to time, or quantity.”  He recognized, in fact, a vowel accent and a consonant accent; or, in reference to quantity, a lengthening accent and a shortening accent.  The discrimination of these was with him “THE GREAT DISTINCTION of our accent.”  He has accordingly mentioned it in several different places of his works, and not always with that regard to consistency which becomes a precise theorist.  It led him to new and variant ways of defining accent; some of which seem to imply a division of consonants from their vowels in utterance, or to suggest that syllables are not the least parts of spoken words.  And no sooner has he told us that our accent is but one single mode of distinguishing a syllable, than he proceeds to declare it two.  Compare the following citations:  “As the pronunciation of English words is chiefly regulated by accent, it will be necessary to have a precise idea of that term.  Accent with us means no more than a certain stress of the voice upon one letter of a syllable, which distinguishes it from all the other letters in a word.”—­Sheridan’s Rhetorical Gram., p. 39.  Again:  “Accent, in the English language, means a certain stress of the voice upon a particular letter of a syllable which distinguishes it from the rest, and, at the same time, distinguishes the syllable itself to which it belongs from the others which compose the word.”—­Same work, p. 50.  Again:  “But as our accent consists in stress only, it can just as well be placed on a consonant as [on] a vowel.”—­Same, p. 51.  Again:  “By the word accent, is meant the stress of the voice on one letter in a syllable.”—­Sheridan’s Elements of English, p. 55.  Again:  “The term [accent] with us has no reference to inflexions of the voice, or musical notes, but only means a peculiar manner of distinguishing one syllable of a word from the rest, denominated by us accent; and the term for that reason [is] used by us in the singular number.—­This distinction is made by us in two ways; either by dwelling longer upon one syllable than the rest; or by giving it a smarter percussion of the voice in utterance.  Of the first of these, we have instances in the words, gl=ory, f=ather, h=oly; of the last, in bat’tle, hab’it, bor’row.  So that accent, with us, is not referred to tune, but to time; to quantity, not quality; to the more equable or precipitate motion of the voice, not to the variation of notes or inflexions.”—­Sheridan’s Lectures on Elocution, p. 56; Flint’s Murray’s Gram., p. 85.