OBS. 7.—Fisher's conceptions of accent and quantity, as constituting prosody, were much truer to the original and etymological sense of the words, than to any just or useful view of English versification: in short, this latter subject was not even mentioned by him; for prosody, in his scheme, was nothing but the right pronunciation of words, or what we now call orthoëpy. This part of his Grammar commences with the following questions and answers:
"Q. What is the Meaning of the Word PROSODY? A. It is a Word borrowed from the Greek; which, in Latin, is rendered Accentus, and in English Accent. "Q. What do you mean by Accent? A. Accent originally signified a Modulation of the Voice, or chanting to a musical Instrument; but is now generally used to signify Due Pronunciatian, i.e. the pronouncing [of] a syllable according to its Quantity, (whether it be long or short,) with a stronger Force or Stress of Voice than the other Syllables in the same Word; as, a in able, o in above, &c. "Q. What is Quantity? A. Quantity is the different Measure of Time in pronouncing Syllables, from whence they are called long or short. "Q. What is the Proportion between a long and a short Syllable? A. Two to one; that is, a long Syllable is twice as long in pronouncing as a short one; as, Hate, Hat. This mark (=) set over a Syllable, shows that it is long, and this (~) that it is short; as, r=ecord, r~ecord. "Q. How do you know long and short Syllables? A. A Syllable is long or short according to the Situation of the Vowel, i.e. it is generally long when it ends with a Vowel, and short when with a Consonant; as, F=a- in Favour, and M~an- in Manner."—Fisher's Practical Gram., p. 34.
Now one grand mistake of this is, that it supposes syllabication to fix the quantity, and quantity to determine the accent; whereas it is plain, that accent controls quantity, so far at least that, in the construction of verse, a syllable fully accented cannot be reckoned short. And this mistake is practical; for we see, that, in three of his examples, out of the four above, the author himself misstates the quantity, because he disregards the accent: the verb re-cord', being accented on the second syllable, is an iambus; and the nouns rec'-ord and man'-ner, being accented on the first, are trochees; and just as plainly so, as is the word f=av~our. But a still greater blunder here observable is, that, as a "due pronunciation" necessarily includes the utterance of every syllable, the explanation above stolidly supposes all our syllables to be accented, each "according to its Quantity, (whether it be long or short,)" and each "with a stronger Force or Stress of Voice, than the other Syllables!" Absurdity akin to this, and still more worthy to be criticised, has since been propagated by Sheridan, by Walker, and by Lindley Murray, with a host of followers, as Alger, D. Blair, Comly, Cooper, Cutler, Davenport, Felton, Fowler, Frost, Guy, Jaudon, Parker and Fox, Picket, Pond, Putnam, Russell, Smith, and others.
OBS. 8.—Sheridan was an able and practical teacher of English pronunciation, and one who appears to have gained reputation by all he undertook, whether as an actor, as an elocutionist, or as a lexicographer. His publications that refer to that subject, though now mostly superseded by others of later date, are still worthy to be consulted. The chief of them are, his Lectures on Elocution, his Lectures on the Art of Reading, his Rhetorical Grammar, his Elements of English, and his English Dictionary. His third lecture on Elocution, and many pages of the Rhetorical Grammar, are devoted to accent and quantity—subjects which he conceived to have been greatly misrepresented by other writers up to his time.[495] To this author, as it would seem, we owe the invention of that absurd doctrine, since copied into a great multitude of our English grammars, that the accent on a syllable of two or more letters, belongs, not to the whole of it, but only to some ONE LETTER; and that according to the character of this letter, as vowel or consonant, the same stress serves to lengthen or shorten the syllable's quantity! Of this matter, he speaks thus: "The great distinction of our accent depends upon its seat; which may be either upon a vowel or a consonant. Upon a vowel, as in the words, glóry, fáther, hóly. Upon a consonant, as in the words, hab'it, bor'row, bat'tle. When the accent is on the vowel, the syllable is long; because the accent is made by dwelling upon the vowel. When it is on the consonant, the syllable is short;[496] because the accent is made by passing rapidly over the vowel, and giving a smart stroke of the voice to the following consonant. Obvious as this point is, it has wholly escaped the observation of all our grammarians and compilers of dictionaries; who, instead of examining the peculiar genius of our tongue, implicitly and pedantically have followed the Greek method of always placing the accentual mark over a vowel."—Sheridan's Rhetorical Gram., p. 51. The author's reprehension of the old mode of accentuation, is not without reason; but his "great distinction" of short and long syllables is only fit to puzzle or mislead the reader. For it is plain, that the first syllables of hab'it, bor'row, and bat'tle, are twice as long as the last; and, in poetry, these words are trochees, as well as the other three, glo'ry, fa'ther, and ho'ly.
OBS. 9.—The only important distinction in our accent, is that of the primary and the secondary, the latter species occurring when it is necessary to enforce more syllables of a word than one; but Sheridan, as we see above, after rejecting all the old distinctions of rising and falling, raising and depressing, acute and grave, sharp and base, long and short, contrived a new one still more vain, which he founded on that of vowels and consonants, but "referred to time, or quantity." He recognized, in fact, a vowel accent and a consonant accent; or, in reference to quantity, a lengthening accent and a shortening accent. The discrimination of these was with him "THE GREAT DISTINCTION of our accent." He has accordingly mentioned it in several different places of his works, and not always with that regard to consistency which becomes a precise theorist. It led him to new and variant ways of defining accent; some of which seem to imply a division of consonants from their vowels in utterance, or to suggest that syllables are not the least parts of spoken words. And no sooner has he told us that our accent is but one single mode of distinguishing a syllable, than he proceeds to declare it two. Compare the following citations: "As the pronunciation of English words is chiefly regulated by accent, it will be necessary to have a precise idea of that term. Accent with us means no more than a certain stress of the voice upon one letter of a syllable, which distinguishes it from all the other letters in a word."—Sheridan's Rhetorical Gram., p. 39. Again: "Accent, in the English language, means a certain stress of the voice upon a particular letter of a syllable which distinguishes it from the rest, and, at the same time, distinguishes the syllable itself to which it belongs from the others which compose the word."—Same work, p. 50. Again: "But as our accent consists in stress only, it can just as well be placed on a consonant as [on] a vowel."—Same, p. 51. Again: "By the word accent, is meant the stress of the voice on one letter in a syllable."—Sheridan's Elements of English, p. 55. Again: "The term [accent] with us has no reference to inflexions of the voice, or musical notes, but only means a peculiar manner of distinguishing one syllable of a word from the rest, denominated by us accent; and the term for that reason [is] used by us in the singular number.—This distinction is made by us in two ways; either by dwelling longer upon one syllable than the rest; or by giving it a smarter percussion of the voice in utterance. Of the first of these, we have instances in the words, gl=ory, f=ather, h=oly; of the last, in bat'tle, hab'it, bor'row. So that accent, with us, is not referred to tune, but to time; to quantity, not quality; to the more equable or precipitate motion of the voice, not to the variation of notes or inflexions."—Sheridan's Lectures on Elocution, p. 56; Flint's Murray's Gram., p. 85.
OBS. 10.—How "precise" was Sheridan's idea of accent, the reader may well judge from the foregoing quotations; in four of which, he describes it as "a certain stress," "the stress," and "stress only," which enforces some "letter;" while, in the other, it is whimsically made to consist in two different modes of pronouncing "syllables"—namely, with equability, and with precipitance—with "dwelling longer," and with "smarter percussion"—which terms the author very improperly supposes to be opposites: saying, "For the two ways of distinguishing syllables by accent, as mentioned before, are directly opposite, and produce quite contrary effects; the one, by dwelling on the syllable, necessarily makes it long; the other, by the smart percussion—of the voice, as necessarily makes it short"—Ib., p. 57. Now it is all a mistake, however common, to suppose that our accent, consisting as it does, in stress, enforcement, or "percussion of voice," can ever shorten the syllable on which it is laid; because what increases the quantum of a vocal sound, cannot diminish its length; and a syllable accented will always be found longer as well as louder, than any unaccented one immediately before or after it. Though weak sounds may possibly be protracted, and shorter ones be exploded loudly, it is not the custom of our speech, so to deal with the sounds of syllables.
OBS. 11.—Sheridan admitted that some syllables are naturally and necessarily short, but denied that any are naturally and necessarily long. In this, since syllabic length and shortness are relative to each other, and to the cause of each, he was, perhaps, hardly consistent. He might have done better, to have denied both, or neither. Bating his new division of accent to subject it sometimes to short quantity, he recognized very fully the dependence of quantity, long or short, whether in syllables or only in vowels, upon the presence or absence of accent or emphasis. In this he differed considerably from most of the grammarians of his day; and many since have continued to uphold other views. He says, "It is an infallible rule in our tongue that no vowel ever has a long sound in an unaccented syllable."—Lectures on Elocution, p. 60. Again: "In treating of the simple elements or letters, I have shown that some, both vowels and consonants, are naturally short; that is, whose sounds cannot possibly be prolonged; and these are the [short or shut] sounds of ~e, ~i, and ~u, of vocal sounds; and three pure mutes, k, p, t, of the consonant; as in the words beck, lip, cut. I have shown also, that the sounds of all the other vowels, and of the consonant semivowels, may be prolonged to what degree we please; but at the same time it is to be observed, that all these may also be reduced to a short quantity, and are capable of being uttered in as short a space of time as those which are naturally short. So that they who speak of syllables as absolutely in their own nature long, the common cant of prosodians, speak of a nonentity: for though, as I have shown above, there are syllables absolutely short, which cannot possibly be prolonged by any effort of the speaker, yet it is in his power to shorten or prolong the others to what degree he pleases."—Sheridan's Rhetorical Gram., p. 52. And again: "I have already mentioned that when the accent is on the vowel, it of course makes the syllable long; and when the accent is on the consonant, the syllable may be either long or short, according to the nature of the consonant, or will of the speakers. And as all unaccented syllables are short, the quantity of our syllables is adjusted by the easiest and simplest rule in the world, and in the exactest proportion."—Lect. on Elocution, p. 66.
OBS. 12.—This praise of our rule for the adjustment of quantity, would have been much more appropriate, had not the rule itself been greatly mistaken, perplexed, and misrepresented by the author. If it appear, on inspection, that "beck, lip, cut," and the like syllables, are twice as long when under the accent, as they are when not accented, so that, with a short syllable annexed or a long one prefixed, they may form trochees; then is it not true, that such syllables are either always necessarily and inherently short, or always, "by the smart percussion of the voice, as necessarily made short;" both of which inconsistent ideas are above affirmed of them. They may not be so long as some other long syllables; but, if they are twice as long as the accompanying short ones, they are not short. And, if not short, then that remarkable distinction in accent, which assumes that they are so, is as needless as it is absurd and perplexing. Now let the words, beck'on, lip'ping, cut'ter, be properly pronounced, and their syllables be compared with each other, or with those of lim'beck, fil'lip, Dr=a'cut; and it cannot but be perceived, that beck, lip, and cut, like other syllables in general, are lengthened by the accent, and shortened only in its absence; so that all these words are manifestly trochees, as all similar words are found to be, in our versification. To suppose "as many words as we hear accents," or that "it is the laying of an accent on one syllable, which constitutes a word," and then say, that "no unaccented syllable or vowel is ever to be accounted long," as this enthusiastic author does in fact, is to make strange scansion of a very large portion of the trissyllables and polysyllables which occur in verse. An other great error in Sheridan's doctrine of quantity, is his notion that all monosyllables, except a few small particles, are accented; and that their quantity is determined to be long or short by the seat or the mode of the accent, as before stated. Now, as our poetry abounds with monosyllables, the relative time of which is adjusted by emphasis and cadence, according to the nature and importance of the terms, and according to the requirements of rhythm, with no reference to this factitious principle, no conformity thereto but what is accidental, it cannot but be a puzzling exercise, when these difficulties come to be summed up, to attempt the application of a doctrine so vainly conceived to be "the easiest and simplest rule in the world!"
OBS. 13.—Lindley Murray's principles of accent and quantity, which later grammarians have so extensively copied, were mostly extracted from Sheridan's; and, as the compiler appears to have been aware of but few, if any, of his predecessor's errors, he has adopted and greatly spread well-nigh all that have just been pointed out; while, in regard to some points, he has considerably increased the number. His scheme, as he at last fixed it, appears to consist essentially of propositions already refuted, or objected to, above; as any reader may see, who will turn to his definition of accent, and his rules for the determination of quantity. In opposition to Sheridan, who not very consistently says, that, "All unaccented syllables are short," this author appears to have adopted the greater error of Fisher, who supposed that the vowel sounds called long and short, are just the same as the long and short syllabic quantities. By this rule, thousands of syllables will be called long, which are in fact short, being always so uttered in both prose and poetry; and, by the other, some will occasionally be called short, which are in fact long, being made so by the poet, under a slight secondary accent, or perhaps none. Again, in supposing our numerous monosyllables to be accented, and their quantity to be thereby fixed, without excepting "the particles, such as a, the, to, in, &c.," which were excepted by Sheridan, Murray has much augmented the multitude of errors which necessarily flow from the original rule. This principle, indeed, he adopted timidly; saying, as though he hardly believed the assertion true: "And some writers assert, that every monosyllable of two or more letters, has one of its letters thus distinguished."—Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 236; 12mo, 189. But still he adopted it, and adopted it fully, in his section on Quantity; for, of his twelve words, exemplifying syllabic time so regulated, no fewer than nine are monosyllables. It is observable, however, that, in some instances, it is not one letter, but two, that he marks; as in the words, "m=o=od, h=o=use."—Ib., p. 239; 12mo, 192. And again, it should be observed, that generally, wherever he marks accent, he follows the old mode, which Sheridan and Webster so justly condemn; so that, even when he is speaking of "the accent on the consonant," the sign of stress, as that of time, is set over a vowel: as, "Sádly, róbber."—Ib., 8vo, 240; 12mo, 193. So in his Spelling-Book, where words are often falsely divided: as, "Vé nice," for Ven'-ice; "Há no ver," for Han'o-ver; &c.—See p. 101.
OBS. 14.—In consideration of the great authority of this grammarian, now backed by a score or two of copyists and modifiers, it may be expedient to be yet more explicit. Of accent Murray published about as many different definitions, as did Sheridan; which, as they show what notions he had at different times, it may not be amiss for some, who hold him always in the right, to compare. In one, he describes it thus: "Accent signifies that stress of the voice, which is laid on one syllable, to distinguish it from the rest."—Murray's Spelling-Book, p. 138. He should here have said, (as by his examples it would appear that he meant,) "on one syllable of a word;" for, as the phrase now stands, it may include stress on a monosyllable in a sentence; and it is a matter of dispute, whether this can properly be called accent. Walker and Webster say, it is emphasis, and not accent. Again, in an other definition, which was written before he adopted the notion of accent on consonants, of accent on monosyllables, or of accent for quantity in the formation of verse, he used these words: "Accent is the laying of a peculiar stress of the voice on a certain vowel or syllable in a word, that it may be better heard than the rest, or distinguished from them; as, in the word presúme, the stress of the voice must be on the second syllable, súme, which takes the accent."—Murray's Gram., Second Edition, 12mo, p. 161. In this edition, which was published at York, in 1796, his chief rules of quantity say nothing about accent, but are thus expressed: [1.] "A vowel or syllable is long, when the vowel or vowels contained in it are slowly joined in pronunciation with the following letters; as, 'F=all, b=ale, m=o=od, h=o=use, f=eature.' [2.] A syllable is short, when the vowel is quickly joined to the succeeding letter; as, '~art, b~onn~et, h~ung~er.'"—Ib., p. 166. Besides the absurdity of representing "a vowel" as having "vowels contained in it," these rules are made up of great faults. They confound syllabic quantities with vowel sounds. They suppose quantity to be, not the time of a whole syllable, but the quick or slow junction of some of its parts. They apply to no syllable that ends with a vowel sound. The former applies to none that ends with one consonant only; as, "mood" or the first of "feat-ure." In fact, it does not apply to any of the examples given; the final letter in each of the other words being silent. The latter rule is worse yet: it misrepresents the examples; for "bonnet" and "hunger" are trochees, and "art," with any stress on it, is long.
OBS. 15.—In all late editions of L. Murray's Grammar, and many modifications of it, accent is defined thus: "Accent is the laying of a peculiar stress of the voice, on a certain letter OR syllable in a word, that it may be better heard than the rest, or distinguished from them; as, in the word presúme, the stress of the voice must be on the letter u, AND [the] second syllable, sume, which takes the accent."—Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 235; 12mo, 188; 18mo, 57; Alger's, 72; Bacon's, 52; Comly's, 168; Cooper's, 176; Davenport's, 121; Felton's, 134; Frost's El., 50; Fisk's, 32; Merchant's, 145; Parker and Fox's, iii, 44; Pond's, 197; Putnam's, 96; Russell's, 106; R. O. Smith's, 186. Here we see a curious jumble of the common idea of accent, as "stress laid on some particular syllable of a word," with Sheridan's doctrine of accenting always "a particular letter of a syllable,"—an idle doctrine, contrived solely for the accommodation of short quantity with long, under the accent. When this definition was adopted, Murray's scheme of quantity was also revised, and materially altered. The principles of his main text, to which his copiers all confine themselves, then took the following form:
"The quantity of a syllable, is that time which is occupied in pronouncing it. It is considered as LONG or SHORT.
"A vowel or syllable is long, when the accent is on the vowel; which occasions it to be slowly joined in pronunciation with the following letters: as, 'F=all, b=ale, m=o=od, h=o=use, f=eature.'
"A syllable is short, when the accent is on the consonant; which occasions the vowel to be quickly joined to the succeeding letter: as, '~ant, b=onn~et, h=ung~er.'
"A long syllable generally requires double the time of a short one in pronouncing it: thus, 'M=ate' and 'N=ote' should be pronounced as slowly again as 'M~at' and 'N~ot.'"—Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 239; 12mo, 192; 18mo, 57; Alger's, 72; D. C. Allen's, 86; Bacon's, 52; Comly's, 168; Cooper's, 176; Cutler's, 165; Davenport's, 121; Felton's, 134; Frost's El., 50; Fisk's, 32; Maltby's, 115; Parker and Fox's, iii, 47; Pond's, 198; S. Putnam's, 96; R. C. Smith's, 187; Rev. T. Smith's, 68.
Here we see a revival and an abundant propagation of Sheridan's erroneous doctrine, that our accent produces both short quantity and long, according to its seat; and since none of all these grammars, but the first two of Murray's, give any other rules for the discrimination of quantities, we must infer, that these were judged sufficient. Now, of all the principles on which any have ever pretended to determine the quantity of syllables, none, so far as I know, are more defective or fallacious than these. They are liable to more objections than it is worth while to specify. Suffice it to observe, that they divide certain accented syllables into long and short, and say nothing of the unaccented; whereas it is plain, and acknowledged even by Murray and Sheridan themselves, that in "ant, bonnet, hunger" and the like, the unaccented syllables are the only short ones: the rest can be, and here are, lengthened.[497]
OBS. 16.—The foregoing principles, differently expressed, and perchance in some instances more fitly, are found in many other grammars, and in some of the very latest; but they are everywhere a mere dead letter, a record which, if it is not always untrue, is seldom understood, and never applied in any way to practice. The following are examples:
(1.) "In a long syllable, the vowel is accented; in a short syllable [,] the consonant; as [,] r=oll, p=oll; t~op, c~ut."—Rev. W. Allen's Gram., p. 222. (2.) "A syllable or word is long, when the accent is on the vowel: as n=o, l=ine, l=a, m=e; and short, when on the consonant: as n~ot, l~in, L~atin, m~et."—S. Barrett's Grammar, ("Principles of Language,") p. 112.
(3.) "A syllable is long when the accent is on the vowel, as, P=all, s=ale, m=o=use, cr=eature. A syllable is short when the accent is placed on the consonant; as great´, let´ter, mas´ter."—Rev. D. Blair's Practical Gram., p. 117.
(4.) "When the stress is on the vowel, the measure of quantity is long: as, Máte, fáte, complàin, pláyful, un der míne. When the stress is on a consonant, the quantity is short: as, Mat´, fat´, com pel´, prog´ress, dis man´tle."—Pardon Davis's Practical Gram., p. 125.
(5.) "The quantity of a syllable is considered as long or short. It is long when the accent is on the vowel; as, F=all, b=ale, m=ood, ho=use, f=eature. It is short when the accent is placed on the consonant; as, Mas´ter, let´ter."—Guy's School Gram., p. 118; Picket's Analytical School Gram., 2d Ed., p. 224.
(6.) "A syllable is long when the accent is on the vowel; and short, when the accent is on the consonant. A long syllable requires twice the time in pronouncing it that a short one does. Long syllables are marked thus =; as, t=ube; short syllables, thus ~; as, m~an."—Hiley's English Gram., p. 120.
(7.) "When the accent is on a vowel, the syllable is generally long; as =aleho=use, am=usement, f=eatures. But when the accent is on a consonant, the syllable is mostly short; as, h~ap'py, m~an'ner. A long syllable requires twice as much time in the pronunciation, as a short one; as, h=ate, h~at; n=ote, n~ot; c=ane, c~an; f=ine, f~in."—Jaudon's Union Gram., p. 173.
(8.) "If the syllable be long, the accent is on the vowel; as, in b=ale, m=o=od, educ=ation; &c. If short, the accent is on the consonant; as, in ~ant, b~onnet, h~unger, &c."—Merchant's American School Gram., p. 145.
The quantity of our unaccented syllables, none of these authors, except Allen, thought it worth his while to notice. But among their accented syllables, they all include words of one syllable, though most of them thereby pointedly contradict their own definitions of accent. To find in our language no short syllables but such as are accented, is certainly a very strange and very great oversight. Frazee says, "The pronunciation of an accented syllable requires double the time of that of an unaccented one."—Frazee's Improved Gram., p. 180. If so, our poetical quantities are greatly misrepresented by the rules above cited. Allen truly says, "Unaccented syllables are generally short; as, r~etúrn, túrn~er."— Elements of E. Gram., p. 222. But how it was ever found out, that in these words we accent only the vowel u, and in such as hunter and bluntly, some one of the consonants only, he does not inform us.
OBS. 17.—As might be expected, it is not well agreed among those who accent single consonants and vowels, what particular letter should receive the stress and the mark. The word or syllable "ant," for example, is marked "an´t" by Alger, Bacon, and others, to enforce the n; "ant´" by Frost, Putnam, and others, to enforce the t; "~ant" by Murray, Russell, and others, to show, as they say, "the accent on the consonant!" But, in "A´NTLER," Dr. Johnson accented the a; and, to mark the same pronunciation, Worcester now writes, "~ANT´LER;" while almost any prosodist, in scanning, would mark this word "~antl~er" and call it a trochee.[498] Churchill, who is in general a judicious observer, writes thus: "The leading feature in the English language, on which it's melody both in prose and verse chiefly depends, is it's accent. Every word in it of more than one syllable has one of it's syllables distinguished by this from the rest; the accent being in some cases on the vowel, in others on the consonant that closes the syllable; on the vowel, when it has it's long sound; on the consonant, when the vowel is short."—Churchill's New Gram., p. 181. But to this, as a rule of accentuation, no attention is in fact paid nowadays. Syllables that have long vowels not final, very properly take the sign of stress on or after a consonant or a mute vowel; as, =an´gel, ch=am´ber, sl=ay´er, b=ead´roll, sl=ea´zy, sl=e=ep´er, sl=e=eve´less, l=ive´ly, m=ind´ful, sl=ight´ly, sl=id´ing, b=old´ness, gr=oss´ly, wh=ol´ly, =use´less.—See Worcester's Dict.
OBS. 18.—It has been seen, that Murray's principles of quantity were greatly altered by himself, after the first appearance of his grammar. To have a full and correct view of them, it is necessary to notice something more than his main text, as revised, with which all his amenders content themselves, and which he himself thought sufficient for his Abridgement. The following positions, which, in some of his revisals, he added to the large grammar, are therefore cited:—
(1.) "Unaccented syllables are generally short: as, '~admíre, bóldn~ess, sínn~er.' But to this rule there are many exceptions: as, 'áls=o, éx=ile, gángr=ene, úmp=ire, f=oretáste,' &c.
(2.) "When the accent is on the consonant, the syllable is often more or less short, as it ends with a single consonant, or with more than one: as, 'Sádly, róbber; persíst, mátchless.'
(3.) "When the accent is on a semi-vowel, the time of the syllable may be protracted, by dwelling upon the semi-vowel: as, 'Cur´, can´, f~ulfil´' but when the accent falls on a mute, the syllable cannot be lengthened in the same manner: as, 'Búbble, cáptain, tótter.'"—L. Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 240; 12mo, 193.
(4.) "In this work, and in the author's Spelling-book, the vowels e and o, in the first syllable of such words as, behave, prejudge, domain, propose; and in the second syllable of such as pulley, turkey, borrow, follow; are considered as long vowels. The second syllables in such words as, baby, spicy, holy, fury, are also considered as long syllables."—Ib., 8vo, p. 241.
(5.) "In the words scarecrow, wherefore, both the syllables are unquestionably long, but not of equal length. We presume therefore, that the syllables under consideration, [i.e., those which end with the sound of e or o without accent,] may also be properly styled long syllables, though their length is not equal to that of some others."—Murray's Octavo Gram., p. 241.
OBS. 19.—Sheridan's "infallible rule, that no vowel ever has a long sound in an unaccented syllable," is in striking contrast with three of these positions, and the exact truth of the matter is with neither author. But, for the accuracy of his doctrine, Murray appeals to "the authority of the judicious Walker," which he thinks sufficient to prove any syllable long whose vowel is called so; while the important distinction suggested by Walker, in his Principles, No. 529, between "the length or shortness of the vowels," and "that quantity which constitutes poetry," is entirely overlooked. It is safe to affirm, that all the accented syllables occurring in the examples above, are long; and all the unaccented ones, short: for Murray's long syllables vary in length, and his short ones in shortness, till not only the just proportion, but the actual relation, of long and short, is evidently lost with some of them. Does not match in "match´less," sad in "sad´ly," or bub in "bub´ble," require more time, than so in "al´so," key in "tur´key," or ly in "ho´ly"? If so, four of the preceding positions are very faulty. And so, indeed, is the remaining one; for where is the sense of saying, that "when the accent falls on a mute, the syllable cannot be lengthened by dwelling upon the semi-vowel"? This is an apparent truism, and yet not true. For a semivowel in the middle or at the beginning of a syllable, may lengthen it as much as if it stood at the end. "Cur" and "can," here given as protracted syllables, are certainly no longer by usage, and no more susceptible of protraction, than "mat" and "not," "art" and "ant," which are among the author's examples of short quantity. And if a semivowel accented will make the syllable long, was it not both an error and a self-contradiction, to give "b~onnet" and "h~unger" as examples of quantity shortened by the accent? The syllable man has two semivowels; and the letter l, as in "ful fil´," is the most sonorous of consonants; yet, as we see above, among their false examples of short syllables accented, different authors have given the words "man" and "man´ner," "disman´tle" and "com pel´," "mas´ter" and "let´ter," with sundry other sounds which may easily be lengthened. Sanborn says, "The breve distinguishes a short syllable; as, m~anner."—Analytical Gram., p. 273. Parker and Fox say, "The Breve (thus ~) is placed over a vowel to indicate its short sound; as, St. H~elena."—English Gram., Part iii, p. 31. Both explanations of this sign are defective; and neither has a suitable example. The name "St. H~l=e´n~a," as pronounced by Worcester, and as commonly heard, is two trochees; but "Hel´ena," for Helen, having the penult short, takes the accent on the first syllable, which is thereby made long, though the vowel sound is called short. Even Dr. Webster, who expressly notes the difference between "long and short vowels" and "long and short syllables," allows himself, on the very same page, to confound them: so that, of his three examples of a short syllable,—"th~at, not, m~elon,"—all are erroneous; two being monosyllables, which any emphasis must lengthen; and the third,—the word "m~el´on,"—with the first syllable marked short, and not the last! See Webster's Improved Gram., p. 157.
OBS. 20.—Among the latest of our English Grammars, is Chandler's new one of 1847. The Prosody of this work is fresh from the mint; the author's old grammar of 1821, which is the nucleus of this, being "confined to Etymology and Syantax." [sic—KTH] If from anybody the public have a right to expect correctness in the details of grammar, it is from one who has had the subject so long and so habitually before him. "Accent" says this author, "is the stress on a syllable, or letter."—Chandler's Common School Gram., p. 188. Now, if our less prominent words and syllables require any force at all, a definition so loose as this, may give accent to some words, or to all; to some syllables, or to all; to some letters, or to all—except those which are silent! And, indeed, whether the stress which distinguishes some monosyllables from others, is supposed by the writer to be accent, or emphasis, or both, it is scarcely possible to ascertain from his elucidations. "The term emphasis," says he, "is used to denote a fuller sound of voice after certain words that come in antithesis; that is, contrast. 'He can write, but he cannot read.' Here, read and write are antithetical (that is, in contrast), and are accented, or emphasized."—P. 189. The word "after" here may be a misprint for the word upon; but no preposition really suits the connexion: the participle impressing or affecting would be better. Of quantity, this work gives the following account: "The quantity of a syllable is that time which is required to pronounce it. A syllable may be long or short. Hate is long, as the vowel a is elongated by the final e; hat is short, and requires about half the time for pronunciation which is used for pronouncing hate. So of ate, at; bate, bat; cure, cur. Though unaccented syllables are usually short, yet many of those which are accented are short also. The following are short: _ád_vent, _sin´_ner, _sup´_per. In the following, the unaccented syllables are long: ál_so_, éx_ile_, gán_grene_, úm_pire_. It maybe remarked, that the quantity of a syllable is short when the accent is on a consonant; as, art´, bon´net, hun´ger. The hyphen (-), placed over a syllable, denotes that it is long: n=áture. The breve (~) over a syllable, denotes that it is short; as, d~etr=áct."—Chandler's Common School Gram., p. 189. This scheme of quantity is truly remarkable for its absurdity and confusion. What becomes of the elongating power of e, without accent or emphasis, as in jun´cate, pal´ate, prel´ate? Who does not know that such syllables as "at, bat, and cur" are often long in poetry? What more absurd, than to suppose both syllables short in such words as, "~advent, sin´ner, sup´per," and then give "serm~on, f=ilt~er, sp=ir~it, g=ath~er," and the like, for regular trochees, with "the first syllable long, and the second short," as does this author? What more contradictory and confused, than to pretend that the primal sound of a vowel lengthens an unaccented syllable, and accent on the consonant shortens an accented one, as if in "âl´so" the first syllable must be short and the second long, and then be compelled, by the evidence of one's senses to mark "ech~o" as a trochee, and "détract" as an iambus? What less pardonable misnomer, than for a great critic to call the sign of long quantity a "hyphen"?
OBS. 21.—The following suggestions found in two of Dr. Webster's grammars, are not far from the truth: "Most prosodians who have treated particularly of this subject, have been guilty of a fundamental error, in considering the movement of English verse as depending on long and short syllables, formed by long and short vowels. This hypothesis has led them into capital mistakes. The truth is, many of those syllables which are considered as long in verse, are formed by the shortest vowels in the language; as, strength, health, grand. The doctrine that long vowels are necessary to form long syllables in poetry is at length exploded, and the principles which regulate the movement of our verse, are explained; viz. accent and emphasis. Every emphatical word, and every accented syllable, will form what is called in verse, a long syllable. The unaccented syllables, and unemphatical monosyllabic words, are considered as short syllables."—Webster's Philosophical Gram., p. 222; Improved Gram., 158. Is it not remarkable, that, on the same page with this passage, the author should have given the first syllable of "melon" as an example of short quantity?
OBS. 22.—If the principle is true, which every body now takes for granted, that the foundation of versifying is some distinction pertaining to syllables; it is plain, that nothing can be done towards teaching the Art of Measuring Verses, till it be known upon what distinction in syllables our scheme of versification is based, and by what rule or rules the discrimination is, or ought to be, made. Errors here are central, radical, fundamental. Hence the necessity of these present disquisitions. Without some effectual criticism on their many false positions, prosodists may continue to theorize, dogmatize, plagiarize, and blunder on, as they have done, indefinitely, and knowledge of the rhythmic art be in no degree advanced by their productions, new or old. For the supposition is, that in general the consulters of these various oracles are persons more fallible still, and therefore likely to be misled by any errors that are not expressly pointed out to them. In this work, it is assumed, that quantity, not laboriously ascertained by "a great variety of rules applied from the Greek and Latin Prosody," but discriminated on principles of our own—quantity, dependent in some degree on the nature and number of the letters in a syllable, but still more on the presence or absence of stress—is the true foundation of our metre. It has already been stated, and perhaps proved, that this theory is as well supported by authority as any; but, since Lindley Murray, persuaded wrong by the positiveness of Sheridan, exchanged his scheme of feet formed by quantities, for a new one of "feet formed by accents"—or, rather, for an impracticable mixture of both, a scheme of supposed "duplicates of each foot"—it has been becoming more and more common for grammarians to represent the basis of English versification to be, not the distinction of long and short quantities, but the recurrence of accent at certain intervals. Such is the doctrine of Butler, Felton, Fowler, S. S. Greene, Hart, Hiley, R. C. Smith, Weld, Wells, and perhaps others. But, in this, all these writers contradict themselves; disregard their own definitions of accent; count monosyllables to be accented or unaccented; displace emphasis from the rank which Murray and others give it, as "the great regulator of quantity;" and suppose the length or shortness of syllables not to depend on the presence or absence of either accent or emphasis; and not to be of much account in the construction of English verse. As these strictures are running to a great length, it may be well now to introduce the poetic feet, and to reserve, for notes under that head, any further examination of opinions as to what constitutes the foundation of verse.
SECTION III.—OF POETIC FEET.
A verse, or line of poetry., consists of successive combinations of syllables, called feet. A poetic foot, in English, consists either of two or of three syllables, as in the following examples:
1. "C=an t=y | -r~ants b=ut | b~y t=y | -r~ants c=on | -qu~ered
b=e?"—Byron.
2. "H=ol~y, | h=ol~y, | h=ol~y! | =all th~e | s=aints ~a | -d=ore
th~ee."—Heber.
3. "And th~e br=eath | ~of th~e D=e | -~it~y c=ir | -cl~ed th~e
ro=om."—Hunt.
4. "H=ail t~o th~e | chi=ef wh~o ~in | tr=i~umph ~ad |-v=anc~es!"—Scott.
EXPLANATIONS AND DEFINITIONS.
Poetic feet being arbitrary combinations, contrived merely for the measuring of verses, and the ready ascertainment of the syllables that suit each rhythm, there is among prosodists a perplexing diversity of opinion, as to the number which we ought to recognize in our language. Some will have only two or three; others, four; others, eight; others, twelve. The dozen are all that can be made of two syllables and of three. Latinists sometimes make feet of four syllables, and admit sixteen more of these, acknowledging and naming twenty-eight in all. The principal English feet are the Iambus, the Trochee, the Anapest, and the Dactyl.
1. The Iambus, or Iamb, is a poetic foot consisting of a short syllable and a long one; as, b~etr=ay, c~onf=ess, d~em=and, ~intent, d~egr=ee.
2. The Trochee, or Choree, is a poetic foot consisting of a long syllable and a short one; as, h=atef~ul, p=ett~ish, l=eg~al, m=eas~ure, h=ol~y.
3. The Anapest is a poetic foot consisting of two short syllables and one long one; as, c~ontr~av=ene, ~acqu~i=esce, ~imp~ort=une.
4. The Dactyl is a poetic foot consisting of one long syllable and two short ones; as, l=ab~our~er, p=oss~ibl~e, w=ond~erf~ul.
These are our principal feet, not only because they are oftenest used, but because each kind, with little or no mixture, forms a distinct order of numbers, having a peculiar rhythm. Of verse, or poetic measure, we have, accordingly, four principal kinds, or orders; namely, Iambic, Trochaic, Anapestic, and Dactylic; as in the four lines cited above.
The more pure these several kinds are preserved, the more exact and complete is the chime of the verse. But exactness being difficult, and its sameness sometimes irksome, the poets generally indulge some variety; not so much, however, as to confound the drift of the rhythmical pulsations: or, if ever these be not made obvious to the reader, there is a grave fault in the versification.
The secondary feet, if admitted at all, are to be admitted only, or chiefly, as occasional diversifications. Of this class of feet, many grammarians adopt four; but they lack agreement about the selection. Brightland took the Spondee, the Pyrrhic, the Moloss, and the Tribrach. To these, some now add the other four; namely, the Amphibrach, the Amphimac, the Bacchy, and the Antibacchy.
Few, if any, of these feet are really necessary to a sufficient explanation of English verse; and the adopting of so many is liable to the great objection, that we thereby produce different modes of measuring the same lines. But, by naming them all, we avoid the difficulty of selecting the most important; and it is proper that the student should know the import of all these prosodical terms.
5. A Spondee is a poetic foot consisting of two long syllables; as, c=old n=ight, p=o=or s=ouls, ~am~en, shr=ovet=ide.
6. A Pyrrhic is a poetic foot consisting of two short syllables; as, presumpt-|~uo~us, perpet-|~u~al, unhap-|p~il~y, inglo-|r~io~us.
7. A Moloss is a poetic foot consisting of three long syllables; as, De~ath's p=ale h=orse,—gre=at wh=ite thr=one,—d=eep d=amp v=a=ult.
8. A Tribrach is a poetic foot consisting of three short syllables; as, prohib-|~it~or~y, unnat-|~ur~all~y, author-|~it~at~ive, innum-|~er~abl~e.
9. An Amphibrach is a poetic foot of three syllables, having both sides short, the middle long; as, ~impr=ud~ent, c~ons=id~er, tr~ansp=ort~ed.
10. An Amphimac, Amphimacer, or Cretic, is a poetic foot of three syllables, having both sides long, the middle short; as, w~ind~ingsh=eet, l=ife-~est=ate, s=oul-d~is~eased.
11. A Bacchy is a poetic foot consisting of one short syllable and two long ones; as, th=e wh=ole w~orld,—~a gre=at v=ase,—=of p=ure g=old.
12. An Antibacchy, or Hypobacchy, is a poetic foot consisting of two long syllables and a short one; as, kn=ight-s=erv~ice, gl=obe-d=ais~y, gr=ape-flow~er, g=old-b=eat~er.
Among the variegations of verse, one emphatic syllable is sometimes counted for a foot. "When a single syllable is [thus] taken by itself, it is called a Cæsura, which is commonly a long syllable." [499]
FOR EXAMPLE:—
"Keeping | time, | time, | time,
In a | sort of | Runic | rhyme,
To the | tintin| -nabu| -lation that so | musi| -cally | wells
From the | bells, | bells, | bells, | bells,
Bells, | bells, | bells."
—EDGAR A. POE: Union Magazine, for Nov. 1849; Literary World,
No. 143.
OBSERVATIONS.
OBS. 1.—In defining our poetic feet, many late grammarians substitute the terms accented and unaccented for long and short, as did Murray, after some of the earlier editions of his grammar; the only feet recognized in his second edition being the Iambus, the Trochee, the Dactyl, and the Anapest, and all these being formed by quantities only. This change has been made on the supposition, that accent and long quantity, as well as their opposites, nonaccent and short quantity, may oppose each other; and that the basis of English verse is not, like that of Latin or Greek poetry, a distinction in the time of syllables, not a difference in quantity, but such a course of accenting and nonaccenting as overrides all relations of this sort, and makes both length and shortness compatible alike with stress or no stress. Such a theory, I am persuaded, is untenable. Great authority, however, may be quoted for it, or for its principal features. Besides the several later grammarians who give it countenance, even "the judicious Walker," who, in his Pronouncing Dictionary, as before cited, very properly suggests a difference between "that quantity which constitutes poetry," and the mere "length or shortness of vowels," when he comes to explain our English accent and quantity, in his "Observations on the Greek and Latin Accent and Quantity," finds "accent perfectly compatible with either long or short quantity;" (Key, p. 312;) repudiates that vulgar accent of Sheridan and others, which "is only a greater force upon one syllable than another;" (Key, p. 313;) prefers the doctrine which "makes the elevation or depression of the voice inseparable from accent;" (Key, p. 314;) holds that, "unaccented vowels are frequently pronounced long when the accented vowels are short;" (Key, p. 312;) takes long or short vowels and long or short syllables to be things everywhere tantamount; saying, "We have no conception of quantity arising from any thing but the nature of the vowels, as they are pronounced long or short;" (ibid.;) and again: "Such long quantity" as consonants may produce with a close or short vowel, "an English ear has not the least idea of. Unless the sound of the vowel be altered, we have not any conception of a long or short syllable."—Walker's Key, p. 322; and Worcester's Octavo Dict., p. 935.
OBS. 2.—In the opinion of Murray, Walker's authority should be thought sufficient to settle any question of prosodial quantities. "But," it is added, "there are some critical writers, who dispute the propriety of his arrangement."—Murray's Octavo Gram., p. 241. And well there may be; not only by reason of the obvious incorrectness of the foregoing positions, but because the great orthoëpist is not entirely consistent with himself. In his "Preparatory Observations," which introduce the very essay above cited, he avers that, "the different states of the voice," which are indicated by the comparative terms high and low, loud and soft, quick and slow, forcible and feeble, "may not improperly be called quantities of sound."—Walker's Key, p. 305. Whoever thinks this, certainly conceives of quantity as arising from several other things than "the nature of the vowels." Even Humphrey, with whom, "Quantity differs materially from time," and who defines it, "the weight, or aggregate quantum of sounds," may find his questionable and unusual "conception" of it included among these.
OBS. 3.—Walker must have seen, as have the generality of prosodists since, that such a distinction as he makes between long syllables and short, could not possibly be the basis of English versification, or determine the elements of English feet; yet, without the analogy of any known usage, and contrary to our customary mode of reading the languages, he proposes it as applicable—and as the only doctrine conceived to be applicable—to Greek or Latin verse. Ignoring all long or short quantity not formed by what are called long or short vowels,[500] he suggests, "as a last refuge," (§25,) the very doubtful scheme of reading Latin and Greek poetry with the vowels conformed, agreeably to this English sense of long and short vowel sounds, to the ancient rules of quantity. Of such words as fallo and ambo, pronounced as we usually utter them, he says, "nothing can be more evident than the long quantity of the final vowel though without the accent, and the short quantity of the initial and accented syllable."—Obs. on Greek and Lat. Accent, §23; Key, p. 331. Now the very reverse of this appears to me to be "evident." The a, indeed, may be close or short, while the o, having its primal or name sound, is called long; but the first syllable, if fully accented, will have twice the time of the second; nor can this proportion be reversed but by changing the accent, and misplacing it on the latter syllable. Were the principle true, which the learned author pronounces so "evident," these, and all similar words, would constitute iambic feet; whereas it is plain, that in English they are trochees; and in Latin,—where "o final is common,"—either trochees or spondees. The word ambo, as every accurate scholar knows, is always a trochee, whether it be the Latin adjective for "both," or the English noun for "a reading desk, or pulpit."
OBS. 4.—The names of our poetic feet are all of them derived, by change of endings, from similar names used in Greek, and thence also in Latin; and, of course, English words and Greek or Latin, so related, are presumed to stand for things somewhat similar. This reasonable presumption is an argument, too often disregarded by late grammarians, for considering our poetic feet to be quantitative, as were the ancient,—not accentual only, as some will have them,—nor separately both, as some others absurdly teach. But, whatever may be the difference or the coincidence between English verse and Greek or Latin, it is certain, that, in our poetic division of syllables, strength and length must always concur, and any scheme which so contrasts accent with long quantity, as to confound the different species of feet, or give contradictory names to the same foot, must be radically and grossly defective. In the preceding section it has been shown, that the principles of quantity adopted by Sheridan, Murray, and others, being so erroneous as to be wholly nugatory, were as unfit to be the basis of English verse, as are Walker's, which have just been spoken of. But, the puzzled authors, instead of reforming these their elementary principles, so as to adapt them to the quantities and rhythms actually found in our English verse, have all chosen to assume, that our poetical feet in general differ radically from those which the ancients called by the same names; and yet the coincidence found—the "exact sameness of nature" acknowledged—is sagely said by some of them to duplicate each foot into two distinct sorts for our especial advantage; while the difference, which they presume to exist, or which their false principles of accent and quantity would create, between feet quantitative and feet accentual, (both of which are allowed to us,) would implicate different names, and convert foot into foot—iambs, trochees, spondees, pyrrhics, each species into some other—till all were confusion!
OBS. 5.—In Lindley Murray's revised scheme of feet, we have first a paragraph from Sheridan's Rhetorical Grammar, suggesting that the ancient poetic measures were formed of syllables divided "into long and short," and affirming, what is not very true, that, for the forming of ours, "In English, syllables are divided into accented and unaccented."—Rhet. Gram., p. 64; Murray's Gram., 8vo, 253; Hart's Gram., 182; and others. Now some syllables are accented, and others are unaccented; but syllables singly significant, i.e., monosyllables, which are very numerous, belong to neither of these classes. The contrast is also comparatively new; our language had much good poetry, long before accented and unaccented were ever thus misapplied in it. Murray proceeds thus: "When the feet are formed by accent on vowels, they are exactly of the same nature as ancient feet, and have the same just quantity in their syllables. So that, in this respect, we have all that the ancients had, and something which they had not. We have in fact duplicates of each foot, yet with such a difference, as to fit them for different purposes, to be applied at our pleasure."—Ib., p. 253. Again: "We have observed, that English verse is composed of feet formed by accent; and that when the accent falls on vowels, the feet are equivalent to those formed by quantity."—Ib., p. 258. And again: "From the preceding view of English versification, we may see what a copious stock of materials it possesses. For we are not only allowed the use of all the ancient poetic feet, in our heroic measure, but we have, as before observed, duplicates of each, agreeing in movement, though differing in measure,[501] and which make different impressions on the ear; an opulence peculiar to our language, and which may be the source of a boundless variety."—Ib., p. 259.
OBS. 6.—If it were not dullness to overlook the many errors and inconsistencies of this scheme, there should be thought a rare ingenuity in thus turning them all to the great advantage and peculiar riches of the English tongue! Besides several grammatical faults, elsewhere noticed, these extracts exhibit, first, the inconsistent notion—of "duplicates with a difference;" or, as Churchill expresses it, of "two distinct species of each foot;" (New Gram., p. 189;) and here we are gravely assured withal, that these different sorts, which have no separate names, are sometimes forsooth, "exactly of the same nature"! Secondly, it is incompatibly urged, that, "English verse is composed of feet formed by accent," and at the same time shown, that it partakes largely of feet "formed by quantity." Thirdly, if "we have all that the ancients had," of poetic feet, and "duplicates of each," "which they had not" we are encumbered with an enormous surplus; for, of the twenty-eight Latin feet,[502] mentioned by Dr. Adam and others, Murray never gave the names of more than eight, and his early editions acknowledged but four, and these single, not "duplicates"—unigenous, not severally of "two species." Fourthly, to suppose a multiplicity of feet to be "a copious stock of materials" for versification, is as absurd as to imagine, in any other case, a variety of measures to be materials for producing the thing measured. Fifthly, "our heroic measure" is iambic pentameter, as Murray himself shows; and, to give to this, "all the ancient poetic feet," is to bestow most of them where they are least needed. Sixthly, "feet differing in measure," so as to "make different impressions on the ear," cannot well be said to "agree in movement," or to be "exactly of the same nature!"
OBS. 7.—Of the foundation of metre, Wells has the following account: "The quantity of a syllable is the relative time occupied in its pronunciation. A syllable may be long in quantity, as fate; or short, as let. The Greeks and Romans based their poetry on the quantity of syllables; but modern versification depends chiefly upon accent, the quantity of syllables being almost wholly disregarded."—School Gram., 1st Ed., p. 185. Again: "Versification is a measured arrangement of words[,] in which the accent is made to recur at certain regular intervals. This definition applies only to modern verse. In Greek and Latin poetry, it is the regular recurrence of long syllables, according to settled laws, which constitutes verse."—Ib., p. 186. The contrasting of ancient and modern versification, since Sheridan and Murray each contrived an example of it, has become very common in our grammars, though not in principle very uniform; and, however needless where a correct theory prevails, it is, to such views of accent and quantity as were adopted by these authors, and by Walker, or their followers, but a necessary counterpart. The notion, however, that English verse has less regard to quantity than had that of the old Greeks or Romans, is a mere assumption, originating in a false idea of what quantity is; and, that Greek or Latin verse was less accentual than is ours, is another assumption, left proofless too, of what many authors disbelieve and contradict. Wells's definition of quantity is similar to mine, and perhaps unexceptionable; and yet his idea of the thing, as he gives us reason to think, was very different, and very erroneous. His examples imply, that, like Walker, he had "no conception of quantity arising from any thing but the nature of the vowels,"—no conception of a long or a short syllable without what is called a long or a short vowel sound. That "the Greeks and Romans based their poetry on quantity" of that restricted sort,—on such "quantity" as "fate" and "let" may serve to discriminate,—is by no means probable; nor would it be more so, were a hundred great modern masters to declare themselves ignorant of any other. The words do not distinguish at all the long and short quantities even of our own language; much less can we rely on them for an idea of what is long or short in other tongues. Being monosyllables, both are long with emphasis, both short without it; and, could they be accented, accent too would lengthen, as its absence would shorten both. In the words phosphate and streamlet, we have the same sounds, both short; in lettuce and fateful, the same, both long. This cannot be disproved. And, in the scansion of the following stanza from Byron, the word "Let" twice used, is to be reckoned a long syllable, and not (as Wells would have it) a short one:
"Cavalier! and man of worth!
Let these words of mine go forth;
Let the Moorish Monarch know,
That to him I nothing owe:
Wo is me, Alhama!"
OBS. 8.—In the English grammars of Allen H. Weld, works remarkable for their egregious inaccuracy and worthlessness, yet honoured by the Boston school committee of 1848 and '9, the author is careful to say, "Accent should not be confounded with emphasis. Emphasis is a stress of voice on a word in a sentence, to mark its importance. Accent is a stress of voice on a syllable in a word." Yet, within seven lines of this, we are told, that, "A verse consists of a certain number of accented and unaccented syllables, arranged according to certain rules."—Weld's English Grammar, 2d Edition, p. 207; "Abridged Edition," p. 137. A doctrine cannot be contrived, which will more evidently or more extensively confound accent with emphasis, than does this! In English verse, on an average, about three quarters of the words are monosyllables, which, according to Walker, "have no accent," certainly none distinguishable from emphasis; hence, in fact, our syllables are no more "divided into accented and unaccented" as Sheridan and Murray would have them, than into emphasized and unemphasized, as some others have thought to class them. Nor is this confounding of accent with emphasis at all lessened or palliated by teaching with Wells, in its justification, that, "The term accent is also applied, in poetry, to the stress laid on monosyllabic words."—Wells's School Gram., p. 185; 113th Ed., §273. What better is this, than to apply the term emphasis to the accenting of syllables in poetry, or to all the stress in question, as is virtually done in the following citation? "In English, verse is regulated by the emphasis, as there should be one emphatic syllable in every foot; for it is by the interchange of emphatick and non-emphatick syllables, that verse grateful to the ear is formed."—Thomas Coar's E. Gram., p. 196. In Latin poetry, the longer words predominate, so that, in Virgil's verse, not one word in five is a monosyllable; hence accent, if our use of it were adjusted to the Latin quantities, might have much more to do with Latin verse than with English. With the following lines of Shakspeare, for example, accent has, properly speaking, no connexion;
"Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet;
But thou shalt have; and creep time ne'er so slow,
Yet it shall come, for me to do thee good.
I had a thing to say,—But let it go."—King John, Act iii, Sc. 3.
OBS. 9.—T. O. Churchill, after stating that the Greek and Latin rhythms are composed of syllables long and short, sets ours in contrast with them thus: "These terms are commonly employed also in speaking of English verse, though it is marked, not by long and short, but by accented and unaccented syllables; the accented syllables being accounted long; the unaccented, short."—Churchill's New Gram., p. 183. This, though far from being right, is very different from the doctrine of Murray or Sheridan; because, in practice, or the scansion of verses, it comes to the same results as to suppose all our feet to be "formed by quantity." To account syllables long or short and not believe them to be so, is a ridiculous inconsistency: it is a shuffle in the name of science.
OBS. 10.—Churchill, though not apt to be misled by others' errors, and though his own scanning has no regard to the principle, could not rid himself of the notion, that the quantity of a syllable must depend on the "vowel sound." Accordingly he says, "Mr. Murray justly observes, that our accented syllables, or those reckoned long:, may have either a long or [a] short vowel sound, so that we have two distinct species of each foot."—New Gram., p. 189. The obvious impossibility of "two distinct species" in one,—or, as Murray has it, of "duplicates fitted for different purposes,"—should have prevented the teaching and repeating of this nonsense, propound it who might. The commender himself had not such faith in it as is here implied. In a note, too plainly incompatible with this praise, he comments thus: "Mr. Murray adds, that this is 'an opulence peculiar to our language, and which may be the source of a boundless variety:' a point, on which, I confess, I have long entertained doubts. I am inclined to suspect that the English mode of reading verse is analogous to that of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Dion. Hal., de Comp., Verb. §xi, speaks of the rhythm of verse differing from the proper measure of the syllables, and often reversing it: does not this imply, that the ancients, contrary to the opinion of the learned author of Metronariston, read verse as we do?"—Churchill's New Gram., p. 393, note 329.
OBS. 11.—The nature, chief sources, and true distinction of quantity, at least as it pertains to our language, I have set forth with clearness, first in the short chapter on Utterance, and again, more fully in this, which treats of Versification; but that the syllables, long and short, of the old Greek and Latin poets, or the feet they made of them, are to be expounded on precisely the same principles that apply to ours. I have not deemed it necessary to affirm or to deny. So far as the same laws are applicable, let them be applied. This important property of syllables,—their quantity, or relative time,—which is the basis of all rhythm, is, as my readers have seen, very variously treated, and in general but ill appreciated, by our English prosodists, who ought, at least in this their own province, to understand it all alike, and as it is; and so common among the erudite is the confession of Walker, that "the accent and quantity of the ancients" are, to modern readers, "obscure and mysterious," that it will be taken as a sign of arrogance and superficiality, to pretend to a very certain knowledge of them. Nor is the difficulty confined to Latin and Greek verse: the poetry of our own ancestors, from any remote period, is not easy of scansion. Dr. Johnson, in his History of the English Language, gave examples, with this remark: "Of the Saxon poetry some specimen is necessary, though our ignorance of the laws of their metre and the quantities of their syllables, which it would be very difficult, perhaps impossible, to recover, excludes us from that pleasure which the old bards undoubtedly gave to their contemporaries."
OBS. 12.—The imperfect measures of "the father of English poetry," are said by Dryden to have been adapted to the ears of the rude age which produced them. "The verse of Chaucer," says he, "I confess, is not harmonious to us; but it is like the eloquence of one whom Tacitus commends, it was auribus istius temporis accommodata:' they who lived with him, and sometime after him, thought it musical; and it continues so even in our judgment, if compared with the numbers of Lidgate and Gower, his contemporaries: there is the rude sweetness of a Scotch tune in it, which is natural and pleasing, though not perfect. It is true, I cannot go so far as he who published the last edition of him; for he would make us believe that the fault is in our ears, and that there were really ten syllables in a verse where we find but nine: but this opinion is not worth confuting; it is so gross and obvious an error, that common sense (which is a rule in every thing but matters of faith and revelation) must convince the reader that equality of numbers in every verse, which we call Heroic, was either not known, or not always practised in Chaucer's age. It were an easy matter to produce some thousands of his verses, which are lame for want of half a foot, and sometimes a whole one, and which no pronunciation can make otherwise. We can only say, that he lived in the infancy of our poetry, and that nothing is brought to perfection at the first."—British Poets, Vol. iii, p. 171.
OBS. 13.—Dryden appears to have had more faith in the ears of his own age than in those of an earlier one; but Poe, of our time, himself an ingenious versifier, in his Notes upon English Verse, conveys the idea that all ears are alike competent to appreciate the elements of metre. "Quantity," according to his dogmatism, "is a point in the investigation of which the lumber of mere learning may be dispensed with, if ever in any. Its appreciation" says he, "is universal. It appertains to no region, nor race, nor era in especial. To melody and to harmony the Greeks hearkened with ears precisely similar to those which we employ, for similar purposes, at present; and a pendulum at Athens would have vibrated much after the same fashion as does a pendulum in the city of Penn."—The Pioneer, Vol. i. p. 103. Supposing here not even the oscillations of the same pendulum to be more uniform than are the nature and just estimation of quantity the world over, this author soon after expounds his idea of the thing as follows: "I have already said that all syllables, in metre, are either long or short. Our usual prosodies maintain that a long syllable is equal, in its time, to two short ones; this, however, is but an approach to the truth. It should be here observed that the quantity of an English syllable has no dependence upon the sound of its vowel or dipthong [diphthong], but [depends] chiefly upon accentuation. Monosyllables are exceedingly variable, and, for the most part, may be either long or short, to suit the demand of the rhythm. In polysyllables, the accented ones [say, syllables] are always long, while those which immediately precede or succeed them, are always short. Emphasis will render any short syllable long."—Ibid., p. 105. In penning the last four sentences, the writer must have had Brown's Institutes of English Grammar before him, and open at page 235.
OBS. 14.—Sheridan, in his Rhetorical Grammar, written about 1780, after asserting that a distinction of accent, and not of quantity, marks the movement of English verse, proceeds as follows: "From not having examined the peculiar genius of our tongue, our Prosodians have fallen into a variety of errors; some having adopted the rules of our neighbours, the French; and others having had recourse to those of the ancients; though neither of them, in reality, would square with our tongue, on account of an essential difference between them. [He means, "between each language and ours," and should have said so.] With regard to the French, they measured verses by the number of syllables whereof they were composed, on account of a constitutional defect in their tongue, which rendered it incapable of numbers formed by poetic feet. For it has neither accent nor quantity suited to the purpose; the syllables of their words being for the most part equally accented; and the number of long syllables being out of all proportion greater than that of the short. Hence for a long time it was supposed, as it is by most people at present, that our verses were composed, not of feet, but syllables; and accordingly they are denominated verses often, eight, six, or four syllables, even to this day. Thus have we lost sight of the great advantage which our language has given us over the French, in point of poetic numbers, by its being capable of a geometrical proportion, on which the harmony of versification depends; and blindly reduced ourselves to that of the arithmetical kind which contains no natural power of pleasing the ear. And hence like the French, our chief pleasure in verse arises from the poor ornament of rhyme."—Sheridan's Rhetorical Gram., p. 64.
OBS. 15.—In a recent work on this subject, Sheridan is particularly excepted, and he alone, where Hallam, Johnson, Lord Kames, and other "Prosodians" in general, are charged with "astonishing ignorance of the first principles of our verse;" and, at the same time, he is as particularly commended of having "especially insisted on the subject of Quantity."—Everett's English Versification, Preface, p. 6. That the rhetorician was but slenderly entitled to these compliments, may plainly appear from the next paragraph of his Grammar just cited; for therein he mistakingly represents it as a central error, to regard our poetic feet as being "formed by quantity" at all. "Some few of our Prosodians," says he, "finding this to be an error, and that our verses were really composed of feet, not syllables, without farther examination, boldly applied all the rules of the Latin prosody to our versification; though scarce any of them answered exactly, and some of them were utterly incompatible with the genius of our tongue. Thus because the Roman feet were formed by quantity, they asserted the same of ours, denominating all the accented syllables long; whereas I have formerly shewn, that the accent, in some cases, as certainly makes the syllable on which it is laid, short, as in others it makes it long. And their whole theory of quantity, borrowed from the Roman, in which they endeavour to establish the proportion of long and short, as immutably fixed to the syllables of words constructed in a certain way, at once falls to the ground; when it is shewn, that the quantity of our syllables is perpetually varying with the sense, and is for the most part regulated by EMPHASIS: which has been fully proved in the course of Lectures on the Art of reading Verse; where it has been also shewn, that this very circumstance has given us an amazing advantage over the ancients in the point of poetic numbers."—Sheridan's Rhetorical Gram., p. 64.