ordered that the rhyming syllables begin differently and end alike. Blank verse is verse without rhyme.

The principal rhyming syllables are almost always long. Double rhyme adds one short syllable; triple rhyme, two. Such syllables are redundant in iambic and anapestic verses; in lines of any other sort, they are generally, if not always, included in the measure.

A. Stanza is a combination of several verses, or lines, which, taken together, make a regular division of a poem. It is the common practice of good versifiers, to form all stanzas of the same poem after one model. The possible variety of stanzas is infinite; and the actual variety met with in print is far too great for detail.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.-Verse, in the broadest acceptation of the term, is poetry, or metrical language, in general. This, to the eye, is usually distinguished from prose by the manner in which it is written and printed. For, in very many instances, if this were not the case, the reader would be puzzled to discern the difference. The division of poetry into its peculiar lines, is therefore not a mere accident. The word verse, from the Latin versus, literally signifies a turning. Each full line of metre is accordingly called a verse; because, when its measure is complete, the writer turns to place an other under it. A verse, then, in the primary sense of the word with us, is, "A line consisting of a certain succession of sounds, and number of syllables."-Johnson, Walker, Todd, Bolles, and others. Or, according to Webster, it is, A poetic line, consisting of a certain number of long and short syllables, disposed according to the rules of the species of poetry which the author intends to compose."-See American Dict., 8vo.

OBS. 2.-If to settle the theory of English verse on true and consistent principles, is as difficult a matter, as the manifold contrarieties of doctrine among our prosodists would indicate, there can be no great hope of any scheme entirely satisfactory to the intelligent examiner. The very elements of the subject are much perplexed by the incompatible dogmas of authors deemed skilful to clucidate it. It will scarcely be thought a hard matter to distinguish true verse from prose, yet is it not well agreed, wherein the difference consists: what the generality regard as the most essential elements or characteristics of the former, some respectable authors dismiss entirely from their definitions of both verse and versification. The existence of quantity in our language; the dependence of our rhythms on the division of syllables into long and short; the concurrence of our accent, (except in some rare and questionable instances,) with long quantity only; the constant effect of emphasis to lengthen quantity; the limitation of quantity to mere duration of sound; the doctrine that quantity pertains to all syllables as such, and not merely to vowel sounds; the recognition of the same general principles of syllabication in poetry as in prose; the supposition that accent pertains not to certain letters in particular, but to certain syllables as such; the limitation of accent to stress, or percussion, only; the conversion of short syllables into long, and long into short, by a change of accent; our frequent formation of long syllables with what are called short vowels; our more frequent formation of short syllables with what are called long or open vowels; the necessity of some order in the succession of feet or syllables to form a rhythm; the need of framing each line to correspond with some other line or lines in length; the propriety of always making each line susceptible of scansion by itself: all these points, so essential to a true explanation of the nature of English verse, though, for the most part, well maintained by some prosodists, are nevertheless denied by some, so that opposite opinions may be cited concerning them all. I would not suggest that all or any of these points are thereby made doubtjul; for there may be opposite judgements in a dozen cases, and yet concurrence enough (if concurrence can do it) to establish them every one.

OBS. 3.-An ingenious poet and prosodist now living,* Edgar Allan Poe, (to whom I owe a word or two of reply,) in his "Notes upon English Verse," with great self-complacency, represents, that," While much has been written upon the structure of the Greek and Latin rhythms, comparatively nothing has been done as regards the English;" that, "It may be said, indeed, we are without a treatise upon our own versification;" that, "The very best" definition of versificationt to be found in any of "our ordinary treatises on the topic," has "not a single point which does not involve an error;" that, "A leading defect in each of these treatises is the confining of the subject to mere versification, while metre, or rhythm, in general, is the real question at issue;" that, "Versification is not the art, but the act," of making verses; that, "A correspondence in the length of lines is by no means essential;" that, "Harmony," produced "by the regular alternation of syllables differing in quantity," does not include "melody;" that, "A regular alternation, as described, forms no part of the principle of metre;" that, "There is no necessity of any regularity in the suc cession of feet;" that, "By consequence," he ventures to "dispute the essentiality of any alternation, regular or irregular, of syllables long and short;" that, "For anything more intelligible or more satisfactory than this definition [i. e., G. Brown's former definition of versification,] we shall look in vain in any published treatise upon the subject;" that, "So general and so total a failure can be

"Edgar A. Poe, the author, died at Baltimore on Sunday" [the 7th].-Daily Evening Traveller, Boston Oct. 9, 1849. This was eight or ten months after the writing of these observations.-G. B.

"Versification is the art of arranging words into lines of correspondent length, so as to produce harmony by the regular alternation of syllables differing in quantity."-Brown's Institutes of E. Gram., p. 235.

แ

referred only to some radical misconception;" that, "The word verse is derived (through versus from the Latin verto, 1 turn, and * * * * it can be nothing but this derivation, which has led to the error of our writers upon prosody;" that, "It is this which has seduced them into regarding the line itself the versus, or turning-as an essential, or principle of metre;" that, "Hence the term versification has been employed as sufficiently general, or inclusive, for treatises upon rhythm in general;" that, "Hence, also, [comes] the precise catalogue of a few varietics of English lines, when these varieties are, in fact, almost without limit;" that, "1," the aforesaid Edgar Allan Poe, "shall dismiss entirely, from the consideration of the principle of rhythm, the idea of versification, or the construction of verse;" that, "In so doing, we shall avoid a world of confusion;" that, "Verse is, indeed, an afterthought, or an embellishment, or an improvement, rather than an element of rhythm;" that, "This fact has induced the easy admission, into the realms of Poesy, of such works as the Télémaque' of Fenelon;" because, forsooth, "In the elaborate modulation of their sentences, THEY FULFIL THE IDEA OF METRE.”—The Pioneer, a Literary and Critical Magazine (Boston, March, 1843,) Vol. I, p. 102 to 105.

OBS. 4.—" Holding these things in view," continues this sharp connoisseur, "the prosodist who rightly examines that which constitutes the external, or most immediately recognisable, form of Poetry, will commence with the definition of Rhythm. Now rhythm, from the Greck dpi0μ05, number, is a term which, in its present application, very nearly conveys its own idea. No more proper word could be employed to present the conception intended; for rhythm, in prosody, is, in its last analysis, identical with time in music. For this reason," says he, "I have used, throughout this article, as synonymous with rhythm, the word metre from uεтроν, measure. Either the one or the other may be defined as the arrangement of words into two or more consecutive, equal, pulsations of time. These pulsations are feet. Two feet, at least, are requisite to constitute a rhythm ; just as, in mathematics, two units are necessary to form [a] number. The syllables of which the foot consists, when the foot is not a syllable in itself, are subdivisions of the pulsations. No equality is demanded in these subdivisions. It is only required that, so far as regards two consecutive feet at least, the sum of the times of the syllables in one, shall be equal to the sum of the times of the syllables in the other. Beyond two pulsations there is no necessity for equality of time. All beyond is arbitrary or conventional. A third or fourth pulsation may embody half, or double, or any proportion of the time occupied in the two first. Rhythm being thus understood, the prosodist should proceed to define versification as the making of verses, and verse as the arbitrary or conventional isolation of rhythm into masses of greater or less extent."-lb., p. 105.

OES. 5.-No marvel that all usual conceptions and definitions of rhythm, of versification, and of verse, should be found dissatisfactory to the critic whose idea of metre is fulfilled by the pompous prose of Fenelon's Télémaque. No right or real examination of this matter can ever make the most immediately recognizable form of poetry to be any thing else than the form of verse-the form of writing in specific lines, ordered by number and chime of syllables, and not squared by gage of the composing-stick. And as to the derivation and primitive signification of rhythm, it is plain that in the extract above, both are misrepresented. The etymology there given is a gross error; for, the Greek dpiμoç, number," would make, in English, not rhythm, but arithm, as in arithmetic. Between the two combinations, there is the palpable difference of three or four letters in either six; for neither of these forms can be varied to the other, but by dropping one letter, and adding an other, and changing a third, and moving a fourth. Rhythm is derived, not thence, but from the Greek pvpos; which, according to the lexicons, is a primitive word, and means, rhyth mus, rhythm, concinnity, modulation, measured tune, or regular flow, and not “number."

OBS. 6.-Rhythm, of course, like every other word not misapplied, "conveys its own idea;" and that, not qualifiedly, or "very nearly," but exactly. That this idea, however, was originally that of arithmetical number, or is nearly so now, is about as fanciful a notion, as the happy suggestion added above, that rhythm in lieu of arithm or number, is the fittest of words, because "rhythm in prosody is time in music!" Without dispute, it is important to the prosodist, and also to the poet or versifier, to have as accurate an idea as possible of the import of this common term, though it is observable that many of our grammarians make little or no use of it. That it has some relation to numbers, is undeniable. But what is it? Poetic numbers, and numbers in arithmetic, and numbers in grammar, are three totally different sorts of things. Rhythm is related only to the first. Of the signification of this word, a recent expositor gives the following brief explanation:

This appears to be an error; for, according to Dilworth, and other arithmeticians, "a unit is a number; and so is it expounded by Johnson, Walker, Webster, and Worcester. See, in the Introduction, a note at the foot of p. 117. Mulligan, however, contends still, that one is no number; and that, "to talk of the singular number is absurd-a contradiction in terms;"--because, "in common discourse," a "number" is "always a plurality, except"-when it is "number one !-See Grammatical Structure of the E. Language, § 33. Some prosodists have taught the absurdity, that two feet are necessary to constitute a metre, and have accordingly applied the terms, monometer, dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, and hexameter.-or so many of them as they could so misapply,-in a sense very different from the usual acceptation. The proper principle is, that, "One foot constitutes a metre."-Dr. P. Wilson's Greek Prosody, p. 53. And verses are to be denominated Monometer, Dimeter, Trimeter, &c., according to "THE NUMBER OF FEET."-See ib., p. 6. But Worcester's Universal and Critical Dictionary has the following not very consistent explanations: "MONOMETER, 2. One metre. Beck. DIMETER, 1. A poetic measure of four feet; a series of two metres. Beck. TRIMETER, α. A Latin or Consisting of three poetical measures, forming an iambic of siz feet. Tyrwhitt. TETRAMETER, n. Greek verse consisting of four feet; a series of four metres. TETRAMETER, Ɑ. Having four metrical feet. Terihitt. PENTAMETER, N. A Greek or Latin verse of fire feet; a series of five metres. PENTAMETER, (L. Having five metrical fect. Warton. HEXAMETER, n. A verse or line of poetry, having six feet, either dactyls or spondees; the heroic, and most important, verse among the Greeks and Romans:-a rhythmical series of six metres. HEXAMETER, α. Having simetrical feet. Dr. Warton." According to these definitions, Dimeter has as many feet as Tetrameter; and Trimeter has as many as Hexameter!

"RHYTHM, n. Metre; verse; numbers. Proportion applied to any motion whatever."-Bolles's Dictionary, 8vo. To this definition, Worcester prefixes the following: "The consonance of meas ure and time in poetry, prose composition, and music;-also in dancing."-Universal and Critical Dict. In verse, the proportion which forms rhythm-that is, the chime of quantities—is applied to the sounds of syllables. Sounds, however, may be considered as a species of motion, especially those which are rhythmical or musical.* It seems more strictly correct, to regard rhythm as a property of poetic numbers, than to identify it with them. It is their proportion or modulation, rather than the numbers themselves. According to Dr. Webster, "RHYTHM, or RHYTHMUS, in music [is] variety in the movement as to quickness or slowness, or length and shortness of the notes; or rather the proportion which the parts of the motion have to each other."—American Dict. The "last analysis" of rhythm can be nothing else than the reduction of it to its least parts. And if, in this reduction, it is identical with time," then it is here the same thing as quantity, whether prosodical or musical; for, "The time of a note, or syllable, is called quantity. The time of a rest is also called quantity; because rests, as well as notes are a constituent of rhythm."-Comstock's Elocution, p. 64. But rhythm is, in fact, neither time nor quantity; for the analysis which would make it such, destroys the relation in which the thing consists.

SECTION II.-OF ACCENT AND QUANTITY.

Accent and Quantity have already been briefly explained in the second chapter of Prosody, as items coming under the head of Pronunciation. What we have to say of them here, will be thrown into the form of critical observations; in the progress of which, many quotations from other writers on these subjects, will be presented, showing what has been most popularly taught.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.-Accent and quantity are distinct things; the former being the stress, force, loudness, or percussion of voice, that distinguishes certain syllables from others; and the latter, the time, distinguished as long or short, in which a syllable is uttered. But, as the great sounds which we utter, naturally take more time than the small ones, there is a necessary connexion between quantity and accent in English,-a connexion which is sometimes expounded as being the mere relation of cause and effect; nor is it in fact much different from that. "As no utterance can be agreeable to the ear, which is void of proportion; and as all quantity, or proportion of time in utterance, depends upon a due observation of the accent; it is a matter of absolute necessity to all, who would arrive at a good and graceful delivery, to be master of that point. Nor is the use of accent in our language confined to quantity alone; but it is also the chief mark by which words are distinguished from mere syllables. Or rather I may say, it is the very essence of words, which without that, would be only so many collections of syllables.”—Sheridan's Lectures on Elocution, p. 61. "As no utterance which is void of proportion, can be agreeable to the ear; and as quantity, or proportion of time in utterance, greatly depends on a due attention to the accent; it is absolutely necessary for every person, who would attain a just and pleasing delivery, to be master of that point."-Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 241; 12mo, 194.

OBS. 2.—In the first observation on Prosody, at page 770, and in its marginal notes, was reference made to the fact, that the nature and principles of accent and quantity are involved in difficulty, by reason of the different views of authors concerning them. To this source of embarrassment, it seems necessary here again to advert; because it is upon the distinction of syllables in respect to quantity, or accent, or both, that every system of versification, except his who merely counts, is based. And further, it is not only requisite that the principle of distinction which we adopt should be clearly made known, but also proper to consider which of these three modes is the best or most popular foundation for a theory of versification. Whether or wherein the accent and quantity of the ancient languages, Latin and Greek, differed from those of our present English, we need not now inquire. From the definitions which the learned lexicographers Littleton and Ainsworth give to prosodia, prosody, it would seem that, with them, "the art of accenting" was nothing else than the art of giving to syllables their right quantity, "whether long or short." And *It is common, at any rate, for prosodists to speak of “the movement of the voice," as do Sheridan, Murray, Humphrey, and Everett; but Kames, in treating of the Beauty of Language from Resemblance, says, "There is no resemblance of sound to motion, nor of sound to sentiment."-Elements of Criticism, Vol. ii, p. 63. This usage, however, is admitted by the critic, and cited to show how, "causes that have no resemblance may produce resembling effects."-I., ii, 64. "By a number of syllables in succession, an emotion is sometimes raised extremely similar to that raised by successive motion; which may be evident even to those who are defective in taste, from the following fact, that the term movement in all languages is equally applied to both."-Ib., ii, 66. + "From what has been said of accent and quantity in our own language, we may conclude them to be essentially distinct and perfectly separable: nor is it to be doubted that they were equally separable in the learned languages."-Walker's Observations on Gr. and Lat. Accent and Quantity, $ 20; Key, p. 326. In the specula tive essay here cited, Walker meant by accent the rising or the falling infection,-an upward or a downward slide of the voice; and by quantity, nothing but the open or close sound of some vowel; as of "the a in scatter" and in "skater," the initial syllables of which words he supposed to differ in quantity as much as any two sylla bles can!-Ib., § 24; Key, p. 331. With those views of the thin78, it is perhaps the less to be wondered at, that Walker, who appears to have been a candid and courteous writer, charges "that excellent scholar Mr. Forster -with a total ignorance of the accent and quantity of his own language:" (Ib., Note on § 8; Key, p. 317 ;) and, in regard to accent, ancient or modern, elsewhere confesses his own ignorance, and that of every body else, to be as "total." See marginal note on Obs. 4th, below.

some have charged it as a glaring error, long prevalent among English grammarians, and still a fruitful source of disputes, to confound accent with quantity in our language. This charge, however, there is reason to believe, is sometimes, if not in most cases, made on grounds rather fanciful than real; for some have evidently mistaken the notion of concurrence or coincidence for that of identity. But, to affirm that the stress which we call accent, coincides always and only with long quantity, does not necessarily make accent and quantity to be one and the same thing. The greater force or loudness which causes the accented syllable to occupy more time than any other, is in itself something different from time. Besides, quantity is divisible,-being either long or short: these two species of it are acknowledged on all sides, and some few prosodists will have a third, which they call "common." But, of our English accent, the word being taken in its usual acceptation, no such division is ever, with any propriety, made; for even the stress which we call secondary accent, pertains to long syllables rather than to short ones; and the mere absence of stress, which produces short quantity, we do not call accent.

OBS. 3.-The impropriety of affirming quantity to be the same as accent, when its most frequent species occurs only in the absence of accent, must be obvious to every body; and those writers who anywhere suggest this identity, must either have written absurdly, or have taken accent in some sense which includes the sounds of our unaccented syllables. The word sometimes means, "The modulation of the voice in speaking."-Worcester's Dict., w. Accent. In this sense, the lighter as well as the more impressive sounds are included; but still, whether both together, considered as accents, can be reckoned the same as long and short quantities, is questionable. Somo say, they cannot; and insist that they are yet as different, as the variable tones of a trumpet, which swell and fall, are different from the merely loud and soft notes of the monotonous drum. This illustration of the "casy Distinction betwixt Quantity and Accent," is cited with commendation, in Brightland's Grammar, on page 157th; § the author of which grammar, seems to have understood Accent, or Accents, to be the same as Inflections-though these are still unlike to quantities, if he did so. (See an explanation of Inflections in Chap. II, Sec. iii, Art. 3, above.)

(1.) "We shall now take a view of sounds when united into syllables. Here a beautiful variation of quantity presents itself as the next object of our attention. The knowledge of long and short syllables, is the most excellent and most neglected quality in the whole art of pronunciation.

The disputes of our modern writers on this subject, have arisen chiefly from an absurd notion that has long prevailed; viz. that there is no difference between the accent and the quantity, in the English language; that the accented syllables are always long, and the unaccented always short.

An absurdity so glaring, does not need refutation. Pronounce any one line from Milton, and the ear will determine whether or not the accent and quantity always coincide. Very seldom they do."-HERRIES: Bicknell's Gram., Part ii, p. 108.

(2.) Some of our Moderns (especially Mr. Bishe, in his Art of Poetry) and lately Mr. Mattaire, in what he calls, The English Grammar, erroneously use Accent for Quantity, one signifying the Length or Shortness of a Syllable, the other the raising or falling of the Voice in Discourse."-Brightland's Gram., London, 1746, p. 156. (3.) "Tempus cum accentu a nonnullis malè confunditur; quasi idem sit acui et produci. Cum brevis autem syllaba acuitur, elevatur quidem vox in eâ proferendâ, sed tempus non augetur. Sic in voce hominibus acnitur mi; at ni quæ sequitur, æquam in efferendo moram postulat."- Lily's Gram., p. 125. Version: "By some persons, time is improperly confounded with accent; as if to acute and to lengthen were the same. But when a short syllable is acuted, the voice indeed is raised in pronouncing it, but the time is not increased. Thus, in the word hominibus, mi has the acute accent; but ni, which follows, demands equal slowness in the pronunciation." To English ears, this can hardly seem a correct representation; for, in pronouncing hominibus, it is not mi, but min, that we accent; and this syllable is manifestly as much longer than the rest, as it is louder. † (1.) Syllables, with respect to their quantity, are either long, short, or common."-Gould's Adam's Lat. Gram., p. 243. "Some syllables are common; that is, sometimes long, and sometimes short."—Adam's Lat. and Eng. Gram., p. 252. Common is here put for variable, or not permanently settled in respect to quantity: in this sense, from which no third species ought to be inferred, our language is, perhaps, more extensively "common" than any other.

(2.) "Most of our Monosyllables either take this Stress or not, according as they are more or less emphatical; and therefore English Words of one Syllable may be considered as common; i. e. either as long or short in certain Situations. These Situations are chiefly determined by the Pause, or Cesure, of the Verse, and this Pause by the Sense. And as the English abounds in Monosyllables, there is probably no Language in which the Quantity of Syllables is more regulated by the Sense than in English."-W. Ward's Gram., Ed. of 1765, p. 156.

(3.) Bicknell's theory of quantity, for which he refers to Herries, is this: "The English quantity is divided into long, short, and common. The longest species of syllables are those that end in a vowel, and are under the accent; as, mo in harmonious, sole in console, &c. When a monosyllable, which is unemphatic, ends in a vowel, it is always short; but when the emphasis is placed upon it, it is always long. Short syllables are such as end in any of the six mutes; as cut, stop, rapid, rugged, lock. In all such syllables the sound cannot be lengthened: they are necessarily and invariably short. If another consonant intervenes between the vowel and mute, as rend, soft, flask, the syllable is rendered somewhat longer. The other species of syllables called common, are such as terminate in a half-vowel or aspirate. For instance, in the words run, swim, crush, purl, the concluding sound can be continued or shortened, as we please. This scheme of quantity," it is added, "is founded on fact and experience."-Bicknell's Gram., Part ii, p. 109. But is it not a fact, that such words as cuttest, stopping, rapid, rugged, are trochees, in verse? and is not unlock an iambus? And what becomes of syllables that end with vowels or liquids and are not accented?

I do not say the mere absence of stress is never called accent; for it is, plainly, the doctrine of some authors that the English accent differs not at all in its nature from the accent of the ancient Greeks or Romans, which was distinguished as being of three sorts, acute, grave, inflez; that "the stronger breathing, or higher sound," which distinguishes one syllable of a word from or above the rest, is the acute accent only; that "the softer breathing, or lower sound," which belongs to an unacuted (or unaccented) syllable, is the grave accent; and that a combination of these two sounds, or "breathings," upon one syllable, constitutes the inflex or circumflez accent. Such, I think, is the teaching of Rev. William Barnes; who further says, "English verse is constructed upon sundry orders of acute and grave accents and matchings of rhymes, while the poetic language of the Romans and Greeks is formed upon rules of the sundry clusterings of long and short syllables."-Philological Grammar, p. 263. This scheme is not wholly consistent, because the author explains accent or accents as being applicable only to "words of two or more syllables;" and it is plain, that the accent which includes the three sorts above, must needs be "some other thing than what we call accent," if this includes only the acute.

$ Sheridan used the same comparison, "To illustrate the difference between the accent of the ancients and that of ours" [our tongue]. Our accent he supposed, with Nares and others, to have "no reference to inflections of the voice."-See Art of Reading, p. 75; Lectures on Elocution, p. 56; Walker's Key, p. 313.

His exposition is this: "Accent is the rising and falling of the Voice, above or under its usual Tone. There are three Sorts of Accents, an Acute, a Grave, and an Inflex, which is also call'd a Circumflex. The Acute, or Sharp, naturally raises the Voice; and the Grave, or Base, as naturally falls it. The Circumflex is a kind of Undulation, or Waving of the Voice."-Brightland's Gram., Seventh Ed., Lond., 1746, p. 156.

OBS. 4.-Dr. Johnson, whose great authority could not fail to carry some others with him, too evidently identifies accent with quantity, at the commencement of his Prosody. PRONUNCIA TION is just," says he, "when every letter has its proper sound, and when every syllable has its proper accent, or which in English versification is the same, its proper quantity."-Johnson's Gram., before Dict., 4to, p. 13; John Burn's Gram., p. 240; Jones's Prosodial Gram., before Dict., p. 10. Now our most common notion of accent-the sole notion with many-and that which the accentuation of Johnson himself everywhere inculcates-is, that it belongs not to every syllable," but only to some particular syllables, being either "a stress of voice on a certain syllable," or a small mark to denote such stress.-See Scott's Dict., or Worcester's. But Dr. Johnson, in the passage above, must have understood the word accent agreeably to his own imperfect definition of it; to wit, as "the sound given to the syllable pronounced.”—Joh. Dict. An unaccented syllable must have been to him a syllable unpronounced. In short he does not appear to have recognized any syllables as being unaccented. The word unaccented had no place in his lexicography, nor could have any without inconsistencey. It was unaptly added to his text, after sixty years, by one of his amenders, Todd or Chalmers; who still blindly neglected to amend his definition of accent. In these particulars, Walker's dictionaries exhibit the same deficiencies as Johnson's; and yet no author has more frequently used the words accent and unaccented, than did Walker.* Mason's Supplement, first published in 1801, must have suggested to the revisers of Johnson the addition of the latter term, as appears by the authority cited for it: "UNA'CCENTED, adj. Not accented. 'It being enough to make a syllable long, if it be accented and short, if it be unaccented.' Harris's Philological Inquiries."-Mason's Sup.

Ons. 5.-This doctrine of Harris's, that long quantity accompanies the accent, and unaccented syllables are short, is far from confounding or identifying accent with quantity, as has already been shown; and, though it plainly contradicts some of the elementary teaching of Johnson, Sheridan, Walker, Murray, Webster, Latham, Fowler, and others, in regard to the length or shortness of certain syllables, it has been clearly maintained by many excellent authors, so that no opposite theory is better supported by authority. On this point, our language stands not alone; for the accent controls quantity in some others. G. H. Nochden, a writer of uncommon ability, in

(1.) It may in some measure account for these remarkable omissions, to observe that Walker, in his lexicography, followed Johnson is almost every thing but pronunciation. On this latter subject, his own authority is perhaps as great as that of any single author. And here I am led to introduce a remark or two touching the accent and quantity with which he was chiefly concerned; though the suggestions may have no immediate connexion with the error of confounding these properties.

(2.) Walker, in his theory, regarded the inflections of the voice as pertaining to accent, and as affording a satisfactory solution of the difficulties in which this subject has been involved; but, as an English orthoëpist, he treats of accent in no other sense, than as stress laid on a particular syllable of a word—a sense implying contrast, and necessarily dividing all syllables into accented and unaccented, except monosyllables. Having aeknowledged our "total ignorance of the nature of the Latin and Greek accent," he adds: "The accent of the English language, which is constantly sounding in our ears, and every moment open to investigation, seems as much a mystery as that accent which is removed almost two thousand years from our view. Obscurity, perplexity, and confusion, run through every treatise on the subject, and nothing could be so hopeless as an attempt to explain it, did not a circumstance present itself, which at once accounts for the confusion, and affords a clew to lead us out of it. Not one writer on accent has given such a definition of the voice as acquaints us with its essential properties. *** But let us once divide the voice into its rising and falling inflections, the obscurity vanishes, and accent becomes as intelligible as any other part of language. *** On the present occasion it will be sufficient to observe, that the stress we call accent is as well understood as is necessary for the pronunciation of single words, which is the object of this treatise."-Walker's Dict., p. 53, Princip. 486, 487, 488.

(3.) Afterwards, on introducing quantity, as an orthoëpical topic, he has the following remark: "In treating this part of pronunciation, it will not be necessary to enter into the nature of that quantity which constitutes poetry; the quantity here considered will be that which relates to words taken singly; and this is nothing more than the length or shortness of the vowels, either as they stand alone, or as they are differently combined with the vowels or consonants."-Ib., p. 62, Princip. 529. Here is suggested a distinction which has not been so well observed by grammarians and prosodists, or even by Walker himself, as it ought to have been. So long as the practice continues of denominating certain mere vowel sounds the long and the short, it will be very necessary to notice that these are not the same as the syllabic quantities, long and short, which constitute English verse. (1.) In the Latin and Greek languages, this is not commonly supposed to be the case; but, on the contrary, the quantity of syllables is professedly adjusted by its own rules independently of what we call accent; and, in our English pronunciation of these languages, the accentuation of all long words is regulated by the quantity of the last syllable but one. Walker, in the introduction to his Key, speaks of "The English pronunciation of Greek and Latin [as] injurious to quantity." And no one can deny, that we often accent what are called short syllables, and perhaps oftener leave unaccented such as are called long; but, after all, were the quantity of Latin and Greek syllables always judged of by their actual time, and not with reference to the vowel sounds called long and short, these our violations of the old quantities would be found much fewer than some suppose they are.

(2.) Dr. Adam's view of the accents, acute and grave, appears to be peculiar; and of a nature which may perhaps come nearer to an actual identity with the quantities, long and short, than any other. He says,

1. The acute or sharp accent raises the voice in pronunciation, and is thus marked [']; préfero, prófer. [The English word is written, not thus, but with two Effs, proffer.-G. B.]

2. The grave or base accent depresses the voice, or keeps it in its natural tone; and is thus marked [`]; aŝ, docte. This accent properly belongs to all syllables which have no other.

"The accents are hardly ever marked in English books, except in dictionaries, grammars, spelling-books, or the like, where the acute accent only is used. The accents are likewise seldom marked in Latin books, unless for the sake of distinction; as in these adverbs, aliquò, continuò, doctė, unà, &c.”—Adam's Latin and English Grammar, p. 266.

(3.) As stress naturally lengthens the syllables on which it falls, if we suppose the grave accent to be the opposite of this, and to belong to all syllables which have no peculiar stress,-are not enforced, not acuted, not