arising from it, without any marked change of their customs or language. But all which this leaves unsolved may, to our apprehension, be very satisfactorily accounted for by the now generally admitted fact, that at least the people of Tigré, who possessed a Semitic language so nearly resembling the Hebrew, are a Semitic colony, who imported into Abyssinia not only a Semitic language, but Semitic manners, usages, and modes of thought. Whether this may or may not be true of the Amhara also, depends in a great degree upon the conclusion that may be reached respecting the Amharic language, which, through the large admixture of Ethiopic and Arabic words, has a Semitic appearance, but may, notwithstanding, prove to be fundamentally African. At all events, the extent to which the Gheez language has operated upon it would afford a proof of the influence of the Semitic colony upon the native population: which is all that can reasonably be desired to account for the phenomena which have excited so much inquiry and attention. If it should be objected that it is not sufficient to identify as Semitic the manners and usages which have been described as Hebrew, we would beg to call attention to that passage, in the commencing extract, which, with an unintended significance, intimates that these customs are those of the early times of Gideon and Joshua, when the Hebrews had not been long subject to the peculiar modifying influences of the Mosaical in stitutions. This is very much the same as to say that the customs and usages in view are in accordance with the general type of Semitic manners, rather than with the particular type which the Mosaical institutions produced; or, in other words, that they resemble the manners of the Hebrews most when those manners had least departed from the general standard of usages which prevailed among the Semitic family of nations. They are, therefore, less Hebrew manners than Semitic manners, and, as such, are accounted for by the presence of Semitic races in the country. In point of fact, travellers who derive their first notions of the East from the Bible, when they come among a strange people, are too ready to set down as specifically Hebrew some of the more striking usages which attract their notice; whereas, in fact, they are generically Oriental, or at least Semitic, and are Hebrew also merely because the Hebrews were an Oriental people, and had Oriental features, habits, and usages. Our conclusion, then, is, that the former prevalence of the Jewish religion in Abyssinia accounts for the existence of the Jewish ritual usages; and that the presence of one (perhaps more than one) paramount Semitic colony accounts for the existence, in this quarter, of a Semitic language, and Semitic (and therefore Hebrew) manners and usages. We entertain a very strong conviction that this conclusion will be corroborated by all the research into Abyssinian history and antiquities which may here after be made. Having thus considered the question which alone authorized the introduction of this article, we reserve for other articles [CANDACE; ETHIOPIA; SHEBA. QUEEN OF] some questions connected with other points in the history of Abyssinia, especially the introduction of Judaism into that country. Of the numerous books which have been written respecting Abyssinia, the Histories of Tellez and Ludolph, and the Travels of Kramp, Bruce, Salt, and Ruppell, are the most important: and an admirable digest of existing information may be found in Ritter's Erdkunde, th. i., and (as far as regards ethnography and languages) in Prichard's Researches, vol. ii. ch. vi., and his Natural History of Man, sect. 26. ACCAD (12; Sept. 'Apxás), one of the five cities in the land of Shinar,' or Babylonia, which are said to have been built by Nimrod, or rather to have been the beginning of his kingdom' (Gen. x. 10). Their situation has been much disputed. Ælian (De Animal. xvi. 42) mentions that in the district of Sittacene was a river called 'Apyádns, which is so near the name 'Apxáo which the LXX. give to this city, that Bochart was induced to fix Accad upon that river (Phaleg. iv. 17). It seems that several of the ancient translators found in their Hebrew MSS. Achar () instead of Accad (78) (Ephrem Syrus, Pseudo-Jonathan, Targum Hieros., Jerome, Abulfaragi, &c.); and the ease with which the similar letters and might be interchanged in copying, leaves it doubtful which was the real name. Achar was the ancient name of Nisibis; and hence the Targumists give Nisibis or Nisibin (†2'Y]) for Accad, and they continued to be identified by the Jewish literati in the times of Jerome. But the Jewish literati have always been deplorable geographers, and their unsupported conclusions are worth very little. Nisibis is unquestionably too remote northward to be associated with Babel, Erech, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.' These towns could not have been very distant from each other; and when to the analogy of names we can add that of situation and of tradition, a strong claim to identity is established. These circumstances unite at a place in the ancient Sittacene, to which Bochart had been led by other analogies. The probability that the original name was Achar having been established, the attention is naturally drawn to the remarkable pile of ancient buildings called Akker-koof, in Sittacene, and which the Turks know as Akker-i-Nimrood and Akker-iBabil. Col. Taylor, the British resident at Baghdad, who has given much attention to the subject, was the first to make out this identification, and to collect evidence in support of it; and to his unpublished communications the writer and other recent travellers are indebted for their statements on the subject. The Babylonian Talmud might be expected to mention the site; and it occurs accordingly under the name of Aggada. It occurs also in Maimonides (Jud. Chaz. Tract. Madee, fol. 25, as quoted by Hyde), who says, Abraham xl. annos natus cognovit creatorem suum'; and immediately adds, 'Extat Aggada tres annos natus.' Akker-koof is about nine miles west of the Tigris, at the spot where that river makes its nearest approach to the Euphrates. The heap of ruins to which the name of Nimrod's Hill-Tel-i-Nimrood, is more especially appropriated, consists of a mound surmounted by a mass of brick-work, which looks like either a tower or an irregular pyramid, according to the point from which it is viewed. It is about 400 feet in circumference at the bottom, and rises to the height of 125 feet above the sloping elevation on which it stands. The mound, which seems to form the foundation of the pile, is a mass of rubbish accumulated by the decay of the superstructure. In the ruin itself, the layers of sun-dried bricks, of which it is composed, can be traced very distinctly. They are cemented together by lime or bitumen, and are divided into courses varying from 12 to 20 feet in height, and are separated by layers of reeds, as is usual in the more ancient remains of this primitive region. Travellers have been perplexed to make out the use of this remarkable monument, and various strange conjectures have been hazarded. The embankments of canals and reservoirs, and the remnants of brick-work and pottery occupying the place all around, evince that the Tel stood in an important city; and, as its construction announces it to be a Babylonian relic, the greater probability is that it was one of those pyramidal structures erected upon high places, which were consecrated to the heavenly bodies, and served at once as the temples and the observatories of those remote times. Such buildings were common to all Babylonian towns; and those which remain appear to have been constructed more or less on the model of that in the metropolitan city of Babylon. ACCARON. [EKRON.] ACCENT. This term is often used with a very wide meaning: as when we say that a person has a Scotch accent,' in which case it denotes all that distinguishes the Scotch from the English pronunciation. We here confine the word, in the first place, to mean those peculiarities of sound for which grammarians have invented the marks called accents; and we naturally must have a principal reference to the Hebrew and the Greek languages. Secondly, we exclude the consideration of such a use of accentual marks (so called) as prevails in the French language; in which they merely denote a certain change in the quality of a sound attributed to a vowel or diphthong. It is evident that, had a sufficient number of alphabetical vowels been invented, the accents (in such a sense) would have been superseded. While the Hebrew and Greek languages are here our chief end, yet, in order to pass from the known to the unknown, we shall throughout refer to our own tongue as the best source of illustration. In this respect, we undoubtedly overstep the proper limits of a Biblical Cyclopædia; but we are in a manner constrained so to do, since the whole subject is misrepresented or very defectively ex plained in most English grammars: and if we abstained from this full exposition, many readers would most probably, after all, misunderstand our meaning. Even after the word accent has been thus limited, there is an ambiguity in the term; it has still a double sense, according to which we name it either oratorical or vocabular. By the latter, we mean the accent which a word in isolation receives; for instance, if we read in a vocabulary: while by oratorical accent we understand that which words actually have when read aloud or spoken as parts of a sentence. The Greek men of letters, who, after the Macedonian kingdoms had taken their final form, invented accentual marks to assist foreigners in learning their language, have (with a single uniform exception) been satisfied to indicate the vocabular accent: but the Hebrew grammarians aimed, when the pronunciation of the old tongue was in danger of being forgotten, at indicating by marks the traditional inflections of the voice with which the Scriptures were to be read aloud in the synagogues. In consequence, they have introduced a very complicated system of accentuation to direct the reader. Some of their accents (so called) are, in fact, stops, others syntactical notes, which served also as guides to the voice in chanting. In intelligent reading or speaking, the vocal organs execute numerous intonations which we have no method of representing on paper; especially such as are called inflections or slides by teachers of elocution: but on these a book might be written; and we can here only say, that the Masoretic accentuation of the Hebrew appears to have struggled to depict the rhythm of sentences; and the more progress has been made towards a living perception of the language, the higher is the testimony borne by the learned to the success which this rather cumbrous system has attained. The rhythm, indeed, was probably a sort of chant; since to this day the Scriptures are so recited by the Jews, as also the Koran by the Arabs or Turks: nay, in Turkish, the same verb (oqumaq) signifies to sing and to read. But this chant by no means attains the sharp discontinuity of European singing on the contrary, the voice slides from note to note. Monotonous as the whole sounds, a deeper study of the expression intended might probably lead to a fuller understanding of the Masoretic accents. Wherein the Accent consists.-In ordinary European words, one syllable is pronounced with a peculiar stress of the voice; and is then said to be accented. In our own language, the most obvious accompaniment of this stress on the syllable is a greater clearness of sound in the vowel; insomuch that a very short vowel cannot take the primary accent in English. Neverthe less, it is very far from the truth, that accented vowels and syllables are necessarily long, or longer than the unaccented in the same word; of which we shall speak afterwards. In illustration, however, of the loss of clearness in a vowel, occasioned by a loss of accent, we may compare a contest with to contést; équal with equality; in which the syllables con, qual, are sounded with a very obscure vowel when unaccented. Let us observe, in passing, that when a vowel sound changes through transposition of the ac D cent, the Hebrew grammarians-instead of trust- A second concomitant of the accent is less In English elocution various slides are to be heard, more complicated than the Greek circumflex; but with us they are wholly oratorical, never vocabular. Moreover, they are peculiar to vehement or vivacious oratory; being abundant in familiar or comic speech, and admissible also in high pathetic or indignant declamation: but they are almost entirely excluded from tranquil and serious utterance. ACCENT. it consists of many syllables, a double accent is Secondary Accent.-On the same word, when frequently heard, certainly in English, and probably in most languages; but in our own tongue one of the two is generally feebler than the other, denote this by the flat accent (1) of the Greeks, and may be called secondary. If we agree to we may indicate as follows our double accent: consideration, disobedience, unpreténding; We have purposely selected as the three last exsécondary, áccessory, péremptorily. amples cases in which the secondary accent falls never sustain the primary accent. on a very short or obscure vowel, such as can the accents, and it may then be difficult to say In some cases, two syllables intervene between which accent is the principal. In aristocrat, équalize, antidote, the first syllable has a stronger accent than the last; but in aristocrátic, équalizátion, antedil vian, they seem to be as equal as possible, though the latter catches the ear more. In aristocracy, the former is beyond a doubt only one syllable. Prédetermination has three secondary; but here the two are separated by accents, of which the middlemost is secondary. times found on one word; but only when the In the Greek language a double accent is somelatter is superinduced by some short and subordinate word which hangs upon the other. Such short words are called enclitics, and form a class by themselves in the language, as they cannot be known by their meaning or form. By way of example we may give, ruoavvós TIS (a certain usurper), oldd oe (I know thee). In these cases, we observe that the two accents, if both are sharp, are found on alternate syllables, as in English; but whether one of them was secondary we do latter is on the following syllable. Occasionally, not know. If the former is a circumflex, the two or more enclitics follow each other in succession, and produce a curious combination; as, elmás noú Tí μol. not vocabular, but oratorical. These accents, however, are accents, called a foretone, because with them it The Hebrews have, in many cases, secondary always precedes the principal accent (or 'tone"), as,, katebů; the intermediate and unaccented vowel being in such cases exceedingly short and obscure, so that some grammarians refuse to count it at all. This foretone is described as a stress of the voice uttered in a lower note, and therefore may seem identical in sound with the flat accent of the Greeks. It differs. however, in being always accompanied with the sharp accent on the same word, and in being vocabular, not merely oratorical. exists between different languages as to the place On the Place of the Accent.-A great difference of the accent. the last syllable and last but one, and is assumed In Hebrew it is found solely on systematically by many grammatical terminations, This is so entirely opposed to the analogies of as in Mélek (for Malk), a king, pl. Mel`aki'm. English, that it has been alleged (Latham On the word in which our accent falls on a final inflecEnglish Language) that Princess is the only tion. The radical contrast of all this to our own idiom leads to a perverse pronunciation of most Hebrew names: thus we say Isaiah, Nehemíab, Canaan, I'srael—although with their true Rocent they are Isaiah, Nehemyáh, Cana-an, Isra-él; to say nothing of other peculiarities of the native sound. In Greek, the accent is found on any of the three last syllables of a word; the circumflex only on the two last. In the Latin language, it is very remarkable that (except in the case of monosyllables) the accent never fell on the last syllable, but was strictly contined to the penultima and antepenultima. This peculiarity struck the Greek ear, it is said, more than anything else in the sound of Latin, as it gave to it a pompous air. It is the more difficult to believe that any thoughtful Greek seriusly imputed it to Roman pride, since we are told that the Eolic dialect of Greek itself agreed in this respect with the Latin (See Foster On Accent and Quantity, ch. iv.). The Latin accentuation is remarkable for having the place of the accent dictated solely by euphony, without reference to the formation or meaning of the word; in which respect the Greek only partly agrees with it, chiefly when the accent falls on the penultima or antepenultima. The Latin accent, however, is guided by the quantity of the penultimate syllable; the Greek accent by the quantity of the ultimate vowel The rules are these: mesticity, domèstication; póssible, pòssibility ; barbarous, barbárity. But the moment we treat any of these words as natives, we follow our own rule of keeping the accent on the radical syl lable; as in barbarousness, where the Saxon ending, ness, is attached to the foreign word. With the growth of the language, we become more and more accustomed to hear a long train of syllables following the accent. Thus, we have comfort, comfortable, cómfortableness; párliament, parliamentary, which used to be pàrliaméntary. In many provinces of England, and in particular families, the older and better pronunciations, contráry, industry, keep their place, instead of the modern cóntrary, industry. The new tendency has innovated in Latin words so far, that many persons say inímical, contemplate, inculcate, décorous, sonorous, and even concordance, for inimical, contémplate, &c. 'Alexander has supplanted 'Alexander. In the cases of concordance, clamorous, and various others, it is probable that the words have been made to follow the pronunciation of concord, clamor, as in native English derivatives. The principle of change, to which we have been pointing, is probably deepseated in human speech; for the later Attics are stated to have made a similar innovation in various words; for example, Eschylus and Thucydides said duotos, Tрoraîov, but Plato and Aristotle, öμolos, трónaιov. If the principal accent is very distant from one end of a long word, a great obscurity in the distant vowel-sounds results, which renders a word highly unmusical, and quite unmanageable to poetry. This will be seen in such pronunciations as parliamentary, péremptorily. 1. Greek: When the last vowel is long, the accent is on the penultima; when the last vowel is short, the accent is on the antepenultima.' Orytons are herein excepted. 2. Latin: When the penultimate syllable is long, the accent is upon it; when short, the accent is on the antepenultima. Every dissyllable is accented on the penultima. Accordingly, the Greek accent, even on the cases of the very same noun, shifted in the following curious fashion: N. &νoршτоs, G. avθρώπου, D. ἀνθρώπῳ, Ac. ἄνθρωπον; and in Latin, rather differently, yet with an equal change, N. Sérmo, G. Sermónis, &c. It is beyond all question that the above rule in Greek is genuine and correct (though it does not apply to oxytons, that is, to words accented on the last syllable, and has other exceptions which the Greek gram-p qatelů, they killed; bop, gātaliku, mars will tell); but there is a natural difficulty among Englishmen to believe it, since we have been taught to pronounce Greek with the accentuation of Latin; a curious and hurtful corruption, to which the influence of Erasmus is said to have principally contributed. It deserves to be noted that the modern Greeks, in pronouncing their ancient words, retain, with much accuracy on the whole, the ancient rules of accent; but in words of recent invention or introduction they follow the rule, which seems natural to an Englishman, of keeping the accent on the same syllable through all cases of a noun. Thus, although they sound as of old, N. äveрwños, G. ȧveрánov, yet in the word kokóvn, a lady, which is quite recent, we find (plural), N. ai kokúves, G. TWY KOKwvwv, &c. Similarly, & KATITάvos, the captain, G. TOU Kamitárov, &c. This is only one out of many marks that the modern Greek has lost the nice appreciation of the quantity or time of vowel sounds, which characterized the ancient. In all Latin or Greek words which we import into English, so long as we feel them to be foreign, we adhere to the Latin rules of accentuation as well as we know how: thus, in démocrat, democracy, democrátical; philosophy, philosóphical; astronómy, ústronómical; doméstic, do In Hebrew the same phenomenon is exhibited in a contrary way, the early vowels of a word being apt to become extremely short, in consequence of the accent being delayed to the end. Thus, N, óhe'l, a tent, pl. DAN, öhälïm; they killed him. Oratorical reasons occasionally induce a sacrifice of the legitimate vocabular accent. In English this happens chiefly in cases of antithesis; as when the verbs, which would ordinarily be sounded incréase and decrease, reverse their accent in order to bring out more clearly the contrasted syllables: He must increase, but I must decrease." This change is intended, not for mere euphony, but to assist the meaning. Variety and energy seem to be aimed at in the following Hebrew example, which Ewald has noticed, and which remain to be discovered: Judges v. 12, 'Uri, uri, Deborá: 'iri,'i ri, dabbiri shir; which, after Ewald, we may imitate by translating thus, Up then, up then, Deborah: úp then, úp then, utter a sóng.' The Greek and Hebrew languages, moreever, in the pause of a sentence, modified the accent without reference to the meaning of the words. Thus the verb ordinarily sounded gàdelu, with a very short penultimate vowel, becomes at the end of the sentence, gadėlu with a long and accented penultima (See Ewald' Hebrew Gram. § 131, 133). The Greek lan seems to indicate that more of the same sort must guage also at the end of a sentence changes a Accent in Compound Words.-It is principally 6 'An'd thy silvershìning quiver'— or, An'd thy silver shining quiver'— with a slight difference of sense. The Hebrew language is generally regarded as quite destitute of compound words. It possesses, nevertheless, something at least closely akin to them in (what are called) nouns in regimen. Being without a genitive case, or any particle devoted to the same purpose as the English preposition of, they make up for this by sounding two words as if in combination. The former word loses its accent, and thereby often incurs a shortening and obscuration of its vowels; the voice hurrying on to the latter. This may be illustrated by the English pronunciation of ship of war, man of war, man at arms, phrases which, by repetition, have in spirit become single words, the first accent being lost. Many such exist in our language, though unregistered by grammarians-in fact, even in longer phrases the phenomenon is observable. Thus, Secretary at War, Court of Queen's Bench, have very audibly but one predominating accent, on the last syllable. So, in Hebrew, from ji'‡, xizzāyo'n, a vision, comes, xezyön-läïilá, vision of the night (Job xx. 8). That every such case is fairly to be regarded as a compound noun was remarked by Dr. Campbell of Aberdeen, who urged that otherwise, in Isaiah ii. 20, we ought to render the words the idols of his silver;' whereas, in fact, the exact representation of the Hebrew in Greek is not etowλa ȧpyúpov-avroù, but, so to say, ἀργυρείδωλα αὐτοῦ. In Greek compounds the position of the accent is sometimes a very critical matter in distinguishing active and passive ACCENT. mother-slain, on slam by one's mother; while cent.-It is familiarly remarked in our English Relation of Accent to Rhythm and Metre.Every sentence is necessarily both easier to the voice and pleasanter to the ear when the whole is broken up into symmetrical parts, with conve nient pauses between them. The measure of the beats of the voice (or oratorical accents) which parts is marked out by the number of principal each clause contains; and when these are so regulated as to attain a certain musical uniformity without betraying art, the sentence has the pleas ing rhythm of good prose. When art is not avowed, and yet is manifest, this is unpleasing, sincerity. When, however, the art is avowed, we as seeming to proceed from affectation and incall it no longer rhythm, but metre; and with the cultivation of poetry, more and more melody has been exacted of versifiers. voice give undoubtedly the most convenient length To the English ear, three and four beats of the of clauses. Hence, in what is called poetical prose, it will be found that any particularly melodious passage, if broken up into lines or verses, yields generally either three or four beats in every For example: 'Where is the máid of Ar'van? Góne, as a vision of the night. verse. Where shall her lóver look for her? But no poetical prose, not even translations of |