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 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.[489] 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." [490] 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_.[491]

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. Some 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 "easy Distinction betwixt _Quantity_ and
_Accent_" is cited with commendation, in Brightland's Grammar, on page
157th;[492] the author of whic