PLACE AND POWER OF ACCENT IN LANGUAGE. 273 



which affects whole sentences and clauses, or national accent, which, in addition 

 to rhetorical accent, often includes some favourite sound, note, or vocal man- 

 nerism characteristic of different peoples. 



The general question to which we shall now attempt a scientific answer is 

 the following — What are the great leading principles on which accent, as a 

 phenomenon of articulate speech, depends ? Are there any such principles, or is 

 it a matter of mere arbitrary association, fashion, and habit ? and in the com- 

 parison of different languages what is the standard of value in respect of their 

 accentual character % Does sesthetical science contain any general rules which 

 might enable us to measure the value of accents, as we do the value of sounds in 

 language, when, for instance, we say that Italian is a more harmonious language 

 than Gaelic, and Greek a more euphonious language than Latin % In answering 

 this question, I would remark, in the first place, that there is no such thing as 

 a language altogether without accent ; only a machine could produce a con- 

 tinuous series of sounds in undistinguished monotonous repetitions like the Mm, 

 turn, tlim of a drum ; a rational being using words for a rational purpose to 

 manifest his thoughts and feelings, necessarily accents both words and sentences 

 in some way or other. When, therefore, we find it stated in Adam Smith's 

 Essay on Language, and other English writers, that the French have no accent 

 in their words, this is either a gross mistake, or it must be understood to mean 

 that the French do not give such a decided and marked preponderance to one 

 syllable of the word as the English do ; which is very true, as any man may see in 

 comparing the English velocity with the French velocite. But this is merely a 

 difference in the quantity and quality of accent, not a contrast betwixt accent 

 and no accent. The second postulate of all rational discussion on this subject 

 is, that the significant utterance of articulate breath, like every other mani- 

 festation of reason-moulded sense, is a part of sesthetical science, and subject 

 to the same necessary laws which determine the excellence of a picture, a poem, 

 or a piece of music. No doubt in the enunciation of words, as in all the fine 

 arts, fashion may often prevail to such an extent, as in some cases to usurp the 

 place of reason and propriety; but the prevalence of false taste in any depart- 

 ment of art does not effect the certainty of the eternal principles by which it is 

 regulated, any more than the prevalence of murders or lies amongst any people 

 can take away from the essential superiority of love to hatred, and of truth to 

 falsehood in all societies of reasonable beings. We are, therefore, justly entitled 

 to look for a standard of excellence in the matter of orthoepy, no less certain 

 than the standard of truth in morals or mathematics ; as, indeed, all things in 

 the world being either directly or indirectly the necessary effluence of the 

 Divine reason, must, in their first roots and foundations, be equally rational and 

 equally necessary. Now, in looking for the necessary conditions on which the 



VOL. XXVI. PART II. 4 B 



