OBS. 23--For the determining of quantities and feet, this author borrows
from some old Latin grammar three or four rules, commonly thought
inapplicable to our tongue, and, mixing them up with other speculations,
satisfies himself with stating that the "Art of Measuring Verses" requires
yet the production of many more such! But, these things being the essence
of his principles, it is proper to state them _in his own words_: "A short
vowel sound followed by a double consonantal sound, usually makes a _long_
quantity;[506] so also does a long vowel like _y_ in _beauty_, before a
consonant. The _metrical accents_, which _often differ from the prosaic_,
mostly fall upon the heavy sounds; _which must also be prolonged in
reading_, and never slurred or lightened, unless to help out a bad verse.
In our language _the groupings of the consonants furnish a great number of
spondaic feet_, and give the language, especially its more ancient forms,
as in the verse of Milton and the prose of Lord Bacon, a grand and solemn
character. One vowel followed by another, unless the first be _naturally
made long_ in the reading, makes a short quantity, as in _th[=e] old_. So,
also, a short vowel followed by a single short consonant, gives a short
_time_ or _quantity_, as in _toe give_. [Fist] A great variety of rules for
the detection of long and short quantities _have yet to be invented_, or
applied from the Greek and Latin prosody. _In all languages they are of
course the same_, making due allowance for difference of organization; but
it is as absurd to suppose that the Greeks should have a system of prosody
differing in principle from our own, as that their rules of musical harmony
should be different from the modern. Both result from the nature of the ear
and of _the organ of speech_, and are consequently _the same_ in all ages
and nations."--_Am. Rev._, Vol. i, p. 488.

OBS. 24.--QUANTITY is here represented as "_time_" only. In this author's
first mention of it, it is called, rather less accurately, "_the division
into measures of time_." With too little regard for either of these
conceptions, he next speaks of it as including both "_time and accent_."
But I have already shown that "_accents_ or _stresses_" cannot pertain to
_short_ syllables, and therefore cannot be ingredients of quantity. The
whole article lacks that _clearness_ which is a prime requisite of a sound
theory. Take all of the writer's next paragraph as an example of this