quantities. "But," it is
added, "there are some critical writers, who dispute the propriety of his
arrangement."--_Murray's Octavo Gram._, p. 241. And well there may be; not
only by reason of the obvious incorrectness of the foregoing positions, but
because the great orthoepist is not entirely consistent with himself. In
his "_Preparatory Observations_," which introduce the very essay above
cited, he avers that, "the different states of the voice," which are
indicated by the comparative terms _high_ and _low, loud_ and _soft, quick_
and _slow, forcible_ and _feeble_, "may not improperly be called
_quantities_ of sound."--_Walker's Key_, p. 305. Whoever thinks this,
certainly conceives of quantity as arising from _several other things_ than
"the nature of the vowels." Even Humphrey, with whom, "Quantity differs
materially from time," and who defines it, "the weight, or aggregate
quantum of sounds," may find his questionable and unusual "conception" of
it included among these.

OBS. 3.--Walker must have seen, as have the generality of prosodists since,
that such a distinction as he makes between long syllables and short, could
not possibly be the basis of English versification, or determine the
elements of English feet; yet, without the analogy of any known usage, and
contrary to our customary mode of reading the languages, he proposes it as
applicable--and as the only doctrine conceived to be applicable--to Greek
or Latin verse. Ignoring all long or short quantity not formed by what are
called long or short vowels,[500] he suggests, "_as a last refuge_," (Sec.25,)
the very doubtful scheme of reading Latin and Greek poetry with the vowels
conformed, agreeably to this English sense of _long_ and _short_ vowel
sounds, to the ancient rules of quantity. Of such words as _fallo_ and
_ambo_, pronounced as we usually utter them, he says, "_nothing can be more
evident_ than the long quantity of the final vowel though without the
accent, and the short quantity of the initial and accented
syllable."--_Obs. on Greek and Lat. Accent_, Sec.23; Key, p. 331. Now the very
reverse of this appears to me to be "evident." The _a_, indeed, may be
close or short, while the _o_, having its primal or _name_ sound, is
_called_ long; but the first _syllable_, if fully accented, will have
_twice the time_ of the second; nor can this proportion be reversed but by
changing the accent, and misplacing it on the latter syllable. Were the
principle _true