although you may sing or recitative the difference well enough. Why should the marks of accent have been considered exclusively necessary for teaching the pronunciation to the Asiatic or African Hellenist, if the knowledge of the acuted syllable did not also carry the stress of time with it? If avoρwTos was to be pronounced in common conversation with a perceptible distinction of the length of the penultima as well as of the elevation of the antepenultima, why was not that long quantity also marked? It was surely as important an ingredient in the pronunciation as the accent. And although the letter omega might in such a word show the quantity, yet what do you say to such words as λελόγχασι, τύψασα, and the like the quantity of the penultima of which is not marked to the eye at all? Besides, can we altogether disregard the practice of the modern Greeks? Their confusion of accent and quantity in verse is of course a barbarism, though a very old one, as the versus politici of John Tzetzes1 in the twelfth century and the Anacreontics prefixed to Proclus will show; but these in verse, and on the other hand declares, according to the evidently correct interpretation of the passage, that the difference between music and ordinary speech consists in the number only, and not in the quality, of tones :-τῷ Ποσῷ διαλλάττουσα τῆς ἐν ᾠδαῖς καὶ ὀργάνοις, καὶ οὐχὶ τῷ Пou. (Пɛpì Σvv. c. 11.?) The extreme sensibility of the Athenian ear to the accent in prose is, indeed, proved by numerous anecdotes, one of the most amusing of which, though, perhaps, not the best authenticated as a fact, is that of Demosthenes in the Speech for the Crown, asking, "Whether, O Athenians, does Æschines appear to you to be the merce nary (obwròs) of Alexander, or his guest or friend (voc)?" It is said that he pronounced μio@wròs with a false accent on the antepenultima, as μio@wrog, and that upon the audience immediately crying out, by way of correction, μo@wròs, with an emphasis, the orator continued coolly,—ákovεiç à λèyoʊʊɩ—“ You yourself hear what they say!" Demosthenes is also said, whether affectedly, or in ignorance, to have sworn in some speech by 'Aσкλýπios, throwing the accent falsely on the antepenultima, and that, upon being interrupted for it, he declared, in his justification, that the pronunciation was proper, for that the divinity was ήπιος, mild. The expressions in Plutarch are very striking: Θόρυβον ἐκίνησεν, ὤμνυε δὲ καὶ τὸν Ἀσκληπιὸν, προπαροξύνων Ασκλή πιον, καὶ παρεδείκνυεν αὑτὸν ὀρθῶς λέγοντα· εἶναι γὰρ τὸν θεὸν ἤπιον· καὶ ἐπὶ τούτῳ πολλάκις ἐθορυβήθη• Dec. Orat.-H. N. C. 1 See his Chiliads. The sort of verses to which Mr. Coleridge alluded are the following, which those who consider the scansion to be accentual, take for tetrameter catalectic iambics, like very examples prove à fortiori what the common pronunciation in prose then was. AUGUST 24, 1833. Consolation in Distress.—Mock Evangelicals.—Autumn Day. I AM never very forward in offering spiritual consolation to any one in distress or disease. I believe that such resources, to be of any service, must be self-evolved, in the first instance. I am something of the Quaker's mind in this, and am inclined to wait for the spirit. The most common effect of this mock evangelical spirit, especially with young women, is self-inflation and busybodyism. How strange and awful is the synthesis of life and death in the gusty winds and falling leaves of an autumnal day! (ὡς ἡδύ καὶ ¦ νοῖς πράγμασιν ] καὶ δεξιοῖς | ὁμιλεῖν) Chil. I. I'll climb the frost | y mountains high |, and there I'll coin | the weather; I'll tear the rain | bow from the sky, and tie both ends | together, Some critics, however, maintain these verses to be trochaics, although very loose and faulty. See Foster, p. 113. A curious instance of the early confusion of accent and quantity may be seen in Prudentius, who shortens the penultima in eremus and idola, from ἔρημος and εἴλωλα, Cui jejuna eremi saxa loquacibus Cathemer. V. 89. cognatumque malum, pigmenta, Camœnas, Idola, conflavit fallendi trina potestas. Cont. Symm. 47.—H. N. C. AUGUST 25, 1833. Rossetti on Dante.-Laughter: Farce and Tragedy. ROSSETTI'S view of Dante's meaning is in great part just, but he has pushed it beyond all bounds of common sense. How could a poet-and such a poet as Dante -have written the details of the allegory as conjectured by Rossetti ? The boundaries between his allegory and his pure picturesque are plain enough, I think, at first reading. To resolve laughter into an expression of contempt is contrary to fact, and laughable enough. Laughter is a convulsion of the nerves; and it seems as if nature cut short the rapid thrill of pleasure on the nerves by a sudden convulsion of them, to prevent the sensation becoming painful. Aristotle's definition is as good as can be :-surprise at perceiving anything out of its usual place, when the unusualness is not accompanied by a sense of serious danger. Such surprise is always pleasurable; and it is observable that surprise accompanied with circumstances of danger becomes tragic. Hence farce may often border on tragedy; indeed, farce is nearer tragedy in its essence than comedy is. BAR AUGUST 28, 1833. Baron Von Humboldt.-Modern Diplomatists. ARON VON HUMBOLDT, brother of the great traveller, paid me the following compliment at Rome:"I confess, Mr. Coleridge, I had my suspicions that you were here in a political capacity of some sort or other; but upon reflection I acquit you. For in Germany and, I believe, elsewhere on the Continent, it is generally understood that the English government, in order to divert the envy and jealousy of the world at the power, wealth, and ingenuity of your nation, makes a point, as a ruse de guerre, of sending out none but fools of gentlemanly birth and connexions as diplomatists to the courts abroad. An exception is, perhaps, sometimes made for a clever fellow, if sufficiently libertine and unprincipled." Is the case much altered now, do you know? What dull coxcombs your diplomatists at home generally are. I remember dining at Mr. Frere's once in company with Canning and a few other interesting men. Just before dinner Lord called on Frere, and asked himself to dinner. From the moment of his entry he began to talk to the whole party, and in French-all of us being genuine English—and I was told his French was execrable. He had followed the Russian army into France, and seen a good deal of the great men concerned in the war of none of those things did he say a word, but went on, sometimes in English and sometimes in French, gabbling about cookery and dress and the like. At last he paused for a little and I said a few words remarking how a great image may be reduced to the ridiculous and contemptible by bringing the constituent parts into prominent detail, and mentioned the grandeur of the deluge and the preservation of life in Genesis and the Paradise Lost,1 and the ludicrous effect produced by Drayton's description in his Noah's Flood: "And now the beasts are walking from the wood, As well of ravine, as that chew the cud. The king of beasts his fury doth suppress, The bull for his beloved mate doth low, And to the Ark brings on the fair-eyed cow," &c. Hereupon Lord resumed, and spoke in raptures of a picture which he had lately seen of Noah's Ark, and said the animals were all marching two and two, the little ones first, and that the elephants came last in great majesty and filled up the fore-ground. "Ah! no doubt, my lord," said Canning; "your elephants, wise fellows! staid behind to pack up their trunks!" This floored the ambassador for half an hour. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries almost all our ambassadors were distinguished men.2 Read Lloyd's 1 Genesis, c. vi. vii. Par. Lost, book xi., v. 728, &c.-H. N. C. 2 Yet Diego de Mendoza, the author of Lazarillo de Tormes, himself S State Worthies. The third-rate men of those days possessed an infinity of knowledge, and were intimately versed not only in the history, but even in the heraldry, of the countries in which they were resident. Men were almost always, except for mere compliments, chosen for their dexterity and experience—not, as now, by parliamentary interest. The sure way to make a foolish ambassador is to bring him up to it. What can an English minister abroad really want but an honest and bold heart, a love for his country and the ten commandments? Your art diplomatic is stuff: -no truly great man now would negociate upon any such shallow principles. AUGUST 30, 1833. Man cannot be Stationary.—Fatalism and Providence.—Sympathy IF in Joy. F a man is not rising upwards to be an angel, depend upon it, he is sinking downwards to be a devil. He cannot stop at the beast. The most savage of men are not beasts: they are worse, a great deal worse. The conduct of the Mohammedan and Western nations on the subject of contagious plague illustrates the two extremes of error on the nature of God's moral government of the world. The Turk changes Providence into fatalism; a veteran diplomatist, describes his brethren of the craft, and their duties, in the reigns of Charles the Emperor and Philip the Second, in the following terms: O embajadores, puros majaderos, Que si los reyes quieren engañar, Que no corramos riesgo de enseñar. What a pity it is that modern diplomatists, who, for the most part, very carefully observe the precept contained in the last two lines of this passage, should not equally bear in mind the importance of the preceding remark that their principal business is just to do no mischief.-H. N. C. |