eaker, yet it is in his power to shorten or prolong the
others to what degree he pleases."--_Sheridan's Rhetorical Gram._, p. 52.
And again: "I have already mentioned that when the accent is on the vowel,
it of course makes the syllable _long_; and when the accent is on the
consonant, the syllable may be _either long or short_, according to the
nature of the consonant, or _will of the speakers_. And as _all unaccented
syllables are short_, the quantity of our syllables is adjusted by the
easiest and simplest rule in the world, and in the exactest
proportion."--_Lect. on Elocution_, p. 66.

OBS. 12.--This praise of our rule for the adjustment of quantity, would
have been much more appropriate, had not the rule itself been greatly
mistaken, perplexed, and misrepresented by the author. If it appear, on
inspection, that "_beck, lip, cut_," and the like syllables, are twice as
long when under the accent, as they are when not accented, so that, with a
short syllable annexed or a long one prefixed, they may form _trochees_;
then is it _not true_, that such syllables are either always necessarily
and _inherently_ short, or always, "by the smart percussion of the voice,
as necessarily _made_ short;" both of which inconsistent ideas are above
affirmed of them. They may not be so long as some other long syllables;
but, if they are twice as long as the accompanying short ones, they are not
short. And, if not short, then that remarkable distinction in accent, which
assumes that they are so, is as needless as it is absurd and perplexing.
Now let the words, _beck'on, lip'ping, cut'ter_, be properly pronounced,
and their syllables be compared with each other, or with those of
_lim'beck, fil'lip, Dr=a'cut_; and it cannot but be perceived, that _beck,
lip_, and _cut_, like other syllables in general, are _lengthened_ by the
accent, and shortened only in its absence; so that all these words are
manifestly trochees, as all similar words are found to be, in our
versification. To suppose "as many words as we hear accents," or that "it
is the laying of an accent on _one_ syllable, which _constitutes a word_,"
and then say, that "no unaccented syllable or vowel is ever to be accounted
long," as this enthusiastic author does in fact, is to make strange
scansion of a very large portion of the trissyllables and polysyllables
which occur in verse. An other great error in Sheridan's doctrine of
quantity, is his notion that all monosyllables, except a