The femivowels, mutes and liquids are very short, excepting the nafal y in He brew, answering to our ng in fong, which by nature is long, particularly as founded strongly and disagreeably through the nose by the Jews in by, and e and o before n by the French in the words comment, rien, bien, bon, mon, monficur; but in English it is always founded clear of the nose agreeably, and made very fhort, fo as to be almost inaudible, by a foft and quick pronunciation, as in ftrength, fing, bleffing,

wrong.

The Welsh, Scots and Germans generally pronounce the gutturals gb, ch soft and short, not fo ftrong and rough as do the Jews and Spaniards.

Thus we see the confonants have not only a found of their own, independent of the vowels, but even quantity; which influences their measure.

This, it may be faid, is running into refinements of theory; come to the plainnefs of ufage, and the inftruction of fchools, which confider the vowels and fyllables as long and short only.

First then, according to the rules of profody, a vowel and fyllable is long in Greek and Latin by pofition, that is, fituation before two confonants, either written or pronounced, as, littus, or litus litora, and before a double confonant x, z. The English have a peculiar way of prò nouncing a vowel forcibly before a fingle confonant, fo as to double it, and at the fame time to make the vowel fhort, as fin, finner, mother, pronounced muthther.

Secondly, All diphthongs proper are long; others are common.

Thirdly, One vowel before another is generally short, and before a single confonant.

There is a great and natural propriety in the rule of a vowel long by pofition. For certainly more time is required in getting over two confonants, that is, two obstructions, than over one; and the English common vulgar pronunciation, which pays little or no regard to real accent, quantity, diftinctness, or melody, by changing the vowels, the long into the fhort, and kicking the confonants out of doors,

is exceedingly ungraceful, and oftentimes abfurd; for example, in the word industry u before s, t, r is made very fhort, contrary to all rule and nature; but John Bull will have it fo, and if you fay any thing to the contrary, he will fay, you are a blockhead, or will knock you down as readily as the confonants.

This rapidity and boiftrousness may perhaps be borne with in common utterance, but it certainly ought not to be carried into finging, poetry and oratory,

From the preceding obfervations we may draw two useful rules, that as one vowel before another, or a vowel before a fingle confonant, may make a short fyllable, so two very short fyllables will be equal in time to one short, that is, two quavers to one crotchet; as,

For those rebellious, here their priton ordained. And again, four very, very fhort fyllables are equal to one fhort, that is, four femiquavers to one crotchet, as,

FF F F

Various are the ways of God to man: or,
How various are the ways of God to man!

Immediate

FF F F

Immediate are the works of God.

These two rules may ferve to explain and render needless the exceptions and licences of three figures, called fynalæpha, fynærefis, and diarefis, affumed by the Greek and Latin Poets to abate the rigourous laws of quantity.

Synalæpha is the elision of a final vowel, or an m, before one initial, or the collifion of a vowel left out in fcanning, as in Homer,

Πολλας δε οφθιμος

In Virgil

-αλγεα εθηκε

-Multum ille et

In Milton

Above the Aonian mount

Synærefis is the coalefcence of two or three short vowels between two confonants into one, as toward, poet, being, question, or the contraction of a word by the expulfion of a very short vowel before a mute or a liquid, as ev'n, heav'nly, fou'reign, gen'ral,

lov'd, e're, o're, pris'n, fp'rit, for even, heavenly, fovereign, general, loved, ever, over, prifon, fpirit, or of a confonant, as, wou'd, ta'k, Lon'on, for would, talk, London; but there is no reason for the expulfion of a vowel or confonant in writing, either by fynalæpha or fynærefis, because the doctrine or rule of two very fhort fyllables are equal to one fhort, and two, or four very, very fhort, equal to one fhort, will make the time the fame in two, three, or four fyllables as in one.

No English reader of common underftanding wants to be informed, that even, heaven, are not to be pronounced drawlingly and flow, as two fyllables, even, heavenly, but rapidly as one fyllable, with a weak final fyllable, or rather as two very short fyllables, equal to one, as in the verse,

Before all temples the upright heart and pure

Here les and the are two very fhort fyllables to be pronounced quick as one short, with the hand up; for it fpoils the verse to join th' with upright, the hand or foot down, as printed.