462), rendidit (Capt. Prol. 9). Indeed, Virgil and the later poets-furnish not a few examples where such syllables retained their original length, as, pater, arras, in Virg., perrupit, rediit, prateriit, Or. On the other hand, a short vowel in what is called doubtful position, remained invariably short In Plautus and Terence, although the later poets took the liberty of treating such a syllable as long. Thus, raeruma, sacrum, lucrum, patrem, have always a short first syllable in Latin comedy ; and if mediocris has a long 6, it is because the o vowel of this word is in itself long.
If now the principles we have assumed on the grounds above men tioned be applied to the plays of Terence, we arrive at the result, that the verses, with very few exceptions, acquire the desired rhythm ; and that there should be exceptions must bo expected where the text of an author is not yet established upon a careful comparison of manuscripts, tad where even the transposition of two words will often alter the recent. Moreover, it should always be recollected that in the comic lrama it may bo even desirable to avoid the purer rhythm of verse, and approach somewhat to the prose of natural conversation, as Cicero has himself remarked (' Orator., 55). That what we now say may be put to the test, we will give a list of those words requiring abbrevia tion which nmst commonly occur, observing at the same time that a word at the end of an iambic trimeter, or after a monosyllable, is often to be pronounced with all its syllables, though elsewhere liable to contraction. Of this an example may be seen in the tenth line of the prologue already referred to, which contains both norcrit and stunt For a more detailed exhibition of these words, see 'Journal of Edu cation,' voL 344 ; and on the subject of Latin prosody generally, the same work, vol. iv., p. 330.
It should be added, that of modern editors, Hermann, Boihe, Linde mann, Hitachi, and Fleckeisen, alone seem to have a distinct idea of the nature of the metres of Terence and Plautus; for all that has been said applies to Plautus as well as Terence. The author of the Varronia nue ' borrowed his article on the subject, and that without acknow ledgment, from the ' Penny Cyclopledia' and the paper in the 'Journal of Education ;' all, at least, except the paragraph about paella, and that, oddly enough, is the one paragraph in the said chapter which the recent editor of Terence has justly condemned. Among older writers, Bentley certainly possessed a clearer insight into the subject than some of his notes would lead one to suppose. That this is the case is proved by en anecdote in Bishop Monk's Life' of that scholar. The reverend doctor, dining at a friend's house in London, kept the gentlemen longer over their wine than was thought proper by the ladies in the drawing-room, end added to the scandal when his voice was heard, even above stairs, in what was supposed to be a song to the tune of Unfortunate Miss Bailey.' The doctor was only reading to them some specimen of Terence's Comic Septenarius, or, to use a harder phrase, the Iambic) Tetrameter Catalectic.