few small
particles, are _accented_; and that their quantity is determined to be long
or short by the _seat_ or the _mode_ of the accent, as before stated. Now,
as our poetry abounds with monosyllables, the relative time of which is
adjusted by emphasis and cadence, according to the nature and importance of
the terms, and according to the requirements of rhythm, with no reference
to this factitious principle, no conformity thereto but what is accidental,
it cannot but be a puzzling exercise, when these difficulties come to be
summed up, to attempt the application of a doctrine so vainly conceived to
be "the easiest and simplest rule in the world!"

OBS. 13.--Lindley Murray's principles of accent and quantity, which later
grammarians have so extensively copied, were mostly extracted from
Sheridan's; and, as the compiler appears to have been aware of but few, if
any, of his predecessor's errors, he has adopted and greatly spread
well-nigh all that have just been pointed out; while, in regard to some
points, he has considerably increased the number. His scheme, as he at last
fixed it, appears to consist essentially of propositions already refuted,
or objected to, above; as any reader may see, who will turn to his
definition of accent, and his rules for the determination of quantity. In
opposition to Sheridan, who not very consistently says, that, "_All_
unaccented syllables are _short_," this author appears to have adopted the
greater error of Fisher, who supposed that the _vowel sounds_ called long
and short, are just the same as the long and short _syllabic quantities_.
By this rule, thousands of syllables will be called long, which are in fact
short, being always so uttered in both prose and poetry; and, by the other,
some will occasionally be called short, which are in fact long, being made
so by the poet, under a slight secondary accent, or perhaps none. Again, in
supposing our numerous monosyllables to be accented, and their quantity to
be thereby fixed, without excepting "the _particles_, such as _a, the, to,
in_, &c.," which were excepted by Sheridan, Murray has much augmented the
multitude of errors which necessarily flow from the original rule. This
principle, indeed, he adopted timidly; saying, as though he hardly believed
the assertion true: "And _some writers assert_, that every monosyllable of
two or more letters, has one of its letters thus distinguished."--_Murray's
Gram._, 8vo, p. 236; 12mo, 189. But still