If our seventy anapests were distributed equally among all the places of the verse except the seventh, which may be considered as out of the question, we should find eleven or twelve instances of an anapest in the fourth place. If, upon inspection, we discover only three or four such instances, we believe that every person acquainted with the nature of chances will allow us to attribute the smallness of the number to accident; unless it can be satisfactorily ascribed to some other cause. To exemplify the irregularities which so frequently disturb the calculations of the critical arithmetician, it will be sufficient to mention, that in the Lysistrata, which contains nearly seventy tetrameters, Aristophanes has not used a single anapest in a verse of that measure; and that in the Thesmophoriazusæ, which Play was written nearly at the same time, he has introduced the anapest fifteen times in the forty-three tetrameters which the Play contains.

Before Mr. Porson's edition of the Hecuba appeared, the learned Hermann had taught the world, in his incomparable work on Metres, (p. 176,) that the fourth foot of a catalectic tetrameter iambic verse might be an iambus, a tribrach, an anapest, or a proceleusmatic.

The fact is, that in this kind of verse the Comic Poets admit anapests more willingly and frequently into the first, third, and fifth places, than into the second, fourth, and sixth. Of the seventy anapests which we have observed in the eleven Plays of Aristophanes, twentytwo, or nearly one-third, occur in the first place. The first place having almost double the number which would accrue to it from an equal distribution, some of the other places must necessarily have fewer anapests than their fair proportion.

Aristophanes occasionally introduces a very elegant species of verse which we are willing to mention in this place, because it differs from the tetrameter iambic, only in having a cretic or pæon in the room of the third dipodia, and because it is frequently corrupted into a tetrameter iambic by the insertion of a syllable after the first hemistich. In technical language it is an asynartete, composed of a dimeter iambic and an ithyphallic. It is called Euripideum tessæreskaideka syllaban by Hephæstion (p. 15.) Twenty-five of these verses occur together in the Wasps of Aristophanes, beginning with v. 248.

The measure of these verses resembles the Latin Saturnian, except that the first hemistich of the Saturnian is catalectic.

Dabunt malum Metelli | Nævio poeta.
I

Respecting the dimeter iambics of the Comic Poets, Mr. Porson has said nothing; and we have very little to add to what has been said by Mr. Gaisford, p. 224. With the exception of the catalectic dipodia, they appear to admit anapests in every place, but more fre

B

quently into the first and third, than into the second and fourth. Strictly speaking, indeed, there is no difference in this metre betweer the second and fourth feet, as a system or set of dimeter iambics is nothing more than one long verse divided for convenience of arrangement into portions, each containing four feet. That the quantity of the final syllable of each dimeter is not indifferent, has been remarked by Brunck.

An expression occurs in Mr. Porson's remarks on the trochaic metre, which appears to have deceived more than one respectable scholar. Mr. Porson observes (p. 46) that the catalectic tetrameter trochaic of the Tragic and Comic Poets may conveniently be considered as consisting of a cretic or pæon prefixed to a common trimeter iambic.

Mr. Porson adds:

"Sed in hoc trochaico senario (liceat ita loqui) duo observanda sunt; nusquam anapæstum, ne in primo quidem loco, admitti; deinde necessario semper requiri cæsuram penthemimerim."

The inadmissibility of anapests into the trochaic senarius may be exemplified by prefixing a cretic to the fifth verse of the Plutus of Aristophanes.

The dactyl in the second place vitiates the metre of this verse, considered as a tetrameter trochaic. Common readers will pardon us for explaining this passage in Mr. Porson's preface, when we show that it seems to have been misunderstood by so excellent a scholar as Mr. Burgess. In Mr. Porson's edition of the Phænissæ, v. 616, he has an anapest in the fourth place. In his note upon this verse, Mr. Burgess remarks, Raro et fortasse nunquam in trochaicis Tragicis anapastus occurrit. And he proposes to emend it accordingly. It is somewhat remarkable, that an anapest in verse 621 of the same play has escaped Mr. Burgess's observation.

In Mr. Porson's edition of the Orestes, anapests occur in the five following trochaics, vss. 728, 776, 787, 1528, 1530. The Iphigenia in Aulis will supply near twenty examples, including a few in which the anapest is included in a proper name.

It is almost unnecessary to mention that, in this metre, anapests are admissible only into the even places. It may, however, be not altogether superfluous to observe, that the Tragic Poets appear to have used anapests in the even places as willingly and frequently as tribrachs in any place, except the first and fifth. The thirty-two Tragedies exhibit about thirty-two instances of a tribrach in the second, third, fourth, sixth, or seventh place, several of which appear to be corrupt.

Both in Tragedy and in Comedy, the tetrameter trochaic is usually divided into two hemistichs by a casura after the fourth foot. The Tragedians, however, observe this rule much more strictly than the Comedians. Most of the instances to the contrary have been corrected in a satisfactory manner.

Mr. Porson remarks (p. 50,) that in dimeter anapestics a dactyl is very seldom, rarissime, placed immediately before an anapest, so as to cause a concourse of four short syllables. Mr. Gaisford (p. 279) has collected several instances of this concourse, and some additional examples have occurred to us, while more may probably be detected by diligent search; but those produced are sufficient to prove that Mr. Porson's expression must be construed with some degree of latitude. According to Mr. Porson (p. 55) there is no genuine instance of this license in tetrameter anapestics.

The anapestic dipodia may be composed of a tribrach and an anapest, for the purpose of admitting a proper name, which cannot otherwise be introduced into the verse.

In both kinds of anapestic verse, dactyls are admitted with much greater moderation into the second than into the first place of the dipodia. The eleven Comedies of Aristophanes contain more than twelve hundred tetrameter anapestics, in which number we have remarked only the nineteen following examples of a dactyl in an even place, which, in this kind of anapestic metre, can only be the second foot of the verse, as Mr. Porson has observed (p. 51.)

Eq. 524, 805, 1327.

Nub. 351,* 353, 409.*

Vesp. 389, 551, 671, 673,* 708,* 1027.

Pac. 732.

Lys. 500.

Thesm. 790, 794.

Ran. 1055.

Eccl. 676.*

In all these verses, except those six which are marked with an asterisk, the preceding foot is also a dactyl.

The same observations apply in a certain degree also to dimeter anapestics.

Trifling alterations require no authority to support them; but we would not go so far as to change the order of the words for the purpose of removing a dactyl out of an even place.

Of the nineteen tetrameters mentioned in the preceding paragraph, only one is destitute of a casura after the first dipodia. Nub. 353. Similar instances are exceedingly rare in dimeters. has collected more than fifty instances of the violation of the casura

Mr. Gaisford

in dimeter anapestics, in six of which, the foot which ought to be followed by the casura is a dactyl.

Every person who has a tolerable ear, and is acquainted with the subject, will immediately perceive that the rhythm of the following verses is not quite perfect :

Esch. Prom. 1067.

Choeph. 1068.

Soph. Ed. Col. 1754.

Eur. Med. 160.

Ib. 1408.

Suppl. 980.

Iph. Aul. 28.

The rhythm of the first hemistich of the first, second, fourth, fifth, and seventh of these verses, and of the second hemistich of the third and sixth, is rather dactylic than anapestic. The same effect is always produced when the last three syllables of a word, which are incapable of standing in the verse as an anapest, are divided, as in the preceding examples, between a dactyl and the following foot. In Comic anapests, such faults may generally be corrected with great ease.

We shall now take our leave for the present of this great Critic, who in the compass of a few pages, has thrown more light upon the subjects of his inquiry, than can be collected from all the numerous volumes of his predecessors. For ourselves, we have only to express a hope, that our strictures may contribute in some degree to the information of such younger students in Greek literature as are disposed to peruse the Preface to the Hecuba with that care and attention which it so eminently deserves, and without which its merits cannot be duly appreciated.

A SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL USAGES

OF THE

MIDDLE VOICE OF THE GREEK VERB,

When its signification is strictly observed.

Qui bene dividit, bene docet.

THE first four may be called usages of reflexive: the fifth the usage of reciprocal signification.

1. Where A does the act on himself or on what belongs to himself, i. e. is the object of his own action.

2. Where A does the act on some other object, M, relatively to himself (in the sense of the dative case put acquisitively) and not for another person, B.

3. Where A gets an action done for himself, or for those belonging to him, by B.

Thus, of Chryses it is said (see the original) he came to get his daughter released by Agamemnon, on the payment of a ransom, that is, briefly, to ransom his daughter.

Whereas of Agamemnon it is said (see the original) he did not grant the release, he did not release her.

4. Where the direct action is done by A on himself; but an accusative or other case follows of B, whom that action farther regards. See Iliad. 3. 25.

Although fleet dogs stir themselves in pursuit of him.

Again, Il. 24.-710.

Tore their hair in mourning over him.

And so, too, the following: (see the original.)

Hector stretched out his arms to receive his son.

Thus far the reflexive uses: now the reciprocal use.

5. Where the action is reciprocal betwixt two persons or parties, and A does to B what B does to A; as in verbs of contract, quarrel, war, reconciliation, and the like :

Thus, Demosth. Philip. A. § 6.-(See the original.)