e syllables of words constructed in a
certain way, at once falls to the ground; when it is shewn, that the
quantity of our syllables is _perpetually varying with the sense_, and is
_for the most part regulated by_ EMPHASIS: which has been fully proved in
the course of Lectures on the Art of reading Verse; where it has been also
shewn, that _this very circumstance_ has given us an _amazing advantage
over the ancients_ in the point of poetic numbers."--_Sheridan's
Rhetorical Gram._, p. 64.

OBS. 16.--The lexicographer here claims to have "_shewn_" or "_proved_,"
what he had only _affirmed_, or _asserted_. Erroneously taking the quality
of the vowel for the quantity of the syllable, he had suggested, in his
confident way, that short quantity springs from the accenting of
_consonants_, and long quantity, from the accenting of _vowels_--a doctrine
which has been amply noticed and refuted in a preceding section of the
present chapter. Nor is he, in what is here cited, consistent with himself.
For, in the first place, nothing comes nearer than this doctrine of his, to
an "endeavour to establish the proportion of long and short, as immutably
fixed to the syllables of words constructed in a certain way"! Next,
although he elsewhere contrasts accent and emphasis, and supposes them
different, he either confounds them in reference to verse, or contradicts
himself by ascribing to each the chief control over quantity. And, lastly,
if our poetic feet are not quantitative, not formed of syllables long and
short, as were the Roman, what "advantage over the ancients," can we derive
from the fact, that quantity is regulated by stress, whether accent or
emphasis?

OBS. 17.--We have, I think, no prosodial treatise of higher pretensions
than Erastus Everett's "System of English Versification," first published
in 1848. This gentleman professes to have borrowed no idea but what he has
regularly quoted. "He mentions this, that it may not be supposed that this
work is a compilation. It will be seen," says he, "how great a share of it
is original; and the author, having deduced his rules from the usage of the
great poets, has the best reason for being confident of their
correctness."--_Preface_, p. 5. Of the place to be filled by this System,
he has the following conception: "It is thought to supply an important
desideratum. It is a matter of surprise to the foreign student, who
attempts the study of English poetry and the structure of its verse,