examine in this respect more closely the particular verse-measures of the ancients the hexameter will no doubt appear most nearly attached to a forward movement compatible with the stringency of the time-beat. The elder Voss in fact assumed this, though, as a matter of fact, such an assumption is already excluded by the catalexis of the last foot. When in addition to this Voss proceeded to place the time-measure of the alcaic and sapphic strophes on a similar basis of abstract equality, we can only regard such a theory as a wilful caprice which does violence to the poetry. The contention throughout is apparently due to the habit of treating our German iambic in identical lengths of syllable measure and time-measure. As a matter of fact the beauty of the iambic trimeter of the ancients consisted above all in this, that it was not composed of six iambic feet of identical lengths of time; but quite the contrary in order that, in the first position of every dipody, spondees, or, in their resolution, also dactyls and anapaests were permissible; and, by reason of this, the monotonous repetition of the same time-measure, and thereby all that is consistent with the time-beat, vanishes. We may add that the possibility of change is yet more obvious in lyric strophes, so that if we wish to establish such a thesis at all it must be on the _à priori_ principle, that the time-beat is essentially necessary. As a deduction from the plain facts we see nothing of the kind. (_β_) With the introduction of the _accent_ and the _caesura_ we have for the first time the animation of the time-measure; we may parallel with this that rhythm in music, which we have discussed as the time-beat. (_αα_) In short in poetry also every definite time relation has, in the first instance, its particular accent; in other words, regularly defined intervals are asserted, which attract others and only in this way are rounded off in a whole. Owing to this fact much play is given to the _manifold possibilities_ of the value of syllables. On the one hand generally long syllables appear emphasized in their contrast to short, so that now, if the ictus falls upon them, their significance is doubled as against the shorter, and in fact stand out themselves as distinct from long syllables not thus accented. On the other hand, however, it may also happen that shorter syllables receive the ictus or accent, so that a similar emphasis is created to the one described in the converse case.