s chiefly
regulated by _accent_, it will be necessary to have a _precise idea_ of
that term. Accent with us means _no more_ than _a certain stress_ of the
voice upon _one letter_ of a syllable, which distinguishes it from all the
_other letters_ in a word."--_Sheridan's Rhetorical Gram._, p. 39. Again:
"Accent, in the English language, means _a certain stress_ of the voice
upon _a particular letter_ of a syllable which distinguishes it from the
rest, and, at the same time, _distinguishes the syllable itself_ to which
it belongs from the others which compose the word."--_Same work_, p. 50.
Again: "But as _our accent consists in stress only_, it can just as well be
placed on a consonant as [on] a vowel."--_Same_, p. 51. Again: "By the word
_accent_, is meant _the stress_ of the voice on _one letter_ in a
syllable."--_Sheridan's Elements of English_, p. 55. Again: "The term
[_accent_] with us has no reference to _inflexions_ of the voice, or
musical notes, but only means _a peculiar manner of distinguishing one
syllable of a word from the rest_, denominated by us accent; and the term
for that reason [is] used by us in the singular number.--This distinction
is made by us in _two ways_; either by _dwelling longer upon one syllable_
than the rest; or by _giving it a smarter percussion_ of the voice in
utterance. Of the first of these, we have instances in the words, _gl=ory,
f=ather, h=oly_; of the last, in _bat'tle, hab'it, bor'row_. So that
accent, with us, is not referred to tune, but to _time_; to _quantity_, not
quality; to the more _equable_ or _precipitate_ motion of the voice, not to
the variation of notes or _inflexions_."--_Sheridan's Lectures on
Elocution_, p. 56; _Flint's Murray's Gram._, p. 85.

OBS. 10.--How "precise" was Sheridan's idea of accent, the reader may well
judge from the foregoing quotations; in four of which, he describes it as
"_a certain stress_," "_the stress_," and "_stress only_," which enforces
some "_letter_;" while, in the other, it is whimsically made to consist in
two different modes of pronouncing "_syllables_"--namely, with
_equability_, and with _precipitance_--with "_dwelling longer_," and with
"_smarter percussion_"--which terms the author very improperly supposes to
be _opposites_: saying, "For the two ways of distinguishing syllables by
accent, as mentioned before, are _directly opposite_, and produce _quite
contrary effects_; the one, by _dwelling_ on the syllable, necessarily
makes