The Latin Primer

gaudy but magnificent: his is not the head-piece of Paris; it is the helmet of Turnus, and it is the helmet of a king.

A piece of advice, I meant to offer at the conclusion of the Postscript to Rule 15, but then suffered it to slip my memory, I may subjoin here, viz. That young scholars, as soon as they have learned the Latin Prosodia, do scan cadences in prose writers with as much precision and nicety as they commonly do verses in Virgil and Horace. Nothing than this will more exactly form their ear to the genuine music of the Latin tongue : and being thus accustomed to take particular notice of the arrangement of words, the beauties of an author will become more striking to them, and themselves better qualified to imitate the same.

THE

LATIN PRIMER.

PART III.

OF THE LATIN METRE.

In this Third part will be contained,

1. An account of the different kinds of feet in the -Latin tongue.

2. A description, and synopsis, of the many sorts of verse in that language, with some useful notices concerning the Iambic and Trochaic metres of Terence.

In this I have much availed myself of the useful labours of Mons. Lancelot, author of the Port Royal Grammars; to whose researches, however, mine have not been confined, as what is here said of the metres of Terence, will shew, and as his List of the Latin Verse compared with my Synopsis may shew also, the former exhibiting thirty-three, the latter seventyfive, of different denominations.

3. The various and beautiful mixture of Latin verse in composition.

4. A full description of the Metra Horatiana.

To assist the memory in distinguishing the Latin feet one from another, observe in what order the table represents them, and also the relation, or rather contrariety, which subsists in each couplet.

Thus in the first couplet, the Spondee is two long, the Pyrrhic two short; in the next, the Choree is one long and one short, the Iambus one short and one long. A like diversity may be marked in each couplet.

The difference between the two Ionics is, that the Great begins a Majori, having the greater quantity placed first, and is therefore surnamed Major; whereas the small Ionic begins a Minori, and is therefore called Minor. Thus the Ionics are the reverse of each other.

Again, the Epitrits and Pæons are the reverse of one another; the Epitrits consisting of three long and one short; the Pæons of three short and one long. These are surnamed, First, Second, Third, Fourth, as the single long or short time is in the first, second, third, or fourth syllable.

The foot, which we indifferently call Choree or Trochee, was by Cicero and Quinctilian named Choree only; and the term Trochee was by them more properly bestowed on the Tribrac.

9. A Bacchic (Bacchius)

10. S An Antibacchic, or Palimbacchic, (Antibacchius, &c.) two long, one short

11. A Cretic, or Amphimacer (Creticus, &c.)

12. S An Amphibrac (Amphybrachys)

one short between two long

one long between two short

2. EIGHTEEN COMPOUNDED FEET, of which sixteen are of four Syllables, and two of five. Of the first sixteen, four are of the same Foot doubled; four of contrary Feet; four, in which long Times predominate; and four, in which short Times predominate.

Four of the same Foot doubled.