Classic Poem

G RAMMARIAN Aristophanes ,
Byzantian , born in rags and fleas,
Invented accents of the book ,
And form'd the circumflecting hook;
But long before his day the tone
Reciting Greece had made her own.
It has been said, that but for him
Musicians only had the whim;
But Isaac Vossius never prov'd
That others had the tone reprov'd;
And 'tis the tone that prompts the mark
To after-ages in the dark.
Demetrius Triclinius too
Says it 's the mark alone that's new ,
By Aristophanes conceiv'd,
That memory should be reliev'd;
But of the accent all the power
Preceded the Historian's hour.
A pupil of Callimachus
By help of scholia came to us:
The pupil too upon his knees
When Ptolemy Euergetes
Began to reign, for then his guide,
The Poet of Cyrene , died —
Yet this Callimachus it suited
His ultimates to form acuted
In the word ╬▒¤à¤ä╬▒╬Â; and we know it
From scholium of the Chian Poet.
Besides, when Aristotle wrote,
The tones at least we find him quote;
Explain'd, and by appropriate checks,
Acute and grave, or circumflex.
But how could sapient Athenaeus
In Book the Ninth from scepticks free us,
Unless the mark had in his view
Prov'd that his oracle was true,
When ╬¥╬Á¤ü╬¢╬╣╬▒ his text can state
Acute in the penultimate,
And quotes for it Euripides ,
Older above two centuries
Than Aristophanes's hammer
On all the mysteries of Grammar?
Thus far on accent! — Let us now
Pull at the Sam-Johnsonian bough!
Or Mudford's probing knife command,
Anatomizing Cumberland!
Or, as the solemn Judge grows duller,
Trim his old boat with wreck of sculler!
And, that no time should feel its loss,
Play at Ellipticals with Bos!
Or, falling back, pull down the chair,
Till Hampton's wondering rabble stare;
Affirming, and believing still,
" ' Twas on the Heath a powder-mill . "
Thus an Historian — George can show it —
May in his Pictures be a Poet.