defect: "The two elements of musical metre, _time_ and _accent_, both
together constituting _quantity_, are _equally_ elements of the metre of
verse. Each _iambic_ foot or metre, is marked by a swell of the voice,
concluding abruptly in an _accent_, or _interruption_, on the _last sound_
of the foot; or, [omit this 'or:' it is improper,] in metres of the
_trochaic_ order, in such words as _dandy, handy, bottle, favor, labor_, it
[the foot] begins with a heavy accented sound, and declines to a faint or
light one at the close. The line is thus composed of a series of swells or
waves of sound, _concluding and beginning alike_. The _accents_, or points
at which the voice is most forcibly exerted in the feet, _being the
divisions of time_, by which a part of its musical character is given to
the verse, are _usually made to coincide_, in our language, with the
accents of the words as they are spoken; which [coincidence] diminishes the
musical character of our verse. In Greek hexameters and Latin hexameters,
on the contrary, this coincidence is avoided, as tending to monotony and a
prosaic character."--_Ibid._

OBS. 25.--The passage just cited represents "_accent_" or "_accents_" not
only as partly constituting _quantity_, but as being, in its or their turn,
"_the divisions of time_;"--as being also stops, pauses, or
"_interruptions_" of sound else continuous;--as being of two sorts,
"_metrical_" and "_prosaic_," which "usually coincide," though it is said,
they "often differ," and their "interference" is "very frequent;"--as being
"the points" of stress "in the _feet_," but not always such in "the
_words_," of verse;--as striking different feet differently, "each _iambic_
foot" on the latter syllable and every _trochee_ on the former, yet
causing, in each line, only such waves of sound as conclude and begin
"_alike_;"--as coinciding with the long quantities and "_the prosaic
accents_," in iambics and trochaics, yet not coinciding with these
always;--as giving to verse "a part of its musical character," yet
_diminishing_ that character, by their usual coincidence with "_the prose
accents_;"--as being kept distinct in Latin and Greek, "_the metrical" from
"the prosaic_" and their "coincidence avoided," to make poetry more
poetical,--though the old prosodists, in all they say of accents, acute,
grave, and circumflex, give no hint of this primary distinction! In all
this elementary teaching, there seems to be a want of a clear, s