of quantity, as
nobody could either mistake or gainsay; but, as the following platform will
show, his treatment of this point is singularly curt and incomplete. He is
so sparing of words as not even to have given a _definition_ of quantity.
He opens his subject thus: "VERSIFICATION is the proper arrangement of
words in _a line_ according to _their quantity_, and the disposition of
_these lines in_ couplets, stanzas, or in blank verse, in such order, and
according to such rules, as are sanctioned by usage.--A FOOT is a
combination of two or _more_ syllables, whether long or short.--A LINE is
one foot, or more than one.--The QUANTITY of each _word_ depends on its
_accent_. In words of more than one syllable, all accented syllables are
long, and all unaccented syllables are short. Monosyllables are long or
short, according to the following Rules:--1st. All Nouns, Adjectives,
Verbs, and Participles are long.--2nd. The articles are always short.--3rd,
The Pronouns are long or short, according to _emphasis_.--4th.
Interjections and Adverbs are generally long, but sometimes _made short by
emphasis_.--5th. Prepositions and Conjunctions are almost always _short_,
but sometimes _made long by emphasis_."--_English Versification_, p. 13.
None of these principles of quantity are unexceptionable; and whoever
follows them implicitly, will often differ not only from what is right, but
from their author himself in the analysis of verses. Nor are they free from
important antagonisms. "Emphasis," as here spoken of, not only clashes with
"accent," but contradicts itself, by making some syllables long and some
short; and, what is more mysteriously absurd, the author says, "It
_frequently happens_ that syllables _long by_ QUANTITY become _short by_
EMPHASIS."--_Everett's Eng. Versif._, 1st Ed., p. 99. Of this, he takes the
first syllable of the following line, namely, "the word _bids_," to be an
example:

"B~ids m~e l=ive b~ut t=o h=ope f~or p~ost=er~it~y's pr=aise."

OBS. 19.--In the American Review, for May, 1848, Everett's System of
Versification is named as "an apology and occasion"--not for a critical
examination of this or any other scheme of prosody--but for the
promulgation of a new one, a rival theory of English metres, "the
principles and laws" of which the writer promises, "at an other time" more
fully "to develop." The article referred to is entitled, "_The Art of
Measuring Verses_." The writer, being designated by his initia