sound it therefore follows, that what would be a license in the beginning of a verse would be doubly so towards its close. No word ending with a short vowel should be placed before words beginning with sc, sp or st. Short vowels should be excluded from the last syllables of pentameters, and hardly ever be admitted to end a hex ameter. The monotony occasioned by the recurrence of two a's is to be avoided in the last penthemims of pentameters. A word ending with a diphthong can never be placed before a word beginning with the same diphthong. The adverb temere always precedes a word beginning with a long vowel, and the final e is always elided. Ac always precedes a consonant. Some of the above rules may occasionally be violated, even with advantage; but the beginner should reject every liberty, however it may be supported by the authority of the greatest poets, and conform strictly to the rules placed before him. The The lines in the exercises which follow are designed to exemplify the preceding observations, and may be formed into verses by changing the arrangement of the words. words printed in Italics are either compound words, which must be divided, or words which are designed to be placed at the beginning of the next line. EXERCISES. 1. Ego non falsa loquar: ter acutum ensem sustulit, Ter recidit manus malè sublato ense. 2. Sed timor obstitit et pietas ausis crudelibus, Castaque dextra refugit mandatum opus. 3. Aures vacent lite, insanaque jurgia protinus absint: ―livida lingua, differ tuum opus. 4. Navita non moritur fluctu, non miles cuspide: Oppida, immunia funerei lethi, pollent. 5. Quacunque se medio agmine virgo furens tulit, Ilac Aruns subit, et tacitus lustrat vestigia. 6 Atlantiades paret dictis genitoris, et inde Summa pedum properè illigat plantaribus alis, 7. Principio, mirantur naturam non reddere mare majus, -quò sit aquarum tantus decursus, Quò veniant omnia flumina ex omni parte. 8. Jamque Titanis, surgens per confinia emeriti Phœbi, -latè subvecta silenti mundo, Tenuaverat gelidum aëra roriferâ bigâ. 9. Equoreæ aquæ miscentur; æther caret ignibus, 10. Movit et eoos recessus fama bellorum, Huc ades: sine insani fluctus feriant littora. 12. Dixerat: ille concutit pennas madidantes novo nectare, -et maritat glebas fœcundo rore. Quàque volat, vernus color sequitur; turget in herbas omnis humus, medioque patent sereno convexa. ELISION. Elision is the cutting off of the final vowel or the two final letters of a word, and is divided into synalæpha and ecthlipsis. Synalæpha is the elision of a vowel or a diphthong at the end of a word, when the following word begins with a vowel or the aspirate h; as, Humidă solstitia atque hyě mēs ō rātě se rēnās, Ecthlipsis is the elision of the consonant m with the vowel preceding it, in the last syllable of a word, when the follow ing word begins with a vowel or the aspirate h; as, Illě děļūm vitam accipiet di visquè viļdēbit. The preceding definitions of synalæpha and ecthlipsis must be un derstood with some limitations. The final letters are elided or omit ted in scanning only, and not in writing, nor in the usual mode of pronouncing a verse. Hence the first two lines here quoted from Virgil, though scanned with the vowels cut off, are always written and generally pronounced thus, Humida solstitia atque hyemes orate serenas, Agricolæ hyberno lætissima pulvere farra. Two vowels at the end of a word are sometimes cut off, when the next word begins with a vowel; as, Stellio et lucifugis con|gėstă că biliă | blattīs. Synalæpha never takes place in the words O, heu, ah, proh, væ, vah, and hei: it is also occasionally omitted by poetical license in other words; as, O pătěr, ō hominum di vumque ælternă poltēstās. Et succus pecori, ēt | lāc süb|ducitur | āgnīs. A long vowel or diphthong, when preserved from elision by poetical license, becomes common, but it is generally made short; as, Tēr sunt cōnā|tī īm pōněrě | Pelio | Ossām. Imple runt montes, flē rùnt Rhodõ|pēïæ | ārcēs. A vowel at the end of a verse is not, in general, cut off, when the first word of the following verse begins with a vowel; but if the pause, which intervenes between the lines, is not required by the sense, but is merely that slight pause, which the end of the verse necessarily occasions, the final vowel, as well as the consonant m, is sometimes elided; as, Jactemur, doceas: ignari hominumque locorumque When the final vowel of a word is elided, the effect of the syllable as a cæsura is hardly perceptible, and it ought not, perhaps, to be re garded, in any instance, as a cæsural syllable. The consonant's was often elided by the ancient poets, sometimes with the vowel preceding it, but more frequently alone, and consequently with the final syllable of the word preserved; as, Vicit Olympiă | nunc sění|ō côn|fectus qui|ēscit. A verse in which there are more than two elisions is most commonly deficient in harmony; as the following pentameter from Catullus; Quam modo qui me ū❘num atque únicum ă micum hàbŭļīt. Elisions may generally be introduced into a verse without diminishing its harmony, when the final vowel of a word is the same as that which begins the next word, and when the elided vowel is either naturally short or followed by a long syllable; as, Ipse ĕgo cană lě¦gām těně rā lānūgĭně | mālā. Tum căsă¦â atque aliis in texēns | suavibus | hērbis. An elision has seldom a good effect when it occurs in the first syllable of a verse, in the end of the fifth foot of a hexameter, immediately after the penthemimer is in a pentameter, or in a word ending with a long vowel before a word beginning with a short vowel; as, Nam út fěrů la caldās mēri tüm mājōră sub īrē. The exercises which follow are designed to exemplify the observations in the former chapters on casura and arrangement, as well as the remarks on elision in this chapter: the introduction of syralapha or ecthlipsis will not therefore be sufficient to form them into verses, without a change in the position of the words. The sentences in English are intended to be translated into Latin verse, by an application of the rules of syntax, as well as of prosody, to the corresponding words in Latin, which follow them: in these exercises, a change in the arrangement of the words is not necessary. EXERCISES. 1. Nempe sylva inter varias nutritur columnas, Laudaturque domus, quæ prospicit longos agros. 2. Vivite felices, et vivite memores nostri, Sive erimus, seu fata volent nos fuisse. 3. Addictus jurare in verba nullius magistri, Hic licet impunè proferre occultos dolores, 7. Aut si fata movent, paratur orbi generique 8. Tune potes audire murmura vesani ponti fortis? -et potes jacere in durâ nave? Tu fulcire positas pruinas teneris pedibus? Tu, Cynthia, potes ferre insolitas nives? 9. Qualis ubi Boreas erupit ab Arctōis antris, Perverrens aërios campos rapido turbine, It ferus cœlo, et insequitur piceas nubes toto æthere, -dant victa locum et cedunt cava nubila. 10. And now ambassadors came from the city of Latinus, Crowned with branches of olive, and supplicating favour. Jamque orator adsum ex urbs Latinus, Velatus ramus olea, veniaque rogans. 11. Scarcely had the next rising day fringed the tops of the mountains with light, When first from the deep ocean the horses of the sun raise themselves, And breathe forth the light of day from their panting nostrils. Posterus vix summus spargo lumen mons Ortus dies, cùm primùm altus sui gurges tollo SYNEREJIS, SYNCOPE AND APOCOPE. Synæresis is the contraction of two syllables into one; as, alveo, pronounced as a dissyllable. Synæresis often takes place in the words antehac, dehinc, dein, deinde, dii, diis, ii, iidem, iisdem, proinde, semianimis, semihomo; in Greek genitives in ei; and in several tenses of the verbs anteambulo, anteo, desum and suesco; as, |