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It is strange, also, that the Greeks should be imagined to have placed only the short iota and the Eo or short E, and none of the other short vowels, in the final syllable of words at the end of the Iambus, or at the beginning of the Trocheus. To the latter, they had not the liberty of adding the N; and where is the short A, or the short T, or where is the short O, or o pingov, to be found in such a posi tion? These they never admitted into it; nor can the corruption of MSS. produce even plausible instances. Who can suppose, then, that they would arbitrarily make a short vowel long, merely on account of its situation at the close of a foot in the middle of a verse, when they possessed the power of lengthening it, in compliance with metrical custom, by adding another consonant, a final N?

The Greeks, it must be noted also, never allowed the Ictus in Iambic poetry to fall on the final short syllable of an hyperdissyllabic word. Dawes thus marks the Ictus or accentus on the first three lines of the Hecuba: MISC. CRIT. 191. Ἡκώ νεκρών κευθμώνα και σκολου πυλας

Λιπών, ἐν ᾅδης χωρὶς ᾠκιστάν θεών,

Πολυδώρος, Εκάβης παις γεγώς της Κίσσέως. *

. From this scheme of marking the Ictus, the following corol lary may be deduced: As the Ictus in the Iambic metre falls on the second or long syllable of the lambus, it must be placed in the Tribrachys on the middle syllable, in the spondeus on the second,

gives as he does, Not. p. 288, where the Oxford Marbles have opony, and base, p. 299. where Muratori, p. 1626. edits, zu, which Dorville also pursues, 1. c. p. 504.

Brunck, however, is as usual inconsistent; for, as in his Apollonius Rhodius, the N is not always rejected; so in his Analecta, in opposi tion to the preceding omissions, may be added: III. 189. CXC. To, as in Gruter. 304. DCCVIII. aon, ubi Leichius ex conjecture Maffei, p. 64. nãow. 711. "Eixer ya from Muratori, 1502. and 311. Kalorios Moves, from Gruter, II. 1036. 9.

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These passages do not relate, it must be owned, to the law laid down by Mr. W. for lambics: but they may, perhaps, merit the notice of those who banish this letter before a consonant in the Casura of Hexameters. Is not Mr. W, one of that number?

* Bentley's mode of placing the Ictus in Iambics may be found in his admirable Schediasm on the Metre of Terence. Dawes abuses it, as he does its author on all proper and improper occasions; yet from Bentley's mode his rule is evidently formed. We refer to Dawes's plan, as the Canon is his which has been just cited about the last syllable of hyperdisyllabic words. The accents are omitted, in order to prevent any mistake about the mark for the Ictus.

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in the Dactylus on the second, and in the Anapastus on the third or last syllable *.

Hence on ARIST. Plut. 965. for - Tüv év | doli na | λεow | Tiva, Dawes prefers the Baroc. MS. lection, dolev, in order that the Ictus may not fall on the final syllable of a trisyllabic word, idol, and adds: "Severiores Musas coluisse video poetas Atticos, quàm quæ in vocis hyperdisyllaba ultimam correptam cadere paterentur." Misc. Crit. p. 211 f.

Let us try a few of the Aldine examples which Mr. Wakefield has cited in defence of his Canon: Diatribe, p. 5. and 36. Hecub. 232. Ουδ' ώλεσέ με Ζεύς, τρεφέι δ ̓ ὁπώς όρω.

1178. Ει τίς γυνάικας τῶν πριν ειρηκέ κακως.

Silv. Crit. I. p. 81.

288. Και τάσδ' ερώμαι τίνες εφίστασὶ δόμοις.
290. Ελληνικοισι δώμασί πελάζελε.

1446. Εισή Γαγέ σοφίσμ ̓ ὁμίλια χθονος.

All these five instances are in direct contradiction to Dawes's Canon; for in each of these verses the Ictus must fall on the final short syllable of words which are hyperdisyllabic. In our opinion, however, Dawes's Canon is eminently right: it is founded on truth and reason. An Epsilon, terminating a word of three or four syllables, is too feeble a letter to bear the stress or Ictus, which must necessarily be placed on some particular syllables in every line, in order to give to it the elasticity and spring which every metre demands. The position of this Ictus is the characteristic mark which distinguishes one species of verse from another, and verse itself from prose.

What confusion, it may be added, would arise in several Iambics, if the final N were neglected! For example, how would this line be divided:

· Οὐδεὶς ἐπλούθησε τάχεως δίκαιος ὤν.

Menander apud Stob. Grot. Fl. x. p. 69. and p. 276. of the unfinished Stobæus of Nic. Schow.-Whether the third foot of this line be disyllabic, or trisyllabic, the Ictus must fall on the , the final syllable of an hyperdisyllabic word; which is impossible.-Read Thouтnov, and the difficulty or impracti cability of scansion is removed; and the Ictus rests on a syllable lengthened by position. Again:

Ο δέ μ' ακολούθησε μέχρι τὸ πρὸς τὴν θύραν.

Menander apud Hermog. de Invent. IV. In this verse, the omitted N produced exactly the same error and ambiguity.

*The Proceleusmaticus is not an admissible foot in Iambics..... + Conferend, etiam p. 320.

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Read,

Read, ouboev, as by accident it is published by Joannis Clericus.

Euripides, Cyclops. 144.

Ἐν σέλμασι νεώς εστιν, ἢ φέρεις οὗ νινς

The editions rightly give oiμaan; which added N enables the last syllable of the trisyllabic to support the Ictus. So in this Trochaic verse in Ipheg. in Taur. 1241.

Ταῖς τὰ πλειον ειδόσι θεοῖς σόι τε σημαινω θεά.

In the second Dipodia, the words fór fɛis do not form a legitimate Trochaus and Anapastus; for in this metre, when an Anapastus assumes the place of the Trochaus, the regular foot, the Ictus must be made on the first of its three syllables. Thus:answering to. The true reading is-ειδόσιν θεοῖς—and Osos must be pronounced monosyllabicè.-Farther illustration

siems unnecessary.

There is still one point of view in which this Canon of Mr. Wakefield must be considered. He asserts that a short vowel at the close of a word is lengthened, ob vim pausæ in syllabẩ postremá vocis, at the end of a foot in Anapasticis et lambicis, and in the beginning of a foot in Heroicis; and that the final N is unnecessary in such situations.

Ernesti, as was remarked, observes, in Hom. II. A'. 2. that in the Florentine and first Aldine Homer the final N is gene rally omitted, in medio versu, ubi syllaba ultima est in Casura.

Mr. Wakefield appears to suppose that the Casura in Iambics is different from the Casura in Heroics; for he assigns one place, namely, the close of the foot, for the influence of the [Cesural] pause in the former metre; and another, that is, the beginning of the foot, for the same influence in the latter.

The Iambic metre of the Tragic Poets (for we must confine our remarks to that alone) has two Incisions, or Touai. The first is the Incisio metrica, by which the verse may be divided into single feet, or Dipodia, as: Orest. 1.

Οικ ἔσ [ τιν ἐν ] δεν δει ] τὸν ὡδ' [ ἐιπᾶν | ἔπος,

The second is the Incisio Casurarum, by which the rhythm of the metre is regulated *:

Cu | ἔστιν ἐκδὲν δεινὸν ὡδ' ἐιπειν ἔπος,

Bentley

So Bentley. It was our wish to have proceeded to some length in the illustration of the incisions of the Iambic metre: but the enormous extent of this article compels us to omit what might have proved, perhaps, of some slight utility to those who are desirous of entering deeply into the metrical excellencies of the antient tragedians. We may, however, refer them to the observations of the old Grammarians, pub

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Bentley observes, Schediasm. de Metris Terentianis: OMNE versuum genus suam habet CESURAM sive INCISIONEM, qua verbum terminatur, et vox in decursu paulum interquiescit.

In the Dactylic Heroic Hexameter, this pause frequently appears to lengthen a final short syllable, which falls in the Casura; that is, a short syllable which closes a word and begins a foot. In Iambic verse, such a power of elongation could never be allowed to the Cesural pause; for the first syllable of every foot, from the nature and constitution of the metre, may be short; and must necessarily be short, in three of the six feet of which the Senarian is composed.

If the Cesural pause were to have effect at the end of the foot, in this metre, the rhythmus of Iambics would be totally lost; and we might expect verses in which each Dipodia would consist of two disyllables, or of one quadrisyllable: but no such verses, unless in corrupt instances, appear in the Tragedies. They would, indeed, be ranked among the xaxoμeтpa by the old Grammarian Trypho, whom Mr. Burgess has cited in his remarks on Dawes, M. Cr. 441. His whole note merits an attentive perusal.

κακομετρα

It is curious to observe that, much in the same manner in which Mr. Wakefield has tried to confine the power of the pause in lengthening short vowels, to the last syllable of the foot, in Tragic Iambics, JOHN CORNELIUS DE PAUW has at tempted to fix it on the last syllable of the foot in Heroic Hexameters. This doctrine he has promulgated in several of his notes on Quintus Calaber; and he has been very justly reprehended for advancing such an opinion, by Dorville, in his Critica Vannus, p. 318 et seq.

De Pauw had also, long before the appearance of his Quintus Calaber, thus remarked on a verse which he palms on Me

nander :

Αρκαδικὸς ἀν τἰυναντίον αλίσκεται

(p. 176. Ed. Cler. and apud Athen. IV. p. 132.) after he had scornfully rejected Bentley's corrections; "Nam quod tu fortè

lished by Putschius: to the decisions of Bentley, in his tract on the metres of Terence; to those of Dawes and his learned editor Burgess; and to the remarks in the Crit. Vann. of Dorville, on the subject of the Cesural pause and power, in Heroic Hexameters and Iambics. The sentiments of Dorville, indeed, are interlarded with a degree of scurrility and abuse which is unpardonable in a philological work. De Pauw merited not compassion; for he was arrogant, abusive, precipitate, and totally without judgment:-yet his blunders might have been corrected, by his adversary, without a forfeiture of that civilized character which becomes the profound scholar and the genuine critic.

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ignoras, ego una cum Eruditioribus scio, ultima in Touravliov PRODUCITUR propter spiritum asperum in voce axienilai, et VIM CESURE."We assert, as we have on some former occasion observed, that the spiritus asper has no power, nor influence, which can lengthen a preceding short final vowel.

Instead of offering any observations on this note of de Pauw, we shall transcribe Dorville's remarks on it, from his Critica Vann. p. 327.1.

"Vi cæșuræ Tovario producitur, ubi ne quidem umbra cæsuræ est! Sane secundam doda in trimetro Iambo video in ultima hujus vocis finiri, Casuram nullam deprehendoquin, Metricorum stolidissime, nescis casuram in Iambico nunquam aliquid posse operari ad producendam syllabam. Nam casus in hoc carmine nequit dari, ut syllaba, in quam casura cadit, cum natura sit brevis, ob versum fieri longa debeat. Nam nihil vetat, quo minus brevis maneat. Imo rectius brevis, quam longa, in omni casu erit..

"Si in hoc tuo versu fingere velis, syllabam ON posse produci beneficio finita diodias, vel, quam BARNESIUS sæpe crepat, vi fimalis, fingas hoc per me licet. Imo quoniam Iambicus ter feritur secundum Terentianum, p. 94. contende ultimam cujusque diaedias posse produci non modo, verum etiam ultimam cujusque pedis, quoniam Horatius H. P. Vs. 253. ait Jambum senos ictus reddere, et, EVERTE OMNEM PROSODIAM."

The quotation is long, but it is too closely allied to the subject before us to admit abbreviation. With it we shall conclude; for it seems unnecessary to pursue this topic farther. In the arguments and proofs which have been advanced, we have endeavoured to evince that Mr. Porson, when he inserted the final N in his edition of the Hecuba, instead of rendering himself liable to censure, deserved the praise of the learned reader.

-We have been desirous of shewing, in opposition to the assertions of Mr. Wakefield, that the omission of the final N, when a long syllable is demanded, is not sanctioned in Euripides by the authority of Aidus; and that it is not established by the steady practice of any other editor, nor by the metrical rules of any critic or grammarian, antient or modern *. We

have

The great Bentley's opinion on this subject, though he has expressed it rather carelessly, may be collected from the following passage; in which he begins the examination of the defective Anapestics which Mr. Boyle had produced against the critic's and Terentian's famous Canon:

Ι. Τὴν Διος αυλὴν ἐισαιχνιῦσι
Δια την λία

and the IVth like it,

Prom. 122.

Τὸν δὲ χαλινοις ἐν περίνοισι
Χειμαζόμενοι

Ver. 565.

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