OBS. 2.—­In the first observation on Prosody, at page 770, and in its marginal notes, was reference made to the fact, that the nature and principles of accent and quantity are involved in difficulty, by reason of the different views of authors concerning them.  To this source of embarrassment, it seems necessary here again to advert; because it is upon the distinction of syllables in respect to quantity, or accent, or both, that every system of versification, except his who merely counts, is based.  And further, it is not only requisite that the principle of distinction which we adopt should be clearly made known, but also proper to consider which of these three modes is the best or most popular foundation for a theory of versification.  Whether or wherein the accent and quantity of the ancient languages, Latin and Greek, differed from those of our present English, we need not now inquire.  From the definitions which the learned lexicographers Littleton and Ainsworth give to prosodia, prosody, it would seem that, with them, “the art of accenting” was nothing else than the art of giving to syllables their right quantity, “whether long or short.”  And some have charged it as a glaring error, long prevalent among English grammarians, and still a fruitful source of disputes, to confound accent with quantity in our language.[489] This charge, however, there is reason to believe, is sometimes, if not in most cases, made on grounds rather fanciful than real; for some have evidently mistaken the notion of concurrence or coincidence for that of identity.  But, to affirm that the stress which we call accent, coincides always and only with long quantity, does not necessarily make accent and quantity to be one and the same thing.  The greater force or loudness which causes the accented syllable to occupy more time than any other, is in itself something different from time.  Besides, quantity is divisible,—­being either long or short:  these two species of it are acknowledged on all sides, and some few prosodists will have a third, which they call “common.” [490] But, of our English accent, the word being taken in its usual acceptation, no such division is ever, with any propriety, made; for even the stress which we call secondary accent, pertains to long syllables rather than to short ones; and the mere absence of stress, which produces short quantity, we do not call accent.[491]

OBS. 3.—­The impropriety of affirming quantity to be the same as accent, when its most frequent species occurs only in the absence of accent, must be obvious to every body; and those writers who anywhere suggest this identity, must either have written absurdly, or have taken accent in some sense which includes the sounds of our unaccented syllables.  The word sometimes means, “The modulation of the voice in speaking.”—­Worcester’s Dict., w.  Accent.  In this sense, the