I will take first those cases in which something like the French sound has been preserved in certain single letters and diphthongs.  And this opens a curious question as to how long this Gallicism maintained itself in England.  Sometimes a divergence in pronunciation has given as two words with different meanings, as in genteel and jaunty, which I find coming in toward the close of the seventeenth century, and wavering between genteel and jantee.  It is usual in America to drop the u in words ending in our—­a very proper change recommended by Howell two centuries ago, and carried out by him so far as his printers would allow.  This and the corresponding changes in musique, musick, and the like, which he also advocated, show that in his time the French accent indicated by the superfluous letters (for French had once nearly as strong an accent as Italian) had gone out of use.  There is plenty of French accent down to the end of Elizabeth’s reign.  In Daniel we have riches’ and counsel’, in Bishop Hall comet’, chapelain, in Donne pictures’, virtue’, presence’, mortal’, merit’, hainous’, giant’, with many more, and Marston’s satires are full of them.  The two latter, however, are not to be relied on, as they may be suspected of Chaucerizing.  Herrick writes baptime.  The tendency to throw the accent backward began early.  But the incongruities are perplexing, and perhaps mark the period of transition.  In Warner’s ‘Albion’s England’ we have creator’ and creature’ side by side with the modern creator and creature. E’nvy and e’nvying occur in Campion (1602), and yet envy’ survived Milton.  In some cases we have gone back again nearer to the French, as in rev’enue for reven’ue, I had been so used to hearing imbecile pronounced with the accent on the first syllable, which is in accordance with the general tendency in such matters, that I was surprised to find imbec’ile in a verse of Wordsworth.  The dictionaries all give it so.  I asked a highly cultivated Englishman, and he declared for imbeceel’.  In general it may be assumed that accent will finally settle on the syllable dictated by greater ease and therefore quickness of utterance. Blas’-phemous, for example, is more rapidly pronounced than blasphem’ous, to which our Yankee clings, following in this the usage of many of the older poets. Amer’ican is easier than Ameri’can, and therefore the false quantity has carried the day, though the true one may be found in George Herbert, and even so late as Cowley.