Page:On translating Homer. Last words. A lecture given at Oxford.djvu/50

Rh with the Virgilian hexameter, has no existence. Again; in contradiction to Mr. Spedding’s assertion that lines in which (in our reading of them) the accent and the long syllable coincide, as in the ordinary English hexameter, are ‘rare even in Homer,’ Mr. Munro declares that such lines, ‘instead of being rare, are among the very commonest types of Homeric rhythm.’ Mr. Spedding asserts that ‘quantity is as distinguishable in English as in Latin or Greek by any ear that will attend to it;’ but Mr. Monro replies, that in English ‘neither his ear nor his reason recognises any real distinction of quantity except that which is produced by accentuated and unaccentuated syllables.’ He therefore arrives at the conclusion, that in constructing English hexameters, ‘quantity must be utterly discarded; and longer or shorter unaccentuated syllables can have no meaning, except so far as they may be made to produce sweeter or harsher sounds in the hands of a master.’

It is not for me to interpose between two such combatants; and indeed my way lies, not up the high-road where they are contending, but along a by-path. With the absolute truth of their general propositions respecting accent and quantity, I have nothing to do; it is most interesting and instructive to me to hear such propositions discussed, when it is Mr. Munro or Mr. Spedding who discusses them; but