Lamentis, gemituque, et fæmineo ululatu. Virg. *Victor apud rapidum Simoenta sub Ilio alto. Id. *Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam. Id. *Glauco et Panopea, et Inoo Melicerta. Id. *Implerunt montes: flerant Rhodopeia arces. Id. *Insula Ionio in magno, quas dira Celano. Id. This is the Greek manner; which all the Latin Poets have occasionally indulged in, as therefore we may and it is extremely soft and beautiful in its proper place and season, of which the ear will be the best informant. See more examples in my LAT. GRAM. Note farther, that sometimes the Hexameter has a redundant syllable at the end, which in scanning forms a synalepha with the first syllable of the next verse; as, Omnia Mercurio similis, vocemque coloremque, Et crines flavos. Virg." Qu' et cri.”— There is another sort of redundancy in verse, called Synecphonesis, when in the same word two syllables must be sounded as one, if we know how; but our present general mode is not to sound the first at all; as, Seu lento fuerint alvearia vimine texta. Virg. Uno eodemque tulit partu, paribusque revinxit. Id. Rupe sub hac eadem, quam proxima pinus obumbret. Calpurn. Eosdem habuit secum, quibus est elata capillos; Eōsdem oculos; latera vestis adusta fuit. Propert. In this of Ovid is an instance of both redundancies, Dü, düs, i, iis, queis, dein, dehinc, deest, meo, tuo, suo, eo, of one syllable; Tidem, iisdem, deinde, proinde, deeram, deessem, deero, deesse, anteit, antehāc, omnia, deorsum, Theseus, Thesei, of two syllables; Achillei, Ulyssei, abiěte, ariěte, semihŏmo, of three; Arietibus, &c. semiănimis of four, with a few others; which we may safely imitate; Quæ tuto quivis imitabitur. Voss. PENTAMETERS, &c. To the class of Hexameters belong Pentameters, and six other smaller verses, as being parts of an Hexameter. PENTAMETER. This verse, also called Elegiac, because used in elegy, consists of five feet; of which the first and second may be either Dactyls or Spondees, the third a Spondee generally, though sometimes an Iambus under the condition of a Casura, the two last always Anapests; as, Qui dederit primus oscula, victor erit. Id. Some scan this verse by two Penthemimers, each consisting of two feet and a cæsura or single syllable ; as, Non bene coelestes impia dextra colit. Pentameters are seldom found by themselves alone: but Ausonius has the sayings of the Seven Wise Men, all expressed in Pentameters only. In Martianus Capella is a continuation of two and thirty such verses; and Heliodorus, in his Ethiopic history, has an entire ode of them. In good Pentameters there is ever a cæsura after the second foot; of course there must be no ecthlipsis or synalepha after the second foot, because then the cæsura would be destroyed in a manner. The most graceful cadence in this verse is a dissyllable; next to that a word, not of three, but of four syllables; and least of all a monosyllable, unless it be absorbed by one of the synalephas; as, Invitis oculis litera lecta tua est. Ov. A great fault in Pentameters is a synalepha in the third or fourth, or beginning of the fifth foot; as, Herculis, Antique, Hesperidumque comes. Propert. Catul. A synalepha in the fifth foot of an Hexameter, which should have been noted above, has likewise a very ill effect; as, Catul. Difficile est longum subito deponere amorem. These are set as marks on rocks, upon poets sometimes suffer shipwreck. We must avoid rhyming in this and every other sort of Latin verse. by a rhyme : The following verse of Ovid is spoiled Quærebant flavos per nemus omne favos. Such verses are called Leonine, not, as I formerly conjectured, from the harsh sound they sometimes make, not, as Mr. Bailey says, "from their making, 66 as it were, a Lion's tail," by the reflection of the rhyme on its corresponding syllable, as he ought to have explained himself, nor exactly as Dr. Johnson states it, "from their author Leo;" but, as I have since learned from Vossius on Lithocomus, they are so named from Leonius, a Benedictine Monk, of the Monastery of St. Victor, in Paris, A.D. 1160, and from him, not as their author, (he was not the first who wrote so, as we see), but because he was the first who affected this way versifying, and wrote much so. Hence it is also called Monkish verse. Vossius condemns it; "Fugiendi etiam " Versus Leonini; etsi nec poetæ principes semper eos "effugerint." Lat Gram. Lithoc. of The late ingenious author of METRONARISTON, a Dissertation upon Part of the Greek and Latin Prosody, which I should here gladly recommend to the notice of young Grammarians, were its matter and design purely Grammatical, admires such verses; as indeed do I, when they appear rari nantes, and in such examples as he cites in his note, p. 72. "O pater, O patriæ cura decusque tuæ where certainly the rhyme confined to only one or two letters is soft and musical: but not so in that other of Ovid above qoted, including three letters; nor in those which spoil the dignity of some hymns in the Romish Liturgy; as in that of Corpus-Christi day. Nobis datus, nobis natus Ex intacta Virgine, Et in mundo conversatus, Sparso Verbi semine, Sui moras incolatus Miro clausit ordine. Here the rhyme is too frequent: but its distinguishing fault is, that it includes a prior consonant, which makes it always harsh, as in these, Trajicit, i, verbis virtutem elude superbis. Virg. SIX OTHER SMALLER VERSES, PARTS OF AN HEXAMETER. Of these six, three form the beginning, and three the latter part of an Hexameter. 1. AN ARCHILOCHIAN PENTHEMIMER.. This has its name from Archilochus its author; and is composed of two Dactyls and a Cæsura, being therefore also called a Dactylic Penthemimer, and by Servius, A DACTYLIC DIMETER HYPERCATALECTIC; as, This was first used by Alcman, the Greek poet, and -consists of three Dactyls, and (therefore styled Hypercat.) a Cæsura; as, Munera lætitiamque Dei. Virg. Æn. 1. Infabricata fugæ studio. Id. Æn. 4. T |