hat 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: "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 measure 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.[487] 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;[488] the former being the
stress, force, loudn