though true, is irrelevant, and, although Terence would have
pronounced it _gládiolus_, Quintilian, like Cicero, would have said
_gladíolus_. Mr. Myles quotes Pliny for the word, but Pliny would no
more have thought of saying _gládiolus_ than we should now think of
saying 'laboúr' except when we are reading Chaucer.

We need not here discuss the dubious exceptions to this rule, such
as words with an enclitic attached, e.g. _prim[)a]que_ in which some
authorities put the stress on the vowel which precedes the enclitic,
or such clipt words as 'illuc', where the stress may at one time have
fallen on the last vowel. In any case no English word is concerned.

In very long words the due alternation of stressed and unstressed
vowels was not easy to maintain. There was no difficulty in such
a combination as _hónoríficábilí_ or as _tudínitátibús_, but
with the halves put together there would be a tendency to say
_hónoríficabilitúdinitátibus_. Thus there ought not to be much
difficulty in saying _Cónstantínopólitáni_, whether you keep the long
antepenultima or shorten it after the English way; but he who forced
the reluctant word to end an hexameter must have had 'Constantinóple'
in his mind, and therefore said _Constántinópolitáni_ with two false
stresses. The result was an illicit lengthening of the second _o_.
His other false quantity, the shortening of the second _i_, was
due to the English pronunciation, the influence of such words as
'metropol[)i]tan', and, as old schoolmasters used to put it, a neglect
of the Gradus. Even when the stress falls on this antepenultimate
_i_, it is short in English speech. Doubtless Milton shortened it in
'Areopagitica', just as English usage made him lengthen the initial
vowel of the word.