of the voice. It is
founded upon an obscure perception of symmetry, and proportion, between the
different sounds that are uttered."--_Noehden's Grammar of the German
Language_, p. 66.

[471] According to Johnson, Walker, Webster, Worcester, and perhaps all
other lexicographers, _Quantity_, in grammar, is--"The measure of _time_ in
pronouncing a _syllable_." And, to this main idea, are conformed, so far as
I know, all the different definitions ever given of it by grammarians and
critics, except that which appeared in Asa Humphrey's English Prosody,
published in 1847. In this work--the most elaborate and the most
comprehensive, though not the most accurate or consistent treatise we have
on the subject--_Time_ and _Quantity_ are explained separately, as being
"_two distinct things_;" and the latter is supposed not to have regard to
_duration_, but solely to the _amount_ of sound given to each syllable.

This is not only a fanciful distinction, but a radical innovation--and one
which, in any view, has little to recommend it. The author's explanations
of both _time_ and _quantity_--of their characteristics, differences, and
subdivisions--of their relations to each other, to poetic numbers, to
emphasis and cadence, or to accent and non-accent--as well as his
derivation and history of "these technical terms, _time_ and
_quantity_"--are hardly just or clear enough to be satisfactory. According
to his theory, "Poetic numbers are composed of _long_ and _short_ syllables
alternately;" (page 5;) but the difference or proportion between the times
of these classes of syllables he holds to be _indeterminable_, "because
their lengths are various." He began with destroying the proper distinction
of quantity, or time, as being _either long or short_, by the useless
recognition of an indefinite number of "_intermediate lengths_;" saying of
our syllables at large, "some are LONG, some SHORT, and some are of
INTERMEDIATE LENGTHS; as, _mat, not, con_, &c. are short sounds; _mate,
note, cone_, and _grave_ are long. Some of our diphthongal sounds are
LONGER STILL; as, _voice, noise, sound, bound_, &c. OTHERS are seen to be
of INTERMEDIATE _lengths_."--_Humphrey's Prosody_, p. 4.

On a scheme like this, it must evidently be impossible to determine, with
any certainty, either what syllables are _long_ and what _short_, or what
is the difference or ratio between _any two_ of the innumerable "lengths"
of that time, or quantity, which is _long, s