Mr. Porson (p. 6) with his usual strictness in attributing the merit of discoveries and improvements to the right owners, mentions an obscure hint of the true doctrine, which is contained in the preface to Morell's Thesaurus Græca Poeseos. By how little effect that hint was followed, may be judged from the following words of the learned Hermann (Metr. p. 150:)

"A trisyllabis pedibus Tragici Græci maxime abstinuerunt, quanquam etiam in pari sede, sed admodum raro, anapestus invenitur. Idque et Hephaestio notavit, et nuper Brunckius defendit."

one.

A Tragic senarius, according to Mr. Porson (p. 20) admits an iambus into any place; a tribrach into any place except the sixth; a spondee into the first, third, and fifth; a dactyl into the first and third; and an anapest into the first alone. So that the first foot of the senarius is capable of five different forms; the third of four; the fifth of three; the second and fourth of two; and the sixth of only Two hundred and forty different varieties of the senarius may be produced, without employing any combination of feet unauthorized by Mr. Porson's rule. The Tragic Poets, however, do not often admit more than two trisyllabic feet into the same verse; and never, if our observation be accurate, more than three. The admission of anapests into the second, third, fourth and fifth places, and of dactyls into the fifth place, increases the varieties of the Comic senarius to seven hundred and ten. The number would be eleven hundred and twenty-five, if four hundred and fifteen combinations were not rejected, because they exhibit a tribrach or a dactyl immediately before an anapest.

No regular tragic senarius, of whatsoever feet it is composed, can possibly exhibit two short syllables enclosed between two long ones, or more than three long syllables without the intervention of a short one. A moment's consideration will satisfy the reader, that all such combinations of syllables are absolutely incompatible with the structure of the verse. The inability to employ four or more long syllables together, is productive of so little practical inconvenience, that the Tragedians appear to have acquiesced in it without difficulty. The inadmissibility of two short syllables enclosed between two long ones, is a much more serious grievance. Many persons of great eminence have had the misfortune to bear names constituted in that unaccommodating form. Such were Agialeus, Endromache, Andromeda, Antigone, Antiope, Bellerophontes, Hermione, Hippodamia, Hypsipyle, Iphigenia, Laodamia, Zaomedon, Penelope, Protesilaus, Tiresias, and a great many more of equal fame. Although all these persons were admirably qualified by their names, as well as by their actions, to shine in epic poetry, unhappily not one of them is capable of being

mentioned by name in a Tragic senarius composed in the regular manner. There is also another class of persons not altogether so unfortunate, whose names are excluded only in some of the oblique cases: as Hippolytus, Neoptolemus, Œnomaus, Talthybius, &c. In favour of all such persons, and perhaps of the names of places, which are formed in the same manner, the Tragic poets occasionally transgress the ordinary rules of their versification. Proper names, which cannot enter the senarius in the regular way, are admitted into it in two different manners: the first, of which Mr. Porson has not spoken, consists in substituting a choriambus in the place of the first dipodia of the verse. This practice has been adopted by Eschylus in two well-known instances: Theb. 944. Ibid. 553.

The only other instance of this license, with which we are acquainted, is produced from a play of Sophocles by Priscian (p. 1328.)

The second and more usual way of introducing proper names of this form into the verse, consists in admitting the two short syllables, and the following long syllable of the proper name, as one foot, into the second, third, fourth, or fifth place of the verse. We have not observed more than one instance of this practice in the surviving plays of Eschylus.

Sophocles and Euripides, however, will furnish examples in great abundance. In the Orestes of Euripides, the name of Hermione occurs in a senarius ten times. In nine of these instances, the anapest occupies the fourth place in the verse. This last circumstance is in a great measure the natural consequence of the predilection of the Tragic Poets for the penthemimeral cæsura.

We have some doubts whether the Tragedians ever extended this license to patronymics.

A few senarii may be found, which contain anapests in some of the four middle places, composed of the first three syllables of a proper

name.

As the Tragic trimeter iambic admits anapests when they are contained in proper names, so it is not unreasonable to suppose, that the Tragic tetrameter trochaic admits dactyls in similar circumstances, and for the same reason. The thirty-two Tragedies, however, afford only two examples of this practice, both of which are probably corrupt.

With regard to unnecessary dactyls in this metre, it may be observed, that they are liable to the same objections as unnecessary anapests in iambic verses, together with the additional objection that they are divided between two words.

According to Mr. Porson (p. 26,) the Poets of the sock agree with their brethren of the buskin, in excluding dactyls from trochaic verses, except in case of proper names. In the eleven comedies of Aristo

phanes, we have not discovered any genuine instance of a dactyl in a verse of this measure.

We now return to the Tragic senarius, respecting which we find two very important canons in the Preface to the Hecuba, besides those which relate to the use of anapests. The first of these canons is, that the third and fourth feet must not be included in the same word. Hoc si fieri posset, says Mr. Porson, omnis rhythmus, omnes numeri funditus everterentur. This expression has, in some instances, been construed rather too strictly, as if it were necessary that a Tragic senarius, which has neither the penthemimeral nor the hepthimimeral cæsura, should at least have a pause after the third foot. Such verses are indeed sufficiently common; but a certain number may also be produced, which have no regular pause at all in the two middle feet.

Upon the whole, when we consider how frequently the first and second, the second and third, the fourth and fifth, and the fifth and sixth feet of the senarius are included in the same word, we cannot agree with the learned Hermann (Hec. p. 141) in attributing to chance the non-occurrence, or at least the extreme rarity, of verses which exhibit the two middle feet similarly conjoined.

Mr. Porson's second canon may be conveniently expressed in the following words: "The fifth syllable of the fifth foot of a Tragic tetrameter iambic must be short, if it ends a word of two or more syllables, unless the second syllable of the same foot is a monosyllable which is incapable of beginning a verse.

Dissyllables in which the vowel of the second syllable is elided, are considered as monosyllables.

It may not be superfluous to mention, that we have discovered no instance of the violation of Mr. Porson's canon in the fragments of Simonides, of Amorgus, and the other early iambic Poets, from whom the Tragedians probably derived it. It is also strictly observed in the Alexandra of Lycophron.

Mr. Porson has omitted to mention, although it appears that he was aware of the fact, that his canon is as applicable to those verses, the first syllable of the fifth foot of which is a monosyllable which cannot begin a verse, as to those in which it terminates a word of two or more syllables. The instances to the contrary, which are to be found in the thirty-two Tragedies, for the most part admit of very easy and satisfactory emendations.

It may be laid down as a general rule, that the first syllable of the fifth foot must be short, if it is followed by the slightest pause or break of the sense.

It appears from what has been said, that the fifth foot of a Tragic senarius cannot be a spondee, except in three cases. The first case,

the occurrence of which is by far the most frequent, is when both syllables of the fifth foot are contained in the same word. The second case is when the first syllable of the fifth foot is a monosyllable which is not capable of beginning a verse, and which is not disjoined from the following syllable by any pause in the sense. The third case is when the second syllable of the fifth foot is a monosyllable, which, by being incapable of beginning a verse or a sentence, is in some measure united to the preceding syllable. The Edipus Tyrannus of Sophocles contains more than four hundred and twenty of the first case, more than fifty of the second, and only one of the third. We consider verses to which both the second and third cases apply, as belonging to the second. With this reservation, we doubt whether the thirty-two Tragedies will afford fifty genuine instances of the third case.

Should the student be desirous of discovering the reasons which induced the Tragic Poets to observe the rules respecting the fifth foot of the senarius, which have been discovered and communicated to the world by Mr. Porson, we profess ourselves unable to give him better information than that which is delivered by the learned Hermann in the following words (Hec. p. 109:) "Caussa autem quare ista vocabularum divisio displicere debet, hæc est. Quoniam in fine cujusque versus, ubi, exhaustis jam propemodum pulmonibus, lenior pronunciationis decursus desideratur, asperiora omnia, quo difficilius' pronuntiantur, eo magis etiam aures lædunt: propterea sedulo evitatur illa vocabulorum conditio, quæ ultimum versus ordinem longiore mora a præcedente disjungit, eaque re decursum numerorum impedit ac retardat."

To illustrate this doctrine, we may conveniently revert to the first verse of the Ion. It is by no means necessary to have enacted the part of Mercury in the Ion of Euripides, in order to be sensible of the relief which is afforded to the "exhausted lungs" of a corpulent performer, by that variation of the verse in question which we have already proposed.

That the Comic Poets were not quite so considerate of the lungs of their actors, appears, as well by their neglect of this canon, as by the words of inordinate length which they sometimes employ; particularly by one of near eight syllables, which occurs towards the conclusion of the Ecclesiazusæ of Aristophanes. Hephæstion informs us that the macron, as it was called, of the comic parabasis, ought to be pronounced apneusti, without taking breath. In the Birds of Aristophanes is the macron of thirteen and a half dimeter anapestics (v. 723-736,) which contain a hundred and thirty four syllables. Upon the whole, it is not without reason that Mr.

Hermann (Hec. p. 140) exults, in the following terms, over the inaptitude of his rival to investigate the causes of those facts which he had sufficient sagacity to discover. "Id sponte animadvertisset vir eruditissimus, si non satis haberet observare, sed in caussas etiam earum rerum quas observavit, inquirendum putaret."

We are afraid that we shall exhaust the patience of our readers although perhaps not their lungs, by the length of our observations on the following passage in Mr. Porson's Preface (p. 43:)

"Nunc iambicorum genus Comicis fere proprium leviter attingamus, quod vulgo vocatur tetrametrum catalecticum. Duabus rebus a Comico senario hoc differt; primo, quod quartus pes semper iambus aut tribrachys sit oportet; secundo, quod sextus pes anapæstum etiam admittit. Sed pes catalecticam syllabam præcedens non iambus esse nequit; nisi in proprio nomine, ubi conceditur anapastus. Quod de quarto etiam pede intelligi velim."

We have long suspected that Mr. Porson was mistaken in restricting to the case of proper names the use of anapests in the fourth place of the cataletic tetrameter iambics of the Comic Poets. The appearance of the third edition of the Preface to the Hecuba, without any modification of the doctrine proposed in the edition of 1802, has induced us to examine the question with considerable attention, and to present the result of our examinations to our readers.

7

We have to observe, in the first place, that all the trisyllabic feet which are admissible into comic iambics, are employed with much greater moderation in the catalectic tetrameters than in the comic trimeters. The Plutus of Aristophanes, for instance, commences with 252 trimeters, which are immediately followed by 37 tetrameters ; after which the measure, though still iambic, becomes antistrophic. Nearly three-fifths of the trimeters contain one more trisyllabic feet in each verse. The 37 tetrameters, on the contrary, exhibit only one tribrach and one dactyl, and not one anapest. In the earlier Plays of Aristophanes trisyllabic feet are used more unsparingly, both in trimeters and in tetrameters. But the comparative rarity of these feet in tetrameters is nearly as observable in the Knights, the earliest remaining Play of Aristophanes; which contains a considerable number of tetrameters, as in the Plutus, which was written after the versification of the comic stage had begun to assume an appearance of smoothness and regularity, which the contemporaries of the youth of Aristophanes were not desirous of exhibiting. In the second place, we must remark, that the eleven surviving Comedies of Aristophanes contain more than six hundred tetrameter iambics; in which number of verses, the edition of Brunck exhibits only seventy anapests, which the most obstinate critic will venture to defend.