inflect the voice upon it. Such indeed has been the guess of many
concerning the nature of Greek and Latin accents, but of the English
accent, the common idea is, that it is only a greater force distinguishing
some one syllable of a word from the rest. Walker, however, in the strange
account he gives in his Key, of "what we mean by _the accent and quantity_
of our own language," charges this current opinion with error, dissenting
from Sheridan and Nares, who held it; and, having asserted, that, "in
speaking, the voice is continually _sliding_ upwards or downwards,"
proceeds to contradict himself thus: "As high and low, loud and soft,
forcible and feeble, are comparative terms, words of one syllable
pronounced alone, and without relation to other words or syllables, _cannot
be said to have any_ ACCENT. The only distinction to which such words are
liable, is an _elevation or depression_ of voice, when we compare the
beginning with the end of the word or syllable. Thus a monosyllable,
considered singly, rises from a lower to a higher tone in the question _No?
which_ may therefore be called _the acute_ ACCENT: and falls from a higher
to a lower tone upon the same word in the answer _No, which_ may therefore
be called _the grave_ [ACCENT]."--_Walker's Key_, p. 316. Thus he tells of
different accents on "_a monosyllable_," which, by his own showing, "cannot
be said to have any accent"! and others read and copy the text with as
little suspicion of its inconsistency! See _Worcester's Universal and
Critical Dictionary_, p. 934.

[476] In Humphrey's English Prosody, _cadence_ is taken for the reverse of
_accent_, and is obviously identified or confounded with _short quantity_,
or what the author inclines to call "_small_ quantity." He defines it as
follows: "Cadence is the reverse or counterpart _to_ accent; a falling or
depression of voice on syllables unaccented: _and by which_ the sound is
shortened and depressed."--P. 3. This is not exactly what is generally
understood by the word _cadence_. Lord Kames also contrasts _cadence_ with
_accent_; but, by the latter term, he seems to have meant something
different from our ordinary accent. "Sometimes to humour the sense," says
he, "and sometimes the melody, a particular syllable is sounded _in a
higher tone_; and this is termed _accenting a syllable_, or gracing it with
an accent. Opposed to the accent, is the _cadence_, which I have not
mentioned as one of the requisites of verse, b