the 'alias' rule and also stresses it. Whether the penultima has more than a secondary stress is a matter of dispute.

Stems in -ari. These words have the stress on the antepenultima, which they shorten, as in 'secular' or keep short as in 'jocular', 'familiar', but of course 'peculiar '.

On certain Greek words.

6

It will have been seen that Greek words are usually treated as Latin. Thus 'crisis' lengthens the penultima under the apex' rule, while 'critical' has it short under the general rule of polysyllables. Other examples of lengthening are 'bathos', 'pathos', while the long quantity is of course kept in colon' and 'crasis'. For the 'alias' rule we may quote atheist', 'cryptogāmia', 'hōmeopathy', 'heterogeneous', 'pandemonium', while the normal shortenings are found in 'anonymous', 'ephemeral', ' pandemonium', 'ĕrĕmite'. Ignorance of English usage has made some editors flounder on a line of Pope's:

Yes, or we must renounce the Stagirite.

The birthplace of Aristotle was of course Stagīra or, as it is now fashionable to transcribe it, Stageira, as Pope doubtless knew, but the editors who accuse him of a false quantity in Greek are on the contrary themselves guilty of one in English. The penultima in English is short whether it was long or, as in dynamite' and 'malachite', short in Greek.

There is, however, one distinct class of Greek words in which the Latin rule is not followed. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there were scholars who rightly or wrongly treated the Greek accent as a mark of stress. It is clear that this habit led to an inability to maintain a long quantity in an unstressed syllable. Shakespeare must have learnt his little Greek from a scholar who had this habit, for he writes' Andrónicus' and also

I am misánthropos and hate mankind.

Of course all scholars shortened the first vowel of the word, and doubtless Shakespeare shortened also the third. Busby also thus spoke Greek with the result that Dryden in later life sometimes wrote epsilon instead of eta and also spoke of 'Cleoménes' and 'Iphigenia'. As a boy at Westminster he wrote

Learn'd, Vertuous, Pious, Great, and have by this
An universal Metempsychosis.

Macaulay with an ignorance very unusual in him rebuked his nephew for saying 'metamorphosis', and Dr. Johnson, had he been living, would have rebuked Macaulay. For the sake of our poets we ought to save apothéosis', which is in some danger. Garth may perhaps be forgotten,

Allots the prince of his celestial line

An Apotheosis and rights divine,

but Rejected Addresses' should still carry weight. In the burlesque couplet, ascribed in the first edition to the younger Colman and afterwards transferred to Theodore Hook, we have

That John and Mrs. Bull from ale and tea-houses
May shout huzza for Punch's apotheosis.

It need hardly be said that 'tea-houses' like 'grandfathers' has the stress on the antepenultimate.

There are other words of Greek origin which now break the rules, though I believe the infringement to be quite modern. First we have the class beginning with proto. It can hardly be doubted that our ancestors followed rule and said 'protocol', and 'prototype', and I suspect also protomartyr'. There seems, however, to be a general agreement nowadays to keep the Greek omega. As for 'protagonist' the word is so technical and is often so ludicrously misunderstood that writers on the Greek drama would do well to retain the Greek termination and say protagonistes'; for 'protagonist' is very commonly mistaken and used for the opposite of antagonist'.

6

Next come words beginning with hypo or hyph. In a disyllable the vowel is long by the apex' rule, as in 'hyphen. In longer words it should be short. So once it was, and we still say 'hypocaust', 'hypocrit', 'hypochondria' (whence hypped'), 'hypothesis', and others, but a large group of technical and scientific words seems determined to have a long y. It looks as though there were a belief that y is naturally long, though the French influence which gives us 'tyrant' does not extend to 'tyranny'. I do not know what Mr. Hardy calls his poem, but I hope he follows the old use and calls it 'The Dynasts'. It might be thought that 'dynasty' was safe, but it is not. Some modern words like dynamite' have been misused from their birth.

Another class begins with hydro- from the Greek word for water. None of them seem to be very old, but probably

'hydraulic' began life with a short y. Surely Mrs. Malaprop, when she meant hysterics' and said 'hydrostatics', must have used the shorty. Of course 'hydra' which comes from the same root follows the 'apex' rule.

Words beginning with hyper- seem nowadays always to have a long y except that one sometimes hears 'hyperbole ' and 'hyperbolical'. Of course both in hypo- and in hyperthe vowel is short in Greek, so that here at least the strange lengthening cannot be ascribed to the Grecians. The false theory of a long y has not affected 'cynic' or 'cynical', while 'Cyril' has been saved by being a Christian name. We may yet hope to retain y short in 'cylinder', 'cynosure', lycanthropy', 'mythology', 'pyramid', 'pyrotechnic', 'sycamore', 'synonym', 'typical'. As for hybrid' it seems as much a caprice as 'acrid', a pronunciation often heard. Though acrid' is a false formation it ought to follow 'vivid' and 'florid'. The 'alias' rule enforces a long y in 'hygiene' and 'hygienic'.

On the matter of Greek names the lettern and the pulpit are grievous offenders. Once it was not so. The clergymen of the old type and the scholars of the Oxford Retrogression said Timotheus, because they had a sense of English and followed, consciously or unconsciously, the alias' rule. If there was ever an error, it was on the lips of some illiterate literate who made three syllables of the word. Now it seems fashionable to say Timothěŭs. The literate was better than this, for he at least had no theory, and frank ignorance is to be forgiven. It is no shame to a man not to know that the second i in 'Villiers' is as mute as that in 'Parliament' or that Bolingbroke's name began with Bull and ended with brook, but when ignorance constructs a theory it is quite another matter. The etymological theory of pronunciation is intolerable. Etymology was a charming nymph even when men had but a distant acquaintance with her, and a nearer view adds to her graces; but when she is dragged reluctant from her element she flops like a stranded mermaid. The curate says 'Deuteronómy', and on his theory ought to say ' economy' and 'etymology' When Robert Gomery-why not give the reverend poetaster his real if less elegant name-published his once popular work, every one called it 'The Omnipresence of the Deity', and Shelley had already written

And, as I look'd, the bright omnípresence

Of morning through the orient cavern flowed.

It is true that Ken a century earlier had committed himself to

Thou while below wert yet on high

By Omniprésent Deity,

and later Coleridge, perhaps characteristically, had sinned with

There is one Mind, one omniprésent Mind,

but neither. the bishop nor the poet would have said 'omniscience', or 'omnipótence'.

Another word to show signs of etymological corruption is 'ĕvolution'. It seems to have been introduced as a technical term of the art of war, and of course, like 'děvolution', shortened the e. The biologists first borrowed it and later seem desirous of corrupting it. Perhaps they think of such words as 'ēgress', but the long vowel is right in the stressed penultimate.

One natural tendency in English runs strongly against etymology. This is the tendency to throw the stress back, which about a century ago turned 'contémplate' into 'cóntemplate' and somewhat later illústrate' into 'illustrate'. Shakespeare and Milton pronounced 'instinct' as we pronounce 'distinct' and 'aspect' as we pronounce 'respect'. Thus Belarius is made to say

'Tis wonder

That an invisible instinct should frame them
To royalty unlearn'd,

and Milton has

and also

By this new felt attraction and instinct,

In battailous aspéct and neerer view. The retrogression of the stress is in these instances well established, and we cannot quarrel with it; but against some very recent instances a protest may be made. One seems to be a corruption of the War. In 1884 the N. E. D. recognized no pronunciation of it save 'allý', as in Romeo's

This gentleman, the prince's neer Alie.

The late Mr. B. B. Rogers in his translations of Aristophanes has of course no other pronunciation. His verses are too good to be spoiled by what began as a vulgarism. Another equally recent vulgarism, not recognized by the N. E.D. and bad enough to make George Russell turn in

his grave, is 'mágazine' for 'magazine'. It is not yet common, but such vulgarisms are apt to climb.

In times not quite so recent the word 'prophecy' has changed, not indeed its stress, but the quantity of its final vowel. When Alford wrote The Queen's English', every one lengthened the last vowel. as in the verb, nor do I remember any other pronunciation in my boyhood.. Now the N. E. D. gives the short vowel only. Alford to his own satisfaction accounted for the long vowel by the diphthong ei of the Greek. It is to be feared that his explanation would involve 'dynasty' and 'policy', even if it did not oblige us to turn Pompey' into 'Pompy'. In this case it may be suspected that the noun was assimilated to the verb, which follows the analogy of 'magnify' and 'multiply'. The voice of the people which now gives us 'prophecy' seems here to have felt the power of analogy and assuredly will prevail.

On proper names.

It is to be hoped that except in reading Latin and Greek texts we shall keep to the traditional pronunciation of proper names as it is enshrined in our poetry and other literature. We must continue to lengthen the stressed penultimate vowel in Athos, Cato, Draco, Eros, Hebrus, Lichas, Nero, Otho, Plato, Pylos, Remus, Samos, Titus, Venus, and the many other disyllables wherein it was short in the ancient tongues. On the other hand we shall shorten the originally long stressed antepenultimate vowel in Brasidas, Euripides, Icarus, Lavinia, Lucilius, Lydia, Nicias, Onesimus, Pegasus, Pyramus, Regulus, Romulus, Scipio, Sisyphus, Socrates, Thucydides, and many more.

In

Quin, and the actors of his day, used to give to the first vowel in Cato' the sound of the a in' father'. They probably thought that they were Italianizing such names. fact their use was neither Latin nor English. They were like the men of to-day who speak of the town opposite Dover as 'Cally', a name neither French nor English. A town which once sent members to the English Parliament has a right to an English name. Prior rhymed it with 'Alice' and Browning has

When Fortune's malice

Lost her Calais.

Shakespeare, of course, spelt it Callis', and this form, which was first evicted by Pope, whom other editors servilely