to be pronounced without reference to the marks, it must be owned that it is a pedantic and unprofitable task to write the marks at all, and still more to consult manuscripts and study works of grammarians as to the syllables over which they ought to stand. A mechanic who should spend his day in making a knife which is not to cut, or a gun which is not to go off, or a wheel which is never to go round, would not be more unprofitably employed than a critic engaged in the due disposition of marks, not one of which is to be of use in pronunciation. As to the use of them in distinguishing words which are written alike, these are few, and there can be no need to encumber with marks all the rest of the book: nay, the very fact of our observing a mark upon those words alone which require it, would better direct our minds towards their true meaning in those very few passages where it does not necessarily result from the context. The time too employed in teaching boys what we call Greek accents is, on the supposition of the inefficacy of the marks, entirely thrown away. Why employ them for hours in learning the rules for placing the marks? and why refer them to Herodian and Apollonius the Crabbed for information, which, when procured, is utterly useless? Why should Eustathius be consulted whether epnuoc is to have an oblique stroke over the first syllable or a crooked stroke over the second, if in pronunciation the accent must be on the second syllable because it is long? As well might we inquire . whether Eustathius made a p with a straight tail or a crooked one. I cannot imagine a more grotesque waste of learning, than such pursuits under such a hypothesis: nor could there be an object over which the genius of pedantry would chuckle with truer mirth, than to see a boy, who was yesterday repeating the rule why áλagoa is a proparoxytone, and is flogged to day for not calling it θαλάσσα. I am in hopes that the method which I have adopted of stating a given passage of a given manuscript, for our guidance in reading aloud, so as to reduce the question to a matter of arithmetic, may not be without its use. Taking this passage of Saint Luke as evinced by the manuscripts, we may affirm, that if there be an uncertainty in the manner of fixing the marks, it is an uncertainty which would not mislead us more than once in two hundred and eighty times in pronouncing the Greek language. And I shall accordingly endeavour to show, that in reading the first chapter of Saint Luke to the end of the 20th verse, our accentuation ought to be guided by the marks as they appear in the manuscript of Theophilus; that is, that we ought, in reading that passage aloud, to raise those syllables, and those only, over which we observe a mark. And I am satisfied that if I can succeed in carrying the reader so far along with me, we shall not disagree as to the accentuation of any passage in any other prose author. ACCENTS OF MONOSYLLABLES. 6. The accents of monosyllables leave little room for doubt or discussion. It may be stated as a general rule, that every word has an accent. Cicero says that nature has so ordained it : Ipsa natura quasi modularetur hominum orationem, in omni verbo posuit acutam vocem, nec una plus, nec a postrema syllaba ultra tertiam." (Orat. c. 18.) And yet there are in Greek some exceptions to this rule, and these somewhat arbitrary, seeing that the definite article, for instance, has an accent on the neuter, and not on the masculine or feminine. Bishop Horsley says "that the words without an accent are fourteen in number." (On the Prosodies of the Greek and Latin Languages: London, 1796, p. 6.) The Bishop has not affixed his name to the treatise, but it is, I believe, generally understood to have come from his pen. Kühner gives the following list of them : a. Forms of the Article, ó, ñ, oi, ai. c. Prepositions, èv, eic (ec), èk (éž), wc. (Ausführliche Grammatik der Griechischen Sprache: Hanover, 1834; vol. i. p. 68.) There are some words, which, when standing at the beginning of a sentence, have an accent of their own, but which, in the middle of a sentence, incline or throw back their accent on the preceding syllable; as in the sentence aoi Taura ἔγραψα, for thee have I written these things, σοὶ has an accent: but in ἔδοξεν ἐμοὶ καθεξῆς σοι ypával, σo throws back its accent on the previous syllable. These words are called enclitics; and it happens in all languages, that the same word, when put prominently forward with a stress laid on it, shall have an accent, and when occurring in the ordinary course of a sentence shall have none: "You are the person for whom this was written:" and, on the other hand, “I thought it proper to write you an account of it." In this latter case the enclitic word becomes virtually embodied in the word preceding it; and in the same way the unaccented words, particularly the prepositions, are incorporated with the succeeding word: "Cùm dico, 'circum littora,' tanquam unum enuntio, dissimulata distinctione: itaque tanquam in una voce, una est acuta." (Quinctil. i. 5, 27.): so that there would perhaps be no impropriety in saying of these words that they throw the accent forward, as the enclitics throw it back; and Kühner seems to entertain this view by calling them Proklitica or Atona. And accordingly these words, when at the end of a sentence, or placed after the word they govern, have an accent: as πληθύος ἔκ Δαναῶν, We find that every word in the manuscript of Theophilus, with the exceptions pointed out by Kühner, has a mark: Tŵ, and kui are therefore to be raised; the distinction between the two sounds, whatever it was, being no longer within our reach. OXYTONES. 7. Having thus briefly mentioned the accentuation of the monosyllables, upon which little question arises, I come to words of more than one syllable. Many of these having the mark on the last syllable (as woλλoi), I shall endeavour to show that we ought to obey the mark, and that in reading Toλloi, we ought accordingly to raise the second syllable and not the first: for we have already seen that this mark, though made from left to right, stands for the acute accent, and shows that the last syllable ought to be raised, or, in the ordinary language of grammarians, that woλλoi is an oxytone. The pronunciation taught in the English schools and universities is directly contrary; we lay the accent on the first syllable, and make the word Tóλλo; in short, our pronunciation of Greek is entirely barytone, as, with the exception of monosyllables, where we have no choice, we never lay the accent on a final syllable at all. Why is this? Why, for instance, when we find a mark on the final syllable of eòc, do we refuse to regulate our pronunciation by it? the only reason that I am aware of is, that in Latin Déus is a barytone, and that @éoc ought to be pronounced in the same manner. Now that we are right in our pronunciation of Déus, we have an |