The habit of putting the specific or predicative part of a compound first, and the habit which leads us to throw our accents back on the former part of a long word, are plainly to be regarded as an example of harmonious action between the intelligence and the sentiency of the mind.

Even when the reasons arising from the structure of a word are no longer present, there is a tendency to pursue the track which habit has created, and to throw the accent back. Many a word of French origin has thrown its accent back according to this English principle of accentuation. Here we are able to give an illustration in which Shakspeare's spelling represents his pronunciation. One of the difficulties of dealing with the whole subject of sound in language arises from the imperfections of orthography. Spelling is so traditional, and gives us so little information of the shades of pronunciation, that when we do get a little light from this niggard source, we may value it the more highly. In Richard II. we have the word revenues, and the larger number of the early prints spell it with nn. But some even of the quartos spell it with a single n according to the modern pronunciation. And if we look at the line we find that the modern pronunciation is that which reads most smoothly. So that it appears as if the diversity of spelling in this place was due to a conflict between the French and English manner of pronouncing the word.

'Towards our assistance, we do seize to us
The plate, coine, reuennewes, and moueables,
Whereof our Uncle Gaunt did stand possest.'

Richard II. ii. 1. 161.

Many a word has had its accent moved a syllable further back within the period of the last generation. The protest of the poet Rogers has often been quoted,—' Cóntemplate,'

said he, 'is bad enough, but balcony makes me sick.' Nowa-days cóntemplate is the usual pronunciation. It was already so accented by Wordsworth.

The good and evil are our own and we

Are that which we would contemplate from far.'

The Excursion, Bk. v.

The elder pronunciation is indeed still used in poetry, as

'When I contemplate all alone.' In Memoriam, lxxxii.

'Contemplating her own unworthiness.'

Enid (1859), p. 29.

The pronunciation of balcony, which seemed such an abomination to Rogers, is now the only pronunciation that is extant. The modern reader of John Gilpin, if he reads with his ear as well as his eye, is absolutely taken aback when he comes upon balcóny in the following verse :—

We often find the Americans outrunning us in our national tendencies. There are many instances in which they have thrown the accent back one syllable further than is usual in the old country. When we speak of St. Augustine, we put the accent on the second syllable, and we have no idea of any other pronunciation. But in the following verse by Longfellow we have the name accented on the first syllable.

'Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,

That of our vices we can frame

A ladder, if we will but tread

Beneath our feet each deed of shame!'

In the same way they say invalid, pártisan, not for the ancient weapon 'pertuisan,' but for the more familiar word;

and I am informed by Mr. Fraser1 that they also pronounce resources in a manner that would suggest the union of the French spelling of the word ressources, with the English trisyllabic pronunciation.

And here it may be noticed that there is to be found in English country places an excess of clustering words together in pronunciation, beyond anything that is acknowledged in the standard language. I often find it hard to understand the name of a rustic child, because the child utters Christian and surname together as one word. One little girl I well remember how she puzzled me by repeatedly telling me she was called 'An'ook.' I had to make further enquiries before I learnt that this represented Ann Hook.

The following instance is not the less to our purpose, because it is borrowed from fiction. I can myself confirm its fidelity. It is useful here, and it adds this circumstance, that the peculiar pronunciation is not from rustic lips, but comes from a lady :

:

'However, Miss Max had adopted Jameskennet (she always said the name as one word), and he had been a great comfort to them all.'—L. Knatchbull-Hugessen, The Affirmative (Macmillan's Magazine, May, 1870).

Hitherto we have been chiefly concerned with that interpretative power of sound which we call accent. We must now distinguish between accent and emphasis.

Accent is that elevation of the voice which distinguishes one part of a word from another, as in the compounds exemplified above.

Emphasis is the distinction made between one word and another, by the note or tone of its utterance.

And this may happen in two ways, either grammatically or rhetorically. The grammatical emphasis rests upon such

1 Not yet Bishop of Manchester when these pages were written.

points as the following. There are certain words which are naturally unaccented, and in a general way it may be said that the symbolic words are so. It is the province of grammar to teach us what words are symbolic and what presentive. Grammar teaches, for instance, when the word one is a numeral, and when it is an indefinite pronoun. In the former case it is uttered with as full a note as any other monosyllable; but in the latter case it is toneless and enclitic. It can hardly be a good line wherein this word, standing as an indefinite pronoun, receives the ictus of the metre, as in the following:

'Where one might fancy that the ángels rést.'

He would be an ingenious man who should devise a sentence in which this word ought to bear the accent. A writer in the Christian Remembrancer for January, 1866, undertook to shew that almost any word may be so placed as to be the bearer of emphasis. In proof of this he devised an hexameter in which a and the are emphasized :

'A man might have come in, but the man certainly never.' Thus a rhetorical emphasis can be contrived for most words. You can emphasize any word to which you can oppose a true antithesis. To the word one you can oppose in some instances the word two, or any other number. And thus one may be emphasized, as

'I asked for one, you gave me two.'

In other cases the word none would be a natural antithesis to one. But when we use the word one in the sense of the French pronoun 'on,' it is incapable of antithesis, and therefore it cannot carry emphasis. These being gram

matical distinctions, we call the emphasis which is based upon them the grammatical emphasis.

To give another example. It belongs to grammar to

direct the attention towards the antecedent referred to by any pronoun; and according as that antecedent is understood the pronoun will or will not carry emphasis.

In Psalm vii. 14, the word him admits of two renderings according to the antecedent which it is supposed to represent,

'13 If a man will not turn, he will whet his sword: he hath bent his bow and made it ready.

14 He hath prepared for him the instruments of death: he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors.'

We sometimes hear it read as if it were a reflexive pronoun, such as would be represented in Latin by sibi, in which case it is toneless. But if the reference be, as it is generally understood, to the man who will not turn,' spoken of in the preceding verse, then the reader ought to express this by an emphatic utterance of the word him, such as shall make it apparent that it is equivalent to for that man. This is again an emphasis which is used to mark a grammatical distinction. But when words grammatically identical are exposed to variations of emphasis, this is due to the exigencies of the argument, and we call such emphasis rhetorical.

This happens in the following passage with the pronoun

some:

Very likely to some phenomena there is, as yet, no explanation. Perhaps Newton himself could not explain quite to his own satisfaction why he was haunted at midnight by the spectrum of a sun; though I have no doubt that some later philosopher, whose ingenuity has been stimulated by Newton's account, has by this time suggested a rational solution of that enigma.' -Lord Lytton.

The natural tone of symbolic words is low; I came, I saw, I conquered. No one would emphasize the pronouns here. The same may be observed of the pronouns in the following quotation :

'I went by, and lo, he was gone; I sought him, but his place could no where be found.'-Psalm xxxvii. 37.