etimes forsooth, "_exactly of the same nature_"! Secondly, it is
incompatibly urged, that, "English verse is _composed of feet formed by
accent_," and at the same time shown, that it partakes largely of _feet
"formed by quantity_." Thirdly, if "_we have all that the ancients had_,"
of poetic feet, and "_duplicates of each_," "_which they had not_" we are
encumbered with an enormous surplus; for, of the twenty-eight Latin
feet,[502] mentioned by Dr. Adam and others, Murray never gave the names of
more than eight, and his early editions acknowledged _but four_, and these
_single_, not "_duplicates_"--_unigenous_, not severally of "_two
species_." Fourthly, to suppose a multiplicity of feet to be "_a copious
stock of materials_" for versification, is as absurd as to imagine, in any
other case, a variety of _measures_ to be materials for producing the thing
measured. Fifthly, "_our heroic measure_" is _iambic pentameter_, as Murray
himself shows; and, to give to this, "_all the ancient poetic feet_," is to
bestow most of them where they are least needed. Sixthly, "feet _differing
in measure_," so as to "_make different impressions on the ear_," cannot
well be said to "_agree in movement_," or to be "_exactly of the same
nature!_"

OBS. 7.--Of the foundation of metre, _Wells_ has the following account:
"The _quantity_ of a syllable is the relative time occupied in its
pronunciation. A syllable may be _long_ in quantity, as _fate_; or _short_,
as _let_. The Greeks and Romans based their poetry on the quantity of
syllables; but modern versification depends chiefly upon accent, the
quantity of syllables being almost wholly disregarded."--_School Gram._,
1st Ed., p. 185. Again: "_Versification_ is a measured arrangement of
words[,] in which the _accent_ is made to recur at certain regular
intervals. This definition applies only to modern verse. In Greek and Latin
poetry, it is the regular recurrence of _long syllables_, according to
settled laws, which constitutes verse."--_Ib._, p. 186. The contrasting of
ancient and modern versification, since Sheridan and Murray each contrived
an example of it, has become very common in our grammars, though not in
principle very uniform; and, however needless where a correct theory
prevails, it is, to such views of accent and quantity as were adopted by
these authors, and by Walker, or their followers, but a necessary
counterpart. The notion, however, that English verse has less regard to
quan