from
the following fact, that the term _movement_ in all languages is equally
applied to both."--_Ib._ ii. 66.

[488] "From what has been said of accent and quantity in our own language,
we may conclude them to be essentially distinct _and perfectly separable_:
nor is it to be doubted that they were _equally separable_ in the learned
languages."--_Walkers's Observations on Gr. and Lat. Accent and Quantity_,
Sec.20; Key, p. 326. In the speculative essay here cited, Walker meant by
_accent_ the rising or the falling _inflection_,--an upward or a downward
_slide_ of the voice: and by _quantity_, nothing but the open or close
sound of some vowel; as of "the _a_ in _scatter_" and in "_skater_," the
initial syllables of which words be supposed to differ in quantity as much
as any two syllables can!--_Ib._, Sec.24; Key, p. 331. With these views _of
the things_, it is perhaps the less to be wondered at, that Walker, who
appears to have been a candid and courteous writer, charges "that excellent
scholar Mr. Forster--with a _total ignorance_ of the accent and quantity of
his own language," (_Ib., Note on Sec.8_; Key, p. 317;) and, in regard to
accent, ancient or modern, elsewhere confesses his own ignorance, and that
of every body else, to be _as_ "_total_." See marginal note on Obs. 4th
below.

[489] (1.) "We shall now take a view of sounds when united into
_syllables_. Here a beautiful variation of _quantity_ presents itself as
the next object of our attention. The knowledge of _long_ and _short_
syllables, is the most excellent and most neglected quality in the whole
art of pronunciation.

The disputes of our modern writers on this subject, have arisen chiefly
from an absurd notion that has long prevailed; viz. that there is no
difference between the _accent_ and the _quantity_, in the English
language; that the accented syllables are always _long_, and the unaccented
always _short_.

An absurdity so glaring, does not need refutation. Pronounce any one line
from Milton, and the ear will determine whether or not the accent and
quantity always coincide. Very seldom they do."--HERRIES: _Bicknell's
Gram._, Part ii, p. 108.

(2.) "Some of our Moderns (especially Mr. _Bishe_, in his _Art of Poetry_)
and lately Mr. _Mattaire_, in what he calls, _The English Grammar_,
erroneously use _Accent_ for _Quantity_, one signifying the Length or
Shortness of a Syllable, the other the raising or falling of the Voice in
_Discourse_."--_Br