century, and I believe that this exclusion of the later writers will clear the subject from many of its difficulties to those scholars who have not time to pursue a more elaborate inquiry. And even to those who wish to continue the study of the pronunciation of the Greek language down to the present time, it may not be amiss to divide the inquiry into two periods, the former of undoubted purity, and the latter of extensive corruption in literature and taste, and, as some think, in pronunciation also.

I so entirely agree with Dr. Foster's theory of Greek accents, and have been so struck with the happy manner in which he has illustrated it, that I have often found myself constrained to use his words instead of adopting less apt expressions of my own. The reader at least will have no reason to complain; and I, after this general acknowledgment of my obligations to Dr. Foster, shall not think it necessary to quote him on every occasion in which I repeat his opinions. That I have not followed him blindly will appear from my not agreeing with him on the subject of English accents.

DEFINITION OF ACCENT.

3. Much of the perplexity which has attended this inquiry, has arisen from the writers on it either not defining the term "accent," or not adhering to their definition. They often apply the term indiscriminately to the marks which we

find over the words in Greek manuscripts, and to the exertion of the voice in heightening syllables. As an instance of the confusion which this want of precision may occasion, some writers have spoken of accent as a comparatively modern invention: now it is true that the use of accentual marks is a comparatively modern invention; but to say that the use of accents is a modern invention, is to say that Plato and Demosthenes spoke in one unvarying note, and that it was reserved for a grammarian of Alexandria to teach the Greeks to improve the modulation of their tongue by heightening some syllables and depressing others. The reader is therefore apprised that wherever the term "accent" shall occur in the following pages, it is not intended to express a written mark, but an operation of the human voice; and when the term occurs unaccompanied by an adjective, it is meant to express the exertion of the voice in raising a syllable. Nor will the subject be found either abstruse in its nature, or doubtful in its evidence, to one who shall begin by settling in his own mind what he means by the term "accent," and who can preserve that meaning unconfused throughout the inquiry.

ACCENTUAL MARKS..

4. We find in the greater part of the Greek manuscripts, and in almost all Greek books, the following signs, ('), ('), and (); each word, with a few exceptions, having one of the signs over it. These signs are usually called "accents," but, to avoid the confusion which has been above adverted to, it will be better to term them "accentual marks." That these marks were originally intended as a guide to the voice in laying the accent, that is, heightening the syllables, may be shown by such proofs as can leave little doubt in the mind. They could not have been, like the Hebrew points, an essential part of the syllables themselves, because we have, without them, both vowels and consonants sufficient to form each syllable. It seems clear, that whenever invented, they did not come into general use till long after the Christian era. Now the date of their prevalence serves to throw light upon their object. By that time Grecian literature had extended itself over many countries where Greek was not the vernacular language. To a Latin or an Arabian student, it would be highly useful to have some guide in laying the accent properly; though to the Greek, who had learned the accents in his infancy, any such guide would be superfluous. That they were intended as musical marks, as some have asserted, might have had some degree of probability if we found them exclusively over

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poetical works; but that any one would have wasted his time in affixing musical marks to histories, grammars and lexicons, seems in the highest degree improbable; to say nothing of the same mark always recurring over the same word with an uniformity utterly inconsistent with the variety of cadence which we should expect to find in music. The conjecture, that they were intended to point out the quantity, does not seem at all more likely because we see two of the three marks placed indifferently over long and short syllables; and besides, there are other marks, well known to grammarians, which do point out the quantity. The argument which the modern Greek would consider as the strongest of all, namely the tradition through many centuries of the object of the marks, and an actual pronunciation in accordance with them, is not here insisted on; because to us in England that tradition and that agreement have not come down. But laying this out of the question, any unprejudiced reader will allow, that till some other theory shall be supported by probable evidence, we are warranted in assuming that these marks were intended to serve as guides in laying the accent. Nor will there perhaps be much difficulty in inducing English readers to assent to this proposition; most of us being persuaded that the marks were originally invented for the purpose of pointing out where the accent ought to be laid; but refusing to regulate our pronun

ciation by them, from a conviction that they have been misplaced by ignorance, inattention, or corruption just as a man would disregard a clock, not from doubting whether the clock had been invented to mark time, but from a persuasion that it no longer marked the time rightly. Assuming then that these accentual marks were intended to point out the syllables on which the accent ought to be laid, the question is, whether they are rightly placed, and whether our pronunciation, in order to be correct, ought to be regulated by them. But before proceeding to this inquiry, I will shortly consider the origin of the invention of marks, their different kinds, and what effect each mark, supposing it placed rightly, ought to have upon our pronunciation of the syllable over which it stands.

Montfauçon gives it as his opinion, that the accentual marks were invented by Aristophanes of Byzantium, who was librarian of the Alexandrian library about two centuries before Christ. (Palæograph. lib. i. c. 4.) Others have contended, and with great probability, that the invention must have been earlier. Perhaps Aristophanes first brought the invention of the marks into general notice. The invention, though useful, had nothing in it striking or captivating. To the native Greek, who had learned the proper accent in his infancy, any means of pointing out where it should be laid would be quite superfluous; and scarcely less so to a foreigner, who