The Grammar of English Grammars

ner.

A long syllable requires twice as much time in the pronunciation, as a short one; as, hāte, hút; nite, mặt, cũne, cũn; fine, fin.”—Jauulon's Union Gram., p. 173.

(8.) "If the syllable be long, the accent is on the vowel; as, in bale, mõõd, education; &c. If short, the accent is on the consonant; as, in unt, bonnet, hunger, &c.”—Merchant's American School Gram., p. 145.

The quantity of our unaccented syllables, none of these authors, except Allen, thought it worth his while to notice. But among their accented syllables, they all include words of one syllable, though most of them thereby pointedly contradict their own definitions of accent. To find in our language no short syllables but such as are accented, is certainly a very strange and very great oversight. Frazee says, "The pronunciation of an accented syllable requires double the time of that of an unaccented one."-Frazee's Improved Gram., p. 180. If so, our poetical quantities are greatly misrepresented by the rules above cited. Allen truly says, Unaccented syllables are generally short; as, rīturn, turnīr."-Elements of E. Gram., p. 222. But how it was ever found out, that in these words we accent only the vowel u, and in such as hunter and bluntly, some one of the consonants only, he does not inform us.

Ors. 17.-As might be expected, it is not well agreed among those who accent single consonants and vowels, what particular letter should receive the stress and the mark. The word or syllable "ant," for example, is marked "an't" by Alger, Bacon, and others, to enforce the n; "ant'" by Frost, Putnam, and others, to enforce the t; "ant" by Murray, Russell, and others, to show, as they say, "the accent on the consonant!" But, in "A'NTLER," Dr. Johnson accented the a; and, to mark the same pronunciation, Worcester now writes, "ANT'LER;" while almost any prosodist, in scanning, would mark this word “antier," and call it a trochee.* Churchill, who is in general a judicious observer, writes thus: "The leading feature in the English language, on which it's melody both in prose and verse chiefly depends, is it's accent. Every word in it of more than one syllable has one of it's syllables distinguished by this from the rest; the accent being in some cases on the vowel, in others on the consonant that closes the syllable: on the vowel, when it has it's long sound; on the consonant, when the vowel is short "Churchill's New Gram., p. 181. But to this, as a rule of accentuation, no attention is in fact paid nowadays. Syllables that have long vowels not final, very properly take the sign of stress on or after a consonant or a mute vowel; as, an'gel, cham'ber, slay'er, bead'roll, sleazy, sleep'er, sleeve'less, live'ly, mindful, slight'y, sliding, bold'ness, gröss'ly, wholly, use less."-See Worcester's Dict.

OBS. 18.-It has been seen, that Murray's principles of quantity were greatly altered by himself, after the first appearance of his grammar. To have a full and correct view of them, it is necessary to notice something more than his main text, as revised, with which all his amenders content themselves, and which he himself thought sufficient for his Abridgement. The following positions, which, in some of his revisals, he added to the large grammar, are therefore cited :(1.) "Unaccented syllables are generally short: as, 'admire, boldness, sinner.' rule there are many exceptions: as, 'álso, éxile, gangrene, umpire, företaste,' &c. (2.) When the accent is on the consonant, the syllable is often more or less short, as it ends with a single consonant, or with more than one: as, 'Sidly, róbber; persist, mátchless.'

But to this

(3.) "When the accent is on a semi-vowel, the time of the syllable may be protracted, by dwelling upon the semi-vowel: as, 'Cur', can', fulfil':' but when the accent falls on a mute, the syllable cannot be lengthened in the same manner: as, 'Búbble, cáptain, tótter.'"-L. Murray's Gram., Svo, p. 240; 12mo, 193.

(4.) "In this work, and in the author's Spelling-book, the vowels e and o, in the first syllable of such words as, behave, prejudge, domain, propose; and in the second syllable of such as pulley, turkey, borrow, follow; are considered as long vowels. The second syllables in such words as, baby, spicy, holy, fury, are also considered as long syllables."—Ib., 8vo, p. 241.

(5.) "In the words scarecrow, wherefore, both the syllables are unquestionably long, but not of equal length. We presume therefore, that the syllables under consideration, [i. e., those which end with the sound of e or o without accent,] may also be properly styled long syllables, though their length is not equal to that of some others."—Murray's Octavo Gram., p. 241.

OBS. 19.-Sheridan's "infallible rule, that no vowel ever has a long sound in an unaccented syllable," is in striking contrast with three of these positions, and the exact truth of the matter is with neither author. But, for the accuracy of his doctrine, Murray appeals to "the authority of the judicious Walker," which he thinks sufficient to prove any syllable long whose vowel is called so; while the important distinction suggested by Walker, in his Principles, No. 529, between "the length or shortness of the vowels," and "that quantity which constitutes poetry," is entirely overlooked. It is safe to affirm, that all the accented syllables occurring in the examples above, are long; and all the unaccented ones, short; for Murray's long syllables vary in length, and his short ones in shortness, till not only the just proportion, but the actual relation, of long and short, is evidently lost with some of them. Does not match in "match'less," sad in "sad'ly," or bub in "bubble," require more time, than so in "al'so," key in "tur'key," or ly in "holy"? If so, four * On account of the different uses made of the breve, the macron, and the accents, one grammarian has proposed a new mode of marking poetic quantities. Something of the kind might be useful; but there seems to be a reversal of order in this scheme, the macrotone being here made light, and the stenotone dark and heavy. "Long and short syllables have sometimes been designated by the same marks which are used for accent, tones, and the quality of the vowels; but it will be better [,] to prevent confusion [,] to use different marks This mark may represent a long syllable, and this ⚫ a short syllable; as,

of the preceding positions are very faulty. And so, indeed, is the remaining one; for where is the sense of saying, that "when the accent falls on a mute, the syllable cannot be lengthened by dwelling upon the semi-vowel"? This is an apparent truism, and yet not true. For a semivowel in the middle or at the beginning of a syllable, may lengthen it as much as if it stood at the end. "Cur" and "can," here given as protracted syllables, are certainly no longer by usage, and no more susceptible of protraction, than "mat" and "not," "art" and "ant," which are among the author's examples of short quantity. And if a semivowel accented will make the syllable long, was it not both an error and a self-contradiction, to give “bōnnēt” and “húngir" as examples of quantity shortened by the accent? The syllable man has two semivowels; and the letter i, as in "fulfil," is the most sonorous of consonants; yet, as we see above, among their false examples of short syllables accented, different authors have given the words "man" and "man'ner," "disman'tle" and "com-pel"," ""master" and "let'ter," with sundry other sounds which may easily be lengthened. Sanborn says, "The breve distinguishes a short syllable; as, mănner."-Analytical Gram., p. 273. Parker and Fox say, "The Breve (thus ) is placed over a vowel to indicate its short sound; as, St. Helena."-English Gram., Part iii, p. 31. Both explanations of this sign are defective; and neither has a suitable example. The name "St. Helena," as pronounced by Worcester, and as commonly heard, is two trochees; but "Helena," for Helen, having the penult short, takes the accent on the first syllable, which is thereby made long, though the vowel sound is called short. Even Dr. Webster, who expressly notes the difference between "long and short vowels and "long and short syllables," allows himself, on the very same page, to confound them: so that, of his three examples of a short syllable," that, not', melon,"-all are erroneous; two being monosyllables, which any emphasis must lengthen; and the third,—the word "mel'on," with the first syllable marked short, and not the last! See Webster's Improved Gram., p. 157.

OBS. 20.-Among the latest of our English Grammars, is Chandler's new one of 1847. The Prosody of this work is fresh from the mint; the author's old grammar of 1821, which is the nucleus of this, being "confined to Etymology and Syantax." If from any body the public have a right to expect correctness in the details of grammar, it is from one who has had the subject so long and so habitually before him. "Accent," says this author, "is the stress on a syllable, or letter."-Chandler's Common School Gram., p. 188. Now, if our less prominent words and syllables require any force at all, a definition so loose as this, may give accent to some words, or to ail; to some syllables, or to all; to some letters, or to all-except those which are silent! And, indeed, whether the stress which distinguishes some monosyllables from others, is supposed by the writer to be accent, or emphasis, or both, it is scarcely possible to ascertain from his elucidations. 64 "The term emphasis," says he, "is used to denote a fuller sound of voice after certain words that come in antithesis; that is, contrast. He can write, but he cannot read.' Here, read and write are antithetical (that is, in contrast), and are accented, or emphasized."-P. 189. The word "after" here may be a misprint for the word upon; but no preposition really suits the connexion: the participle impressing or affecting would be better. Of quantity, this work gives the following account: "The quantity of a syllable is that time which is required to pronounce it. A syllable may be long or short. Hate is long, as the vowel a is elongated by the final e; hat is short, and requires about half the time for pronunciation which is used for pronouncing hate. So of ate, at; bate, bat; cure, cur. Though unaccented syllables are usually short, yet many of those which are accented are short also. The following are short: advent, sin'ner, sup'per. In the following, the unaccented syllables are long: álso, éxile, gángrene, úmpire. It may be remarked, that the quantity of a syllable is short when the accent is on a consonant; as, art', bon'net, hun'ger. The hyphen (-), placed over a syllable, denotes that it is long: na'ture. The breve () over a syllable, denotes that it is short; as, detract."-Chandler's Common School Gram., p. 189. This scheme of quantity is truly remarkable for its absurdity and confusion. What becomes of the elongating power of e, without accent or emphasis, as in jun'cate, pal'ate, prei'ate? Who does not know that such syllables as "at, bat, and cur," are often long in poetry? What more absurd, than to suppose both syllables short in such words as, "advent, sin'ner, sup'per," and then give "sermon, filter, spirit, gather," and the like, for regular trochees, with "the first syllable long, and the second short," as does this author? What more contradictory and confused, than to pretend that the primal sound of a vowel lengthens an unaccented syllable, and accent on the consonant shortens an accented one, as if in "âl'so" the first syllable must be short and the second long, and then be compelled, by the evidence of one's senses to mark "echo" as a trochce, and detract" as an iambus? What less pardonable misnomer, than for a great critic to call the sign of long quantity a "hyphen"?

OBS. 21.-The following suggestions found in two of Dr. Webster's grammars, are not far from the truth: "Most prosodians who have treated particularly of this subject, have been guilty of a fundamental error, in considering the movement of English verse as depending on long and short syllables, formed by long and short vowels. This hypothesis has led them into capital mistakes. The truth is, many of those syllables which are considered as long in verse, are formed by the shortest vowels in the language; as, strength, health, grand. The doctrine that long vowels are necessary to form long syllables in poetry is at length exploded, and the principles which regulate the movement of our verse, are explained; viz. accent and emphasis. Every emphatical word, and every accented syllable, will form what is called in verse, a long syllable. The unaccented sylla bles, and unemphatical monosyllabic words, are considered as short syllables."-- Webster's Philosophical Gram., p. 222; Improved Gram., 158. Is it not remarkable, that, on the same page

with this passage, the author should have given the first syllable of "melon" as an example of short quantity?

OBS. 22.-If the principle is true, which every body now takes for granted, that the foundation of versifying is some distinction pertaining to syllables; it is plain, that nothing can be done towards teaching the Art of Measuring Verses, till it be known upon what distinction in syllables our scheme of versification is based, and by what rule or rules the discrimination is, or ought to be, made. Errors here are central, radical, fundamental. Hence the necessity of these present disquisitions. Without some effectual criticism on their many false positions, prosodists may continue to theorize, degmatize, plagiarize, and blunder on, as they have done, indefinitely, and knowledge of the rhythmic art be in no degree advanced by their productions, new or old. For the supposition is, that in general the consulters of these various oracles are persons more fallible still, and therefore likely to be misled by any errors that are not expressly pointed out to them. In this work, it is assumed, that quantity, not laboriously ascertained by "a great variety of rules applied from the Greek and Latin Prosody," but discriminated on principles of our own-quantity, dependent in some degree on the nature and number of the letters in a syllable, but still more on the presence or absence of stress-is the true foundation of our metre. It has already been stated, and perhaps proved, that this theory is as well supported by authority as any; but, since Lindley Murray, persuaded wrong by the positiveness of Sheridan, exchanged his scheme of feet formed by quantities, for a new one of "feet formed by accents"-or, rather, for an impracticable mixture of both, a scheme of supposed "duplicates of each foot"-it has been becoming more and more common for grammarians to represent the basis of English versification to be, not the distinction of long and short quantities, but the recurrence of accent at certain intervals. Such is the doctrine of Butler, Felton, Fowler, S. S. Greene, Hart, Hiley, R. C. Smith, Weld, Wells, and perhaps others. But, in this, all these writers contradict themselves; disregard their own definitions of accent; count monosyllables to be accented or unaccented; displace emphasis from the rank which Murray and others give it, as "the great regulator of quantity ;" and suppose the length or shortness of syllables not to depend on the presence or absence of either accent or emphasis; and not to be of much account in the construction of English verse. As these strictures are running to a great length, it may be well now to introduce the poetic feet, and to reserve, for notes under that head, any further examinatian of opinions as to what constitutes the foundation of verse.

SECTION III.-OF POETIC FEET.

A verse, or line of poetry, consists of successive combinations of syllables, called feet. A poetic foot, in English, consists either of two or of three syllables, as in the following examples:

EXPLANATIONS AND DEFINITIONS.

Poetic feet being arbitrary combinations, contrived merely for the measuring of verses, and the ready ascertainment of the syllables that suit each rhythm, there is among prosodists a perplexing diversity of opinion, as to the number which we ought to recognize in our language. Some will have only two or three; others, four; others, eight; others, twelve. The dozen are all that can be made of two syllables and of three. Latinists sometimes make feet of four syllables, and admit sixteen more of these, acknowledging and naming twenty-eight in all. The principal English feet are the Iumbus, the Trochee, the Anapest, and the Dactyl.

1. The Iambus, or lamb, is a poetic foot consisting of a short syllable and a long one; as, betray, confess, démund, intent, degree.

2. The Trochee, or Choree, is a poetic foot consisting of a long syllable and a short one; as, hateful, pēttish, lēgăl, measure, hōly.

3. The Anapest is a poetic foot consisting of two short syllables and one long one; as, contravene, acquiesce, importune.

4. The Dactyl is a poetic foot consisting of one long syllable and two short ones; as, lābōurĕr, pōssiblě, wōnderful.

These are our principal feet, not only because they are oftenest used, but because each kind, with little or no mixture, forms a distinct order of numbers, having a peculiar rhythm. Of verse, or poetic measure, we have, accordingly, four principal kinds, or orders; namely, Iambic, Trochaic, Anapestic, and Dactylic; as in the four lines cited above.

The more pure these several kinds are preserved, the more exact and complete is the chime of the verse. But exactness being difficult, and its sameness sometimes irksome, the poets generally indulge some variety; not so much, however, as to confound the drift of the rhythmical pulsations: or, if ever these be not made obvious to the reader, there is a grave fault in the versification.

The secondary feet, if admitted at all, are to be admitted only, or chiefly, as occasional diversifications. Of this class of feet, many grammarians adopt four; but they lack agreement about the selection. Brightland took the Spondee, the Pyrrhic, the Moloss, and the Tribrach. To these, some now add the other four; namely, the Amphibrach, the Amphimac, the Bacchy, and the Antibacchy.

Few, if any, of these feet are really necessary to a sufficient explanation of English verse; and the adopting of so many is liable to the great objection, that we thereby produce different modes of measuring the same lines. But, by naming them all, we avoid the difficulty of selecting the most important; and it is proper that the student should know the import of all these prosodical terms.

5. A Spondee is a poetic foot consisting of two long syllables; as, cōld night, pōōr souls, āmēn, shrovetide.

6. A Pyrrhic is a poetic foot consisting of two short syllables; as, presumpt- | uous, perpetual, unhappily, inglorious.

7. A Moloss is a poetic foot consisting of three long syllables; as, Death's pūle hōrse,—great white thrōne,-deep damp vāūlt.

8. A Tribrach is a poetic foot consisting of three short syllables; as, prohib- | itory, unnaturally, author- | itătive, innum- | ĕrăblě.

9. An Amphibrach is a poetic foot of three syllables, having both sides short, the middle long; as, imprudent, consider, trănspōrted.

10. An Amphimac, Amphimacer, or Cretic, is a poetic foot of three syllables, having both sides long, the middle short; as, windingsheet, life-ĕstāte, sõul-diseased. 11. A Bacchy is a poetic foot consisting of one short syllable and two long ones; as, the whole world,-ă great vase,—of pūre gōld.

12. An Antibacchy, or Hypobacchy, is a poetic foot consisting of two long syllables and a short one; as, knight-sērvice, glōbe-dāisy, grāpe-flōwer, gōld-beater. Among the variegations of verse, one emphatic syllable is sometimes counted for a foot. When a single syllable is [thus] taken by itself, it is called a Cœsura, which is commonly a long syllable.'

FOR

EXAMPLE:"Keeping | time, time, | time,

In a sort of Runic | rhyme,

Bells, bells, bells."-EDGAR A. POE: Union Magazine, for

Nov. 1849; Literary World, No. 143.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.-In defining our poetic feet, many late grammarians substitute the terms accented and unaccented for long and short, as did Murray, after some of the earlier editions of his grammar; the only feet recognized in his second edition being the lambus, the Trochee, the Dactyl, and the Anapest, and all these being formed by quantities only. This change has been made on the supposition, that accent and long quantity, as well as their opposites, nonaccent and short quantity, may Oppose each other; and that the basis of English verse is not, like that of Latin or Greek poetry, a distinction in the time of syllables, not a difference in quantity, but such a course of accenting and Bonaccenting as overrides all relations of this sort, and makes both length and shortness compatible alike with stress or no stress. Such a theory, I am persuaded, is untenable. Great authority, however, may be quoted for it, or for its principal features. Besides the several later grammarians who give it countenance, even "the judicious Walker," who, in his Pronouncing Dictionary, as before cited, very properly suggests a difference between "that quantity which constitutes poetry," and the mere "length or shortness of vowels," when he comes to explain our English accent and quantity, in his "Observations on the Greek and Latin Accent and Quantity," finds "accent perfectly compatible with either long or short quantity;" (Key, p. 312;) repudiates that vulgar accent of Sheridan and others, which "is only a greater force upon one syllable than another;" * Dr. Adam's Gram., p. 267; B. A. Gould's, 257. The Latin word cæsura signifies "a cutting, or division." This name is sometimes Anglicized, and written "Cesure." See Brightland's Gram., p. 161; or Worcester's Diet., w. Cesure.

(Key, p. 313;) prefers the doctrine which "makes the elevation or depression of the voice inseparable from accent;" (Key, p. 314;) holds that, "unaccented vowels are frequently pronounced long when the accented vowels are short;" (Key, p. 312;) takes long or short vowels and long or short syllables to be things everywhere tantamount; saying, "We have no conception of quantity arising from 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."— Waiker'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 doctrino 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,* he suggests, “as a last refuge," (§ 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, an the short quantity of the initial and accented syllable."-Obs. on Greek and Lat. Accent, § 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 can this proportion be reversed but by changing the accent, and misplacing it on the latter syllable. Were the principle true, which the learned author pronounces so "evident," these, and all similar words, would constitute iambic feet; whereas it is plain, that in English they are trochees; and in Latin,-where "o final is common," either trochees or spondees. The word ambo, as every accurate scholar knows, is al

ways a trochee, whether it be the Latin adjective for "both," or the English noun for "a reading desk, or pulpit."

OBS. 4.-The names of our poetic feet are all of them derived, by change of endings, from similar names used in Greek, and thence also in Latin; and, of course, English words and Greek or Latin, so related, are presumed to stand for things somewhat similar. This reasonable presumption is an argument, too often disregarded by late grammarians, for considering our poetic feet to be quantitative, as were the ancient,-not accentual only, as some will have them,-nor separately both, as some others absurdly teach. But, whatever may be the difference or the coincidence between English verso and Greek or Latin, it is certain, that, in our poetic division of syllables, strength and length must always concur, and any scheme which so contrasts accent with long quantity, as to confound the different species of feet, or give contradictory names to the same foot, must be radically and grossly defective. In the preceding section it has been shown, that the principles of quantity adopted by Sheridan, Murray, and others, being so erroneous as to be wholly nugatory, were as unfit to be the basis of English verse, as are Walker's, which have just been spoken of. But the puzzled authors, instead of reforming these their elementary principles, so as to adapt them to the quantities and rhythms actually found in our English verse, have all chosen to assume, that our poetical feet in general differ radically from those which the ancients called by the same names; and yet the coincidence found-the "exact sameness of nature" acknowledgedis sagely said by some of them to duplicate each foot into two distinct sorts for our especial advantage; while the difference, which they presume to exist, or which their false principles of accent and quantity would create, between feet quantitative and feet accentual, (both of which are allowed to us,) would implicate different names, and convert foot into foot-iambs, trochees, spondees, pyrrhics, each species into some other-till all were confusion!

OBS. 5.-In Lindley Murray's revised scheme of feet, we have first a paragraph from Sheridan's Rhetorical Grammar, suggesting that the ancient poetic measures were formed of syllables divided

"As to the long quantity arising from the succession of two consonants, which the ancients are uniform in asserting, if it did not mean that the preceding vowel was to lengthen its sound, as we should do by pronouncing the a in scatter as we do in skater, (one who skates,) I have no conception of what it meant; for if it meant that only the time of the syllable was prolonged, the vowel retaining the same sound, I must confess as ut er an inability of comprehending this source of quantity in the Greek and Latin as in English."-Walker on Gr. and L. Accent, $24; Key, p. 331. This distinguished author seems unwilling to admit, that the consonants occupy time in their utterance, or that other vowel sounds than those which name the vowels, can be protracted and become long; but these are truths, nevertheless; and, since every letter adds something to the syllable in which it is uttered, it is by consequence a “source of quantity," whether the syllable be long or short.

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