Page:The plan of a dictionary of the English language - Samuel Johnson (1747).djvu/22

 to determine the accentuation of all polysyllables by proper authorities, as it is one of those capricious phænomena which cannot be easily reduced to rules. Thus there is no antecedent reason for difference of accent in the two words dolorous and sonorous, yet of the one Milton gives the sound in this line,

He pass'd o'er many a region dolorous,

and that of the other in this,

Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds.

may be likewise proper to remark metrical licences, such as contractions, generous, gen'rous, reverend, rev'rend; and coalitions, as region, question.

it is still more necessary to fix the pronunciation of monosyllables, by placing with them words of correspondent sound, that one may guard the other against the danger of that variation, which to some of the most common, has already happened, so that the words wound, and wind, as they are now frequently pronounced, will not rhyme to sound, and mind. It is to he remarked that many words written alike are differently pronounced, as flow, and brow, which may be thus registred flow, woe, brow, now, or of which the exemplification may be generally given by a distich. Thus the words tear or lacerate, and tear the water of the