[110]
The anapaest should preferably be preceded by a
spondee or a bacchius, as, for instance, if you alter the
order of words in the passage just quoted to leve
innocentiae praesidium est. Personally, although I
know that in this I am in disagreement with great
writers, I am not attracted by the paean consisting
of three shorts followed by a long: for it is no more
than an anapaest with the addition of another short
syllable (e.g. facilitas, agilitas). Why it should have
been so popular, I cannot see, unless it be that those
who gave it their approval were students of the
language of common life rather than of oratory.
It is preferably preceded by short syllables,
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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