In the study of Latin and Greek, even with our imperfect knowledge of the ancient pronunciation, and our no knowledge of the ancient intonation, of these languages, it is all important that the student should read Greek and Roman authors aloud. A student who has first been trained to read Greek and Latin prose with fluency and expression can then have considerable appreciation of verse in advance of any technical knowledge. And if he be trained to read in time, he will know what 'quantity' really means. As Latin and Greek verse is read in the schools (when it is read at all), it is accentual, not quantitative. I cannot think that there was any more quantity in Greek and Latin than there is in English, or in any other modern language, unless the Greeks and Romans _spoke_ more in time than we do, which is not likely. The Romans were probably more measured in their speech than the Greeks. Syllables, in Greek and Latin verse, must have been made long or short by an intoning of the verse. When Vergil, or Ovid, or any hexameter poet, is read in the schools, his verse is the same as that of Longfellow's Evangeline, made up of _xa_, _ax_, and _axx_ feet. (Note 2.) The following verse from Ovid, for example (Met. I. 143), Sanguine | aque ma | nu crepi | tantia | concutit | arma, is read in the same way as the following from Longfellow's Evangeline: Or by the | owl, as he | greeted the | moon with de|moniac | laughter; and the first and second of the following verses from Ovid (Met. I. 148, 149), Filius | ante di|em patri|os in|quirit in | annos. Victa ja|cet Pie|tas; et | Virgo | cæde ma-|dentes Ultima cœlestum terras Astræa reliquit, are read in the same way as the following from Evangeline: And as she | gazed from the | window she | saw se|renely the | moon pass Forth from the | folds of a | cloud, and | one star | follow her | footsteps. Ovid's Met. I. 22, Nam cœ|lo ter|ras et | terris | abscidit | undas, is read in the same way as Colossians iii. 19: Husbands, | love your | wives, and | be not | bitter a|gainst them; and Ovid's Met. I. 36, Tum freta | diffun | di, rapi|disque tum | escere | ventis, is read in the same way as Psalm ii. 1: Why do the | heathen | rage, and the | people im|agine a | vain thing. _Rebus sic stantibus_, what's the use of talking about quantitative and accentual verse, as if they were really two kinds of verse? They are, to be sure, but they are not made so, in reading. There is, in fact, no such thing as a spondee in ordinary speech. A true spondee must be made by voicing two syllables in equal time, and each without stress.