is uniform, as in heroic and iambic verse. In lyric poems the task is easier, since the variety of their metres brings them a point nearer to prose. At the same time, while avoiding monotony and while generally causing his verse to resemble beautiful prose, the poet must remember that the so-called “prosaic character” is a defect. We are, however, here thinking not of vulgar prose but of the highest civil oratory. In order to show that, in poetry, clauses can be of different sorts and sizes, and can also be so far independent of the metre as almost to give the effect of an unbroken prose-narrative, Dionysius draws some concluding illustrations from the 14th Odyssey, the Telephus of Euripides, and the Danaë of Simonides.

The following Tabular Analysis may help to make the general structure of the treatise still clearer:—

I. Chapters 1-5. Introductory. The nature of composition, and its effect.—Instances of the fatal neglect of composition.—The secret of composition not to be found in grammatical rules.

II. Chapters 6-20. General Theory and Technique of Composition:—

(α) Three processes in the art of composition, c. 6.
(β) Grouping of clauses, c. 7.
(γ) Shaping of clauses, c. 8.
(δ) Lengthening and shortening of clauses and periods, c. 9.

(α) Preliminary remarks, cc. 10-13.
(β) Four means:
(1) μέλος, cc. 14-16.
(2) ῥυθμός, cc. 17, 18.
(3) μεταβολή, c. 19.
(4) τὸ πρέπον, c. 20.

III. Chapters 21-24. Three Modes of Composition:—

(1) σύνθεσις αὐστηρά, c. 22.
(2) σύνθεσις γλαφυρά, c. 23.
(3) σύνθεσις εὔκρατος (or κοινή), c. 24.

IV. Chapters 25, 26. Relation of Prose to Poetry, and of Poetry to Prose.

Note.—The existing division into chapters is not always a happy one. As a help to the reader, a few words of summary have been prefixed to each chapter of the English Translation.

The Greek Epitome is about one-third the length of the original. It is of early but uncertain date (cp. Usener de Dionysii Halicarnassensis Libris Manuscriptis p. viii, n. 7), and is preserved in the following codices: Darmstadiensis, Monacensis, Rehdigeranus, Vaticanus Urbinas. It has survived along with the original; and instead of superseding and extinguishing the unabridged work, as ancient epitomes seem often to have done, it contributes not a little to its elucidation. Had it been preserved at the expense of the original, we should have still possessed the Sappho, but should have lost the Simonides. Towards the end, the Epitome is executed with less care than at the beginning.

II

The Order of Words in Greek

The strong and the weak points of the de Compositione Verborum will appear from the foregoing summary, and still more from the treatise itself and the notes appended to it. Dionysius’ book is unique: no other of its kind has come down to us from classical antiquity. Its immediate subject is the Order of Words in Greek. But its author is happily led to raise fundamental questions such as the relations between Prose and Poetry, together with incidental points of Greek Pronunciation and Accentuation; and generally to take so wide a range that no English title less comprehensive than On Literary Composition seems to fit the contents of the work.[3] The discursive enthusiasm of the writer is obvious. Not less striking, however, is the sound literary taste which converts his quotations into a true anthology and preserves some priceless remains of Sappho and Simonides. It will be necessary to point out certain weaknesses of Dionysius from time to time. But his weaknesses are far more than counterbalanced by his great excellences. Some of his shortcomings are those of his age,—an age which was a stranger to the modern method of comparison as applied to literary investigation. Others, again, are more apparent than real. When, for example, certain omissions are observable in some directions along with ample expatiations in others, it is to be remembered (1) that Dionysius is dealing with the department of expression and not with that of subject matter, (2) that, in the department of expression, he is concerned with the composition (or arrangement) of words and not with their selection, and (3) that, in regard to composition, he is here interested primarily not in lucidity nor in emphasis, but in euphony. Hence we must not expect him to dwell on that great governing principle of literary composition,—logical connexion. To its importance, however, he is fully alive, as is clear from a passage in his essay on Isocrates: “The thought” [in Isocrates, who pays excessive heed to smoothness of style and a pleasant cadence] “is often the slave of rhythmical expression, and truth is sacrificed to elegance.... But the natural course is for the expression to follow the ideas, not the ideas the expression.”[4] And though, in the de Compositione, it is his business to discourse rather upon sound than upon sense, yet the orderly way in which the subject matter of the treatise is presented shows in itself that Dionysius was well aware that the chief essential for a book is a basis of clear thinking and broad logical arrangement, and that, as a consequence, its excellence is to be sought even more in its chapters and its paragraphs than in its flowing periods.[5] It may be well to touch, with a similar regard to sequence and with occasional references to modern parallels or contrasts, upon one or two aspects of his main theme which his own treatment of it suggests as suitable for further discussion and elucidation.

A. Freedom and Elasticity

In his fifth chapter Dionysius shows, with no difficulty and with much vivacity, that it is impossible to lay down universal rules governing the order of words in Greek. He admits that he had been inclined to entertain a priori views on the question of the natural precedence of certain parts of speech and to hold that nouns should precede verbs, verbs adverbs, and so forth.[6]

But he had proceeded, with that sound practical judgment which distinguishes him, to test his theories in the light of Homer’s usage. He had then found them wanting. “Trial invariably wrecked my views and revealed their utter worthlessness.” The examples of variety in word-order which he quotes from the Iliad and the Odyssey are most interesting and instructive. But a modern reader, familiar with languages whose