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 letters, is produced by the character and occasion of what is uttered. It is noticed by Walker, that, "Some of the vowels, when neither under the accent, nor closed by a consonant, have a longer or a shorter, an opener or a closer sound, according to the solemnity or familiarity, the deliberation or rapidity of our delivery."&mdash;Pronouncing Dict., Preface, p. 4. In cursory speech, or in such reading as imitates it, even the best scholars utter many letters with quicker and obscurer sounds than ought ever to be given them in solemn discourse. "In public speaking," says Rippingham, "every word should be uttered, as though it were spoken singly. The solemnity of an oration justifies and demands such scrupulous distinctness. That careful pronunciation which would be ridiculously pedantic in colloquial intercourse, is an essential requisite of good elocution."&mdash;Art of Public Speaking, p. xxxvii.

ARTICLE II&mdash;OF QUANTITY.
, or in pronunciation, is the measure of sounds or syllables in regard to their duration; and, by way of distinction, is supposed ever to determine them to be either long or short. [471] According to Johnson, Walker, Webster, Worcester, and perhaps all other lexicographers, Quantity, in grammar, is&mdash;"The measure of time in pronouncing a syllable." And, to this main idea, are conformed, so far as I know, all the different definitions ever given of it by grammarians and critics, except that which appeared in Asa Humphrey's English Prosody, published in 1847. In this work&mdash;the most elaborate and the most comprehensive, though not the most accurate or consistent treatise we have on the subject&mdash;Time and Quantity are explained separately, as being "two distinct things;" and the latter is supposed not to have regard to duration, but solely to the amount of sound given to each syllable.

This is not only a fanciful distinction, but a radical innovation&mdash;and one which, in any view, has little to recommend it. The author's explanations of both time and quantity&mdash;of their characteristics, differences, and subdivisions&mdash;of their relations to each other, to poetic numbers, to emphasis and cadence, or to accent and non-accent&mdash;as well as his derivation and history of "these technical terms, time and quantity"&mdash;are hardly just or clear enough to be satisfactory. According to his theory, "Poetic numbers are composed of long and short syllables alternately;" (page 5;) but the difference or proportion between the times of these classes of syllables he holds to be indeterminable, "because their lengths are various." He began with destroying the proper distinction of quantity, or time, as being either long or short, by the useless recognition of an indefinite number of "intermediate lengths;" saying of our syllables at large, "some are, some , and some are of ; as, mat, not, con, &c. are short sounds; mate, note, cone, and grave are long. Some of our diphthongal sounds are ; as, voice, noise, sound, bound, &c. are seen to be of  lengths."&mdash;Humphrey's Prosody, p. 4.

On a scheme like this, it must evidently be impossible to determine, with any certainty, either what syllables are long and what short, or what is the difference or ratio between any two of the innumerable "lengths" of that time, or quantity, which is long, short, variously intermediate, or longer still, and again variously intermediate! No marvel then that the ingenious author scans some lines in a manner peculiar to himself.

The absolute time in which syllables are uttered, is very variable, and must be different to suit different subjects, passions, and occasions; but their relative length or shortness may nevertheless be preserved, and generally must be, especially in reciting poetry.

Our long syllables are chiefly those which, having sounds naturally capable of being lengthened at pleasure, are made long by falling under some stress either of accent or of emphasis. Our short syllables are the weaker sounds, which, being the less significant words, or parts of words, are uttered without peculiar stress.

OBS.&mdash;As quantity is chiefly to be regarded in the utterance of poetical compositions, this subject will be farther considered under the head of Versification.

ARTICLE III.&mdash;OF ACCENT.
, as commonly understood, is the peculiar stress which we lay upon some particular syllable of a word, whereby that syllable is distinguished from and above the rest; as, gram'-mar, gram-ma'-ri-an.

Every word of more than one syllable, has one of its syllables accented; and sometimes a compound word has two accents, nearly equal in force; as, e'ven-hand'ed, home'-depart'ment.