(3) What has been said of melody in the two spheres of speech and song applies also _mutatis mutandis_ to rhythm. In English the time or quantity of syllables is as little attended to as the pitch. But in Greek the distinction of long and short furnished a prose rhythm which was a serious element in their rhetoric. In the rhythm of music, according to Dionysius, the quantity of syllables could be neglected, just as the accent was neglected in the melody[1]. This, however, does not mean that the natural time of the syllables could be treated with the freedom which we see in a modern composition. The regularity of lyric metres is sufficient to prove that the increase or diminution of natural quantity referred to by Dionysius was kept within narrow limits, the nature of which is to be gathered from the remains of the ancient system of Rhythmic. From these sources we learn with something like certainty that the rhythm of ordinary speech, as determined by the succession of long or short syllables, was the basis not only of metres intended for recitation, such as the hexameter and the iambic trimeter, but also of lyrical rhythm of every kind. [Footnote 1: _De Comp._ c. 11, p. 64 [Greek: to de auto ginetai kai peri tous rhythmous; hê men gar pezê lexis oudenos oute onomatos oute rhêmatos biazetai tous chronous oude metatithêsin, all' oias pareilêphe tê physei tas syllabas, tas te makras kai tas bracheias, toiautas phylattei; hê de mousikê te kai rhythmikê metaballousin autas meiousai kai parauxousai, ôite pollakis eis tanantia metachôrein; ou gar tais syllabais apeuthynousi tous chronous, alla tois chronois tas syllabas.]]