SECTION III.

Of Quantity, or Menfuration of the Time of Sounds, in English Speech.

THE foregoing furvey of the elements, however tirefome, appeared preparation indifpenfable for treating intelligibly the fubject proposed. In proceeding, it may ftill be neceffary, tho it is hoped no longer in equal degree, to bespeak the reader's patience.

From the elements we advance to the integrals of speech, the lowest order of which, as already defined, is that called a fyllable.

HARMONY in language then, being, in our definition, the refult of a happy combination of measure and melody; MEARURE, meaning menfuration of time, made fenfible to the ear in the flow of fpeech; and MELODY, a pleasing fucceffion of varying tones exhibited in the flow of speech, to become acquainted with the mechanifm of that harmony, we muft obferve how measures and tones exist and vary in the lowest order of the integrals of fpeech, fyllables.

A vowel, pronounced alone, is at the fame time. an element and an integral; and, tho not within the etymological import of the word fyllable, is completely of the order of things indicated by that

name.

Without a vowel can be no fyllable; and two

vowels cannot coëxift in a fyllable, unless combined in a diphthongal found. Wherever two vowels are separately heard, there are two fyllables.

But the affociation of a vowel or diphthong with one confonant, or with more confonants, to any number that the voice may combine in articulation with one vowel, will form but one fyllable: accumulation, or ill combination of confonants, may produce cacophony and indiftinctnefs; but, till a fecond vowel is heard, there can be no fecond fyllable.

But vowels, fingly conftituting fyllables, are capable of all varieties of time or quantity, from the meerest point of found, to any length to which the speaker's breath can hold; and their founds may be fo melted by the voice into each other, that, not only the differences of their quantities, but the limits of their feveral founds may be hardly, or not at all, perceptible.

These inconveniences, in the combination of vowel-founds, are remedied by the introduction of confonants. Produced by a kind of ftroke of the organs of fpeech, the effect of confonants on the ear is quick and decifive. Incapable of lengthened found, the mutes wholly, the femivowels with any advantageous refult, they unite, inftantaneously on utterance, with a following vowel, or inftantaneously stop the found of a preceding vowel, and in the fame inftant cease themfelves. The time,

or quantity, of a fyllabie then depends principally upon its vowel; but is most readily afcertained, when the limits are marked by the stroke of the organs which produces a confonant. For illuftration therefore of the length of vowels, hitherto, fyllables have generally been chofen whofe vowel is followed by a confonant, either within the fame, or, which equally anfwers the purpofe, beginning a fucceeding fyllable.

With fuch fyllables for examples, we have seen that, among the vowel-founds of English speech, two measures of time or quantity, ftrongly distinguished from each other, are found among circumftances effential to the language. Of the feven fimple vowel-founds, fix have, on fome occafions, a longer, on others, a shorter enuntiation, fo that the long is about double in time, or quantity, to the fhort: the feventh has the fhort only, and the four diphthongs only the long quantity.

Such fyllables then, wherever we find them, with fuch differences, obvious to the ear in ordinary English fpeech, as in the examples cited, will be commodious ftandards of quantity, by which to measure the length of fyllables otherwife compofed. Our first rule of quantity then may stand thus:

A SYLLABLE WITH A SHORT VOWEL, FOLLOWED BY A SINGLE CONSONANT, HAS THE JUST MEASURE OF A SHORT SYLLABLE; as the first of fathom: A SYLLABLE WITH A LONG VOWEL FOL

LOWED BY A SINGLE CONSONANT HAS DOUBLE

THE

THE TIME OF THE SHORT SYLLABLE, AND FILLS THE JUST MEASURE OF A LONG SYLLABLE; as the firft of father.

If found be added to a given found, the TIME of utterance, or the QUANTITY, muft neceffarily be increased. A fyllable, therefore, with a confonant before as well as after its vowel, must be longer than a fyllable compofed of the fame elements, with the omiffion of the first confonant. Thus, if the fyllable or has the just measure of a fhort quantity, the fyllable for should have more than the just measure of a fhort quantity. It is however not what may be difcovered by analyfis and ftudied comparison, but what is ftriking to a good ear, in the flow of fpeech, that makes a difference effential to harmony. The time of a confonant, preceding a vowel within the fame fyllable, tho unquestionably a particle of quantity, is too much of a point, to be taken into any account of rhythmical measure in the flow of language, by the moft fcrupulous ear.°

Not fo when two confonants meet. Of thefe each must have its own action of the organs; which must be either feparated, or closed, or both, for the diftinct articulation of each. Thus an interval neceffarily has place, with a delay of enuntiation, not minute, and evading obfervation,

• The claffical reader, who has given any attention to these matters, will recollect the obfervation of Dionyfius of Halicarpaffus on the words ἔδος, ῥόδος, σρόφος.

but

but large and striking to the ear. Let the words banish, baron, venom, living, body, punish, be compared with banter, barter, vender, lifting, bodkin, pungent; the first fyllables in each fet are the fame, but the difference of time neceffarily employed by the voice, before it can give the second fyllable to the ear, is striking. The first syllables are not of themselves long, in the fecond fet of examples more than in the first fet; but the two confonants requiring separate articulation, the voice is necessarily delayed by the double operation; and before the fecond fyllable can be heard, a time elapses equal to what would be requifite for the pronuntiation of a long vowel inftead of the fhort one, provided only a single confonant followed. Let the words farther, lifting, order, godly, fulfome, be compared with father, leaving, author, gaudy, foolish, and the ear will not readily decide of the firft fyllables which are the longer. Thofe of the former fet, of themselves fhort, are made long, in the compofition of fpeech; employing double time. and therefore rhythmically long; not by increase of vowel-sound, but by duplication of confonantfound.P

It is obvious that if two confonants follow a long vowel, not an uncommon circumftance in English pronuntiation, as in alter, needless, bolder, the

P The claffical reader may find, in the obfervation of this fimple difference, full explanation of fome paffages among the antient writers, Cicero particularly, which appear to have puzzled fome of the most learned among the moderns.

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measure