OBS. 14.—­In consideration of the great authority of this grammarian, now backed by a score or two of copyists and modifiers, it may be expedient to be yet more explicit.  Of accent Murray published about as many different definitions, as did Sheridan; which, as they show what notions he had at different times, it may not be amiss for some, who hold him always in the right, to compare.  In one, he describes it thus:  “Accent signifies that stress of the voice, which is laid on one syllable, to distinguish it from the rest.”—­Murray’s Spelling-Book, p. 138.  He should here have said, (as by his examples it would appear that he meant,) “on one syllable of a word;” for, as the phrase now stands, it may include stress on a monosyllable in a sentence; and it is a matter of dispute, whether this can properly be called accent.  Walker and Webster say, it is emphasis, and not accent.  Again, in an other definition, which was written before he adopted the notion of accent on consonants, of accent on monosyllables, or of accent for quantity in the formation of verse, he used these words:  “Accent is the laying of a peculiar stress of the voice on a certain vowel or syllable in a word, that it may be better heard than the rest, or distinguished from them; as, in the word presume, the stress of the voice must be on the second syllable, sume, which takes the accent.”—­Murray’s Gram., Second Edition, 12mo, p. 161.  In this edition, which was published at York, in 1796, his chief rules of quantity say nothing about accent, but are thus expressed:  [1.] “A vowel or syllable is long, when the vowel or vowels contained in it are slowly joined in pronunciation with the following letters; as, ’F=all, b=ale, m=o=od, h=o=use, f=eature.’ [2.] A syllable is short, when the vowel is quickly joined to the succeeding letter; as, ‘art, bonn~et, h~ung~er.’”—­Ib., p. 166.  Besides the absurdity of representing “a vowel” as having “vowels contained in it,” these rules are made up of great faults.  They confound syllabic quantities with vowel sounds.  They suppose quantity to be, not the time of a whole syllable, but the quick or slow junction of some of its parts.  They apply to no syllable that ends with a vowel sound.  The former applies to none that ends with one consonant only; as, “mood” or the first of “feat-ure.”  In fact, it does not apply to any of the examples given; the final letter in each of the other words being silent.  The latter rule is worse yet:  it misrepresents the examples; for “bonnet” and “hunger” are trochees, and “art,” with any stress on it, is long.