been the most me-,
lodious that has ever been spoken, w^e have added
greatly to the native hissing of our own, and lo
the number of its syllables of like sound and
unlike meaning.

But this evil is, doubtless, In a gi eat measure;,
incurable. It is an inveterate malady, which has
become constitutional, and hath spread its infec-
tion through a numerous host of latin as well as
greek words, which custom has made to ivhistle
in our nviUing ears 5 but of which neither TuUy
nor Demosthenes, if they were living, would
be able to endure tue sound. It would now be
ridiculous in any one to attempt a discrimination
in pronouncing such words as ascent^ assent j cell,
sell J ccilwgy sealing ; scene^ seen ; scent ^ centy sent;
cere, sear ; cession, session ; cite, sight 5 cit, sit }
cygnet, signet-, cymbal, sy^nboh. Sec. &c. ; or to re-
call the original sound of cynic, cephalic, calestial,
cylinder, cycle, &c. But considering the indul-
gence which the sceptic has experienced, though
it is almost a solitary instance, 1 would faiii liop«
that the terms of art and science, at least, and
some few other words, of less vulgar use, might

«; 4?

32 ■ •

be reclaimed ;^that Milton's « Tyrian Cynosure,
the star of ^rcady," and his brighter star.
That gikis the tower « where beauty lies,
" The cynosur, of neighbouring eyes?'
Hilght yet recover Its Arcadian appellation. I would
^l.so/..A., or rather humbly r^'r.,«,«^W, that when
« cenotaph shall be consecrated to the memory of
tl^-e gallant chief, who, like another Wolf, has
. lately purchased immortality by a glorious death,
we shall not be compelled to utter a hiss in
pronouncing the name of his monument j but
may be alloim' j ivrite and to pronounce Keno-
taph, Kunosure, hudraulic, hugrometer, &c.

It is not our seventh vowel that I mean here
to use instead of y, but our diphthong u, the
nearest sound in our language to what we have
reason to suppose was the ancient sound of ,^,xon

1 5. According to Sheridan's account, we have
but nineteen simple consonants; for ch and j
are considered as compounded of tsh and dzk
\n this, however, he certainly is not so accurate
as m his descriptions of the formation of other
consonants.

Strictly speaking, our number of simph, or

rather original consonants, does not exceed nine.
It is evident, that b and d are but repetitions of
p and t, with a slight variation of utterance ; and
f and V, v^Ith the two sounds of th, though a
little further removed, are still the undoubted
offspring of p and t. The hard sound of g,
also, is only a modiiication of k. The aspirate
of this guttural, with the sound of the Greek x,
was once frequent in our language, but, though
its representative gh remains, its sound is heard
no more. But, as our alphabet now stands, p,
t, and k, are plainly the originals of seven otl^er
consonants. In like manner, s is the parent of sh
and ch, and also of z, which is not with us a
double letter, as it was in Greek, and is now in
Italian. In slowly pronouncing see^ she^ chee^
we perceive that s is the sound of the breath
passing in a narrow stream over the tip of the
tongue ; sh is the sound of a broader stream
passing between the body of the tongue and the
palate; ^nd this is converted into ch, not by
interrupting the stream altogether, which would
be done by attempting to interpose a t, but
merely by bringing the tongue gently to touch
the palate, and passing the breath out betweeii
tk^m.

SSHB

' i,

• Though s has been classed among the smi-
voive/s, there is nothing vcca/ in it ; that is to
say, it has no mixture of that sound which is
formed at the top of the larynx, and which is
properly the voice. But s, if uttered with the
concurrence of the voice, is converted hito z, and
from z, bya gradation, in the mannerof utterance,
similar to that above described respecting see, she,
chre, we have the sounds which are heard in the'
vcovds please, measure, and major. So that there
is neither a t in church, nor a d in Jerom ; for
both t and d are formed, not between the body
of the tongue and the palate, but between the
tip of the tongue and the gums of the upper
fore-teeth. And though the letter d'is seen, it
Is not, nor indeed can it be, actual ly>r.«.,,«^,^,
m the shorter syllables ed^e, ridge, judge, &c.

The grammarians have told us, that h is no
letter ; yet the aspiration which it denotes, when
it is uttered with a vowel, has an effect almost
as sensible as that of a consonant, and therefore
ought to have an appropriate representative in
every alphabet.

I know not whether it lias before been ob-
served, but it is an obvious fact, that h may
fairly be considered as the parent of s j for the

Isv,

same simple aspiration, or emission of breath,
without any vocal mixture , which constitutes the
former, is converted into the latter, merely by
being compressed, as above-mentioned, into a
narrow steam, and passed, with a certain degree
of velocity, over the tip of the tongue.

The conversion of s into z, by blending the
voice in its utterance, is analogous to J I Iapi Ltakes
place in the mutes, p, t, k. By an l^lH^ix- oi^Jotn.
ture of the voice with each of these, jiMf orm
b, d, and the guttural g. When simply aspirated,
p is converted into f, and t into that sound
which is denoted by th in the word theme. And
these stmpk aspirates, when accompanieu by the
voices are changed, the one into v, and tli«
other into th, as sounded in thee and thou.
This vocal sound of th is therefore properly the
aspirate of d, as v is of b.

Our consonants, therefore, cannot be pro-
perly accounted fewer than twenty-one ; for
which it is to be lamented, that our alphabet
does not afford a sufficient number of simple
and appropriate characters. And of those which
we have our use is also, like our common nota-
tion of the vowels, full of equivocal perplexity.

i'l

in short, we are in want cf letters, ai,d at the
^^ame tnne are pestered with several that are
superfluous.

In the following h'st I have exemplifi.j. ip
our common spelling, the effect of ■; ry
English consonant, and have endeavoured, as in
the list of vowels, to compile, for the whole,
the best system of appropriate characters that
our alphabet can supply.

For the aspirate sound of t, I have taken h
alone, with only a line drawn across the top, H
For the aspirate of d, a similar addition to the
letter (3^) might be made ; and in so doing, we
should only recall the use of a letter % which we
actually inherited from our Saxon ancestors, but
which we seem to have thought not worth keep-
ing ; though, for want of it, we are obliged to
use th to denote the aspirates both of t and d.

Instead of Sheridan's zh, I have made an easy
change in the form of the letter thus— 5, which I
think might be advantageously adopted in our
alphabet, togethei with 3t.

h aj)d at the
Jral that are

English Consonants y denoted by
appropriate characters.

No.

character.

Sound exemplified in the common spelling,

P-

paper.

babel.

3-.

fearful, physic, laugh.

vocal, of.

total, thyme.

deed.

thaw, thin.

th.

thou, then.

seesaw, civil, scene.

10.

zone, please.

11.

sh.

shine, nation, ocean, passion, machiue.

12.

th.

cherry, question.

IS.

razure, measure.

14.

jejune, age, edge.

15.

kill, call, chorus.

16.

gargle, give, geese.

17.

maim.

18.

loyal.

19.

rural, rare.

20.

now, noon.

21,

nf.

ring, song, young.

17. It has been supposed, and wlthseenung
probability, that letters, when first used to denote
the elementary sounds of speech, were selected
from among the characters which had been used
in the primitive hieroglyphic writing, which de-
noted not sounds but iih,^s. These characters,
which at first consisted of some faint sketches of
the things dcnoted,had,by degree9,been simplified
and abridged, in order to make them suscep •' ^e
of various combinations within a narrow compass.
But still theirnumber must have been prodigious
to render practicable even a very moderate extent
of intelligible communication. That mode of wri-
ting was, however, as our musical and arithme-
tical notations now are, alike intelligible to the
learned of different nations. But when the idea
was conceived of giving, to a small number of
alphabetical characters, powers of arbitrary signifi-
cance, as clear and extensive as those of speech
itself, it would be natural for the people, first
favoured by Heaven with this sublime idea, to give
each character, thus selected, the name by which,
in their own language, they expressed the t/jwg
of which the same character had been the hie-
roglyphic symbol. If so, every single letter, in
its original application, was the representative of
some word, whicli thus acijuired a new meaning j

and so far, of course, the number of ambiguous
terms in that language was iiicreased.

Of this ambiguity, in the names of our English
letters, we have cccidently the following examples,
a, b, c, i, 1, o, p, q, r, t, u. The names
of h, k, m, and s, have narrowly escaped a co-
iiicidcnce with etchy keyy aim and ace.

If we had now to invent names for our letters,
it might be worth while to avoid, if possible, all
such ambiguity. But such a consideration can
furnish no reasonable motive for changing the
names which are already in use, and have been
long sanctioned by custom. It should be a maxim,
with respect to every proposed innovation what-
ever, in school y as well as in church uttd state ^ that
if there be not some goo<l and suiHcient reason
for it, that alone is always an unanswerable
reason against it. And surely no good reason
whatever can be given for the uncouth novelty
of Mr. Sheridan's names, ep, eb, er, et, ek, &c.
There is a natural distinction between those
consonants which can, and those which cannot
easily be articulated with a preceding vowel ; and
custom has very properly named the respective
c'assesaccordingly,pe, te, be, &c.and ef, el, em,&c.
The only letters, therefore, of which I can see

11 n I

, l!
■I

aiiy reason for chanj/ing the present names, arc

g and w. With us the rule has evidently been,

to give each letter a name simply expressive of

its power, or of the sound of which it is the

Sign. The- sound of w, whenever it is somulcd

at all, is above specified in the sixth vowel ; and

that sound ought therefore to be its name ; for

the vowels and diphthongs in our language are

tuiMeJ by being simply prmounced.

To the letter g we have given two sounds, for one
of which we have at the same time an appropriate
character j. I would therefore give g a name
expressive only of its guttural sound, which
might be gay in conformity with the name of
its kindred mute ka.

The aspirates of t, d, and s, having each been
denoted by two letters, have hitherto had no
names, but, having now proposed an appropriate-
character for the first of these, I would beg leave
to call it e^, a sound which is heard in the word-
breath, and is of easy utterance, and analagous
to the name of a similar aspirate ef.

The reader, doubtless, will smile at my giving
a mme to what has hot yet, and probably never

may have, any other local habitation than in these
fugitive pages.

18. As \uorils are distinguished by emphasis, so
are syllables susceptible of a similar distinction ;
to which I beg leave to give the name of syllabic
emphasis. This differs from the former, chiefly
in the circumstance of its constancy. Words
are emphatical only as occasion may require, to
denote their relative importance in the sentence,
to mark some contrast in their application, or to
give expression to some emotion of the mind ;
but the emphatic syllable is alivays emphatic in
the same ivordj unless that word be a mono-
syllable, in which case its emphasis depends on
the place it happens to occupy in the phrase or
sentence.

How it has happened that this emphasis, which
takes place only on certain syllables, has, by
modern grammarians, been so universally deno-
minated accent^ it is now useless to enquire.
Accent is a name significant of a thing essen-
tially different, and which is essential to every
syllable that we utter, as will be shown in its
proper place. At present I have only to observe,
that, as the right placing of the syllabic, em-

I I ■ M

,> ('>

ill

fttU*

phaMs is essential to a correct pronunc:atioh, ,„
appropriate mark for denoting i, i, necessary to

" Mr Steele has pomted out a mor. natural use
tor the ancient accentural marks, I hope we
'hall, ere long, cmpfoy some other for dr-nn-ing
an emphatic syllable. This might be a simple
pomt, not «,,r But rather ,W,r the line, for the
sake of avoiding an occasional interference with
the titls of the letter i.

Mr Sheridan, in his third lecture on Elocution,
reprobates the ignorance and « amazing defi-
ciency of all such compilers of dictionaries, &c."
M had marked the accent (meaning the syllabic
emphasis.) over the ^./ only of the emphatic
syllab ei ,„d he assumes no small credit to
himself for discovering what he calls « , master
Jcey to the pronunciation of our whole toneue "
namely a rule for " placing the accent alwa;
over ^the ""T" '"^'"''" '^' "^''^ " "P""
that. But whoever willattend to the forn,ation
of articulate soimds, will perceive that no con-
sonant can be susceptible of what Mr. Sheridan
cas accent; which, according to his definition.
" a smarter percussion of the w!» in utterance • »
that.is, smarter than is given in uttering L

unemphatic syllable In the same word. Now
as this is a variety of vocal percussion, it can
have place only on vocal sounds. The force with
which a consonant is uttered, depends entirely on
the utterance of the vowel with which that con*
sonant is articulated. But my principal objection
to the use of this " master key," is on account
of its donhlet or rather equivocal reference to
things so essentially different as emphasis and
quaniity^ to say nothing of accent^ of which
Mr. Sheridan evidently knew nothing.

He justly condemns the rule which made
" every accented syllable long ;" but he declares
it to be an infallible rule in our tongue, " that no
" vowel ever has a long sound in an unaccented
" syllable," that is, to speak with precision,
that no unempliatic vowel is ever a long one.
Of this I will not say, in the language of Mr.
Sheridan, that it is " a palpable and a gross
mistake i" but it certainly is a mistake, — witness,
educate y emulate y edify y compromise y intervienv,
evergreeny and many others, in which the final
syllables are long and unemphatic.

ly. As diphthongs, though not j-//«/>/^ sounds,
do sensibly differ from the separate effect of

their component vowels, it may be doubted
whether they ought not to be reckoned among
our elementary sounds ; but this would be to
misapply the term, from the meaning of which
every thing is excluded that is not strictly
simple and indivisible.

The elementary sounds, therefore, which, by
various combinations, constitute our whole voca-
bulary, are twenty-nine j namely, seven vowels,
twenty-cne consonants, and the simple aspiration
denoted by the letter h ; nor can om- alphabet
be perfect with less than this number of letters,
nor indeed, strictly speaking, with less than
thirty-five ; for we yet want six to denote the
long vowels. But if these are marked in the
usual manner, I think that, with such an alpha-
bet as I have here compiled, it would not be
difBcult to denote every word and syllable in
our language, in such manner as to preclude all
doubt respecting the real sounds intended to be
expressed. But alas, though this were done,
what an uncouth appearance must it make to
the eye of every one, who has been so far
habituated to our ^iresent spelling, as barely to
be able to read it without stammering and
hesitation I Accustomed to. a certain pictui^e c£

f \

€Tery word, any considerable change in that

picture appears Hke a blemish, which excites in

us a kind of involuntary ayertipn, not withstand- OLVtyjutu,

ing our conviction that the picture is, in many

respects, both clumsy and absurd.

Can we then have a hope of ever attaining to
a perfect orthography of our language ? I
know not j but I am persuaded, that the first
5)tep towards it is — clearly to ascertain the extent
of our wants, and exemplify the possibility of
that perfection, to which we may, r;t least, make
some slow and gradual approaches. The great-
est obstacle in our way has been, and will probably
continue to be, a circumstance in which we
seem to be altogether singular. While we are
careful, in our spellings to preserve the traces of
etymology, and make derivatives follow their
lean.srSi ^ve often practise the reverse in our
prcmmciatioti. Thus we ivrite, compose, com-
position ; orator, oration ; nature, natural ; con*
fide, coniident } reform, reformation ; relate,
relative ; also confines, produce, project, he. &c.
both as verbs and nouns, but we pronounce
kumpoz, k.mpozishun; ^retur, oreshunj netiwr, rxtiivf
natiw rul ; kunfyd, kanfidem ; rifarm, refurmc-* n(^Tucrti/

shun: rilet. relotiv: knnfvrnf. k.inftrn^' rvr/^rlJi
. -, _ - ^ ^. — ^j ._,^,...^.

prtldiwsj projekt, prajekt; &c

■.nm

By our pronunciation we add to the variety
and improve the melody of our language ; but
we do this at the expence of increasing our
alphabetical ambiguities. The remedy is obvious ;
namely, to adopt the ancient rule, of changing
the Utter whenever we change the sou/td of
which that letter is the sign ; but the tyrant
custom is in our way. Yet why should we call
custom a tyrant P Tyranny is z ianvless, and,
therefore, Tijichle and capricious power. But our
speech and our spelling have both their several
usages and laws, and our present complaint is a
proof, that those laws are not liable to sudden
or licentious alterations. They stand in need
of amendments ; and the more cautiously and
gradually these are made and sanctioned, the
more durable will be the benefits resulting from
them.

K--'

20. It may not be amiss here to observe,
that, besides those numerous feeble syllables,
mentioned in the fourth section, and which are
uniformly such, we have many that are some-
times more distinctly pronounced, but to which
we often give the same indefinite sound. Instances
of this occur most frequently in the articles j,
««, the\ the conjunctions, W, or, mr\ the

prepositions of, to, from, at, for \ the particles «,
cum, con, in composition, as in anvahe, arise,
about, above, compare, conceal', the word there, in
such phrases as there is, there ivas, there came, &c. ;
and the possessive pronouns, your and their. In
the cases here pointed out, we commonly hear
only our sev^snth vowel ; unless where that would
produce hiatus, or where some occasional empha-
sis requires a more distinct pronunciation. Thus
we say u man, thu man, un apple, u glass ur iw
wine, thur is, thur vfzs, frum east tu west, this
ur that, he went uh^nvt, he sits ubuv, give me
iur hand, I take ;'//;- word, they went thur way,
und so forth. But we pronounce distinctly the
npple, the eye, the other, See. and the smallest
degree of emphasis will require us, in like manner,
to pronounce e glass, thi glass, frdim, ar, tzu,
fiXf"j «ar, iiur word, thar way, " a/:d there was
light-" cScc.

This is a point on which some sufficient rule
is much w.-^nted, especially for the sake of such
foreigners as desire to attain an accurate pro-
nunciation of our language.

Among the feeble syllables we may also here
mention the words my and by^ in wliich tlie

BffU

JutK

I?';

h^LOM.'

diphthong Is often changed into the fourth vowel,
and the words are pronounced mi and hiy as
in the following phrases, to ham by hearty to
speak by rote^ to march by nighty upon my nuordy it is
my oivfiy I tahe my leavcy &c.

2 1 . It is also here to be noted, that we have many
syllables consisting of consonants only, without the
intervention of any vowtel whatever. Of this
the word iyllahle itself affords an example, and the
word example exhibits another. These syllables
are formed by an immediate articulation of the
liquids, or semivowels 1 or n, with one or other of
the following consonants — namely p, b, f, v,
t, d, s, z, k, g, as in the words appky abky
stijley evily titky fiddky wkistlcy harely tickky
smugglcy and happe?iy eveuy kitteny hoyden, brazen^
spoken, Sec. in all which, though e or i be writ-
ten, no vowel is heard in the final syllables.

From this class of huddled consonzntSy however,
there are many exceptions. The vowel is heard,
for instance, not in navely but in nava/y mortal,
model, chisel y morsel, &c.

22. To spell words aHke,which differ hoth.\r\SQund
and sense, and especially words of perpetual re«

i ..'1

currence, is altogether inexcusable ; and yet of
this absurdity we have a familiar instance. Thj
relative pronoun that, differs constantly in pronun-
ciation from the demonstrative that, exactly as the
word hut differs from hat. The same difference
of spelling, therefore, in my humble opinion,
ought to be adopted in this instance, as one step
towards a gradual amendment of our very im-
perfect orthography.

23. Some critics have lately objected to tlie use
of that, as a relative, conceiving which to be in all
cases « the preferable word."* But this is cer-
tainly a hasty and erroneous opinion. We have
in English three relatives, that, nvho, and which:
and, in their respective and appropriate use, we
p -. '3SS an advantage, as we do also in the two
auxiliaries, will and shall, peculiar to our lan-
guage, and which I hope we shall not be tempted
to relinquish.

'* Who is he, with voice unblest,

" That calls me from tlit bed of r«8t ?

" A traveller, to thee unknown,

" Is he that calls,— a warriour's son." Grat.

bothinjww^

* See Dr, Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric, Vol.11, p. 78; and
Anti-Jacobin RevieWjfor Mav, !800,

.'" I

''i:

hi ■

|ii9 H

»iii

rk^U

50 *

" Bid her be all thai cheer* or softens Hfc,

" The tender sister, daughter, friend and wife;

« Bid her be all tLt makes mankind adore,

" Then view this marble, and be vain no more,

•* No cheerful breeze this sullen rej^ion knowj,
" I'he dreaded East is all the V/ind that blows.

" A voice there is tiat whispers in my ear ;

" 'Tis reason's voice, tv/jUii sometimes we can hear."

" Sir Godfrey should decide the suit,
«* JVbo sent the thief, that stole the cash, away,
•' And punish'd him that put it in his way. — —Pope.

The appropriate use of each relative, iv^, thaty
and nvhkhy is here exemplified; and similar
instances are frequent. Thus Addison says, in^iiis
essay on the pleasures of the imagination (quoted
from the Spectator by Dr. Blair) "There is no-
** thing that makes its way more directly to the
soul than beauty, which immediately diffuses a
secret satisfaction and complacency through
" the imagination, and gives a finishing to any
" thing that is great or uncommon."

In all such phrases as the following, that as
a relative (or that y rather, si sic volet ususj is exclu^

((

jive/y the proper word. viz. "-rd?// that can be said
or done — that we have seen or heard — that is or
was intended, &c. the same that was or is, that
we saw, that he pursued, 8cc. ; the firsts the last,
the bestf that has appeared ; the best or worst that
can happen." And, in general, all superlatives of
similar construction. So also — ** each one, every one,
no one, any one, that will or shall, that is or was, that
acts or speaks, he. \ something, nothing, anything,
everything that can or may, &c. ; Who that has or
does, that is or would be .'* Who is he that can or
will, that says or does ? &c. What is it that alarms
you } What is it that can compensate ? &c. It is
the moon that you see j the wind that we hear \
the gout that has made him lame," &c. Sec.

" All that we can do," implies the utmost ex-
tent of our ability. " All which we can do" is
rather an assertion that our ability is, at least,
equal to the task. The latter is therefore, if used in
any other sense, at best an ambiguous phrase j
whereas the former is capable but of one mean-
ing : for the ivord, we must remember in these
phrases, is not that, but thut. In like manner
" the best writer that I am acquainted with," can
only mean the best in the circle of my acquain-
tance ; the best among those v/hose v/orks I am

D 2

5'i

ml*

w»

li::

acquainted with ; but, " the best writer with w^otn
I am acquainted," might be construed to im-
ply not only that he was an excellent writer,
but that he was also one with whom I had a per-
sonal acquaintance.

The choice between tiai and w^iS is often,
with respect to propriety, a matter of indifference ;
and then, doubtless, we should be governed by
regard to euphony of composition. On this ac-
count it is often necessary to use that rather than
-which, in order to avoid some of those harsh
collisions of sound, which, at the best, are too
frequent in our language.

*' The darksom. pines, that o'er yon rocks reclin'd,
*' Wave high, and murmur to the hollow wind;
" 'l"he wand'rinif streams that shine between the hills,
«' The grotts that echo to the tinckling rilk,
« I'he dying gales that pant upon the trees,
« The lakes that quiver to the curling breeze," &c. •

The relative that is here, in every instance,
" the preferable word ;" but in some instances, the
only word that could have been admitted. What
ear could have endured the third line, in this
beautiful passage, if Pope had written it thus,
or it were now to be thus spoken }

•* The wandering itrsami ivbkb shine between the hills."

And how would the melody of tlie following
Hnes, from Pope and Gray, be destroyed by the
substitution of tuhkh for that I

" Colours that change whene'er they wave their wings.—
*• Behold the groves tLat shhu with silver frost.—
*' Thin trees arloc, that shun each others shades.-

'* Command old ivordtt that long have slept to wake,
" IVords that -uihe Bacon or brave Rawley spake."

" And many a holy text around she strews,
" That teach the rustic moralist to die.—

«' There, at the foot of yonder nodding heed,
*' That wreathes its id fantastic roots 80 high."

The same word, (thut) is also a conjunction \
but its construction, in that sense, differs from
the construction of the relative so much, that it
never can occasion either confusion or ambiguity.

24. There are words, in every language, dif-
fering in setise but not in sound \ words, I mean,
which differ not only in a figurative, but in their
primitive and literal acceptation. "When these,
therefore, are differently spelt, a ivritten lan-
guage becomes more copious, and possesses more
precision than the same language spoken ; and if

a diflVrcnce of spelling in such cases could be
so regulated, as to answer the purpose intended,
without ever giving different powers to the same
letters, by doubling a consonant, for instance,
or adding some little mark of distinction to a
vowel, i: might be a very useful deviation from
tbat uniform orthographical simplicity, the Want
of which, in our langua^je, we have so much
reason to lament.

Eiiglish Accents,

1. From the precious rcmni'.is of ancient
literature it appears, that, in tlic CJrcck and
Latin languages, there was a sort of nioaulation
or melody of speech, consisting of certain in-
flections of the voice, which were denominated
iffoffJ^Ui^ or accents ; that in th^se inflections
the voice was raised to a sharper, or depressed to
a graver tone; that this effect took place on
single syllables, and often to an extent of no
less than a fifth, or three tones and a half of the
musical scale ; that the elevation of the voice
was called an acutey and its depression a grave
accent; and that sometimes both these were
combined in the utterance of one syllable, in
which case it was called mftts^aaixoi, a cir-
cuniflex accent *

Hence learned commentators, who could find
nothing in modern speech similar to what they
understood to be the meaning of these classical
authorities, have confidently inferred, that every
modern language differs totally, in this respect,

D 4.

* *

from the ancient Greek and Latin, which they
suppose to have been distinguished by a kind of
musical utterance, that no longer exists in the
world, and of which we now can form no just
conception.

But neither Greece nor Italy has ever been
depopulated, and such a change, as is here
supposed in the speech of successive generations
cannot have happened. It is morally impossible.
And even if there had been a total extirpation
both of Greeks and Romans, the single consi-
deration that the human organs are always awid
every where the same, would warrant us in
deeming it incredible that any essentia/ alteration
should ever take place in the n:ifura/ accidents of
human speed,

2. ITiat tliere was, however, in the ancient
Greek and Latin, a species of tne/ody, consisting
of accents, such as have been described, acute,
grave, and circmriflex i that these were real ;«-
fexions, in which the voice rose and fell on sinde
syllables, and sometimes even beyond the extent
of tones above mentioned } and, that these accents
contributed to give, to the Greek especially, an
utterance so various, so significant and expres-

sive, as to fill even strangers witli delight and
admiration, may be considered as facts, too
well attested to admit of any reasonable doubt.

It is at the same time a fact, of which we
have the attestation of our own ears, that, in
modern speech^ any thing like a musical tone is so
far from being either significant or pleasing,
that we turn from it with universal disgust : nor
can we endure the smallest mixture of speech and
song. Whether it be verse or prose, we require
the whole to be either said or sung. Even that
recitative, which is intended to approach as near
as may be to the modulation of speech, must
consist altogether of musical tones.

That which Is universally disgusting now, can
never have been pleasing to either Greeks or
Romans.* The tones of speech and the tones
of music must always have been different. Nor
did this difference escape the notice of the
Greek musicians and grammarians.

.ctli

* Q»inctillan directs, that, in reading verse, " in primis
«* lectis sit virilis, et cum suavitate quadam gravis ; non
« quidem prosx similis, quia carmen est, et se poetae canere
" testantur; non tamen in canticum dissoluta, nee plasmate
" effMninata, de quo genere optime C. Csesarem accepimui
*• dilisse — Si (ontas, malt cantat ; u legis cantas" L. 1. C. viii.

D 5

From those accurate observers we learn, that
an acute accent was indeed an elevation, and a
grave accent a depression of the voice ; but
that, in this elevation and depression, the tone
of the voice was varied, not as in singing, by
distinct intervals, but by a ccnt'mued motion,
gliding up and down, in a kind of undulation,
from a graver to a sharper, or from a sharper to
a graver tone.*

U.-jr,

* The wdrd tone, as a musical term, is used in sex^eral
senses. The tension (r«cr/r or rovor); of a musical string,
being the obvious cn.'se, gave a name to the eJWt of that
tension on the sound of the string. Thus tone became a
technical term, transferred from the string to the souad;
and a sharper sound was said to be of a sharper tone, and
vice versa. To the same effect, by whatever means pro-
duced, whether by altering the tension or the length of the
string, the same term is applied, and, in this sense of the
word, every K^usicui sound, vocal or instrumental is of som
tertain tone.

But every musical system consists of a series a sounds,
differing from each other in a certain proportional gradation
of tone, to which the same term is applied in another sense;
for the shp of this gradation are denominated tones and
umitcnes. Here the word tone is used in the same manner as
(A^r^ovf measure, is in prosody, where a verse receives its
denomination from the number of mc^mra or mitm which it
cout<iins.

S. It is evident, that in such a movement,
whatever be the interval from tone to tone,
through which the voice may glide, it can never
dwell for an instant on any tone whatever. And
here is the latent ambiguity of terms, by which
commentators and others appear to have been
misled. The words olvT-ns and ^x^Crtis acute-
ness and gravity, when applied to the accents of
speech, denote indeed a change of tone, but a
change of a peculiar kind. An acute accent, for
Instance, began in a certain tone, (to be taken
ad libitum, any where within the compass of
the voice) and ended in a higher ; the voice
passing always rapidly, though not always with*
the same velocity, from the one tone to the
ether, not per saltuini but in one continued sounds
which might be compared to a waving line,
commensurr.te with the length of the syllable,
and generated by the flowing of a point. This
motion of the voice was accordingly designated
by a very expressive term, . 'fita-zs, as distin-
guished from lix ar-nij^x, the iniervaly by which
a sharper and a graver sound, in music, are

The word tone is also somctiiv.cs used to signify the
sound itself; as when wc say, of any particular voice or
lusirument, th.it the tcnes ait bwecl and smooth, rich or
rncUow, &c.

1-t.i

I J

always separated: for, In singing, the voice does
not g/ide but /f^/j" from tone to tone.

Boththese movements are thus defined by Euclid,

t€

** T« xai (xtXM^im — two kinds of motion^ one conti-
" nucd and peculiar to speech, the ether desul-
" tory, and appropriate to song."

There is, however, a passage in the celebrated
treatise wff^ crv^^sa-tus ovoi^xruv,* which, at first
sight, seems to contradict this doctrine. But, If
the contradiction were ever so manifest, no single
authority would be admitted in opposition to all
the other ancient testimonies on this point. The
passage in question, however, does really con-
tain no such contradiction.

The object of the section, in which this pas-
sage occurs, is to point out the means of giving
to speech the united advantages of sweetness and
ieauty; under which terms the author Includes
every thing requisite to the perfection of com-
position, whether in verse or prose. Those
means, he says, " are chiefly these four, namely.

♦ Sec.xi.

*< modulation^ rhythmusy variety y and Jltness;i/.t\os^
x«< piOfjiOs, KXi (jLira^oXvj aact ro 'rrpttrov" He remarks,

that by each of these our sense of hearing is plea-
singly affected } in proof of which he appeals to
the testimony of experience, in the effects of
niusicf both vocal and instrumental, and of
dancing j and this appeal he justifies by observing,
that " in speech there is a certain musical art,
" differing from the common vocal and instru-
<* mental music, not in kind but in degree.
" For speech also is susceptible of modulation,
" and rhythmus, and variety, and fitness ; so
" that the ear is delighted with its melodies,
" feels the drift of its numbers, is awake to its
" transitions, and covets a fitness and propriety
" in every part j but the difference is that of
" .mre and /ess"

Is it true, then, or does this author mean to
'assert, that the music of speech differs from that
of song only in its harmonic proportions, or in
the measures of its elementary tones ? No, this
is not true, nor is it what the author means to
s^y. This difference of tnore and less, is ex™
plained by what immediately follows, " that the
" modulation of speech is, for the most part,
*^ measured by one interval, namely, the fifth, or
** dlapente, and is neither raised to a sharper nor

\
»!

li.

||...s'

" lowered to a graver tone, through a space
** greater than that of three tones and a half;
but" (after pointing out the different kinds of
accent, acute, grave, and circumflex, which are
to be thus measured, he says) the " the common
** vocal and instrumental music enploys more
" intervals, and sounds distinctly the melodies,
" not only of the fifth and fourth, but of the octave
" and all its subdivisions, down to tones and
" semitones^ and, as some think, even to the
" diesis ;" that is, to the difference between
tones, major and minor.

Here then the fact is clearly asserted, that
in the modulation of speech, there was a real
change of tone, aiul the usual limit of that
change is expressed. But whether it were, in
^ any instance, greater or less, it was to be mea-
sured by an interval, differing from any one of
the common musical scale, ru vrocro/, «x' '^*'
vQix'i not in kind but only in magnitude. Every
musical int<!jrval comprehended some certain pro-
portional subdivision of the octave, thci smallest
of which was the minor semitone ; but it is pro-
bable, that the intervals by which the accents of
speech were measured, though of various dimen-
sions, were never exactly commensurate with
any of those legitimate subdivisions.

In the diastematic music, the intervals were
passed by a silent flight ; that is, the sound of
the voice or instrument was heard only at those
distinct points of tone, which were the bounda-
ries of those intervals; but in the music of
speech, the sound of the voice was heard only
in its passage, from one tone to another.

The tone of every musical sound is immutable ;
for whenever it becomes, in the smallest degree
sharper or flatter, that is to say, of a different
tone, the sound, as a musical element, is no
longer the same. But the essence of a Greek
accent consisted in a continual rapid variation of
ione» And this variation took place on every
syllable ; for otherwise the two genera of song
and speech must have been every instant run-
ning the one into the other, and producing that
discordant mixture which we have observed
to be universally disgusting. Every syllable,
therefore, must have been uttered, either with
an acute, a grave, or a circumflex accent.

5. Such, according to the Greek writers,
appear to have been the accents which consti-
tuted their melody of speech ; and Mr. Steele
has demonstrated, that we have now, in our

\^\

m '

I .

own and other modern languages, a melody
consisting of accents in all respects of a similar
kind.

Lord Monboddo, in his elaborate work on
the origin and progress of language, had de-
clared his opinion, to this effect, " that there is
«' no accent, such as the Greek and Latin accents,
" in any modern language ; that in our English
" accents there is no change of the tone, the voice
" beirtg only louder upon one syllable than ano-
** ther ; that there is no difference of tone be-
« tween the accented and unaccented syllable of any
« word, and therefore, that the music of our
« language is, in this respect, nothing better
« than the music of a drum, in which we per-
« ceive no difference, except that of louder or

so.

ofter:\

It was this declaration that gave occasion to the
Prosodia Rationalts of Mr. Steele, who brought
the question of our accents to the test of an
experiment, which was acknowledged by lord
Monboddo himself to be conclusive.

With a finger on the fourth string of a vio-
loncello, and a corresponding niC»tion of the bow,

he was able, by sliding the finger rapidly up and
down on the string, to imitate the tones of speech^
in such manner as not only to prove the fact>
that wc have accents, grave, acute, and circum-
flex, but also to ascertain their perfect agreement,
in every particular, with the Greek definitions
and descriptions above referred to.

This experiment may with ease be repeated,
in such manner as to remove all doubt of th^*
fact, that the tone of the voice, in speaking, is.
varied by the rapid undulations here described 5
though, to do this with all the nice jMreci?^ion
necessary for rendering the imitation perfect,
would require not only a quick and accurate ear,
but also the hand of a skilful performer.

Our speech, then, is not monotonoos;. It has
a melody, of the same kind with that of the
ancient Latin and Greek ; a melody of which
we have, always felt the force, even while we
denied iis existence j

6 Go, fair Enthusiast, with thy mapc skxlf.
Mould the obedient passions to thy will.
The passions,, pliant to thy sorereign sway.
Alternate rise, blend, mix, and melt away. «
Show how Euphrasia, of affections mild,
Doats on her sire, her husband, and her child.
Sweet fall the accents.— Oh let stillness reign
While the soft warbler pours her plaintive strain.
Sweet fall the accent*, meek at every grace,
That deck* that form, and beams around the face.
Then riaing higher, urged by nature's law».
Brave every danger in a father's cause.
With pilgrim feet ascend the craggy steep ;
There might the night bird listen while you weep.
Thence to the tyrant wing thy rapid way,
And shake his soul with terror and dismay.
« Alarmed, distracted, wild with maddening fears,
« Amaae the faculties of eyes and ears."

These are among the lines which the author
of the Grecian Daughter addressed to Mrs. Barry.
What, then, was her magic skill P Or what the
more enchanting skill of the present Euphrasia ?
Correct pronunciation, exact emphasis, and all
the expressive charms of graceful action, might
all fail to please, whether on the stage or else-

:«7

where, without that vocal modulation, to which
the poet, with a propriety, perhaps, unperceiveti
by himself, has given the name of accents.

We are, indeed, susceptible of strong and
lively impressions from silent action; but if the
most animated action were accompanied, either
with a monotonous or a discordant voice, it could
not be endured.

The following passage, in th^ play above
mentioned, is one of the many, which have so
often excited the admiration of thousands at the
wonderful power of Mrs.Siddons, to exalt the
force and meaning of what she utters, especially
when condensed in a few words.

To the usurper of her father's throne, who
had thought to induce her to prevail on her
husband to withdraw from the expected assault,
by threatening both her father and herself as
hostages in ' his power, she answers

" Think'st thou then
" So meanly of my Phoclon ? Dost thou deem him
" Poorly wound up to a mere fit of valour,
" To melt away in a weak woman's tear ?
*' Oh! thou dost little know him ; know'st but little
'f Of his exalted soul !"

it!

Now these words might be pronounced, even
without a fault, and we might hear them without
emotion. But when uttered by Mrs. Siddons,
they struck through the ear to the heart, kind-
ling a portion of that spirit which prompted her
to repel such a threat with a mixture of calm
contempt and glowing exultation. And when
she said, " Oh ! thou dost little know him," it
was astonishing to perceive how her expression

*• Gave weight to word*, and energy to thouglit.*

7. But why do I mention a single passage, or
select a single name ? The powerful charm of
English accents has been felt from the dawn of
English literature to this hour ; felt not only in
the sublime or patheti'' strokes of public elo-
quence, but also in the unstudied expressions of
friendly or domestic endearment ; often attuning
the voice to every key of socbl attraction, and
exciting a thousand sympathies^ both of pain and
pleasure. And yet we have been gravely as-
sured, by men of the first eminence in literature,
that we have no accents ; that what we call by
that name is nothing more than such an ictus^
such a " smarter percussion of the voice," as
may be perfectly expressed by the beating of a
drum !

These learned men were sensible of our syl-
labic emphasis ; but in this they found nothing
more, and hastily concluded there ^Wi be nothing
more th^n the simple variety of " louder and
softer." They had no suspicion of the fact, that,
in speaking, there can be no such thing as em-
phasis without accent ; that every syllable, whe-
ther emphatic or not, is accented ; and that to
utter an unaccented syllable is not to sayt but to
sifig it.

Mr. Sheridan, of whom, by the way, I have
no suspicion, that " much learning had made
him mad," expresses a sovereign contempt of
those grammarians, who, " with great formality,
" continue to inform their pupils, that the acute
" accent is the raising of the voice on a certain
" syllable ; the grave a depression of it ; and
" the circumflex a raising and depression both
" in one and the same syllable : which Jargon^
" (he says) they constantly preserve, without any
" sort of ideas annexed to these words."* He
rails at them for continuing to transmit to their
pupils the information, such as it was, which
they had received from their predecessors. That

* Third Lecture on Elocutron.

v.\

^•1

I'i

'i"

information however, Is now known to have
been so far correct •, in the melody of speech,
the voice, we know, is continually either rising
or fallings or bothy on every syilable that we utter.

8. It is not here pretended that we can, at this
day, recover a thorough knowledge of the an-
cient modulation of speech, cr that we can give a
satisfactory account of every particular now to be
found in the writings of ancient grammarians.

It was with them a rule, that there must be
one, and but one, acute accent (or a circumpxy
which includes an acute) in the correct utter-
ance of every word. From this the inference
seems unavoidable, and such is the grammatical
tradition, that the other syllables must all be
grave. But can we believe that in any lan-
guage, and especially in a language like the
Greek, abounding in words of many syllables,
there has ever been such a want of variety, such
a sameness of accentual repetition, as this rule
supposes -, and such as is not now to be found in
the speech of any nation ! The Greeks were im-
patient of a continued sameness in anything,
however beautful or delicious — Kopv ^x^ s^" '**' '^*

^ xaX« wayla, w^wtf nai ra. v^sx. (xsiovrx ev rr rocvTomn*

171^

t crvvi

0: 19-

"«*»•

'T^

riiey considered a suitable change in every brar -:*! of
elocution, not only as one of the four chief r
sites, but as the one which contributed mo; e th.
all the rest to the sweetness and beauty of e'^*

composition; »'5/aT«»Ti x** xaAA/o-lt)* ly^oyo/r »»*^ir«fcoAii*

—and accordingly they speak of it as something
magnificent ^ft«CoW JA-eyxKotrpumW. Now here, for
instance, are two words, having each the mark of
a grave accent^ which it nmst be remembered,
was never placed on any but the last syllable of a
word ; and the use of it is said to have been to indi-
cate, that the syllable thus marked w:is grave, when
the word stood before any other in a sentence,
except an enclitic ; but that the same syllable was
xicutef when the word was uttered singly, or at the
end of a sentence.

Are we then to suppose that in the situation
here specified, every syllable of thesQ, and of
all other oxytons having the same mark, and, uni-
versally, every syllable but one of every word in
the language, was constantly uttered with one
uniform grave accent? I think it is utterly
incredible.

But how then are we to understand this ancient

* Tiifi a-vv9.

pi'-"

7*2

rule? Is there yet any- unsuspected aiiibiguity
in the terms acuU and grave r*

So far as we have hitherto considered them, as
tonej of speech, as vocal inflexions, there certainly
is no ambiguity in the terms, nor any want of
precision in their ancient definitions, as above
explained, and which appear to be founded in
the nature of speech.

Every accent, acute, gra^e, or circumflex, is
susceptible of three distinctions •, namely, dimen-
sion, pitch, and force. The dimension of an ac-
cent is the extent of the interval through which
the voice glides in its utterance •, which varies
from about a fifth to less than a minor third, of
the common diatonic scale. The pitch of an ac-
cent is the place of that interval on the scale,
whether high or low. But whatever* be the pitch
or dimension of an accent, and whether it be
grave or acute, . it may be relatively forte or piano,
or in other words emphatic or tmemphatic.

Was it, then, an emphatic accent, which the

ancient grammarians meant by the one acute or

circumflex required in the correct pronunciation

of ev€ry word ? But if so, why mjst this emphatic

'' accent be exclusively na^/^ .^ And %vhy was every

?-3

other acute accent denGininated grave f> as if
o^v^tu rrtf vvX-KxQyt^, to sharpen the tom^ in utterin'^
a syllable, implied also the giving it an emphatic
utterance ! Accent and emphasis are, in their na-
ture, perfectly distinct.— A language f;w^, there-
fore, be so pronounced asHo exclude the grave
accent from every emphatic syllable ; but this
would deprive it of much variety and energy of
which it tnight otherwise be susceptible ;— fdr
though the emphatic syllal^e is in genefal acAite,
yet we know, from our own experience, that
great force, as well as variety of expression, may
often result from the emphatic utterance of grave
accents.

o'!:^vy£iV

In the continuation of the passage above cited
from Dionysius, it is said, that, in vocal music, as
distinguished from that ©f speech, « it was a
"rule to make the words conform to the melody,
" not the melody to the words." Of this he gives
an instance from the Orestes of Euripides, with
a contment, which has itself been the subject of
much learned discussion.

2;<ya (flyx hivm', \fQv'K%u x. t. A,

Here we are told, that Electra " chanted the

words cr/ya, o-^y^^ Aevxo,, j^' ooy ^^oyy*,, all in One

iOlJL

rKwf

I'll;

** tone, though euch of the three has both a
" gra\ne and an acute accent •" that is to say,
that in the melody of speech, these words have
each two distinct tones, but, when set to music,
their Syllables may be monotonous, and that the
musician is at liberty to make them so or not,
just as it may best suit his purpose. Of the word
ap^vKfisy (when chaunted) he remarks " that the
" third syllable was in unison with the second,
" though no one word could (in speech) have two
" sharp tones.'*

From this passage one inference seems to be
plain and obvious, that the word acuie^ when ap-
plied to the melody of speech, had a reference
to the tone, independently of the emphasis of the
syllable ; for that emphasis is an accident com-
mon to every musical tone, acute or grave, can ad-
mit of no doubt •, and if it were not the same in the
tones of speech, there would be no sense in the
remark here quoted, that two syllables, an acute
and a grave, may be sung in unison. But why one
word in speech •'^ -^uld have no more than one
acute accent, in any other sense than that of an
emphatic accent, which cannot, I think, be the
sense here intended by Dio'^'"?ius, remains a
question, of which I have m vain sought for a
satisfactorv solution.

An idea has prevailed, that the one acute syl-
lable was higher than any other in the word ;
probably from a mistaken notion of the nature of
accent, conceiving th?t an acute must be of a
higher pitch thana^ru;' v, and therefore, that where
there was but one acute it must be the highest.
Can the pitchy then, of this one accent in every
word, have been the distinction intended ? Was
u only V.XT t^ox>iv denominated t/je acutcy meaning
the accutest syllable of the word ? This, I suspect,
will ha. 'Uy be thought a very probable conjecture;
and yet, it is remarkable that an idea of our own
accentuation, not very dissimilar, seems to have
been entertained by the author of a valuable
treatise, entitled " Elements of Elocution," in
which he has pointed out what he calls the rising
and falling inflexions of the voice in common
speech, but has not thought it necessary to attend
to more than one inflexion in anyone word*

But even supposing that we were, in >>oint of

theory, at no loss respecting the true mei;'i.'r«g of

the rule in question, still our knowledge, Ui this

particular, could be of little or no pr? (.tical ac^van-

tage to us in our pronunciation oi Gr;*ek or'

Latin. To recover, correctly, either the n:centuai^

or the emphatic utterance of a dead language

E 2

must be a hopeless endeavour, unless both ind
been preserved by an accurate rotation, of which,
the first idea is of recent date, and which has not
vet been brought into that fanhliar use which is
necessary to make it available to the purpose in-
tended. The Greek accentual marks, therefore,
can now be of no use in that language, but to
distinguish some words which differ, either in
meaning or in grammatical relation, though writ-
ten alike. But our ignorance, respecting the
ancient use of these marks, detracts nothing from
the certainty of what we do know respecting the
nature of accents in every language v and we are
warranted in this one comprehensive and impor-
taiit conclusion, — that the general principles, both
of accent and emphasis, are at all times and every'
where the same. ' '

9. The learned author of a treatise " on the
** Prosodies of the Greek and Latin languages,"
has, on this subject, given an opinion, which I
believe is new.

-h

'*•• The Greek grammarians (he says) made use
*•* of three marks, to express, as it may seem at
".'first sight, three different tones of the voice,''
" jhe acute, or sharp: the grave, or flat j and

" the circumflex. But upon a nearer con

** deration of the subject, it appears, that the

" acute, which was a sharp stroke of the voice

** upon some one syllable of the word, is in truth

" the only positive tone. The grave consists,

** merely, in a negation of that acuteness."* Of

the circumflex, he says, " so far as it was accent,

" it was an acute accent. The circumflex was

" nothing more than a compound of the mark of

'* the acute, with the mark of the long quantity

" - - - denoting, that the syllable was to be

" pronounced both with a sharp stroke and a

" lengthened sound."f And this account is

" summed up in the following words : ** The

** acute, therefore, appears, in truth, to be the only

** accent, or tone^ properly so called, the grave

" being merely a negation of acuteness, and the

" circumflex being a compound mark of accent and

" quantity jointly ; an acute accent and a long

" quantity.":):

I*';.

^ This author has expressed a wish to be con-
cealed. I am therefore not at liberty ♦^o pay to his
name my portion of that homage, to v/hich it has
been long entitled from every true friend of
Learning and Religion, On topics of science,

/•

» Pao-e f"- *■ Pao-#» Q

£ 3

both natural and revealed, he has laid the world
under great and lasting obligations ; but, on the
present subject, he will permit me without of-
fence, to remark — that it seems to have been the
fate of accents to be misunderstood by men of
the profoundest erudition. I will not say, as
Mr. vSteele did, respecting Dr. Pemberton and
Mr. Foster — " had I been half as studious, and
" a quarter part as learned, as either of those
« authors, I think I should have gone astray as
« they did." I do not think that men are often
misled by learning or diligence •, on the contrary,
I mention it as a matter of surprise, that so
long after the discovery made by Mr. Steele,
which he modestly attributes to a kind of in-
stinctive sagacity, there should have been left
any question till now unsettled, respecting En-
gliiih accents, or their probable sameness with
those of antiquity.

There is a want of precision in the use of
terms, which has, on this pan;cul'..r subject, been
remarkably productive of erroneous conclusions.
Almost every writer on accents has been deceived
by the ambiguity above-mentioned, of the
the word tone. The tones of music and the tones
of sneech differ, in fact, just as the points or

S..'

lines of subdivision on a scale differ from thv
spaces of which those points or lines are th
boundaries. But here, to prevent a tedious cir-
cumlocution, I beg leave to avail myself of our
common terms of ^nusical notation, in which my
meaning may be dearly conveyed, and in a few
words.

Suppose a finger, as in Mr. Steele's experiment
above described, to slide up rapidly on the struig,
from a point sounding C, for instance, till the
tone rises to any height less than a sixth above C,
and the continued sound of the string, durmg
this motion of the finger, will exemplify an acute
accent, of a certain pitch and dimension. Then
let the finger slide rapidly back again, through the
same interval, and we shall hear a grave accent, of
the very same pitch and dimension.

This effect being produced by the motion of
the finger on the sounding string, it was natural
to transfer the name from the string to the sound,
and, when applied to speech, to call it a vocal
slide •, just as from the tension of the sirmg,
we have derived the appellation of a musical
tone*

E 4

ii '

pi ^
I* I

Let these slides be denoted by sloping lines, ay
on the following score-^No. 1 and 2.

I 2 ' J 4 :tr tf 7-

Let other similar slides, of various pitch and
ermeiuioTi, be noted, as No. 8, 4, f<c. j and
they will suggest accurate ideas of all the com-
nion varieties of simple accents. No. 1, 3, 4, 5,
are acute ; No. 2, 6, 7, S, are grave. Any
one of these accents, compared with the rest,
will be emphatic, or not, according to the relative
force with which the string is made to vibrate.

Now it is evident that the word tone, in its

common acceptation, as a musical term, is

utterly inapplicable to the sounds here denoted,

of which the essence consists in a continual and

rapid change of the musical tone, And of this

diiFerence between the tones of speech and the

tones of music, the author, whose opinion I here

oppose, seems to have been thoroughly sensible ;

for, in his remarks on Mr. Primatt's tr-eatise, he

quotes a passage from Aristoxinus, and comments

very justly on that passage, in which this difference

is clearly stated. Yet it is evident that, in his

observations above mentioned respecting the
accents, the word in question is used in that sense
which belongs to it only as a musical term. For
when it is said " that the acute is the only positive
« tone," and that the grave " consists merely
" in a negation of that acuteness," we unavoid-
ably suppose a reference to some key.-note, lower
than the acutey and in unison with the grave, tone.
And accordingly it is afterwards expressly said,
** that this gravetonein commQnspeech,is nothing
" but the mean level of the voice, which is called
" grave in relation only to the acute, of which
" it is the meer negation." So also, in explaining
the words ^xpvms and o^vrrn, the one is said
" naturally to signify a depression of the voice
<« below," and the other, ** a rise of the voice above
" its general or ordinary level ;" whereas it is evi-
dent, from a bare ins^ction of the slides above
noted, that either an acute or a grave accent may
be of any assignable pitch or dimension, with-
out at all affecting its essential character as a
rising or a falling slide.

I must also object to the author's definition
of an acute accent, which he says is " a sharp
" stroke of the voice on some one syllable of a
" word." An acute accent is a rising ififlexlotiy
but implies nothing like a stroke of the vorce. » I

must beg leave to repeat the observation, that
accent and emphasis are essentially distinct. It
is true, that in speaking there can be no emphasii,
without accent ; but there may be, and, in every
word of more than one syllable, there constantly
iV, accent without emphasis ; and the uneinphatic
accents are often, in the same word, grave and
acute, or acute and grave, alternately.

The reality of two distinct inflexions, in our
own language, acute and grave, such as I have
described them, being clearly established, as a
fact attested by an experiment in which there can
be no deception, I need only add, that we have
the same incontestable proof of^circumflex, con-
sisting, not merely of an acute accent and a long
quantity, but of the two simple accents combined
in the utterance of one and the same syllable :
and the same varieties of accentuation, which are
now found in every living language, have doubt-
less at all times existed in human speech.

10. This is a presumption too strong and too
reasonable to be shaken by ancient authorities,
however expressly they might seem to contradict it.
But there are no such contradictory authorities.

A passage is cited from Lascaris, stating the
grave accent to be •' noi properly^ but syilalttcally

•* only a tone," by which he is supposed to mean
** that it expressed (or the mark of it expressed)
«* not any particular tone of the syllable upon
" which it was placed, but the equality of tone
« upon all the syllables of the word."*

If this was what he meant, he must have been
mistaken ; I cannot believe that such a kind of
cyut'KtaiA.oT has ever existed in human speech. I
am sure there is nothing like it in the French
language, which is mentioned by the author here
referred to, as resembling the Greek in this par-
ticular. But it is probable that Lascaris had no
such meaning, and that o/xatX<(r/xor, when applied
to cases of accentuation, meant not a level or
an equality, but the act of levelling, and was, in
that sense, equivalent to our own phrase, a falling

slide. ** Towof rvis ^apitxT ''f i5?a}y»«ra, KCit wac* ot
*' Xs^iT a.'-^Tr)v^ii^oiJitvrni»Q 0fA,»\i<r[ji.9* ottayitua-Khlai, tan ot

<« rovof (tv>jm^i>ujs, ksci « xv^imu The final syllable
« is the only seat of the grave (meaning the mark
of the grave) **accent, and every word which takes
" it has a levelling utterance, but it is syllabically
" and not constantly a tone." It is a common
figure, to speak of the power of a letter, mean-

* Prosodies of th« Gieek and I atiu Languages, p. 8.

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ing the sound of which it is the appropriate sign ;
and the word Kvpixs is here probably used in that
figurative sense. The meaning, therefore, seems
to be, that the mark in question is not exclusively
the constant or appropriate sign of any one ac-
cent ; but, consistently with what he had said be-
foY , it has a significance that varies with the si-
tuation of the syllable on which it is placed. For
every word (w^cr:* A£|^) bearing this mark, " xafl*

" taJiTjy o^vvilxt iv ^s rv) crvmrncx.^ avh rns o^stx£, 0upstoiv

" i'mosxtroit \ when spoken by ltself> has the final
" syllable acute, but, in connexion with other
** words, takes the grave instead of the acute
" accent -j* which,' by the way, may suggest a
reason why this mark was placed only on a final
syllable, for no other could be liable to the variety
of bein^ uttered at one time xafe" EAjJ]>jy, so far as
related to any following syllable, and at another
tv r-n avnmia. In our own accentuation, however,
the practice is commonly the reverse of this.
Words, when spoken singly, or which close a sen-
tence or a member of a. sentence, have the final
syllable grave, which in other situations is acute,
'riie Greek accentuation, in this particular, seems
to have resembled that of the present Scotch
dialect.

The remark respecting the circumflex, quoted

from Sextus Emplrlcus,* simply amounts to an
assertion that the syllable which is so accented

must be a iong one. " aoj,v«Tov ws/xo-Trw^xEi-yjy ^focysixi

" T>!v sTTSKToccriv. xt ^ impossiblc that a syllable cir-
** cumflexed should be short, because extension
" must be implied in circumflexion " Here he
argues merely from the import of the word
TrtpiOTrxa-ixoT) as if every technicalterm were of CQurse
to be considered as neither more nor less than an
exact definition ! It is certain, however, that in the
modern languages of Eumope, circumflex accents
are often very perceptibly heard in the utterance
of short syllables.

The authority from Dionysius, mpicrwQsctMr, Ic
full and express : " . ruv Si (acIewv) a/xf ote^os- rx^

*' Tauet^ B^aaifJVj xi -(asv kxto. (juav i7yf<.'AaSriv ai'VESpGctpfjiBvov ^
*' iy*i<Ti tm o|£i TO i3xp.v 'xs C'V nrifiarTTuixivxT kxXh(j.(v,

" 0£ such words as take both accents, some
** have the grave blended with the acute in one
" syllable, and these we calj circumflexed.'

In explanation of this, it is sajdf ** that when
*' the sound of the aci*\'e syllable is prolonged to

Ibi'l p. 10- I Ibid. p. 11.

Ult4m.->

« the extr me length, the voice must of neces-
« sity sink to its ordinary level, at the end of
" the lengthened sound before it begins to
« sound the next syllable. This return of
" the voice to its level, this dying away
" of the acute tone, Dionysius describes as a
" mixture of it with the grave. But what can
be meant by the " sound of the acute syllable,
«< prolonged to the extreme length ?" A cir-
cumflex syllable, as such, was no longer than
any other long syllable, whether grave or acute.
Wiiy must xhe voice of necessity « sink to its
« ordinary level before it begins to sound the next
syllable ? And if this sinking must be " at the
end of the lengthened sound, how can it be a
return of the voice to its level, a dying away of the
acute tone ?" This return and dying away must of
course begin before the end of the circumflexed
syllable; and then it might be supposed to
mean the slide of the voice from the top of the
acute down again to the point of tone from which
the acute commenced •, but even then it would be
a very imperfect description. The voice is very far
from beginning the sound of every syllable in any
one key. There is indeed a tone (I mean a mu-
sical tone) to which as a key-note , all the ac-
cents of the same speaker, in any one sentence,
have a reference. But there is a great variety in

j acuU-

%■

§7

the modulation and relative distances of the dif-
ferent inflexions from that key-note. There is
also, in the circumflex, not only a combination
of the two simple accents, which has, in general
terms, been remarked by the ancient gram-
marians, but, in that combination, there is all the
variety that can result from blending two simple
slides of different or equal dimensions, and in a
different order. Thus one class of circumflexes is
dtuTo - q^'grave^ the other is grave-acute. These names
clearly indicate the distinction intended. The
first is an acute followed by a grave accent ; and
these, like two vowels in a diphthong, are so
blended in the utterance of one syllable, as often
to be mistaken for a simple accent, and often in-
deed for a monotonous sound. The grave-acute,
of course, is the same combination in all respects,
but reversed. Both these are again diversified by
a great variety of pitch and dimension. In either
class, the first component slide is either of larger,
of equal, or of smaller dimension, than the se-
cond. This is a relative variety of dimension,
when one component accent is compared with
the other, but the dimension of either is also
a source of variety when compared with the
general accentuation of the phrase or sentence.
Circumflexes also, as well as simple accents, are
susceptible of a great variety of force. Some-

«ir

times the first part of a circumflex is more, at
other times less emphatic than the second.
The idea, therefore, of a " dying away of the
acute tone" is sometimes no otherwise incorrect,
than in supposing it to continue .acute after it has
begun to fall, from which moment it Is a grave
accent •, but at other times it is the reverse of
dying away, and closes with an increasing-
emphasis.

All the several diversities here enumerated
are very clearly perceptible to a good ear, and
have constantly their effect in conveying, even to
those by whom they are unperceived or unnoticed,
a great variety of powerful and significant ex-
pression of which, without these combined inflex-
ions, no language would be susceptible. I there-
fore have no doubt, that there was in Greek,
as there is in English, many a circumflex, as well
as many a simple, accent, which took its form,
place, and dimension, pro re nata^ from the par-
ticular expression which the case required, whe-
ther of menace or persuasion, endearment or
aversion, surprize or expectation, hope or fear,
joy or sorrow, despair or exultation.

Another definition of the circumflex is quoted*

* Ibid. p. 11.

from *< a Compendium of the rules of Gram-
mar, ascribed by some, perliaps without sufficient
" evidence, to Dionysius Tlirax, but unques-
" tionably a work of high antiquity, and of
" great credit among the antients. This writer
" describes the circumiiex, as accompanied with
" a sfo/,;.age or suffocation of the sound. Under
" this image he expresses the dying away of the'
^* acute tone, upon the end of the lengthened
" sound : and he borrows a term of art from the
« writers upon music, which they apply to a
" flute prepared, by a particular process, to give
" very low notes."

This same definition had been quoted by lord
Monboddo, and explairfed by Mr. Steele, who
observes* that « if the learned author of
** the Origin and Progress of Language had con-
" ceived that the melody of speech was formed
" by slides, he would have found his quotation
** from Dionysius Thrax to have been perfectly
" agreeable to our system."

Mr. Steele's explanation, I am persuaded, is
very just, as he himself understood it : but, in
this instance, he has not expressed himself with

♦ Prosodiu Rationalis— Second edit. p. lo.

.PI
'If

his usual accuracy. " The true sense of these
•' words of Dionysius (be says) is probably this—
•* Accent is the change of the enharmonic voice,
** by an extent or stretch up to the acute, or by
*• levelling it to the grave, or by making a circuit
** in the circumflex. In ofher words, sliding up
*' to the acute, sliding down to the grave, and
** sliding up and down, without change of arti-
" culation in the circumflex.** '

The essence of accent consists in the slide* A
riiiing slide is the acute, and the reverse is a grave
accent. Sliding up to the acute and down to the
grave, therefore, are incorrect expressions 5 and
they are equnlly incorrect when applied in expla-
nation of the Greek text, which is more exactly
agreeable to Mr. Steele's theory of accent than he
himself seems to have perceived. " tovoj- jo-t* (pwvjjr

" a7r>jv*)i7<f ttoifiA.o)niij v) Kxru oLtxratatv e» tjj o^itx, ■>» KXTot
** *o(ji.x\tariJ<.ovtvrr)^»ptici,riKxra'rrsfi'7i>^a-tv tv rv)'7Ttpi(T'ffu(Aiv^,
** Accent is a dissonance of the enharmonic voice,
** either by a rising tone in the acute, or by a
levelling in the grave, or by a combination in the
circumflex.

In this translation the sense of the original is
expressed in terms as nearly literal and exact as
the idiom of our language will admit. TJie
Greeks, " feliciores fingendis nominibus," had.

in an eminent degree, the power of expressing
much in a single word, onrrtx^trtf implies here,
not a simple dissonance of two concurrent sounds,
but a departure of the one from the other *, and,
in the present case, this departure is from some
tone of the enharmonic voice ; so that in this part
of the definition, the very essence of accent, in
general, is clearly expressed ; nor are the species
of acute and grave less exactly defined : a»«Tac-/r,
extension^ is a further stretching of the string,
by which, of course, the r^cr/f or rewr is made
more intense, and the sound proportionably
raised) but it is raised by a contiftuitd increzse of
tension, of which the effect is precisely the
same with that of a continued shortening of the
string by a sliding finger 5 so that I am fully war-
ranted in calling it a rishig tone. '0/x«x<er/^or I have
already explained j and it is very aptly used here
to express a gradual remission of the tension, by
which the flowing tone slides down again, ap-
proaching that from which it had departed, or
coming to a unison with it, or sliding below it, as
the case may require. TrtpiTrXxa-tr, the term here
** borrowed from the writers on music,'* signifies,
in its technical acceptation, not the stopping or
suffocation of the sound, but simply the variation
jf its tone, " by a particular process,'* probably

•J»y a sliding tube, so adapted to the flute as to pro-
duce an effect exactly similar to that of a finger
«W.ng on a musical string, and the sound thus
r'an.J, but not diuonthmed, they denominated .„.
-™a..^.,„,> This term, therefore, („,,.,.,„-)
when transferred from the flute to the voice,
lor the purpose of describing a circumflex
accent, has an evident propriety and significance,
which could not have escaped the notice of the
earned author by whom it has here been quoted,
had not his mind been prepossessed by an errone-
ous theory. It is a term clearly expressive of a
sudden change in the tone of a continued sound ;
and th.s. when applied to the tones of speech,
can be no other than the giving of a contrary di-
recfon to a vocal slide, which is precisely what
takes place in every circumflex accent. It may
therefore, in English, be very properly called
^ccmhrnauor, , for a vocal slide hut into a new
direction, is, in fact, equivalent to two slides or in-
flexions, of different denomination, blended to.
gether and cmii„ed in the utterance of one
syllable.

11. I have expressed my conviction, that the
ancient use of the Greek accentual marks is irre-

* Q'»ntilian— I. i.cxi.

coverably lost. I urn therefore a convert, tliough
not without reluctance, to the opinion of those
who consider those marks as a mere incumbrance,
which may very well be discontinued. But I am
far from entertaining the same idea respecting the
elementary sounds either of Greek or Latin.
I should be an enthusiast in favor of a general re-
solution, if it could be formed and duly sanctioned
by the learned of our own country, with or with-
out the concurrence of foreigners, to recover
those ancient sounds, both vocal and articulate,
as far as possible, and to adopt them constantly
^" ^Z, pronunciation of those languages. That
they^be, even now, so nearly ascertained, as fully
to justify such a resolution, will not be denied by
any classical scholar, who has given due attention
to the subject. But I must recollect, that it is not
the subject at present under consideration.

12. Mr. Steele constructed a system of nota-
tion for representing not only the various tones
of speech, but also their metrical proportions.
By this means a speech of any eminent orator or
actor may be set, with as much precision as any
piece of music is by the common notation. We
may now learn to spenk as well as to si^/g by note ;
and those accents, which otherwise could only have

9'i

a local and transitory existence, may be put upon
recon^^ and made permanent as the strains of
Handel.

A thorough knowledge, however, of this kind of
music cannot be acquired without some previous
knowledge of tlie common music, which ought
therefore to be considered as an indispensible part
of a liberal education, and a part^f* which ought
not to be delayed. It is well known, that our or-
gans of s£«se are susceptible of great improve-
ments, particularly the eye and the ear j and that
we do all, in fact, /earn both to ue and to hear,
though our progress in both, to a certain point,
is made so early that we rre unconscious of the
acquisition. But we do not know how much that
progress might be extended by the seasonable
instruction and assistance of skilful teachers.

Among the Greeks, especially at Athens, the
elements of music were taught with the elements
of Grammar, and a degree of skill in the art as
well as the science' of music, was deemed a lieces-
sary accomplishment for a scholar and a gentleman.
To this circumstance, in a great measure, .may
doubtless be attributed the perfection to which
their melody of speech was brought. Their ears
were so early trained to appreciate the gradations

of musical tone, that every variation of tone be-
came an object of their quickened attention.
They felt that speech was not monotonous, and yet
that its tones were not reducible to any system of
gradual variation ; that Is, of a variation by sensible
degrees ; and this led them to perceive that }v<nr,
Xhzt flowing change of tone, by which the melody
of speech was distinguished from that of the
common music.

Having thus discovered how the tonci of
speech were varied, theV^ practised organs soon
enabled them to ascertain the measures of that
variation, which they found in general not to
exceed the extent of a musical fifth, upon any
one syllable. It was therefore natural for theni^
to consider speech as, in this respect, a branch of
tnustc ; and having accurate ideas of the specific
difFerence by which the two branches were kept
distinct, they cultivated both without confusion,
and with success. That we greatly surpass them,
however, in that branch which we do under-
stand, is, I believe, the general opinion of the
best judges at this day ; and why may we not
hope ere long to surpass them also in the other,
if a knowledge of music should be made a part
of our grammatical instruction, and cultivated
expressly with a view to tliis purpose ?

i ■'} v.-

This was warmly recommended by Mr. Steele,
whose treatise was first published in the year
1775, but his advice has been, hitherto disre-
garded. Tlie idea of treating spe^^ch as a branch
of music, seems to have been considered as a visi-
ons./ speculation; and. it is certain that, prior
to his publication, the'; real difference between
speaking and singing was unknown to the gene-
rality of our modern professors of classical learn-
ing. Doctor Smith, in \v, treatise on Harnionics,
takes notice of this difference, and observes, that
it was well understood by the Greeks. But D/.
Smith, like the learned of antiquity, joined a
thorough knowledge of music to his other stores of
erudition. Had lord Monboddo been taught music
with his grammar, he too might probably have
made the same observation ; for, when once the
distinction was pointed out by Mr. Steele, his
lordship was at no loss for classical passages de-
scriptive of it, which he then recollected, but
which, till then, he acknowledges he had
misunderstood. ■

It should, however, be remembered, that Mr.
Steele was not indebted for the discovery of this
distinction, to any other source of information
than his own ear, quickened by an intimate ac-
quaintance with the practice as well as the theorr .

of music. « The system (he says) had been
" many years in his head before he put any thing
" on paper, and it was not till after he had made
" the first sketch of it, that he looked into the
" ancient Greek authors, where, finding he had
"fortunately wandered into the same paths with
" them, he was encouraged to hazard the pub-
lication," He discovered a fact which had been
for ages almost universally unobserved and unsus-
pected, and by which many ancient testimonies,
tdl then to modern readers of uncertain interpre-
tation, were rendered clear and intelligible.
Those testimonies, therefore, are now valuable,
not as evidences applicable to a present fact, ascer-
tained by experiment and attested by our own
ears, but as proofs of the general sameness of the
modern and ancient accid^ats of speech.

For a full e> planatior of Mr. Steele's method
of notation, above mentioned, I must beg leave
to refer to his book.

13. This ingenious author, whose ideas are in
general expressed with precision, has described
the inflexions of the voice, in speaking, as made
by minute gradations of tone. But no gradation,
however small we may conceive the degrees to be,
can ever constitute a continued dnwrnw i-nntro.^^K,|

•V T VJLXIVIIL*

It is, therefore, not by gradations ; of avy dimen-
sion, that the accents of speech are formed, but
by movements of the voice, which the author has
more accurately denominated slides.

\fK

((

He tells us, (page 30) that *' though he had
" given a scale, in order to demonstrate, with ac-
** curacy, the nature and extent of the slides we
" make in speech, yet with a little practice he
found, that drawing the slides on the common
" five black lines was suiEcient (at least for a
person who was already a musician and mas-
ter of the language) to direct the voice to
" the proper tones ; for (says he) there is a great
** latitude which may be used without any seem-
** ing blemish ; as whether the slide runs a
'* quarter of a tone or three quarters, up and
*' down more or less, seems of little consequence,
" provided the proprieties of qua?itity and cadence^
** or the rhythmus, are duly observed. And with
** still more practice I found, that drawing the
** accents simply over the syllables, without the
** black lines, but with some regard to higher or
** lower by position of the marks, was so certain
*^ a guide, that I could always read'the sentence,
" so marked, nearly in the same melody. And
** I also found, that tlie marks of quantity, pausw^t

** and emphasis alone, were so sufficient, tliat a
'* native needed scarce any further help to read
with surprising correctness of expression ;
though I must acknowledge the meaning of a
sentence may often be intirelyalteredjby changing
** the accent from acute to grave, or vice versa."

To a musician, who is master of the language,
the proper tones may doubtless be indicated in
the manner here described. It is also true, that a
well educated native, without any accentual nota-
tion, may read or speak with great correctness of
expression. But no such native, though he were
also a musician, could make any use of his marks
of quantity, pausing, and emphasis, unless he had
previously learned, by ear or by note, the tones or
vocal slides in which the sentence ought to be ut-
tered. The native, who speaks correctly, is like
one who sings correctly, without the help of notes.
But, as every particular air, if its modulation be
regular, consists of a series of sounds, of which
the several intervals are all ascertained with ma-
thematical precision, so, in every sentence, if cor-
rectly uttered, there is a series of vocal slides,
all capable of being measured and noted as exactly
as any musical intervals whatever. There is, in-
deed as the author had hffnrp oHcervA-l « o ^,..»..*

F 2

r?*ifi

■Pi

J 00

V ,

■i i

!■)

" latitude in the slides, not only of different
*' speakers, but also of the same speaker at
** different times." But there is, nevertheless,
in the utterance of every sentence (according to
time, place, and circumstance) some one accentual
melody more excellent than any other. Nor docs
the author mean to suggest any doubt of this, or of
its being a practicable thing to ascertain such
melody by an accurate notation Hitherto, it
must be acknowledged, his remark continues to
be just, " that our orators of pulpit, bar, and
" stage, are but as players of voluntaries, exlii-
*' biting by ear, and having no notes as a test or
" standard to prove their correctness, and to
** measure the degrees of their excellence." But
it is to be hoped that this will not always be the
case.

** We 1 ave heard (say he) of Betterton, Booth,
" and Wilks, and bome of us have seen
" Quin, The portraits of their persons are
" probably preserved ; but no models of their
" elocution remain ; nor any proofs, except
" vague assertions and arbitrary opinions, to decide
" on the comparative merits, in the way of their
" profession, between them and the moderns.
** Had some of the celebrated speeches from
** Shakespeare been noted and accented as they

101

'* spoke them, we should be able now to judge,
** whether the oratory of our stage is improved
" or debased." Then, looking forward to the
future, he savs — " if the method here essayed
** can be brought into familiar ust'y the types of
** modern elocution may l>e transmitted to pos-
** teritv as accurately as we have received the
musical compositions of Corelli."

((

He acknowledges that " perfection and accuracy
** in this art can onlybe attained by experience and
*' a close attention, in estimating the pitch and ex-
'* tent of vocal slides by the ear, with the assistance
" of a proper instrument." He did not himself pre-
tend to that exact precision, which experience only
could attain in so delicate an art, even if it had not
been an art in its infancy; and I confess that
some of the examples of accentuation specified
in his book, seem to have been incorrectly noted.
But he has pointed out the means by which fu-
ture advances may be made ; and if skilful h?nds
were employed, with the assistance of good
speakers, in noting and comparing different ac-
centuations of the same passages, there can be
no doubt but the melody of speech would in time
be found, not only as legible as any other written

rnitCI^ hut" ^ir^O t^ I f» frT^"! ♦•no*- »t/»v«xt ftv^itf<nr-*--->i-\frk

102

of great improvement, and probably much
greater than we are at present aware of.

14. In the mean time, new as this doctrine
yet is, something may be done, and something
of no inconsiderable utility, in the way of prac-
tical observation and precept, even without the
aid of any exact notation.

It is a great point gained, to have at length
accurate ideas on the subject ; to know the
nature of that modulation which belongs to '
speech, and what the essential difference is
between speech and song.

But without a concurrent accuracy in the use
of terms, we shall never be secure from occasi-
onal confusion even of those ideas which we
knew to be distinct, and of which we understand
the discrimination.

M^Ijily is a term which in its original ac-
ceptat'on signiiles the modulation peculiar .to
si^ghigy luid, tlierefore, tlie t}ielcdy of speech is
a phrase that implies a sort of contradiction.
If, therefore, I might presume to offer a small
contribution to the treasury of our language,

K>3

I would propose a derivative from /x£?.oj r.nd f 'J'cr,
which, if warranted by the lords of this trea-
sury, would give us m^lepy, as a term expres-
sive of that modulation which is peculiar to
speech. And, with all due deference, 1 would
at the same time propose a small alteration in
a word already sanctioned by use, nan;eh',
orthot'px. This, however, being an adopted
word, and of classic dignity, it may, perhaps,
be thought umvarrantable to make any change
in its presejit form. But that differs vvidelv
fiom its ancicp.t form ; and though ^^oi-nvxy no
doubt, sounded well, when uttered by those,
quibus deilit ore rotundo musa loqui, I cannot
but think our English word would be mended
if it were contracted into crihcpy.

As the modern use of tlie word accent, for
syllabic emphasis, is a manifest source cf much
error' and confusion ; and as it is ahvavs of im-
portance to have distinct nam^es for difTeren:
things, I hope this name (accent) will in future
be assigned exclusively to those vocal inflexions,
of which it is so aptly significant ; and that its
use, In that sense, may be ratified by competent
authority, that is, " consensu enidltorunu^^

F 4

J 04

^o. For . acce/ifuatlof/y then, in this sense of
the word, it now remains to point out some
rules, which may be of present use, in the hope
tliat future dihgence in the practice of notation,
with such improvements as it may be capable of,
will in time bring this i;ram/: of music to perfec
tion.

A laudable attempt has been made, v/ith this
view, by Mr. Walker, in his « Elements of Elo-
cution," the treatise above mentioned, and which
was published in the year 17«1 .

This, I believe, is the only treatise that has
appeared on the subject, since the publication
of Mr. Steele's book j nor is it intitled to regard
on that account only, as the/n-/ essay to bring
tais essential part of elocution under the direc-
tion of practical ru'es. It is executed in a
manner which does credit both to the zeal and
ability of the author, in that important branch
of public instruction which he professes. He
evidently wishes to promote a correct knowledge
of the subject j and he will i.ot be displeased
to see a brief sketch of jils plan, from tie
hand of one who is a s.n.ngcr to his person,
though it be given to the public expressly with

105

a view to point out some particulars In which
that plan appears to be erroneous or defective.

In the formation of his plan he had to feel

his luay in an untrodden path. He had seen the

Prosodia Rationalise but complains that he did

not perfectly understand it. ** I never (says he)

" so much deplored my total want of know-

" ledge in music, as I did in the perusal of that

** work ; for though I could conceive the truth

of the system in speculation, I had no means

of understanding how it could be reduced to

practice. I understood enough to find, that

the author was a very ingenious and philoso-

" phical grammarian, but could go no further.

" My ignorance of music made me incapable of

" entering into particulars, and deriving that

" benefit which so ingenious a performance

" might have afforded me."

I will venture, however, to assure Mr. Walker,
that a very moderate proficiency in the know-
ledge of music is sufficient to make every part
of Mr. Steele's treatise perfectly intelligible. Mr.
Walker also seems to ever-rate the difficulty of
arresting and estimating the sounds of the voice
in speaking. " Their continual motion (he says)

F 5

((

io(i

•, I

« nukes It almost as impossible for the ear to
« mark their several differences, as It would
" be for the eye to define an object that Is
" s^viftly passing before it, and cpntinurilly va-
" nishing away." Jf so, it 'must be in vain to
attempt it. But though we are yet unskilled
and unpractised in this discrimination; though
we cannot yet pretend to be expert in analysing
cur accents; we are far from being insensible
of their effects. We are immediately, and
almost universally, struck with any uncommon "
excellence in their expressive and judicious
application.

It Is in this as in the common music. There
are very few whose ears are so dull as not in-
stantly to distinguish one tune from another;
few, indeed, who do not ftel the difference. An
untaught multitude will be struck at once with
delight by a sprightly animated air, or awakened
to corresponding sympathies by the various powers
of musical expression, tender, pathetic, solemn,
and sublime. But the same multitude is still
more susceptible of impression from the power-
ful charms of elocution. A good ear soon catches
and the memory retains, a tune ; and the exact
modulation of a well-uttered sentence is also

107

often retained, bv persons acquainted with no
precepts of art. A skilful musician catches the
written tune at sight by his eye, or commits it to
writing the moment after he has heard it sung.
This perfection of his art is at this moment a
thing inconceivable to the uninitiated; and its
present facility may encourage us to hope, that an
equal skill in appreciating and noting the tones
of speech may not be unattainable.

Of these fugitive tones of speech, some are
much more significant and expressive than others,
as not only differing in tlieir relative pitch and
dimension, but also as deriving importance from
their place. These are necessarv to the sense and
meaning, as well as to the euphony of a sentence ;
and they are also easily distinguished. Every
simple interrogation, for instance, is terminated
by an acute accent, so marked as hardly to escape
the most inattentive observer. An acute accent,
though of smaller dimension and a k •^er pitch,
is also most commonly heard in the close of a
phrase, or member of a sentence, where the sense
remains suspended; and every distinct sentence
is closed either with a grave or a circumflex ac-
cent.

108

1^. To the two simple accents, acute aiul
grave, under the appellations of « the rising and
faUmg inHexions," I\lr. W J ker professes to direct
Ills chief attention j conceiving, that if tliese arc
not misplaced or interchanged at the orinclpal
pauses of a sentence, or in certain emphatic ex-
pressions, h'ttle more will be neces.sarv to nuke
the ^vhc>le elocution correct and harmonious.
His object, theref-e, is to find some means of
making these inflexions distinguishable bv his
reader, and to investigate a svstem of practical
rules for their application.

" These t^o slides, or inflexions of the voice
*^ (he says)* are tlie axes, as it were, on which
" the force, variety, and harmony of speaking
1^* turns. They may be considered as the great
" outHnes of pronunciation j and if these out-
" lines can be tolerably conveyed to a reader
" they must be of nearly the same use to hiin
« as the rough draught of a picture to a pupil
« m painting. This, then, we shall attempt to
" accomplish, by adducing some of the most
" familiar phrases in the language, and pointing
« out the inflexions which every ear, however

10()

" unpractised, will naturally adopt in pronounc-
" ing them. These phrases will become a kind

of datay to which the reader may be referred,
" when he is at a loss for the precise sound,
" that is understood by tiiese dilicrent niHexions ;

and those familiar sounds, it is presumed, will
** suiliciently instruct him."

In pursuance of this idea Mr. Walker exempli-
fies what he takes to be the rising and falling inflex-
ions, by reference to the following sentences,
which he presumes " will at first sight be pro-
" nounced with the proper inflexions of voice
" by every one that can barely read.

" Doet Casar deserve fai.ie or blame ?
** Can Cieiar deserve blame ? impossible !
*' Caesar does not deserve fame, but blame.
*' Cssar therefore deserves blame, and not fame.

In the first of these, according to Mr. Walker,
fajue has the rising and /'A/w^ the fall ing inflexion.
In the second, blame rises and impossible falls.
In the third, fame and blame rise and fall as in the
first i but, in the fourth, blame, though in the
middle of the sentence, falls, and^ww^, at the
end of the sentence, r ses ; on which the author
takes occasion to state it, as a general rule,

.no

" that all sentences, constructed in the same
" manner, have tlie rising inflexion on the
*' negative, and the falling inflexion on the aifirma-
" live member/'

In these examples he made choice of words
*' different in sense though similar in Eounv],
** that the sentence might appear to carry soiov
" meaning with it, and the reader be \vd to
" annex those inflexions to thewordr. vhich ti\e
" sense seemed to demand." But h-j aher .vatds
thought it better " to take the same word, :;nd
" place it with the disjunctive or, in c>ppo:-inon
•' to itself," as ihe readiest way to discover tl;e
requisite inflexion. Thus, in the folli;.> 11!^ sen-
tence, " A contented mind, and a good con-
** science, will make a man happy in all con-
** ditions/' he directs his reader ** 10 J iv the
falling inflexion on the word mind, ihe rising
on conscience^ and the falling on aii," and says,
that we may find those respective inikxions, by
§imply asking thequesiion " is it mind oi mind ?
" is it conscience or conscience ? is it all or all ?"

That this kind of double question will, in
similar cases, suggest the same inflexions of the
voice to every tolerable reader, ma} be fairly

Ill

presumed. But the<!e are not simply rising and
falling inflexions ; i or do I indeed suppose that
Mr. Walker thought them so. He appears to
have been not insensible of that combination of
inflexions which we denominate a circumflex
accent ; for, in explaining the following example
" did he do it voluntarily or involuntarily ?" he'
says,* " that in the pronunciation of these words
« we find every syllable in the word voluntarily
« rises except the first, v:^U and every syllable in
" the word involuntarily falls, but the first in.
" These two syllables both fall and rise in
" the same articulation. In pronouncing vol.
*' the voice sinks at first and slides up again j and.
" in pronouncing in, the voice rises up and sinks
" down again. So that the two accented syllables
(meaning the emphatic syllables) " of these words,
" may be said ;o form a curve of sound, and
'* the rest of the syllables straight lines, the one
" rising, and the other failing." But he says,
" it will be sufllcient fjr every purpose of in-
" struction to consider both tliese inflexions as
" entirely rising or entirely fiilling, according to
" the slide in which they termifiate-,'' and he lays

• Ibid, p, 137.

112

it down as a kind of rule,* that " the several
" inflexions which form the ess^^ncc of speaking
** and reading, may be considered as two only?
" the rising and falling inflexions."

'•h

But surely, to confound things so diiferent as
simple and compotuid accents, is to mislead instead
of instructing the learner. We have in modern^
as doubtless they had in ancient languages, under
the general name of circumflex accer>ts, all the
varieties that can arise from tlie combination of
two opposite inflexions, in the utterance of
single svllables. Our circumflexes are not only
distinguishable as h^ixiggra'DC-acitte and acuto-grave^
according to the order in which their elementary
slides are combined, but also as consisting of
elements which vary in their respective dimen-
sions. To indicate these, in Mr. Steele's simple
method above mentioned, by drawing the accen-
tual marks over the syllables, three marks at least
will be requisite for each class, viz. ^v^ v_-^ v^
grave-acuteywndi-^ ^~^ ^ acutc-grave. Nor have we
yet specified all the varieties which are perceptible
in our tones of speech. We have two classes of
combined inflexions in a double circumflex, which

* P. M6.

113

IS either aaito-grave^acute, or grave^ncuto-gra've.
All these varieties are not only very perceptible,
but very significant and expressive. For tliese
last, however, two marks will be sufficients and
^^ i for, though there is great variety in the
general dimension as well as in the pitch of
. these double circumflexes, in the utterance of
dllferent speakers, and of the same speakers on
ditferent occasions, yet there is but little variety
of dimension in the elementary accents of which,
^ in any particular instance, they are compounded.

17. Mr. Steele has observed, that « the dialectic
" tone of the court, and other polite circles, rit;es
" but little above a whisper, and may l)e com-
*' pared to the species of painting, called the
'' chiaro^oscin'o, which is de.iied the vivacity of
" expression by variety of colours. There the
" circumflex, though it cannot be left out of the
" language, is used >rithin very narrow limits,
" frequently not risiiig or falling above five
" quarters of a tone, and for the most part
** hurried over witii great veloc" y, in the time
" of a quaver, or shortest note. But in the
" court language there is no nrgtiment. In tlie
'' senate, the extent of the slideii is enlarged to

1T4

■ ,1 . j

** the extreme; though the circumflex is never
" there so apparent as in the provinces."*

In tliis observation a general rule, worthy of
particular attention, is implied, to wit, that the
extent or dimension of our accents should be
varied,, according to time, p/ace, and circumstance ;
but still their essential distinctions should never
be confounded. To this also should be added,
what appears to have escaped his notice, that,
althougii there is a great latitude in the relative
pitch as well as in the dimension of our accents,
on different occasions, yet there :s a certain
regular proportion of both, whicli limits them
respectively, and from which, a very small devi-
ation, in any particular case, i^ sufficient to
destroy the meaning as well as the melody of a
whole sentence. Any of those accents especially
which derive im.pcrtanee from their place in a
sentence, if begun in a tone ever so little too
high or too low, or extended ever so little either
way beyond a certain distance from the key in
which the sentence is uttered, will in some
measure produce thi^ effect 3 and the narrower
the limits are, within which the general accen-

* Prosoiiia Rationalir., p. 85.

115

tuatlon is confined, the more sensibly v/ill this
jarring dissonance be felt.

To the observation above mentioned Mr. Steele ■
subjoins an example « of a familiar English inter-
" jection, used when a person is convinced by
*| the relation of some new circumstance not
" mentioned in the argument before, viz. ^, !"
This is one of our double circumflexes, a grave^
acuto-grave ; of which, according to Mr. Steele,
the « xvhole extent between grave and acute
** does not exceed seventeen quarter tones ;
" whereas, in some of our provincial dialects,
« the expression, on a similar occasion, would
" run to an extent of twenty-nine or thirty."

The converse of this inScx;oR, the a^ra^^grav,..
acdc, occurs f^-eqiently in every circle of those
charming pratlers, whose emotions are too lively
to be expressed without a proportional variety of
modulation. " Is it good, mv dear ? oH ' 'tis
'* so sw^t I- But this inflexion is not confined
to the nursery. We hear it, though in a lower
pitch, and of smaller dimension, in various ex>
pressions, and such as are of frequent occurrence,
II You think it str^ge j yes, I think it str%e,

but not mare strange tlian true." &c.

//./^./^ /k ;u.s c..^ jtJ -'-^Z^---^.

5 (

lid

There is one of Mr. Steele's accentual mark?,
which is sometime^ useful, but has not vet been
mentioned. It is the mark of a s'lnipU accent,
whether grave or acute, a little bent into a curve,
thus ;; or thus "^ to denote that " the voice hanj^s
" longer on the first part of the slide than on the
last. In this case the motion of , the voice is not
accelerated in the close, but a little retarded in
the beginning of the slide.

(•■

I ;

I have before observed, that the voice, in
speaking, always glides rnpidly^ but not always with
the same velocity 5 .md it may not be amiss here
to add, that, as every vocal slide must, in time,
be commensurate with the syllable, the real dif-
ference of velocity is often very considerable,
when nothing of the retardation here mentioned
takes place. The accent on any syllable, long
or short, may in one case be of more than
double the dimension, by which, on the same
syllable, it is limited in another, though the
sentence may, in both cases, be spoken nearly in
equal times ; and therefore, the velocity of the
slide must also be more than double. This
observation is of little importance, except it be
to such as may wish to imitate the vocal slides
on an instrument. For in speaking, if we give

i\7

the requisite di,„cnsion to our accents, or limit
th^>t J.ir.-.n.siou properly, according to time
place, anJ crcmstmice, without spealcing either
t^io fast or too slow, the voice will of itself move
with the proper velocity. But he that would
make an instrument perform the same, must be
attentive to this also, in order at once to keep
the t,n>e, and give the requisite diu.cnsion to
the accent.

The curved mark of a simple accent r„»v
always be distinguislied from a circumijex ; f„r
though rounded a little, vet tl>e mark of the
acute never descends, nor does that of the
grave rise, from its point of beginning.

This mark xvill be wanted in the notation of
Mr. Walker's h,to;;gatories, to which it i, time
to return, and of which the following s^e the
principal accents.

■*iLLS fime^ or blSme .? bl^me .' inSp6ssibfe t

4 ,!"*' "f f:'""' ''"' ^'•""^' '''» blfime, „6t fSme.
itxsiiiind .> or m/iid? conci.nce or coiiscience ?
all or all i

Tlie accentual illdes here marked have been so
mmutely explained, that their marh cannot fail
to md^ate the^ inflexions which they represent

V,ir

ti-

C o-fxjeu H

118

if I

■j 1

I tin .1

more intelligibly than any verbal description
could do.

From this view of Mr. Walker's examples it is
evident that his rule, for finding the requisite
inflexion, while he considers them all as " wiin/y
*' riswgy or intin/y fa//hig, according to the
" slides in which they tcrminaU," is far from a
safe one.

But whoever finds fault with a rule, especially
in the infancy of an art, should either furnish a
better, or propose some amendment. In the
present state of the art of me/epyj we must refer
to some known inflexions, as guides to those
who tannot yet read by note. As a practical -
amendment, therefore, of Mr. Walker's disjunc-
tive question, I would propose the addition of a
definite answer. — Is it f^ie or fame ? 'tis fauie.
Is it all or all.? 'tis all. Here, I presume,
Mr. Walker's ear will perceive, in the second
fame, an aaiic-grave^ and, in the third, a simple
grave accent ; and the same in the word all^ as
indicated by the respective marks.

In the progress of this work, Mr. Walker has ,
endeavoured to form a system of rules for di-

-f

fVO

"nf tf "' ''''""?°" °' "'^ '^^° -">''« -flex
ons to a vanety of sentences, which he classe,

7 :"\'° --- ->ogies of constructil

lerl, T' .'' ^^^-"""^^ """- "^e two

'»,fiaf,c words of a sentence.

Of the utility of this distribution, his own

2 r? " ^" '"^'^"«°^' ■"-' '^-e enabled
h.m to form a satisfactory judgment. The
prmcpal defect that I perceive in his svs,.m, i
the one above mentioned, respecting the circum-
ilex accents, which are of the utmost importance
to the force, variety, and harmony of speak-
>ng," but of which he takes no account.

Air. Walker has not ventured to call his /«-
{77 i "' ■""" •'J' 'heir proper name, accents ■
but he has sometimes denoted them by the an'
cient accentual marks.

1 8. Some mistakes, in an undert.-.king so new
and on so delicate a subject, may be considered
as unavo.dable. But tWe is onef which I hl^
t .^cessary to mention, as being irreconcilable to
hat_ essent,al distinction between speaking and

s'nging, on which the whnl„ ^o-t-i-T. -

„j>.c»me ui accents

• a

120

is founded, and of which Mr. Walker appears,
from passages in this same treatise, to have been
fully sensible.

' I

In the first volume, p. 117, he makes the
following remark — " that the more colloquial
** and familiar the hmguage is, provided it be
** earnest and emphatical, the more perceptible
** the inflexions are ; and, the more elevated
** and poetical, the less so. The plaintive ton^e,
" so essential to tlie delivery of elegiac composi-
*' tion, greatly diminishes the slides, and re-
" duces them almost to a monotone. Nay, a
** perfect monotone, without any inflexion at
" all, is some limes very judiciously introduced
" in reading verse. Thus, in the sublime de-
** scription of Satan's throne, in the 2nd book
** of Paradise Lost,

" High on a throne of voyal state, which far
*-' Outshone the wealth of Orraus or of hide,
" Or where the gorgeous east, with richest hand,
♦' Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
" S«\taB exalted sat."

** In this passage (Mr. Walker says) every word
" of the third and fourth lines, but pfarl and
** gold, may be pronounced in a monotone ; and

121

" this monotone will greatly add to the digmtj
" and grandeur of the object described."

With respect to the latter part of this remark,
I have ah-eady hinted the insuperable objection,
that it is directly contradictory to the first prui-
ciple of that doctrine which Mr. Walker himself
has endeavored to confirm and explain. None
but tniuj'a,/ sounds (I mean sounds of the ciiaste^
tnatic music) can, for a moment, be momtoncus.
Our speech, therefore, can never be so, not for
a single syllable, without producing an intolerable
dissonance.

, What Mr. Walker has here mistaken for mono^
tone, is merely a succession of accents of small
dimension, and nearly of one uniform pitch,
uttered as in a sort of parenthesis, but still
comprising every variety of accentuation, except
the double circumflex. In proof of this let the
lines in question be put to the test of experi-
ment, and we shall find them to be thus
accented.

High ^ri a thi^e of jroyal state, whicli far
Outsh^^e tht' wQth of'^Ormus 6v of Ifde,
O^jvhere the gorgeous e^c, wilh ripest haiid
Showers oh hC-r kBgs b^rb^ric pari afid stAd.,
atan exalted sat.

#4 I

» 'I

122

As to \\\t plaintive tone (which Is said so greatly
to diminish the shdes) it is -x phrase which,
though often used, has no definite meaning.
But, even in the vague sense in wliich this
phrase is commonly understood, the plaintive
tone is so far from having the eftect here impu-
ted to it, in the degree supposed by Mr. Walker,
that, on the contrary, its plaintiveness often
depends on occasional extensions of the vocal
slides. Nor is it in colloquial and flmiiliar lan-
guage, that the vocal inflexions are most strongly
marked. There are, indeed, some accentual
turns Avhich appear to be extended in familiar
colloquies ; but this is chiefly because the general
tenor of accentuation, in such familiar language,
is rather contracted, and, from the desultory nature,
especially of a sprightly dialogue, the inequalities
will be considerable. But whether it be plain
narrative, or didactic prose, or elevated and
poetical language, that we have to deliver, the
general proportion of dimension, in our accents,
will depend almost exclusively on the degree of
earnestness and emphasis of utterance, which
the occasion may require.

It is In consequence of such extended slides,
in the general tenor of delivery, on proper

V'*-ii

123

occasions, that a sudden din.inution of them
■s scnofmes, from the effect of contrast, so
very expressive. A contracted accentuation, like
a pause, may be in a high degree pathetic.

But, this is not a treatise; it is merely an ...^y,

-a .ts object, if my feeble voice may be heard

« to mv,te attention to the subject. I hope

Mr. ^^ alker may be induced, and, by public

regard, encouraged, to reVise his El.,„ems of

E ocufon , and, as it is yet the only system of

the kuKl, to make that syste.n as perfect as he
Ccin,

G S?

124

1^1

11 i

EngUsh Prosody,

1. The Latin grammarians from whom we
have received the word prosody, used it in a sense
different from its original meaning, referring it
not to the fnelcciy, but simply to the fneasure of
speech. The metrical system, however, was
nearly the same both in Greek and Latin.

In every language some syllables are uttered
5n less time than others -, and the relative time is
called the quantity of a syllable. This, ^n diffe-
rent syllables, is in various proportions ; but the
varieties are too numeroits and often too minute
for practical discrimination. Every syllable,
therefore, has been usually considered as either
long or short ; and these have been respectively
estimated as in the constant ratio of two to one.

On this general estimate were formed those
ancient artificial combinations of syllables, which
are denominated /^6'^ Every foot, strictly speak-
ing, consisted either of two syllables or of three ;
for ail other possible combinations must ue re-
solvable into one or other of these.

123

(^f flie ilissyll.-ible feet there could he hat
four, and of the trisyllable only eight, making
m all twelve metrical elements, which were called
sifffp/t feet, and were sufRcient for measuring all
possible varieties of composition, whether in
verse or prose. These feet had each an appro-
priate DAme. By combinations of the four dis-
syllable feet sixteen doKb/e ones, (tto^cj cvyOiroi,) were
formed, to which also were given distinct ap-
pellations.

But can these aitiiicial divisions of speech find
a place in English prosody? Can we make uss
of Grcci.-jn feet in measuring E^iglifh verses ? No
one will sup|K)se that cither Milton, Dryden, or
Pope, paid any particular attention to the coti"
plesy or triads, or dou^Wc couples, of long and short
svlljibles which occurred in their versification ;
nor is it probable, that Homer ever heard of a
dactyl or spondee. Pope *' lisp'd in numbers, for
" the numbers came." Numbers of what ? not
merely of syllables, but of syllables in some
orderly succession, and according to some system
of harmofiiotts combination ; a system which has
never yet been fully investigated. Such an in-
vestigation I presume not to undertake ; but I
hone that the foUowirls- observations mav have a

G 3

* i%i

il6

M'>

%■

■!.

&,.

chance of being useful, as unwrought materials
in the hand of some abler artist.

2. There are certain points in which all lan-
guages agree, and which have been called the
natural accidents of speech. Such is the organic,
formation of the vocal and articulate elements,
and such are all the varieties of emphasis and
accentuation. For though, in each of these
particulars, every language has some peculiari-
ties, n^orj or loss, yet they are few and
unessenti:^'. The difference is never in hiiuly nor
is it ever considerable in extent or degree*

It has been asserted, by some of our most
eminent winters, that in English, there is no
difference between accent (meaning syllabic em-
phasis J and quantity. But, in this respect also, I
am persuaded that all languages are alike. The
rules of quantity differ according to the different
structure of each language, but the distinction
of long and short syllables, in various propor-
tions of diversity, (practically in the general
rate of two to one) is as real in English as in
Greek or Latin. In those languages the differ-
ence of quantity often indicates to the ear the case
of a noun, or the mood and tense of a verb, &c.
and sometimes it constitutes the only difference

1 2/

between words which otherwise agree in sound,
but difter totally in meaning. This, however,
happens much, more frequently in English. We
have many words, as I have before observed,
under the head of English Elements, which, as
ai(dii>/e sounds^ differ in nothing but quantity.

It is also to be remarked, that the people of
every country, whether savage or civilized, have
an instinctive ieQling of that vital principle,
both of fpeech and song, to which the Greeks
gave the general name of '^v9ix.or, or number.

Now the essence of rhythmus, we are told,
consisted in u^ar and 6«<7<r, which, as technical
terms, were suggested by the Ijft'wg and putting
down of the foot, when either in a march or in a
dancey the steps were regulated by music, whether
vocal or instrumental.

Many of the inferior animals are susceptible of
delight from the variety, the speed, agility or
force, of their ov^n motions ; and most o^ them
find this pleasure greatly heightened by the ad-
dition of social participation ; but in their move-
ments we perceive no traces of regularity. Man
alone is sensible of a rythmus in his motions ; and

. !

..I

,h >

iPl

,m<i

K <>'

128

this sensibility, even if he were mute, would be an
impassible line or separation between him and all
the brute creation. But when his measured step
is accompanied with corresponding vocal or
instrumental modulations, this metrical union of
sound and motion becomes a source of impressions
so various and so powerful, that there are few
passions in human nature which it cannot by turns
excite or control. That this is more observable
in the ruder than in the more polished classes ot
mankind, is a proof that it proceeds from a «^-
iural and not from an arufic'ial propensity. Nor
is this propensity suppressed, it is only modified,
by the progressive refmeincnts of life. And
though the dance, with all its additional graces,
may dwindle from a passionate to an insipid
amusement •, yet rhythmus retains and extends its
power. It is transfused through every sentence
that we utter. It is felt in silence and in repose,
as well as in actual speech or motion. It regulates
the pau^ies both of motion and speech, and mea-
sures even the current of our thoughts.

What, then, is the nature of this rhythmus,
which every one feels and levv understand ?

I have already hinted the idea entertained of

129

it by the Greeks. The authority aUucled to is
an observation of Aristides, quoted by Mr.

Steele*, rov (/.iv }vC'uot iv m^crti kxi Qeaet rriv ucnav ty^uv To
?£ fjiiTpor tv cvXkaQoif xxi TV7 raruv av3fAO<oT*!T/, that

rhythmus has its essence in arsis and thesis, but
metre in syllables and in their difference.

If then the essence of rhythmus resides in the
pulsations of arsis and thesis, by what are these
pulsations regulated ? What is to direct us in
their application ? Not the mere varieties of quan-
tity, either in speech or music, that is, not sim-
ply the relative length either of notes or syllables :
for then the influence of rhythmus could not be
felt, as it certainly is, by unlettered savages, nor
even by the polished nations of modern Europe,
among whom the distinctions of quantity, however
constant in their respective languages, have never
yet been subjects of systematic arrangement, nor,
indeed, of general cognizance. And so far is
such a system from being necessary to any species
of composition, either in verse or prose, that it
can only have been formed by analysing the
structure of compositions previously existing.
Men universally sing and dance long before they

Mcibomiu»» Vol. II. p. 49.
G

.Hi

.'.I'.

,-,t

I'M

4)*

130

think of scanning their verses. Ante enim car-
men ortuin est, quam observatio carminis ;
indeque illud, Fauni Vatesque canebant.* Be-
sides in a sentence or. a verse, consisting of sylla-
bles all long or all short, it is obvious that there
can be nothing in the mere quam.:'!'/ to indicate
the rhythmus; yet, according to the rules of anci-
ent prosody, many such verses and spitences exist
both in Greek and Latin, and n-.iy exist in any
language.

Rhythmus is a general term, comprising two
distinct modes, which are called common time) and
triji/e time, or ccmmon and triple metre; and the"se
two modes, for in nature there are but these,
have at all times been the same, both in the
f.pcech and in the music of mankind. The first
is the rhytlimus of a march, and the second of a
mijiuet. These movements are, respectively, sus-
ceptible of great variety of quich or sloiv, and of
more or fe-wer steps in a rhythmical division \ but
all the possible varieties are reducible to these two
modes, -of which the difference is constantly so
sensible as hardly to escape the perception of the
dullest ear j and yet melodies, in either of these

* '^uincti. !x. 4.

131

modes may be composed of notes all of the same
length. Nay, the very same series of notes may
constitute either a minuet or a march.*

«•'■;

As the governing principle, therefore, of
rhythmus is not to be- fjiind in the length either
of notes or syHablcSy it can be only in their empha-
sis : in that accident or aftection, which is natu-
ral to all language and to every species of melody,
and to which modern grammarians and musicians
have bothj very improperly, given the name of
accetit.

It is therefore manifest, that what has been
hitherto commonly considered as a great defect
and a striking mark of inferiority, and even bar-
barism, in modern languages, has at all times
been alike inherent in every language, namely,
that, in our versification, the rhythmus depends
on emphatic impulse.

This universal principle did not escape the no-
tice of the Greek musicians. Aristides, before-
mentioned, has, in three words, with critical
propriety, given it a name, together with a very

* See Prosodia Rationalii, page 183.

'.m

-ftXe.

132

significant hint of its office* xy^yy, /t^^./^^f tij.:^xcriu;s^
the giHdnnce (or as Mr. Steele translates it) the
drift of rhythmical emphasis, f

3. Voltaire, in a letter to the Abbe d'Olivet,
on the subject of French prosody says| " with
« regard to language, I consider the people of
** every age and country as barbarians, in com-
" parison with the Greeks, and their disciples
" the Ronians, by whom alone true prosody was
*' ever understood. To the Gre , especially,

* Meibom, vo!. ii. page 4'i.

f vj.'^xati (from '.(/.pxtvu) was anciently used in a sense
similar to that of our English word Intimation. When a word
oi phrase was made, in its place, to convey some pointed
mcanin^r, beyond its ordinary signification, it was said to be
emphatic. This was a rhetorical anphash^ of which there is an
instance in the following line of Catullus, Vivamus, mea Lesbia,
atque amemus ; my Lesbia, let us live and love ; plainly inti-
natiiig that he considered love as essential to life. When I
say, //lairily intimating, I suppose him to have spoken as na-
ture, in such a case, would universally prompt every speaker
that is, that he gave to these words their adventitious mean-
ing by what we now call an imphatie utterance, the want of
which would even give the expression a contrary effect.
Hence we may fairly infer the propriety as well as the meaning
of the phrase, a rhythmical emphasis.

-f

\ " Ye tiensj en fall de langue, tous les peuples pour bar-
bares, &c.

133

« nature must have given organs more happily
" disposed than those of other nations, for con-
" structing in a short time a language composed
" intirely of long and short syllables, and wilh
" such an harmonious mixture of consonants
" and vowels as to form a species of vocal music.
" You will, I trust, permit me, without censure
" to repeat, that Greek and Latin are, to all
«< other languages in the world, what the game
" of chess is to the game of draughts, and what
" a graceful dance is to ordinary walking.''

In this same letter there are some observations
whichdo honor to the writer's taste and judgment,
in what related to his own language and to the
general proprieties of style. But when he talks of
a language composed all of long and short sylla-
bles, as an extraordinary thing, and of a species of
vocal music resulting from an harmonious mix-
ture of consonants and vowels, he becomes an
unmeaning declaimer. The whole passage, in-
deed, is either frivolous or absurd, excepting the
simile of a graceful dance, of which the idea,
though far from uncommon, has been suggested
by a mistaken notion both of ancient and of mo-
dern languages.

■'4 'I

' +

!lHl',|

134

That one language may greatly surpass ano-
ther in the sweetness and facility of its articula-
tions, is a truth of daily and perpetual observa-
tion. The Greek was formerly acknowledged,
in this respect, to excel the Latin. At this day
the Italian is the sweetest language in Europe.
But allowing this, if you please, to he called a
species of vocal nmsic^ in which case we are all
singers, though some sing more sweetly than
others, yet singing and dancing are different
things. The dance must be referred to some
peculiarity of tneasurcy in which the Greek and
Latin are supposed to have been distinguished
from all other languages.

It is well known that, in Greek and Latin,
the long and short syllables were far from being
constantly, if ever, in the exact proportion as-
signed to them in theory. It is highly probable
that, in this respect, the speech of all nations is
at all times very much alike. But even were it
otherwise ;— if, in any language, the long and
short syllables were so proportioned, as to form
a metrical system no less accurate than that of
our modern musical notation, still the rhythnws,
by which the dance, in question, must be go-
verned, would have its essence, not in any artful

135

arrangement of those syllables, hi regard to their
qua,iUtyy but in the pulsation of alternate em-
phasis and remission. Without this, the most
exact pronunciation of long and short syllables,
in any language and In any possible order, would
be 3 mere unanimated syllabication ; that is, a
series of syllables, but not of significant expres-
sions.

But so far were the metrical systems of anti-
quity from being strictly accurate; that any
short syllable, in position, as it is called, was
constantly, in all metrical computations, whe-
ther of verse or prose, considered as a long one.
Yet surely it were absurd to suppose that any
real augmentation was ever effected by the simple
collision of mute consonants. In the following
verse, for instance, A..v^ l^ x>.«7^ y^«r afyvft.i,
^.0.0, could the syllable oz be converted into a
long one, merely by standing next before a word
beginning with two consonants ? It will be said
that, in that position, it was pronounced as a
syllable belonging to the word that follows it
i^^-KxT/y^. Be it so; but was the vowel « there-
fore changed in the pronunciation from a short
to a long one ? If so, the conjunction h was
converted in fact into the adverb ^^ 5 for words

i c

f f

■'6.'

'9'i

136

b '

; I

mi
i

arc such as we Imr them, Independently ot any
regard to their spelling. The change of oi into
S», in the present instance, would not, indeed,
quite deprive the passage of a meaning, nor
involve any ungrammatica! construction, but it
would destroy the simplicity of a sublime expres-
sion, and render the meaning at least ambiguous.
This word ^r, is sometimes of an ironical or sar-
castic import •, an ixistance of which, quoted by
Scapula from Thucydides, I beg leave to offer as a
sultablemotto for the Great Republic,andallothtrs
who are blessed with French liberty and equality
rt'fA.us Si avrovr(XD4 or) cyrts j wey£'>'j'w//'areself-govei n-
ed I But the instances are innumerable, where
the effect of this position, if it did really lengthen
the syllable, would change or mar the meaning,
and violate every principle of grammar. The
following must be familiar to the recollection of
every school boy.

Toy jt^f-Tr/jey 'jtot Yfujrct xxkx xtyracrt ixiXtcrffct"-'
M^S' t^Gai(is ^<Xo» crov afxxpra^os tiytKot (xiKfrns-^

'A^V ri TO •\'lQvfKT[XlX' -

<(,ivyt xaxoy to ^/Aa^jc, ra x^'Afa fafixxxonvr

HxE 06 tw A^ynoici x«x£» ^.\oi — — —

In pronouncing these lines, shall we say tak

137

^tkoi ? No ; and yet nothing but tluis levgthtntng
the vowel can possibly make the syllabU long.

In the word xaKov, thus protracted, there is a
remarkable ambiguity •, for xaxwv could not here be
the genitive plural of the adjective, as, both with
^lUi and p^xfJLXi it would make a griimmatical
discord. It must then be the present participle
either of kxmm or xaxjtw.

i'h^- 'bi

Instances of short syllables affected by occasional
position, occur in almost every sentence of Greek
or Latin j but a great proportion of the words in
those languages, taken shigfy, are in like manner
aflectedbya position that, of course, is constant. All
such words would be radically altered, if a short
vowel were really made long by jwsition. x^^7rV,
KtvTsuj t^Oxipv, ivTi, &c. &c. would be pronounced,
that is, as audible sjundsy would be changed into,

x.\>jT>^r,r, Mvrtv, v)X^ciipu, vn>ri, &C. ^iXicrcrJt WOUri'

also undergo a similar change by lengthening
the ,wrx, in which case it would anciently have
been pronounced as we now should pronounce
moleessa in our common spelling.

Many different words would then differ only to

I'""!

' Jf'l

I* i

138

the eye. K>.s(ji!xci, furtum, for instance, would
not be distinguishable by the sound from xXr/xa,
sarmentum; nor/3X£/^/>ta vultus, from /3a*7/x«, vulnus*,
StHT^jr, mendicus, from Imr'nT, mordax j )ioiJ.(j.ix,
segmentum, from xw/a*, sopor; AswIos-, tenuis,
from Krtirio'r, captus ; mliT, tonsura, from irri^i?,
concretio ; miaa-u, coquo, from ttvo-o-u, figo ',
ciTflos, venerandus, from cr-mr^or, putridus ; rvnl'jvrxi,
verberantur, from rvrfiicvraci, verberentur — x. r. a.

If it be said that xAt/x/^a, ^Xtf^fxai, &c. would be
distinguished from xA*j^a, ^Xvifxx, &c. by distinctly
sounding both consonants, as in similar cases is
done at this day by the Italians, I answer, that
notwithstanding ihe distinctness of Italian pro-
nunciation, the first syllables are long in can^,
datna, ecoy gala, maloy pane, ^c, and short in canna,
damma, ecco, galla, mallo, panno, and a thousand
others ; and even if the consonants were so
distinctly sounded as to make two words of one,
it could have no effect whatever on the kngth of
the syllable.

4. But if a short s^^llable, in position, conti-
nued to be short, how came it, in that case, lo
be constantly accounted otherwise, and made to

139

iill the placeof along one in every sort of metrical
composition.

This question, if I am not much mistaken,
leads to an explanation, which will shew that the
ancient prosody differed from our ftwn much less
than we have been taught to believe.

Rhythmus was felt before syllables were mea-
sured, and it was always governed by the empha-
tic pulsations j but in every language it is natural
to give an emphatic utterance to a long syllable
rather than a short one, when the place of the
syllabic emphasis is not otherwise determined.
None but an emphatic syllable, except in parti-
cular cases, can occupy an emphatic place in the
rhythmical pulsation. Along syllable, therefore,
would occupy that place, to the exclusion of any
utmnphatic short one. But short syllables, in
position, were, by that circumstance, rendered
emphatic, or susceptible of emphasis, and there-
fore qualified for the same place. I say emphaUe^
or susceptible of emphasis ; because, though none
but an emphatic syllable :ould, in general, occupy
an emphatic place, yet, as every rhythmical
clause comprehended both emphasis and remission,
it must happen, that wH«n such a clausQ was filled,

' [i

^!i

t'^'i

140

for instnnce, by a spondee, one orly of the sylla-
bles in that foot would, in the common current of
versification, be actually emphatic ; yet the me-
trical system required both to be long, either by
the natural quantity of the vowel or by position,
that is, both to be alike susceptible of emphasis.

That metrical system was formed by analysing
songs already familiar to the public ear, in which
/?^/^ syllables and syllables in position were indiscri-
minately found in the emphatic places. It wns
therefore natural to assign to both similar places
in the construction of their feet j and thus every
syllable in position was accounted long, und was
probably thought to be really long. I'oi" why
should we suppose the ancient founders of such
a system to have been incapable of an oversight ?
I have pointed out some absurdities that must
have been involved in such an idea when strictly
applied to their language ; and I beg leave to
mention a very ridiculous instance in our own,
which occurs in Warton's Essay on the life and
writings of Pope, vol. I. p. 302.

«< Ye gentle gales ! beneath my body blo^y,
" And softly lay me en the waves below!"

Dr. Warton says, that these *' are perhaps the
'* most harmonious verses in our language," and

!fi

141

he attributes the peculiar melody of the first
chiefly to its consisting intireiy of iambic feet ;
and he scans the line thus

Ye gent I Ic gales | beneath | my bo^ dy blow,
Now here it is evident, that, in order to make
this verse purely iambic, syllables are accounted
long ones, which we cannot pronounce long with-
out essentially altering the words. For if the
first syllable in the word gentle is made long, it
will hejantk', and by the same means the word
body will become unfit for utterance by any decent
company. It must, at the same time, be acknow-
ledged, that, according to the rules of ancient
prosody, this line does in fact consist of pure
iambics -, for though the first syllables of gentle
and bod%' are both shorty yet they are both emphatic^
and, therefore, qualified each for the place it
holds in the line, when scanned in the manner
above specified.

In the ancient languages, a word pronounced
as body is in English, would have had the em-
phatic syllable denoted by doubling the letter d ;
and perhaps, if our own spelling was, in other res-
pects, intitled to the name of orthography^ it
might be worth while for us to adopt a similar
practice. But if we did, so far would that spel-
ling be from denoting any lengthening of the syl"

I'K

Iff

\'M%

'^i.

-t 1^

142

iable, that, on the contrary, it would be a signal
for uttering the vowel, thus closed by a double
consonant, as rapidly as possible. Every syllable,
in such position, is both short and emphatkJ^ This
effect of position is not peculiar to English, but
is the same in every modern language; and was,
most assuredly, the very same in Greek and Latin.

5. It is therefore an error to suppose that the
ancient prosody was constructed solely on the dis-
tinction of long and short syllables. It is also an
error to suppose that distinction, of itself, suffi-
cient for ascertaining the metrical structure of
any verse or sentence ancient or modern.

What, for instance, are the feet of which the
following lines are composed ?

2. froiscv^nOopiJ.xa-uifrxvrxi n KStvxv) ntDfXvri rxvrav'.

3. ^^o(xii oofxro^-cpz sn'X>js, 7ro?\s/>(,r,x£Aao£.

4. n Z%vos Hxi Xri^us KxKKiarci aurri^is.

'II-

* If it be said that two consonants must require moie tinae
in utterance than one, I answer that the observation is equally
applicable to such consonants as precede the vowel ; and yet
it has never been pretended that any number of consonants
articulated with a following short vowel can make a long
jyllahle. ^

143

Every sylluble, In the first and third lines, u
short, and in the second and fourth, eveiy syl-
lable is either long or In position, and of course
to be accoimtcd long in sci;nning the lines.

It is to be remembered that the number of
syllables in a line can be no clew to the measure;
as either a redundant or a deficient syllable is fre-
quent in the ancient versification, and sometimes
makes a part of the measure intended.

V -j I

Without better authority, therefore, we might
have supposed the first of these to be a pentame-
ter line, consisting of five tribrachs, and to be
sung or said in triple time — thus

Kiyi OS [ (7V KXTx j TTo^x ve | cXvTx j f/.tXtx

But this line is given by Dionysius in the treatise
TTt^i at>9siTsx'i, to exemplify the dissyllable feet cal-
led /jr/'/^/Vj". It is therefore tetrameter catakctictiSy
each foot a double pyrrhic, the fourth wanting a
fv liable, and the rhvthmus in common time.

Ktyi h crv j Kxrx tto^x [ itoXv Tx j (/.tXtx

By the same authority we are to pronounce the
second line as an octometer acatalecticus, consist-
ing of eight complete spondees, in common time.

14i

The third and fourth are both In triple time, con-
sisting, the <?ne of six tribrachs, and the other of
four tnolouu But in each of these, and in every
similar case, of syllables either all long or all
short, it is plain that, without the control of a
rhythmical pulsation, these metrical arrangements
must be perfectly arbitrary •, and the same obser-
vation is, in some measure, applicable to every
ptiss'ble series of syllables.

The following, for instance, — -^ ^

. v_^ __ v^ may be formed into a pentameter

hvpcrcataledkus, consisting of five dissyllable fee%
iramely, a trochey sp.ndcc, trochee, and two iambic
feet, with a syllable called xaTaAr,|«j.

The same series may be formed into feet of three
syllables J thus, - — - — 1 ^ j --^ ----- | ~ ^t

making a tetni meter catalcdicus.

In like manner, any series whatever of sylla-
bles may be formed either into dissyllable or tri-
syllable feet ', and nvay be still further diversified
by variously mixing the two. The present series,
for instance, may form a trochee, spondee, dactyl and

two trochees, — ^-^ | | — -^ ---' | — ^-^ } — ^-^r

which is the ancient Sapphic measure.

145

Tiius it is evident, that no metrical structure
o'i either verse or prose, can, in any hmguage,
he determined by merel/ ascertaining the syllabi-
cal Giianrity, and therefore, that the prosodial
feet are in fact rhythmical coaibinatioiis of sylla-
bles, and to be ascertained by the " drift of
rhythmical emphasis." Accordingly we find, that
Dionysius, in the treatise so oflc.i quoted, justi-
fies his application of tliC term to plain prose, by
observing, *' iltat every verb and odier part of
*' speech whatever is ULtercd in s-or.ie rhythmus,
" IV ^-Jy^ TiviXc'-jSTx,^''* and he, therefore, uses
the words j^>5/ and rhythmus as synonymous terms,
TO o' ocvro KxXuj ifoox nxi ^vOixov ■ that is to say, he con-
sidered fcut not merely as nn^trlc.'- but also as
rhythnikaL divisions of speech, ilcnce it is, that
in scanning a sentence from Plato, he gives a
reason for his arrangement. " In this sentence
*' (lie says) there are two members, and t]\e
" following are the rhythmi of which they are
** composed. They/;-// a ba( chius ; for I cannot
" think this meiaber should be coiisidcred as
" of linnl'ic metri\ because melanciioly and
'* m.ournfal subjects require not brisk but slow
*' and protracted timcs."f These times, then,

m
I ,

» k \

54*

t'jfi

18 .

* Sect. 17. t Il>idl8.
H

I.l't,

m,>

140

depended 4iot solely on the leiij^th of the syllii-
bles, which, in either case were the same, but
on the fat, that is, on the rhyi.bnm-al coTubhrntioNS
into which those syllables were formed. In
every foot there is om- rhythmical emphasis, i^nd
the times are quick or slow in proportion to the
quick or slow succession of the emphatic pulses.
The sentence in question, being taken from
the exordium of a i\meral oration, was there-
fore to be pronounced in a rhythmus suitable
to the occasion, and not in dissyllable feet.

From the preceding observations, which have
been stated as they occurred, without aiming at
a strict methodical proof, it is, I think, clearly
manifest, that metre is always subordinate to
rhxtbnius •, * and that the governing principle of
rhyti.mus is universally ^//^ ««^/ ^/-'^ ''•'''^^'^> namely,
the pulsation of alternate emphasis and remis-
sion.

I hope I shall not be misunderstood, as mean-
ing, by this pulsation, anything like a certain
staccato utterance of the emphatic syllables, and
even of such as are unemphatic when they

• " Rhythmus, Hephaestione teste, metro potentior.
Bentley, de metris Terentianis,

lotentior.

I'lr

happen to occur in emphatic phccs, wlilch is
alike unnatural and disgusting. I mean nothing
more than what is uni"';ersally perceptible in the
correct and unatFocted pronunciation of every
language. The french 'anguage nvay, perhaps,
be cited as an exception ; but I believe the
apparent defects of the French prosody, if tho-
roughly examined, would rather confirm than
weaken the inference above stated, of a metre
subordinate to rhythmical pulsation, as univer-
sally appHcable to every language. Of this,
liowevcr, so far as respects their own language,
the French themselves must be the best judges.

^. We continue to use the ancient metrical
niimes, and distinguish our dltTereni kinds of
verse by the appellcitions of iambic, trochaic,
dactylian, and anapaestic •, but we have a new
mode of scanning our verses, by what Mr.
Steele calls cade/ices.

By a me:rical cadence is meant one intire
rhythmical pulsation, including both emphasis
and remission, or thesis and arsis, equivalent to
a musical bar, and making an aHquot part of
tlie verse to which it belongs.

A cadence may consist either of a sincrle or a

H 2

till

fe.

, ■ 1 ,

5 ».

» ■

iff'...-

r'?,

!'.■

-^; ''

i'" •

!■■•!

double foot, or It may contain dividends of two
contiguous feet ; but all the cadcnceii, in anyone
verse, must be commensurate. For tic pulsations
of alternate thesis and arsis, in which all rhyth-
)iius has its essence, are, with u:i at least, uni-
crm and equal as the vibrations of a pendulum ;
and they must have been the same in practice,
if not in theory, of the ancient prosody ; for,
without ^uch isochronism, there can be no re-
gular rhythmical modulation.

Occasional transitions, from a slower to a
quicker, or from a quicker to a slower pulsation,
as also from common to triple time, or vise
versa, are not only allowable, but requisite j both
for the sake of variety, and of a proper accom-
modation of movement to dllFcrent stiles of gay
and sprightly, plaintive and pathetic, solemn and
sublime. And these transitions may sometimes
be quick and frequent •, but still, during any one
movement, the rhythmical pulses should be
coincident with the vibrations of a pendulum of
a certain length •, and the pulses of a slower or
a quicker movement should, for the time, keep
pace with a longer or a shorter pendulum.*

* " lUi frhythmi) quo modo coeperaut currunt usque ad
<, y.5T«CrAy,v, id est, tiansitura in aliud genus rhythmi."
Quinct. l.ix. civ.

110

T;>.e metrical fjv't, tlic'rcforc, nni«t often be
made to kco niicc witli the rlivthmiis hv occasi-
onnl modii'ications o!:* quantity ; and this lua t
liave been as iieceof.arv in the ancient versilk'n-
tion as it now is in nur own. In tl\e .eapphic
HKMSure, for in;:>tance, above describetl, trochees
must have been pronounced in equal times with
dactyls and spondees.

This will, doubLless, be thought nothing less
than grammatical heresy. What ! were the
elementary proportions of the Grecian feet, then,
indefinite and precarious ? Strictly speaking,
they certainly were. The Greek writers ex-
pressly testify, that* " there was a variety both
" of long and short syllables, and that neither
" the one nor the other had constantly the same
" powci'y either in prose or in any poetical com-
" position, whether lyric or heroic." This ob-
bcrvation, I confess, is no proof that any one
specific syllable was, at difierent times,, or in
different places, of different power ; but that
it must often have been so, is an unavoidable in-
ference from the principle just now stated, and
which no musician will dispute, — that without

'•f\, \

i'1 ,1 1

•Dion. 77£p o-t.v9. 15.
ii 3

1 50

\r\'

aiicK zn isochronlsm as I have here supposed,
no regular rhythmical motUilr.lion can in nature

As to the rmnner of equnlizlng the feet in
question, wlani the first syihible of the trochee
was really long, it was easily ^Piccted by a small
extension of that syllable ; but when that syllable
WIS long only by position, and, therefore, could
not be lengthened in the pronunciation, a pro-
portional pausie in the utterance must have been
somehow interposed, to prevent a violation of the
rhythmus, and preserve the reciuisitc equaliiy of
the cadences.

In this, I suppose, the Grcc!:s, lilce ourselves,
wore prompt/:J, as it were insLirxtively, by the
rhythmical iniluence, v/iiich has its ellect in
r^p-ulatli)cr cur speech, to a certain degree, in-
dependently of any attention of our own to the
circumstance, or even consciousness of the fact.
When Sappho pronounced the following lines,

<]xiu 1 '^1 l^-'" J ii-'^iv'jsi I (70S 9a j oia-iv
}f.'uv, I xr.p I 'ocrTi< IV I x-jTi I ca rot ;

it will not be doubted that, to the several

* " Tcmpus enim solum metitur, ut a. sMitiore a>\ />ojitiorifm
«« iisdeni sit spatiis pedum." Ibid.

i:n

torrespomUng (Vot, at least, she allowed equal
rimes ; and yet she could not make the syllable
.u/x, as long as the syllabic ?^, without changing
ihe word !/.»» into ^/>/uavi in which case she must
have used the Doric instead of her own /llolic (ha-
lect. Ocn^ camiot be made equal in time with
«v's-, without making: two words of it, us r/r,
:.na destroying tbe sense. But I have already,
ixjrhaps, said more than enough on the subject
of sliort syllable> in position. iMv present object
is only to show that their metrical deficiencies
must of necessity be supplied in the manner
here suggested *, in which the ayMyn pv9i/.iM, hke
a steady uniform current, seems to carry us along
by an insensible communication of its own
motion.

hi'

' I't.

Let any one, with some perseverance and
attention, make and repeat the following expe-
riment. Let him practise either a silent or an
audible recitation of any good English verses,
measuring the rhythmus by his own steps in
walking, and to the syllables which pass in his
mind, or ar.e uttered by his voice, from step to
step, or from pace to pace ; let him give the
name either of a cadence or a foot, whether
simple or compound, and the consequence, I am

u 4

-I'

J 52

"'1;,

pcisir.'J.d, will soon be, his intire assent to the
triul; of tiie several particulars above stated.

As to the poets, indeed, they seem, of old,
to liave taker, a dislike to irall-i^/g. 'i hey wish to
scar, each mounted on a fiery pegasus. But
whoever wishes bis measures to be correct,
iiiUSl conform to the movements of human feet ;
and the march or the dance must be his gradus
.'id Pariiassum. Otherwise he must e.ipect to
have one, and most probably I ut one, of the
fine things whicli have been said of Pindar, ap-
plied to himself, /'

—— — riumerisquc fcrtur n--if.-ms>'>'^^'^^ >

liege solutis. ^^*''" ---

which Burke, in a sense equally ludicrous and
justj is said to have applied to Wilkes, when
borne on the shoulders of a mob in London.

;

Jit

It is by these rhy<:hmlcal cadences, in regular
succession, tliat verse is distinguished from prose.
IMr.Stecle, indeed, is of opinion, that a discourse
in prose, as well as a verse or a tune, " will give
" some uneasiness, or at least not be satisfactory
" to nice ears, if its whole duration be not mea-
'* s.ired bv an even number of complete ca-
'* deuces, commensurable with and divisible by

{'JtlJ:
Ml ii

153

" t\vo or three •," that is, oi* cadences either in
common or triple time. And when objection" lO
this doctrijie wc-q made by his learned corres-
pondcnf-, he argued in defence of it. But I con-
i"ess that, in >.hh p.>lnt, I must dissent from his
opinion, which clearly would destroy the ancient
and natural distincuon between prose and verse.

In his answer* to a remark on this subject, and
in otlier instances where he has set some sentences
or prose to his notes of quantity and emphasis,
the cadences appear indeed to the eye to be ec[ual,
2nd rhythmns correct. But this appearance is not
realised when the sentences are pronounced in an
(Msy natural manner, and as I think they would
be bv a correct speaker. Mr. Steele assumes eight
different subdivisions of quantity, corresponding
to the musical notes from a quaver to a dotted
semibreve. It therefore cannot be diiTicult, with
such a variety of notes, and equivalent pauses, or
even with the first six of them (which are all that
lie uses on this occasion) to give the semblance of
equal cadences to almost any subdivisions of a
sentence that chance might suggest: but no mea^
surcs, whether of sound or silence, in prose or

154

un\

m li'i

la^lill

i£9

¥■■

BIIPB

fli

•

HSlBflj

w .

^H^B

i^' :ii

^^H^Uj

iji,

1' ' Hi

^^H^B

ii'- ' >'

^■H

li' "'

^■1

verse, can be regulated by arbitrary computa-
tions : nor can such diversities of measure, as
Mr. Steele assumes, be ever realised iu practice.

It is true that, in our current pronunciation,
bv the drift of which our versification must be
g(3verned, long syllables are occasionally ex-
tended beyond, and both long and short sylla-
bles respectively contracted within their usual
dimensions : but the longest, compared with the
shortest, is never in a proportion grea.v * than four
to one. There is a difference between the two
branches of music, melcpy and melody^ which I
have not till now had occasion to mention. It is
this — that in the latter, a much greater variety of
quantity is practicable than in the former. Noies
may be sounded in exact proportions of time,
both shorter and longer than any syllables can
be pronounced. In speaking, we know (and for
our knowledge are indebted to Mr. Steele him-
self) that the voic; is in continual motion, as-
cending or descending, not always indeed with
equal velocity, but always very rapidlyy through
intervals of Irmited extent. Nature, therefore,
puts a limit, beyond which a long syllable can-
not be protracted, unless it be either in a draivl
or a tnofwtcn^^ And on the o^her hand, the

shortest syllable must have the time reculsite for
distin-t articulation. This last, in singing, is
sometir/ico less regarded than it ought to be ; but
the only natural limit to the lengtli of any note
in vocal music, is the power of the lungs to fur-
nish breath.

8. From the physical necessity of taking
breath, there must be some pauses in all human
utterance, v/nether of speech or song. Pauses,
alio, are often necessary to the clear indication of
the sens^ and meaning of what is said; and they
sornttimeshave a fjrciblecra pathetic signif c.mce,
beyond tlie power of words to convey. Mr.
Steele is of opinion, that the requisite pauses
ought to be accounted as parts of the metre,
both in verse and prose; that our heroic verse,
for instance, consisting of five feet, is at least,
in rliythmical computation, he^cameter, and the
Greek heroic seldom less than octometer. The
prop<Ttion of pause, implied in this computation,
is indeed, as he justly observes, " as little as can
" be allowed for the reader or speaker to fetch
" his brea'di; and this in the plain narrative
" style. If there be requisite at any very pointed
" expression, more rests or pauses must be
'* thrown in." But still, no pauses can, with

f ,.

156

la K,%> '■■

'*t

1,11

.rHi"'

propriety, be reckoned parts of the mctrCi except
those above mentioned, which accompany a short
syllable when it occupies the place of a long one,
aiid which I Vv^ould therefore distinguish by tlie
name of inetrtcal pauses. All other pauses should,
indeed J be made to conform to the rhythmical
pulsation, and their respective quantity or dura-
tion must therefore be proportioned accordingly.
Br.t though they must increase tlie number of
cadences in the recitation^ they have no effect what-
ever en the structure of the verse.

In a regular rhythmus, it is requisite, not that
verses of the same metrical denomination should
all be sung or said in the 5,ame time, but that
the several cadences, comprised in any verse,
should be respectively equal. It is at the same
time to be remembered, that this equality must
not be factitious ; that is, it must not depend on
anv artiiicial conforniitv of utterance in the
speaker, but must proceed, as I have more than
once observed, from the natural drifu of our cur-
rent pronunciation, in reading or speaking plain
prose. Here is no room for poetic license. No
poet must expect our proniuiciation to be crip-
pled in complaisance to his lame feet j and this is

li;^

157

one great excellence in onr versification com-
pared with that of the ficneh.

9. I have said /'sec. iv) that none hut an cm-
phatic syllidile, except hi pnrt Ocular cases ^ can oc-
cupy an emphatic pl?ce in the rhythmical pulsa-
tion. The emphatic place is that of the first syl-
lable in every cadence or metrical bar. It is
therefore plain, that every verse, which is com-
posed of such feet as begin with an unemphatic
syllable, whether short or long, mu:;t itself
begin, as we say, in the middle of a bar •, and
then the iirst syllable of a cndcncc is the last syl-
lable of a fjot ; as in the following examples
of iambic and anapxstic measure.

" "With ] ravish'd | cars
** The I monarch | hears,
" As I sumes the | God,
« Af I fects to 1 nod,
" And 1 seems to [ shake the | spheres.

Eut when the vcrsi is composed of feet which
bee'n with emnhatic svllables, the feet and the

: it-

' \

-|:

!*»•■'

f> t.

158

¥ 4'

cadences are coincident ; as in all trochaic and
dactylian measures.

But though the first syllable in every cadence
is always the seat or place of a rkpLmical em-
phasis, it is not always filled with an emphatic
syllable. The syllabic emphasis is, indeed, the
governing principle of rhythmus ; and its recur-
rence, at equal intervals^ must be so far constant,
as to determine clearly the drift of the rhyth-
mical pulsation ; but if that be done, a cadence,
of which the emphatic place is filled with a syl-
lable both short and unemphatic, is not unfre-
qucnt in the most polished versification — as the
word or, in the following line, - - " if greater
v/ant of skill*
" Appear iu | writing | or in | judging | ill."

the reverse of this sometimes contributes to the
variety and force of metrical expression, when the
rhythmical is followed by an oratorial emphasis in

♦ Essav on Criticism.

150

the same cadence. Both these cases are e':emplified
in the following line, where the word j/d is in the
emphutic place of a cadence, and sti// takes an
oratoriul emphasis, in a place unemphatic —

" Herlheart still dictates and her j hand o'be3/s."*

10. This mode of scanning ver'.es, by cadencesy
is more simple than tlie ancient method, and
more conformable to our musical notation.
But whether we scan our verses by cadences or
feet, we shall hnd the ancient rule, of marking
the end of every verse by a pause in the utter-
ance, is both natural and necessary *, as other-
wise itwouldbeimpossible, without rhyme^ (which,
in its present acceptation, has nothing to do either
with rhythmus or metre) to distinguish any two
or more of the shortest verses, recited in succession,
from one long verse.

This final pause was considered as absolutely
indispensable in the ancient prosody ; but the
rule seems to have been misunderstood by an
author of great eminence in classical erudition.
The learned Clarke (Iliad i. 51.) asserts, that

the last syllable of every verse, without ex-

f'i

lit,

{(

* Eluisa to Abela

UJIU.

i6a

sP:'

'* ceptlon, is universally, not cowtn^n, p.s il.
" grammarians pretend^ but always of iieccs>iiy
" /c/igj propter pausam istam, qua, in fine ve:su5,
" syliaboe ultima: pronuntiationoceGsaric produci-
tur.'* But surely, tbt'jVr;/r^aV J uitcrance of as/li.ib'c
tbirers from a pauscj just as sound diliers fi-oin
nh^m-e. The pause can hr.ve no ePiCCt Vv'batever
en tbc syllable j for quantity is no where liable to
modification from any power but tliat of rhythmus.
But the pause ilself must obey the same power, and,
therefore,\viHbeshorter, at the endof a verse which
terminates in a long syllable, than where the
final syllable is a short one. The universality,
hovvever, of the pause in question, as taking
place in the end of every verse of every kind,
is asserted by the grammarians in general ; and
fer such a rule, the reason must always and
every where be one aiid tlie same j namel'',
tliat the various dimensions of different versos
might be always distinctly perceptible. This,
in some of the ancient lyric measures, -may
seem to have been sufficiently ascertained by
the structure of the verse : but still the rule was
held to be without exception.

This rule, then, seems to imply anotlier, that
the grammatical construction should be such as

i6i

to require a pause at the end of a line, inde-
pendently of any other consideration. At the
same time, it is certain, that ocaisioJiid dcviatioi->s
from such a construction are, in some degree,
necessary to that variety, without \vl\lch no
kind of composition can long be p^.eas'ng, and
for want of which, the uniforn\ity of our heroic
couplet^ as it is called, is often, to me, at least,
tiresome and disgusting. But still, the con-
struction should at least be such, as never to
preclude a short suspension of the voice at the
end of a verse ; nor should one verse be ever
so run into amther^ as not to be clearly distin-
guishable, in a natural and proper recitation.

The versification of Milton is, in this respect,
often faulty, but not by far so often as a cur-
sory reader would imagine. The final pause,
even in cases where, by the construction and
the usual mode of utterance, it seems to be
decidedly interdicted, may yet be frequently found
not only admissible, but very proper, and strikingly
expressive.

i6'i

♦* Him the almlglity power
<♦ Hurl'd headlong, 'i.unaj^, 'Vcjm the ctliereal sky*
** With hideous ruin and combustion, down
" To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
** In adamantine chaii s and penal fire,
•* Who durst defy t»ie omnipotent to urms,"*

« Regions of sorrow, doleful bhades, where peace
" And rest— can never dwell, liope never comes,
" 'J'hat cumc8 h> iiU; but tortus c— without end—
" St' 11 urges, and a llcry dfluge, fed
•• With ever-burning uulphur unconaum'd !"f

In these and a thoiiKand other instances which
occur in this immortal poem, the pauses have
what may be called a focal propriety and signifi-
ance. When we are about to mention an act of
the al)n'ighty power, a momentary suspension of
the voice is a natural and a very impressive indi-
cation of that pious reverence, which it would
be stupidity not to feel on such an occasion. And,
universally, in solemn, sublime, or pathetic com-
positions, or even where the beautiful is brilli-
ant, without the sublime, there is a propriety in
pauses, which, in similar cases of grammatical

* P. L. I. 44, t Ibid. 6S.

l63

construction, on lighter subjects, woukl have an
air of burlesque and mockery. The final pause,
though it seems to interrupt the construction,
will be allowed to be both graceful an-1 proper
in the following beautiful passage.

I .'■'

" As when, fi-om mountain tops, the dusky clonls—
** Ascendinjj, while the north wind sleeps, i)'er9prc;id—
" Heaven's cheerful face, the lower ini* element—
<• HcouU o'er the dafUcnC'l landscape snow or nhowor,
" If cliance the radiant nun, with farewe! «wcet,
" Extend his evenitjg beam, the fields rejoice,
" The birds their notes renew, and bleating herd*
** Attest their joy, that hill and valley rings."*

But it must bo confessed, that instances do
not unfrcquently occur of a construction by
which two or more verses are so blended as un-
avoidably to violate the rhythmus, and turn the
passage into limping prose.

•' Thus for these beyond
" Compare of mortal prowess, yet observM
«' Their dread commander. "f

ccn-

* P. L. H. 4S8. t Ibid I. /;87.

l64

• BiiiU like a't'.'inpio, where pilasters /-»;■/,</
" }Vfrcs,t, an<l iX;ric pillnib ovirUiid
" With gulden aiclutiavc."*

" With tljc^e, that never fade, the spirits elect

<' Bind tlieir resplendent lucks, imvjeath'd -with bcanisj

" Now, in loose garlani^s rh''( I: thrown oflF, the bright

" Pavement^ that like a sea of ja.per shone,

" Impurplcd widi celestial roses, smird."f

Perhaps tliis rule may admit of some modifi-
cation. As the drift of tlie rhythmical emphasis
is sufficiently determined without the ccnstnnt re-
currence of the syllabic emphasis : so also, it may
be sufficient for all the purposes of versification,
if the end of the line is //; general indicated bv a
natural and unforced recurrence of the final
pause.

Hence, in the passage just now quoted, the
omission of the pause at the end of the last
line but one—

The bids their notes renew, and lleathig herds
Attest their jny^ that hill and vaiiey rings —

* Ibid 713. t Ibid III. .%0

iG:

1 1

But this omission c.-
the verse is reciteJ in
mediately preceJin;.

makes no break in the rhvthmusi and rather im-
proves the moduhit'T / adding to its variety.

''■ ly be allowable, when
•lectioa with those itn-

-or when detached, as a
solitary couplet, tl:. i.ual pause again becomes
indispensable. As to ihe l^rig/:t pavi'utcnt, and
many other instances of similar infraction, they
must be given up as incurable.

11. Having thus provided for " the preser-
*' vaticn of every verse unmingled with another,
** as a distinct svstem of sounds,"* I would now
gladly proceed to give a complete analysis of that
system, and trace our versification through all its
beauties and defects. — But I have already inti-
mated that this is more th.m I have ventured to
undertake.

<i III

fii

Yet I will here beg leave to add a few inci-
dental observations.

:^,

Instances of the metrical pause^ however un-
suspected, are very frequent in our own versifi-
cation, as I am confident they ever have been in
every other.

i i

♦ Johnson's Life of Milton.

*' That very law, wJiich moulds a tenr,
" And bids it t"ick!e from its source,

** I'h'.a law pier-.-^ives the earth :■. sphere,
" Aiul r-'uidts thf .>h;nets in the'r course."

Is there ariv defect in the nrasure of tbese beau-
tiful lines ? No, — the deiicienccs are supplied, or
rather prevented, by amllier rrysiericus law, —

A law that !)id;j the tide of sj^eech
To flow, by force altenate swcll'd.

And, like the wave upon the beach,
To loil, iinpeUing- and impcTd.

In reciting the firft and third of the lines here
quoted from Mr. Rogers, we certainly, though
without design, and without observing it, do ut-
ter the words, " that very law," and " that law
** preserveF/' in equal times ; and yet the corres-
ponding syllables are unequal. 'Ihis can be ef-
fected by nothing but a pause in the utterance ;
for no part of the word very can be lengthened
in the pronunciation, j'ut where then do we
place this insinuating metrical pause } If the de-
fective syllable is emphatic, the pause follows,
and is either in the viiddle or in the end i other"-

iC;

who it precedes, and t:\kec the empliatic place ia

the b.''AHmH'/ of a ciidence.

To denote this, without repented circumlocu-
tions, let us use tb.e coninion mnrk of a quaver
rest 'I ; and I think we shall agree, that such a
pause as I have here endeavored to describe, does
really y though almost imperceptibly, perform the
ollice assigned to it by this hypothesis, in the
places pointed out by the insertion of that mark.

ikH

'111 ■ '

That j very i \ law, which ( moulds a { tear.
And I bi<is it i j trickle i | i from its | source,
That I hiw pre | serves the | earth a { sphere,
And [ guiJes the | pkiicts i | i in their j course.

It is observable that the mrtrlcal pause often
coincides with the cjisara, as here, at the words
lery^ trickley and flands; and both these pauses,
whether coincident or not, take their places na-
turally, under the influence of the rhythmical
movement, without our intending it, or even
adverting to the circunibtance.

I have before observed that, in scanning by
cadences, iambic verses begin in the middle of a
bar. It follows, of course, that the close of one

i'f

HtiSl

lG8

line Is, in tbis rc;;pert, connected with the be-
giiin'.ng of the li; e w'.'ich fj-lovv''^ it. That is to
say, the Ixst syllable of il'e fc irer makes a part
of ar cadence, of which the remainder is in the
beginning of t'e b:tler. Thns, in the stanp^a
above measured, t'ae cadences, counted with al-
lowance for none but metrical pauses, arc uniii-
ternipted from bcgiif.nng to end, as if the whole
starza were in one line. But if the same stanza
is measured with all the requisite pauses, it will
comprise the h^dowing cadences, in rfr/z^/A"^^.', in
\Nhich tl;e oratorhd pauses are denoted by tlie
common marks of a long or a sl;crt syllable, as
the case may require.

12. Our iambic verse is of various dimension,
from two to six cadences, in which not only tri-
brachs but ^ho?ukcs, dadyls, and double pyrrkics also,
..:^ equalised with the leading Iambic feet ; and
sonv-times a single syllable is made to illl a whole
cadence. Hence, in our coi. mon. heroic mea-
iure, we havtf three different ' fcs, in Imes

■\

i6q

consisting of three, four, or five cadences, ex-
clusive of the occasional Alexandrine, which may
consist of either four, five, or six. This diver-
sity of metre is also accompanied with a variety
of rhythmus, passing from triple to common, and
fro?.^. common to triple time, but without affect-
ing the regular equality of the cadences; which
are varied only by transitions from one rate of
movement to another ; not by a change of the
numbers which measure a cadence, or divide it
into aliquot parts : for the cadences of a minuet
and a march may be perfectly commensurate.

« Turn, gentle hermit of the dale,

" And guide my lonely way,
« To where yon taper lights the vale

" With hospitable ray."*

The first of these lines may be measured thus—

Turn j gentle | hermit i j i of the [ dale;

but the word hospitable, in the fourtli line, cannot
be made to fill two cadences. We cannot say
hospUahle; and, in t.i- .jarrent drift of our ut-
terance we do pronounce this word in the very
same time th ic Hvre give to the word hostik in a

* Vic^T of Wakelitld.
J

■Pi

iM,

itej

170
• a'

similar situation. Hospitable^ therefore, is a dou-'
hie Pyrrhic ; and so are admirable, enviable, formi-
dable, governable, honorable, dignitary, voluntary, and
a thousand Others; for words, in respect to quan*
tity, as well as elementary sound, are such as we
speak them, independently of any alphabetical
notation ; and the following is the true measure
of the lines above quoted :

Turn I gentle | hermit -i j i of the { dale,

And I guide my | lonely | way,
To I where yon | taper ] lights the | vale

With I hospitable { ray.

So, also, in the following lines — *

<' Re 1 pcntant \ sighs and \ voluntary [ pains,"
«' And ! Paradise vas j opcn'd | 1 in llic | wiM."

The following have each a dactyl and double pyrrhic,

« Led through a j sad va | riety of | uoc." .
" Lost in a \ convent's ] solitary j gloom,"

If, in speaking the foUowing line, the words
vain and lost were pronounced in one cadence, it
would shock the ears of a whole audience, how-

* Eloisa to Abelavd, 18, 134, 36, 38, 15.

371

-ever mixed, and however unconscious of the rea-
son •, and the line can, with propriety, be mea-
sured only thus —

*< In 1 vain J lost EIo j isa j weeps and i prays."

The most common varieties of the Alexandrine
are exemplified in the following lines — *

Vi^lien a cadence is filled with a single syllable^
though k h: a long one, and capab'. of an occa-
sional c:xtension, it wiil commonlv recuiie, fiom
the dr'ft; oF utterance, a metrical pause ; for
evQry sncli cadence has a particular emphasis of
expression. But this solitary syllable is some-
times a siiort one in poslUo?i^ and incapable of ex-
tension. Oi course it must require a more sen«
siblc pause: yet, being siill a real part of the
metre, and belonging to the structure of the

* Pope and Gr^-iy.
I 2

Eh'

k'»^

' i:

If i ,

17'2

verse, it can be considered only as a metrical
pause.

These monosyllabic cadences are not peculiar
to our versification. They were frequent in the
ancient lyric measures, and made a part of every
elegiac verse, admitting, also, syllables long only
by position, as well as others, of which the
quantity was really long and capable of extension.

«• Cuncta manus avidas fugient hxre<lis, amico"
I " Quae dede | ris ani | mo. i" | , ai

In our practice, however, there is this differ-
ence. These cadences are not a regular part,
but only an occasional variety, in the structure
of our verse : and it is a variety which often is
very expressiv^e.

• Herat. t Sappho Phaoni.

173

This last line might be pronounced in four ca-
dences, thus—

Aud j waft a I sigh from ] Indus to the [ pole.

In one way, the distance, in the other, the w-
kcify of the passage is expressed.

Our heroic verse, as an iambic measure, has
room only for five cadences, but, by the admis-
sion of such as take only single syllables, this
verse may sometimes become hexameter, and,
in actual time, equal to the fullest Alexandrine.
An instance of this occurs in the following divine
passage from Paradise Lost,f in which are exem-
plified the several varieties above-mentioned, in
lines of three, four, five, and even six cadences j
and these comprising from one to four syllables
respectively.

i .

It :'

* Eloiga to Abelard. f III. .372.

174

j '« Thee,! ( fatlier, [ first they j sunjj.om | nipotf.nt,
Ira I nutabic, im j mortal, | infinite,
E j tcrnr.l klnc^ !'t | Thpc,T \ ai;lh:r of j all j being, |
I Fountf-in of | ligi'.t, thy | sc'f in | vlblblc,
A I midst the | glc.ic^s | biightnt-ss [ wlicrc thou I -iitt'sM j
Thron'd, | inac | cci^.iblc, but | v.h. \ thou | she I'st
The I full 1 j blancof th.y j bca-ns.-ind, througVi a ] cIcuJ/t |
j Drawin 1 round a | bouttliee-i | like a j radiani | shrine/i j
\ D:v:k with ex | ces&ive | bii^jh'., thy | pkiits up \ pear;
Yv-t ; aazzle t | heaven, that j brightest 1 Seraphhn
Ap j proachnot, 1 bav;.vith 1 b-.thwings | veil their ] eycili |
j Tnce, 1 I next they j sung, of | ai; ere | ation first
Be I gotten j son, 7 di | vine si ] militude,
111 I v/iiosc con I snicuous ] countenance, 'i ] without ] c'oud,
Made j visible, the al \ migiity I fatlier j .hliics,
Whom { else no \ crcaaire 'i \ can be | hold ; on | tlice
Im 1 p:esb'd, the cf | fulgence [ -i of his | glory a I bides;
Trans | fusM on | thee his j ample | spirit j rests.

{ Thee, 1 1 son of | God !'r | saviour of | men ! thy | name
Shall I be t the | copious [ matter a ] i of wjjsong
Hence | forth ; and [ never a ] a sliall my | Iiarn thy 1 praise
For 1 get,! nor | fioiu thy \ fatherV'praiscTjrd'.b | join."

13. My principal aim, on this occiision, ha«
been to show that, in general, both accent and

175

metre, with whatever belongs to the melody and
measure of spccchj ancient and modern, are
alike founded on principles common to every
langu'cige 5 and this, 1 hope, rui.-> hi bome measure
been put beyond the rcMch of reason-Jjle Joubt.

But why then (it niay be asked) are tlie an-
cient modes of vcrshication impr;iccicable in
* modern languages ? I answer, that they are not
impracticablc'y nor would they be drfpcult, if we
had that freedom of transposition, which was so
natural to the Greek and Latin, and from which
we are precluded by nothing but the want of
declensions •, under which term I mean to com-
prise all the changes, whether initial or final,
that serve to indicate the various relations of
words, independently of their respective ar-
rangement.

The first requisite, in every mode of versifi-
cation, is, that the rhythmus be clearly Indicated
by simply pronouncing the words, just as we
should do in reading or speaking plain prose.
If, in a line thus pronounced, the regular and
appropriate rhythmical pulsation is distinctly per-
ceived; we may alfirm, that the structure of the

verse is rei^ular.

1 4.

; !' ,

J J

I
u ^ ^ ' -^ u u -^

- y

,C-Af«.< Aji (>,

Uj*

176

I \/UJ.

The sapphic ode was attempted many years ago
by Dr. Watts ; but it Is evident that either he
mistook the measure, or did not mean nn exict
imitation of It. His ode begins with the fol-
lowing stanza.

" When the fierce north wind, with liis airy forces,
" Rears up the Baltic to a foaming fury,
« And the red lightning, with a stonn of hail| comci
*• Rushing amain down."

The sapphic stanza consisted of three sapphic
lines and one adonic. The measure of the former
has been above described, each line being com-
posed of a trochee, a spondee, a dactyl, and two
trochees. The only -variation from this metrical
order was, that, instead of a spondee, the second
foot was sometimes a trochee ; and to this me-
trical order it is essential, that the first, third,
fifth, eighth, and tenth syllables be emphatic.
The fouitii line ahvavs consisted of a dactvl and
spondee. iHit as the last syllable of a line, in
th? ancient versification, excepting in anapestic
verses, was alw'iy.9 accounted either long or short,
as the measurj might require, independently of
it3 real quantity > the last foot of every line, in
the sapphic star- za, may, in fact, be either a tro^.
chee, or a spondee •, and, in either case, tho
lust syllable is constantly unemphatic.

177

From this minute account of the measure in
question, it is pLin that, in the stanza here
quoted from Dr. Watts, there are the following
defects, viz. In the first Une, the first syllable,
nvhefji is both short and unemphatic. In the
same line, the fourth syllable, uorthy is emphatic,
and the fifth, luind, unempJiatic ; both in viola-
tion of the rhythmus. In the second line, the
third and fifth syllables, which ought to be
decidedly emphatic, ire short and feeble. Ii>
the third line, the fifth syllable, which is the
second of the word lightnings is short, and not
susceptible of that emphasis which is indispen-
sable in this place. The rest of the stanza is
without fault.

The following seem to have been written (I
know not by whom) in imitation of Dr. Watts.

" Place me in regions of eternal winter,
«< Where not a brossom to the breeze can open, but
** Darkening tempests, closing all around me,

«' Chill the creation."

* Place me where sun-shine ever more me scorche* ;
" Climes where no mortal builds his habitation;
*• Yet with my charmer, fondly will I wander,
♦* Fondly c onversing."
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(716) 872-4503

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178

It IS nc-dlcss to point out the particulars In
which these lines differ from the rhythmus of
the Sapphic ode, which they pretend to imitate ;
bat, after what I have asserted of its practicahility,
I am bound; at lenst, to attempt a more perfect
imitation. I, therefore, submit to candid criti-
cism, the following transhuion of that ode of
Sappho, v/hich has been preserved by Longinus,
and of which an English paraplirase, by Phillips,
has been honored v/ith the praise of Addison.

Gods above might envy the fond adorer,
Him nho near thee sits, in a silent lapturff,
Thus to Jiear chae tenderly speak, and see thee

Tende.Iy :>niiiing.
Ah ! to m^ how fatal a sight ! J feel it
J*trike my tortur'd oiil with a wild amazement ;
fear distracts my heart, and alas ! my voice no

Longer obeys me.
But my tongue, too, lies 3:» a torpid silence;
Through my fra:nc diilusM h agiowintj fever;
Dimness clouds my sight, an 1 a hollow murmur

Rings In my hearing,
All my limbs, o'erspread with a cold effusion,
Trembling all ; and pale as the laded herbage,
Scarce alive I seem, and the hand of death i%

Surely upon me.

179 *'

The statin which has been honored with the
name of CarDien Horaiiafuun, consists of four
verses. The two first are each of the following

measure, — | — ^^ | | _» ^^ ^^ | „ v^ s^^

a syllable, either long or short, a trochee, a
spondee, and two dactyls ; that is, in plain Eng-
lish, and in the terms of modern music, the line-
begins in the middle of a bar: the 2d, 4th, 6th,
and 9th syllables are emphatic j and the final
pause completes the measure of that cadence in
.the middle of which the line begins —

Vi I des ut I aha | stet nive | candidum | r
The third verse also, begins in the middle of a
bar, with a syllable that may be either long or
short, and is followed by four trochees, with
only this variety, that the third foot may be ei-
ther a trochee or spondee. 3 | — v^ I ^Z "^1
- ^ I - ._ I I Of course the 2d, 4 th, 6th, ar.d
8th syllables are emphatic.

Syl I voe la | boran | tes go [ luque ( r

The fourth verse always consists of two dactyls
and two trochees, ~ ^— ->- I — x_^ ^^ I __ v^ I
~ -- I the 1st, 4th, 7th, and 9th syllables
are therefore emphatic.

I Flumiua | constite | rint a | cuto ]

'f'i^ fL p^^U.Uof^ '•^ /^.

180

This measure may be thus expressed in English,
« Instum et tenacem propositi virum, &c."*

No civic ardor, madly tumultuous,
No frowning Tyrant, fierce and implacable,
Can shake the just man's righteous purpose.
Firmly to hold an approving conscience.

Nor all the WhirUvind's rage on the Adria,
Nor Jove's d. 'd thunder, rending the firmament,
Though Heaven itself seems falling round him,
Fearless, he waits the impending ruin.

The fifth Ode of the first Book has been
translated by Milton, almost verbatim, and (it is
said) " according to the latin measure, as near
*' as the language will permit." How this came
to be said, or by whom, I know not, but surely
not by Milton himself ; for he was an exquisite
master of latin versification, and every reader
must perceive that, in his translation of this Ode,
there is not the sm.allest resemblance of the latin,
measure.

The Stanza consists of four verses. The two

• Kterat^4,i|2^III. Ode'3.

181

first are commonly scanned thus — the 3d, foot

wantmg a syllable | -_ •_- s>^ | — i | — s^ /^u.

>^ I — ^^ ^ I but it wants nothing. The feet f*^*^
here, beginning with long syllables, are coinci- .^f
dent with our cadences •, and the third is one of
those fnonosyllabks above-mentioned, as frequently
occurring in the ancient lyric m'easures, and
making a regular part in the structure of the
verse.

I Quis mul I ta graci | lis T | te puer [ iu rosa |

Where, by the way, it may be noted, that the
syllab i. in question is a short one in positicft^ of
rvhich there are two other instances in the same
Ode.

;.!'".'

The third verse of this Stanza is measured thus—
I . I — v_^ w I I and the 4th thus —

To translate all the hauty of this Ode into
English is more than I pretend to, nor do I un-
dertake a literal translation ; but I venture to
say, that the meaning shall not be misrepresented
and the measure shall be truly and perfectly ex-
pressed. The curiosa felicitas, so strikingly re-
markable in many of Horace's Odes is, perhaps^

I iji

182

the greatest rarity iii the poetical world. Genius
.. IS too apt to disclaim care ; and care, witliout po-
.. nius, must look for happiness in other pursuks
And we have rc.ison to be than!:ful, that happi-
ness, m this sublimer sense, is phiced witinn the
reach of every one. The rar^,/ christian mora-
list, who « loves the brotherhood, who fears
" God and honors the Kino-

" Though he inherit*
" Nor the pride, nor ample viaion
" That the Theban Eagle hear,
♦• Saih'ng with supreme dominion
" Through the azure deep of airj
« Yet shah' he nunmt,, and keep his distant WAy,
" Beyond tl-e limits of a vu'gar fate,"
A Pe^r among the Good, the Wise, and truly Great.

Nor let this be thought an unseasonable chgresslon.
Horace, with all bis '' :entiousness of character,
(the prominent f lult of his own and of the pre-
sent age) is often an exqlli^ite moral preceptor;
and tlie Ode now oki^otq us, is one of the pieces
which, in this view, deserve to be remembered.

** ■■■ V ■ wmmmnmmmm^0^

• Gray.

183

What unfortunate* youth, sprinkled with essencet,
Calls thee now to the Grot? Whom to infatuate
Art thou, PyriJia, so neatly
Dress'd with negligent elegance?
Oh, how oft shall he weep! how, with astonishment, f
See this treacl-.erous calm turn to a hurricane ;
Tliough « full surely" he thinks thee
Now pure Gold, incorruptible.
Hopes thee still to remain lovely and alTable,
Coiistant on?y to him! Credulous mariner,

Thus n;isled by a Zephyr ■

Hapless a// who are smitten by
Tl^ee untrled.^For myself, savM by a miracle,'
i^rateful vows have I paid-dripping habiliment.,
And yon picture, to Neptune
PlacVl in pious acknowledgement.

* Res gestae Regumque Ducumque et tristia bella
•• Quo scribi posscnt numero, monstravit Homerus.

f I
1 1\

• Gracilis Puer~a youth of .W.r i.tel/at, easUy duped br
romale art. This idea has a propriety, in reference to what
follows; but whether ia person the wretched victim were
tltnJer or itotU is notiiing to the purpose. ^

184

Of this measure Bentley says^, patria lingua non
recipit. But he was far more learned in Greek
and Latin than in his motlier-tongue ; and I hope
it will not be thought an unpardonable presump-
tion, if, in this instance, I c.ppeal from his au-
thority, and venture to refer to the following
lines as a proof that the Homeric rhythmus is
not inexpressible in English.

Sing, O muse, t!ie destructive wrath of Pelead Achilles;
Source of abundant toil and grief to the host of Achaians •
Wasted by frequent deatJ's of heroes liurl'd, prematurely,
l^own totjieshades, whose limbs were lefr, unburied, a prey to
Dogs and^birds <>£> py< >y ; (as Jove's high will predetermin'd.)
From that time, when a f^tal contention first disunited
Great Atriles, prince of the league, and godlike Achilles r .
Say, too, -vhich of the gods had excited the quarrel betv/een
them ?

Jove's and Leto's son, provok'd by the king, he infected
All their camp with a deadly disease and perisJiing thousands i
Fell for the scorn which Chrysf bore from the haughty Atrides:
When, to redeem his captive daughter, the priest, as a suitor,
Came to the fleet, presenting a ransom rich'y abundant :
Holding, in outstretch'd hands, the crown of beaming Apollo,
Joii^'d with the sceptre of gold, he solicited all the AchaiauB,
But the 4^ri<m firat, their two «onfed«r?*te leaden.

185

* SoM of Atreus, hear ! and all ye war-clad Achaians I
Soon may the gods, who inhabit Olympus, grant you to level
Priam's walls, and safely return to your country in triumph.
But— restore my child—and deign to accept of the ranaom,
Duly revfjring a son of Jove.— far-beaming Apollo.

Well dispos'd to consent were all the assembled Achaians,
Duly the priest to respect, and take his generous ransom ;
But not 80 was the mind appeau'd of proud Agamemnon.
He, to a harsh repulse, superadded a menacing answer:

" Here, old dotard, let me no more, in our naval encamp-
ment,
Find thee, either lingering now, or hereafter returning;
When that oceptre and crown divine should little avail thee.
Her, be assur'd, I ne'er shall release, till age overtake her;
Still my domestic, adaptive in Argos, far from her country,
Daily emploj, d at the loom, and sharing the bed of her master.
Make no reply, but go, while safely to go is permitted."

Thus he spake, and Chryses. alarm'd, cbey'd his injunction.
Silent, he pac'd the rebounding shore of the boisterous ocean-;
There, when alone, in fervent prayer to his patron, Apollo,
Thus exclaim'd the grief-worn senior, venting his anguish:

« Hear me, God of the Silver Bow, protector of Chry8a» '
Mighty defence ol Tenedoft, guardian of heavealy Kilrn* ' ■ ^

is6

Sminthcua! If I have duly adorn 'cl thy beautiful tcinplc,
Duly to thee burnt thighs presented of wcll-fattcd victims,
Bulls and goats, O dei;^n to receive an ! g.-int mv petition ;
Let thine airo\/s quickly avenj^e my tc .r. on the Grecian'.!"

Thus he prayed, and I>.is prayer \\a,j icccIvM by Plui-bus

Apollo.
Down noiu ihc Ijei,'^hltf of Olympuu !ic coince, ind'gnjnt

avenger,
Bearing his bow and well-s.orcd (iulvcr shmg from his

shoulders. •
Thus as, In anger, ho pass'd unseen, v.'ith darkness encircled,*
Shrill, from the sh.oullers pending, clash the celestial arrnour.

Seated apart from the ships, lie now gives flipht to an arrow ;
Awful and loud resounds the twang of the tremulous bow-

string^.
First their mules and liounds wCiC alone the sport cf hl»

vengeance;
Now at the Greeks themselves he dra^ a shaft of destruction.
Shoots — and piles funereal fill the gleaming Horizon.

• " The pestilence that walketh in darkness;" Psalm 91.

187

14. I am far from expcctinpj that, by these
little specimens, I shall provoke emulation, or
that cither the lyric or the heroic measures of anti-
quity can ever become popular in any modern
language ; but, to correct a miotaken idea, to
point ouL an error in the received opinions, on
any subject^ whether of art or science, can never
be altogether useless, and may lead to unexpected
improvements. As to the preceding observa-
tions, if they arc, in general, well founded, it
will be acknowledged that, however imperfectly
stated, they merit some attention ; and my hope,
in hazarding this publication, is, that some
person, of more leisure and ability, may be
induced to give every part of the subject a
thorough investigation. I am persuaded that a
prevailing notion of something mysteri us and
peculiar w the ancient languages, especially in
what relates to the melody and measure of
speech, has contributed to prevent us from at-
taining a perfect knowledge of our own. We
have been taught to believe that our language is
not susceptible either of a regular rhythmus or
of genuine accents. No wonder, tlien, that,
in these respects, It has not received all the
cultivation and improvement of wliich it is
capable,

188

Johnson says of Drydeii, that, " from ,tl^
'* prose he derived only his accidental and se-
" condary praise," and that " the veneration
** with which his name is pronounced by
" every cultivator of English literature, is
" paid to him as he refined the language, im-
" proved the sentiments, and turned the numbers
" of English poetry."* Pope had before paid a
siniUar tribute of praise to his illustrious prede-
cessor } and is himself dese xdly honored, as
having surpassed even that great master, in the
refinement and harmony cf his versification.
Yet much as we have gained on one hand^ we
certainly, on the other, have been great losers.'
It cannot be denied that, in the diction of
Dryden and Pope, and of every English author
m modern times, there are frequent instances of
a harshness and constraint which did not ori-
ginally belong to our language.f

• Life of Dryden.

t " LengthenM notes-rais'd his straln-unjheath'd the
•♦ Shining blade—tortur'd ghosts— Sisyphus stands still."

Ode for St. Ctcilia\- day.
*' Sooth'd with the sound-soon he soothM his soul ;
« The vanquished victor.-Bellows Jearn'd to blow."

Alexander s feast.

And many other passages in the works of these eminent poeta.

189

This adventitious ronghness is chiefly produced
by the suppression of our an;ient verbal termi-
nations, est, eth, and ed, and especially by the
conversion of ethmio that hissing sound which has
become so familiar to oiu- ears. To this it is
owing that many words, as we endeavour to pro-
nounce them, are IncapaMe of distinct articula-
tion, even when taken singly, and, in composi-
tion, are sometimes absolutely urutterable. For
instancv. , persists, boast s, bursts ; and persists still,
boasts stoutly, casts stones. Sec. Nor Is the other
abbreviation much better, barb'd, brib'd, curVd,
stamped, imp'd, jumped-, and staked, look'd, talked,
&c. Nor does the change of the final conso-
nant in the six last, and other similar examples,
(which we pronounce"}/rtw/!>W, stah't, Sec.) contri-^utA»>'/
bute much to the amelioration of the sound. It
only serves, indeed, to show the impossibility of
compressing the sound of p or k with that of
d into one syllable.

But for what purpose, it may be ashed, (ecce
iterum !) do I offer these observations .? Do I
dream of recalling modes of speech long since
universally disused .? No ; I consider that as
hopeless ; but I may be permitted to say, that,
if it could be done, and especially If the practice

were established of mixing the old and the
present- ir )des occasionally and ad lihUiim^ it
would very much improve the melody, and en-
large the variety of our composition, both in
verse and prose.

The effect of such a renovation as I lulsh^
but dare not hope ibr, I have, in the following
lines attempted, in some degree, to exemplify.

■i^- w

IQl

Of the old E?iglish Language

To him who hath but « ears to hear/'
Eer voice is mcliovr, full, and dear.
In verse or proce, wli:;te'cr her aim,
To soothe our passions cr inflame :
To melt in many a winding bout
*' Of linked s\rcetness !ong drawn out 5"
Or flow, in accents deep and strong ;
Bearing the captive mind along,
With force and energy divine,
To bow at truth's eternal s.^.rine.
Whether in thunder sl:e recount,
71ie terrors of the burning mount ;
Or, fiU'd with holy rapture, trace
The milder miracles of grace ;
Alike in all, she beareth still
The ponucr to charm without the shilf.
Of, had her bards but known, in time.
How best « to build the lofty rhyme,"
Her ancient phrase had still remained,
lii honour'd usage unrestrained.

1p^

From barbarous compulsion free,
She then had left the choice to thee,
Sweet Euphony ; at thy good pleasure,
With flowing or contracted measure.
To swell the expression, or condense,
And make the sound to suit the sense.

y^^A^

y^^'

With ** ivy-crowned Bacchus,"* then,
** Heart-easing mirth'* again, again,
Had come " with cranks and wanton wiles,
" Nods and becks and wreathed smiles."
To sport and dance, and live with me,
" In unieproved pleasures free."
And pensive comtemplation, too,
Sweet saint ! array'd in sable hue.
Had come, in turn, with me to rove^
TLi :>ugh " arched walks of twilight grove j"f
Or, " if the air should not permit.
In some " removed place" to sit^
And feast my soul with change of pleasure,
Rich harvest of " retired leisure-,"
And every bard, sublime or gay.
In choral air or lyric lay ; ,

* II Allegro, t ^I Penseroso.

."4.
> t

In comic mask, or epic song,

Who gain'd the palm, had borne it long;

Secure from that untimely death

Which lurketh in the baneful breath,

Of innovation^ fiend accurs'd !

The last seducer, and the fast.

Then we should ne'er have felt the rule,
The curbing-rein of modern school ;
(Modern ! Alas, two ages past,
Have bound the galling bridle fast)
Forbidding, as it were, a pest.
To use a vcw el uncompress' d
And forcing us, in spite of lips,
Tongue, teeth, and throat, to mutter snips
Of jumbled sounds, which are, in truth,
Unspeaicable and most uncouth !

But is it not *n vain to cast
This " li. gering look" upon t!^e pc^'^t ?
Where, now, can Englind'i anacfii phrase.
Her eloquence of belter davs,
However worthily renown'd.
Where can this m; trm nov/ be found ?

I 1;

< ::-:

194

Although, long since, exiled far
From court, the senate, and the bar.
And all the " busy haunts of men,'*
By every mouth and every pen ;
Yet doth she live — in many a page,
Bequeathed, to the lastest age.
By genius, and the pious lore
Of Hooker^ and his peers of yore.
But still, her chief, her chosen seat.
And; which will be her last retreat,
Is in the sacred house of prayer.
And angels listen to her there.

' J'lMi'J V:

105

POSTSCRIPT.

This Essay had been wntten some time before
' I had seen or heard of Mr. Walker's " Observa-
" tions on the Greek and Latin accent and
" quantity,"* In which he has, in some mea-
sure, anticipated my opinion respecting vowels
in. position.

Convinced that no natural retardation of the
voice on the consonants, without a change " in
" the sound of the vowel," could make a long
syllable, he is led to suppose, with regard
to the ancient languages, " that double conso-
" nants were the signs only, and not the efficients
" of long quantity ; and that the same long
quantity was not simply a duration of sound
upon the consonants, but exactly what we
** call long quantity — a lengthening of the sound
by pronouncing the vowel open; as if we^
were to pronounce the a long in mater by

((

♦ Published with his « key to the classical pronunciation
** of Greek and Latin proper names, &c."

K 2

'* sounding it as if written mayfery and the same
" letter slicrt in pater as if it were writteli
** patter"

That double consonants were not the efficients
of lon*r quantity, I tliink a most indubitable
truth; and I think it equally true thai they
were not shmijicant of any such thing j but that
every sylh^ble consisting of a short vowel in
position, was as truly and sensibly short in Greek
and Latin as it is in English and Italian. And
I think Mr. "Walker has himself sufficiently dis-
proved the supposition in question, by his re-
marks on the perpetual variation, which it im-
plies, in half the words of a language, according
as they are spoken singly or in composition.

Mr. Walker, in this and in other places, uses
the word v',ivel in that vague sense against which
I have protested. The letter a is indeed the
same in mater and patter \ but the vowels in
these two words are very diiTerent. He very
justly observes that ** in English, we have no
** conception of quantity arising from any thing
'* but the nature of the vowels as they are
" pronounced long or short-," but when he tells
us that the a is short in banish^ banner^ and banter \

197

and long in paper, taper, and vapour -, he does but
say, in fact, that ofie vowel is short in some
words, and that a different vowel is long in some
others. Had he compared only the long and
short pronunciation of the same vonvels, he would,
I think, have perceived and corrected the mis-
take into \^hich he has been led by this ambi-
guity of terms. Deceived by the tacit supposition
that is the same vowel in such words, for
instance, as mt and notey he says that " the o m
Cicero is long," and also « in the name of our
English poet, Lillo." The vowel is, indeed,
what Mr. Walker calls opeti, in both these words ;
that is to say, the letter o has not here the
sound which it has in conclave, confine, &c.
where it is the sign of a different vowel ; but
(?, in Cicero and Lillo, is just as short as in the
first syllables of Polybius and Carinna, It.is long
in Comus, and both short and long in jocose,
morose, propose, sonorous, notorious, &c.

Respecting accent, Mr. Walker appears to
have overlooked a distinction, which I think is
worth noting, between a real monotone, which
we very seldom hear on so many as three syl-
lables together, and a certain uniformity of ut^
terancs^ which frequently runs through whole

'■■'* i

198

sentences. The canting orator^ though he may
really sing every word that he utters, takes
pains to vary his tones abundantly -, but when
•* the bellman repeats his verses, the crier pro-
" nounces his advertisement, or the clerk of a
** church gives out the psalm," we most com-
monly hear, not only an ictus^ or stnss of voice,
distinguishing the emphatic syllables, but also
a real and a very considerable accent, or vocal
slide, in the utterance of every syllable; and the
seeming monotony consists merely in this, that
every syllable, except the last in a line or sen-
tence, is uttered with the same accent, which
is always acute, and nearly of one uniform pitch
and dimension. On the last syllable, indeed,
the clerk is apt to run into a real monotone ;
but the bellman and the crier close in an accent,
which both |s grave and emphatic.

In a note on Mr. Foster's strange idea of
proving the consistency of an acute accent, and a
short -quantity, by tones of the flute, or of an
organ, (a consistency, by the way, . of which no
proof was wanted, for accent and quantity are
things in nature essentially different) Mr. Walker
very properly remarks, that " it is not about
. ** musical but speaking tones that we enquire j'*

199

and he says, « though the authority of DionysiuS,
" of Halicarnassus, is cited for the nature of
" the speaking voice as distinct in degree only,
" and not in kind, from singing, 1 boldly
" answer, that this is not matter of authority,
" but of experiment; and that singhig ana
" speaking are as distinct as motion and rest."

I think the passage cited from Dionysius, on
this occasion, has been misunderstood ; but if
my explanation of it is not found to be satisfac-
tory, much as I respect this elegant Greek
writer, I shall join with Mr. Walker in a deter-
mined appeal from his authority to the constant
testimony of my own ears.

Having cited two verses from the beginning
of Virgil's first Eclogue, and two from the be-
ginning of the Iliad, Mr. Walker says, « there
" are but four possible ways of pronouncing
" these verses, without going into a perfect
" song ; one is to pronounce the accented syl-
" lable with the falling inflexion ; and the unac-
" cented syllables with the same inflexion in a
" lower tone ; which is the way we pronounce
" our own words when we give them the
" accent with the falling inflexion j the second

200

** is, to pronounce the accented syllable with
** the rising inflexion, and the unaccented syl-
** lable with the same inflexion in a lower tone,
" which we never hear in our own language ;
** the third is, to pronounce the accented syl-
" lable with the falling inflexion, and the un-
" accented syllables with the rising in a lower
" tone; and the fourth, to pronounce the ac-
" cented syllable with the rising inflexion, and
" the unaccented with a falling, in a lower
'* tone. None of these modes, but the first and
" last, do we ever hear in our own language ;
" the second and third seem too difficult to
'* permit us to suppose that they could be the
'* natural current of the human voice in any
** language. . The flrst leaves us no possible
'* means of explaining the circumflex ; but the
•* last, by doing this, gives us the strongest
<* reason to suppose, that the Greek and Latin
" accute accent was the rising inflexion, and
^* the grave the falling inflexion, in a lower
" tone,"

That something more than mere accentuation
was anciently denoted by the accentual marks is
highly probible, though it is now impossible to
ascertain what it was ; but that the acute accent^

201

which most assuredly was often pronounced
wlierd it was not marked, was a rising inflexion,
and the grave a falling inflexion of the voice,
is, what I Iiad never supposed could be/ a sub-
ject of doubt with Mr. Walker, or with any
oue who understood the nature of vocal inlle:}tions,
ana had attended to the ancient definitions of
accent. But why must the grave be in a /ower
tone than the acute ? And, in the four Wu/s
here said to oe the only possible ones of pro-
nouncing the verses in question, without singing,
why must the accented^ meaning the emphatic syl-
lable, whether acute or grave, be constantly in
a higher tone than the rest ?

The posstbL' varieties of accentuation, in words
of three syllables and upwards, are more than I
shall at present unvlertake to compute. Every
accent, grave, acute, or circumflex, whether
emphatic or unemphatic, tnay be of any pitch
within the compass of the voice, and of any
dimension that does not run into a drawl, or ex-
ceed the time allotted to the syllable.

Of those varieties many would, doubtless be
" too dilTicult, or (what amounts to tlfe same
thing, too widely different from any in use") to

202

permit us lo suppose they could be the ** natural
jurrent of the voice in any language-," but still
my objection will not be thought either captious
or frivolous ; for a thorough knowledge of any
subject may be obstructed by hastily confounding
what is difficulty or even what perhaps may never
happen, with what is impossible and never can
happen. But in the present instance, Mr.
"Walker supposes that to be impossible, which
does, in fact, very frequently happen j for what-
ever be the accent of the emphatic syllable, there
is most commonly, in words of more than two,
a variety in the accentuation of the other sylla-
bles. Thus, for instance, in the word medita-
tion, the first syllable is acute, the second grave,
the third acute and emphatic, and the fourth is
grave. The word meditaris, when spoken singly,
was most probably uttered by Virgil himself,
with the same accents, and in the same order ;
the first three accents very nearly of one pitchy
and the fourth considerably lower, but all nearly
of one dimension, 'ii.^, in the Hne here cited,
the same word liiiu me third and fourth syllables
both acute, and the fourth, though unemphatic,
of a higher instead of a lower pitch than tha
third ; mcditaris ^rentl.

203

By the remark, that " the first (mode of pro-
nouncing the lines) leaves us no possible means
of explaining the circumflex/' Mr. Walker pro*
bably means only, that in the first mode there
Was nothing that could 1 .ad to any such expla-
nation. In a subsequent observation he speaks of
the acute accent of the ancients as being " alwayt
" higher than either the preceding or succeeding
« syllables i" but this, I am fully persuaded, it
an erroneous idea ; and I think the same of ano-
ther thing, which seems to be taken for granted^
that the Greeks and Romans had but one cir-
cumflex. They probably had every variety of
accentuation that is now familiar to the languages
of Europe, among which no one has an accent
unknown to the rest, though each may have
some minute peculiarities in their respective ap-
plication.

The use of the terms accented and unaccented^
in their vulgar acceptation, renders the style, in
several of these observations, ambiguous and
perplexed. It is surely time to discard, for ever,
so absurd a misnomer as that of an accented for
an emphatic syllable.

Mr. Walker thinks it wonderful, " that Mr.

204

** Sheridan, who was so good an actor, and
" who had spent so much time in studying and
" writing on elocution, should say that accent
" was only a louder pronunciation of the ac-
" cented syllable and not a higher."

Here an idea seems to be intimated, which
Mr. Walker certainly cannot entertain, that our
emphatic syllables are always higher than the
unemphatic ; for he has, in another of these
observations, very justly remarked, that, when
we say " he made a voluntary resignation, the
" accented (that is, the emphatic) syllable is
** louder and lower than the rest."

Mr. Walker expresses his astonishment, " that
** among so many of the ancients who have
** written on the causes of eloquence, we should
** not find a single author who has taken notice
" of the importance of emphasis upon a single
** word ! Our modern books of elocution (he
*' observes) abound with instances of the change
" produced in the sense of a sentence by, changing
" the place of the emphasis ; but no such in-
** stance appears among the ancients."

Whether the effect here pointed out has been

205

expressly mentioned, by any ancient writer, Is
more than either my extent of reading or strength
of memory warrant me at present to afErm or -
deny ; but it Is clearly Implied in several remarks
of Oulnctillan, in which lie explains the use
and importance of emphasis, and particularly
where he says,* " est in vulgaribiis quoque verbis .
" emphasis, v^rum esse opportet, et, Homo est IfUT^i^rtv
" II le, et vivendum est ; — you must be a man,
" he is human i we must live j" for these sen-
tences, if uttered without emphasis, or with an
emphasis misplaced, would either convey no
definite meaning, or a meaning very different
from the one intended

I may be permitted, In my turn, to express
my surprise, that, to this day,f the true nature of
accent, explained nearly thirty years ago by Mr.
Steele, appears to have been misunderstood or
overlooked by all our writers, Mr. Walker him-
self only excepted.

FINIS.

* Lib. vlii, cap. 3.

25tli Novembci, 1802,

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