A decisive proof, in my opinion, of the deviation which took place, through the rapidity of ordinary elocution, from the strict laws of enunciation, may be found in the metre of Terence. His verses, which are absolutely refractory to the common laws of prosody, may be readily scanned by the application of this principle. Thus, in the first act of the Heautontimorumenos, a part selected at random, I have found, I. Vowels contracted or dropped so as to shorten the word by a syllable; in _rei_, _viâ_, _diutius_, _ei_, _solius_, _eam_, _unius_, _suam_, _divitias_, _senex_, _voluptatem_, _illius_, _semel_; II. The proceleusmatic foot, or four short syllables, instead of the dactyl; scen. i. v. 59, 73, 76, 88, 109; scen. ii. v. 36; III. The elision of _s_ in words ending with _us_ or _is_ short, and sometimes even of the whole syllable, before the next word beginning with a vowel; in scen. i. v. 30, 81, 98, 101, 116, 119; scen. ii. v. 28. IV. The first syllable of _ille_ is repeatedly shortened, and indeed nothing is more usual in Terence than this licence; whence we may collect how ready this word was for abbreviation into the French and Italian articles. V. The last letter of _apud_ is cut off, scen. i. v. 120; and scen. ii. v. 8. VI. _Hodie_ is used as a pyrrhichius, in scen. ii. v. 11. VII. Lastly, there is a clear instance of a short syllable, the antepenultimate of _impulerim_, lengthened on account of the accent at the 113th verse of the first scene. [Sidenote: Its corruption by the populace,] [Sidenote: and the provincials.]