than three tones and a half towards the acute, nor does it descend farther towards the grave. But every word has not the same tone; for some arc sounded with an acute tone, some with a grave, and sonic with both. Of these last, some have the acute and grave blended toge ther in the same syllable, which is then called eircum fleeted; others have them on different syllables, each of which preserves its own proper accent, whether grave or acute, distinct and separate from that of any other. In dissyllables of this kind, the one is grave and the other acute ; and betwixt these there can be no medium ; but in words of many syllables, of whatever kind, there is but one which is accented acute, while all the rest are grave. Such is the melody of speech." Sect. I I th. To obviate this difficulty, however, it may be reasonably supposed, that the observations of Dionysius apply to tire accents of oratory or declamation, which were re duced to rule by the ancients, and even represented by written characters; but that they have no reference to the grammatical accents which we at present possess.
Considerable light has been thrown upon this contro verted question, by an examination of the pronunciation of the modern Greeks, who may retain many particulars of the manner of speaking of their classical ancestors. Even here, however, the testimony of authors is contra dictory, and respectable authorities may he produced on both sides of the controversy. Mr Marsh, the learned translator of Michaelis, informs us, that Eugenius, a Greek priest, and archbishop of Cherson, in reading Greek, distinctly marked, by his pronunciation, both ac cent and quantity ; lengthening the sound, without raising the tone of his voice, when he pronounced a long sylla ble, which had not an acute accent, and raising the tone of his voice without lengthening the sound, when he pro nounced a short syllable which had an acute accent ; in the same manner as in music, the acutest note in a bar may frequently he the shortest.
A very different account of the practice of the modern Greeks is given by Mr Browne, (Irish Trans. vol. 7.) who had an opportunity of conversing with the crew of a Greek ship from Patrass, a town situated near the an cient Corinth, which had been driven, by stress of wea ther, into the port of Dingle in Ireland, and continued there for a considerable time. " Of the two first persons whom I met," says Mr Browne, "one, the steward of the ship, an inhabitant of the island of Cephalonia, had a school education : he read Euripides, and translated some easier passages without much difficulty. The companion, however, of the steward, could speak only modern Greek, in which I could discover, that he was giving a description of the distress of the ship ; and, though not able to understand the context, I could plainly distinguish many words, such as ; and, among the rest, the sound of Ay c3e,,iroc pronounced short. This
awoke my curiosity, which was still more heightened when I observed that he said Avaqiinroy long, with the same attention to the alteration of the accent with the variety of the case, which a boy would be taught to pay at a school in England. Watching, therefore, more closely, and asking the other to read some Greek, I found that they both uniformly pronounced, according to accent, without any attention to long or short syllables where accent came in the way ; and, on their departure, one of them having bade me good day, by saying Kcouv.Cifa, to which I answered, Kco02,e,:ifx, he, with strong marks of reprobation, set me right, and repeated KccAn.4:iect; and, with Like censure, did the captain, upon another occasion, observe, upon my saying Socrates, in stead of Socrates." Mr Browne proceeds to inform us, that the most in telligent of these Greeks repeatedly assured him, that Greek verse, as well as prose, was read by accent, and not by quantity; and exemplified it by reading in that manner several lines of Homer, with whose name they seemed perfectly well acquainted. When, however, a syllable with the acute accent followed one with the cir cumflex, as in the case of KAVB1, it was shortened, on ac count of the great length of the preceding syllable. " I must here add," says Mr Browne, " that these men con firmed an observation, which I have heard made, that we are much mistaken in our idea of the supposed lofty sound of TroAticnQisgoto .9•06Aocco-vc; that the borderers on the coast of the Archipelago take their ideas from the gentle laving of the shore by a summer wave, and not from the roaring of a winter ocean, and they accordingly pronounced it Polylzhnsveo tlutlasses." These particulars, so distinctly stated by Mr Browne, are entirely conformable to the purpose of the Greek accents, which we have above thought, on the whole, the most probable ; viz. to mark the emphasis, or stress of the voice, in reading. But, as we have already shown, the emphasis need not affect the quantity of the syllables ; as it does not, of necessity, lengthen the sylla ble on which it is placed. Mr Browne does not seem to have been aware of this ; for he constantly speaks of making a syllable long by placing the emphasis upon it ; and, on this account, he is greatly puzzled to explain in what manner the rythm of the ancient versification could be made sensible to the ear, by reading it accord ing to the accent, and not the quantity. This is cer tainly perfectly possible ; but it would be very difficult for a modern to do it without a great deal of practice. (nz)