ble on which the Stress is laid may be
considered _long_. Our Grammarians have agreed to consider this Stress of
the Voice as _the Accent_ in English; and therefore the Accent and long
Quantity coincide in our Language."--_Ward's Practical Gram._, p. 155. As
to the vowel sounds, with the quantity of which many prosodists have
greatly puzzled both themselves and their readers, this writer says, "they
may be made as long, or as short, as the Speaker pleases."--_Ib._, p. 4.

OBS. 6.--From the absurd and contradictory nature of many of the
_principles usually laid down_ by our grammarians, for the discrimination
of long quantity and short, it is quite apparent, that but very few of them
have well understood either the distinction itself or their own rules
concerning it. Take Fisher for an example. In Fisher's Practical Grammar,
first published in London in 1753,--a work not unsuccessful, since Wells
quotes the "_28th edition_" as appearing in 1795, and this was not the
last--we find, in the first place, the vowel sounds distinguished as long
or short thus: "_Q._ How many Sounds has a Vowel? _A._ Two in general, viz.
1. A LONG SOUND, When the Syllable ends with a Vowel, either in
Monosyllables, or in Words of more Syllables; as, _t=ake, w=e, =I, g=o,
n=il_; or, as, _N=ature, N=ero, N=itre, N=ovice, N=uisance_. 2. A SHORT
SOUND, When the Syllable ends with a Consonant, either in Monosyllables, or
others; as _H~at, h~er, b~it, r~ob, T~un_; or, as _B~arber, b~itten,
B~utton_."--See p. 5. To this rule, the author makes needless exceptions of
all such words as _balance_ and _banish_, wherein a single consonant
between two vowels goes to the former; because, like Johnson, Murray, and
most of our old grammarians, he divides on the vowel; falsely calls the
accented syllable short; and imagines the consonant to be heard _twice_, or
to have "_a double Accent_." On page 35th, he tells us that, "_Long and
short Vowels_, and _long and short Syllables_, are _synonimous_
[--_synonymous_, from [Greek: synonymos]--] Terms;" and so indeed have they
been most erroneously considered by sundry subsequent writers; and the
consequence is, that all who judge by their criteria, mistake the poetic
quantity, or prosodical value, of perhaps one half the syllables in the
language. Let each syllable be reckoned long that "ends with a Vowel," and
each short that "ends with a Consonant," and the decision will probably be
oftener wrong than right; for more sy