any thing but the nature of the vowels, as they are pronounced long or short;” (ibid.;) and again:  “Such long quantity” as consonants may produce with a close or short vowel, “an English ear has not the least idea of.  Unless the sound of the vowel be altered, we have not any conception of a long or short syllable.”—­Walker’s Key, p. 322; and Worcester’s Octavo Dict., p. 935.

OBS. 2.—­In the opinion of Murray, Walker’s authority should be thought sufficient to settle any question of prosodial quantities.  “But,” it is added, “there are some critical writers, who dispute the propriety of his arrangement.”—­Murray’s Octavo Gram., p. 241.  And well there may be; not only by reason of the obvious incorrectness of the foregoing positions, but because the great orthoepist is not entirely consistent with himself.  In his “Preparatory Observations,” which introduce the very essay above cited, he avers that, “the different states of the voice,” which are indicated by the comparative terms high and low, loud and soft, quick and slow, forcible and feeble, “may not improperly be called quantities of sound.”—­Walker’s Key, p. 305.  Whoever thinks this, certainly conceives of quantity as arising from several other things than “the nature of the vowels.”  Even Humphrey, with whom, “Quantity differs materially from time,” and who defines it, “the weight, or aggregate quantum of sounds,” may find his questionable and unusual “conception” of it included among these.

OBS. 3.—­Walker must have seen, as have the generality of prosodists since, that such a distinction as he makes between long syllables and short, could not possibly be the basis of English versification, or determine the elements of English feet; yet, without the analogy of any known usage, and contrary to our customary mode of reading the languages, he proposes it as applicable—­and as the only doctrine conceived to be applicable—­to Greek or Latin verse.  Ignoring all long or short quantity not formed by what are called long or short vowels,[500] he suggests, “as a last refuge,” (Sec.25,) the very doubtful scheme of reading Latin and Greek poetry with the vowels conformed, agreeably to this English sense of long and short vowel sounds, to the ancient rules of quantity.  Of such words as fallo and ambo, pronounced as we usually utter them, he says, “nothing can be more evident than the long quantity of the final vowel though without the accent, and the short quantity of the initial and accented syllable.”—­Obs. on Greek and Lat.  Accent, Sec.23; Key, p. 331.  Now the very reverse of this appears to me to be “evident.”  The a, indeed, may be close or short, while the o, having its primal or name sound, is called long; but the first syllable, if fully accented, will have twice the time of the second; nor