As those sounds, therefore, which are the most generally received among the learned and polite, as well as the bulk of speakers, are the most legitimate, we may conclude that a majority of two of these states ought always to concur, in order to constitute what is called good usage.

But though custom, when general, is commonly well understood, there are several states and degrees of it which are exceedingly obscure and equivocal; and the only method of knowing the extent of custom in these cases, seems to be an inspection of those Dictionaries which professedly treat of pronunciation We have now so many works of this kind, that the general current of custom, with respect to the sound of words, may be collected from them with almost as much certainty as the general sense of words from Johnson. An exhibition of the opinions of orthoepists about the sound of words always appeared to me a very rational method of determining what is called custom. This method I have adopted in the following work; and if I have sometimes dissented from the majority, it has been, either from a persuasion of being better informed of what was the actual custom of speaking, or from a partiality to the evident analogies of the language.

And here I must entreat the candid reader to make every reasonable allowance for the freedom with which I have criticised other writers on this subject, and particularly Mr. Sheridan. As a man, a gentleman, and a scholar, I knew Mr. Sheridan, and respected him; and think every lover of elocution owes him a tribute of thanks for his unwearied addresses to the Publick, to rouse them to the study of the delivery of their native tongue. But this tribute, however just, does not exempt him from examination. His credit with the world necessarily subjects him to animadversion, be. cause the errors of such a writer are dangerous in proportion to his reputation: this has made mo zealous to remark his inaccuracies, but not without giving my reasons; nor have I ever taken advantage of such faults as may be called inadvertencies. On the same principles I have ventured to criticise Dr. Johnson,t whose friendship and advice I was honoured with, whose memory I love, and whose intellectual powers impress me with something like religious veneration and awe. I do not pretend to be exempt from faults myself. In a work like the present, it would be a miracle to escape them; nor have I the least idea of deciding as judge, in a case of so much delicacy and importance as the pronunciation of a whole people; I have only assumed the part of an advocate to plead the cause of consistency and analogy; and, where custom is either silent or dubious, to tempt the lovers of their language to incline to the side of propriety: so that my design is principally to give a kind of history of pronunciation, and a register of its present state; and, where the authorities of Dictionaries or Speakers are found to differ, to give such a display of the analogies of the language as may enable every inspector to decide for himself.

With respect to the explanation of words, except in very few instances, I have scrupulously followed Dr. Johnson. His Dictionary has been deemed lawful plunder by every subsequent Lexicoapher, and so servilely has it been copied, that such words as he must have omitted merely by mistake, as Predilection, Respectable, Descriptive, Sulky, Inimical, Interference, and many others, are neither in Mr. Sheridan's, Dr. Kenrick's, nor several other Dictionaries.

ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE THIRD ENGLISH EDITION.

THE rapid sale of the Second Edition of this Dictionary called upon me for a Third, at a time of life, and in a state of health, little compatible with the drudgery and attention necessary for the execution of it: but as I expected such a call, was not unmindful of whatever might tend to render it still more worthy of the acceptance of the Publick; and therefore collected many words, which, though not found in Dictionaries, were constantly to be met with in polite and literary conversation, and which were well deserving of a place in the language, as soon as written authorities could be produced for them Some of these authorities I have produced, and have left others to the attention of those who have more leisure and better health. In the midst of the impression of the present work, I met with Ma son's Supplement to Johnson, and found several words worthy of insertion, but have carefully ac knowledged the obligation; and take this opportunity of thanking that gentleman for the benefit I have derived from his Supplement, which I think, if continued, admirably calculated for the im provement and stability of the language.

But as the great object of the present Dictionary was pronunciation, I was very solicitous to be as accurate as possible on this point, and therefore neglected no opportunity of informing myself where I was in the least doubtful, and of correcting myself where there was the least shadow of an error. These occasions, however, were not very numerous. To a man born, as I was, within a few miles of the Capital, living in the Capital almost my whole life, and exercising myself there in public speak ing for many years; to such a person, if to any one, the true pronunciation of the language must be very familiar and to this familiarity I am indebted for the security I have felt in deciding upon the sounds of several syllables, which nothing but an infantine pronunciation could determine. If I may borrow an allusion from musick, I might observe, that there is a certain tune in every language to which the ear of a native is set, and which often decides on the preferable pronunciation, though entirely ignorant of the reasons for it.

But this vernacular instinct, as it may be called, has been seconded by a careful investigation of the analogics of the language. Accent and Quantity, the great efficients of pronunciation, are sel dom mistaken by people of education in the Capital; but the great bulk of the Nation, and those

The inspector will be pleased to take notice, that my observations on Mr. Sheridan's Dictionary relate to the first edition, published in his life-time, and the second, some time after his death: whatever alterations may have bee made by his subsequent editors, I am totally unacquainted with.

Bee Sceptisk, Scirrhus Codie, Further, &c.

who form the most important part of it, are without these advantages, and therefore want such a guide to direct them as is here offered. Even polite and literary people, who speak only from the ear, will find that this organ will, in a thousand instances, prove but a very uncertain guide, without a knowledge of those principles by which the ear itself is insensibly directed, and which, having their origin in the nature of language, operate with steadiness and regularity in the midst of the ficklest affectation and caprice. It can scarcely be supposed that the most experienced speaker has heard every word in the language, and the whole circle of sciences pronounced exactly as it ought to be and if this be the case, he must sometimes have recourse to the principles of pronunciation woen his ear is either uninformed or unfaithful These principles are those general laws of articulation which determine the character, and fix the boundaries of every language as in every system of speaking, however irregular, the organs must necessarily fall into some common mode of enunciation, or the purpose of Providence in the gift of speech would be absolutely defeated. These laws, like every other object of philosophical inquiry, are only to be traced by an attentive observation and enume. ration of particulars; and when these particulars are sufficiently numerous to form a general rule, an axiom in pronunciation is acquired. By an accumulation of these axioms, and an analogical com parison of them with each other, we discover the deviations of language where custom has varied, and the only clew to guide us where custom is either indeterminate or obscure.

Thus, by a view of the words ending in ity or ety, I find the accent invariably placed on the prece ding syllable, as in diversity, congruity, &c. On a closer inspection, I find every vowel in this ante. penultimate syllable, when no consonant intervenes, pronounced long, as deity, piety, &c.; a nearer observation shows me, that if a consonant intervene, every vowel in this syllable but u contracts it self, and is pronounced short, as severity, curiosity, impunity, &c. and therefore that chastity and obscenity ought to be pronounced with the penultiraate vowel short, and not as in chaste and obscene, as we frequently hear them. I find too, that even u contracts itself before two consonants, as cur'vity, taciturnity, &c. and that scarcity and rarity, (for whose irregularity good reasons may be given) are the only exceptions to this rule throughout the language. And thus we have a series of near seven hundred words, the accentuation of which, as well as the quantity of the accented vowel, are reduced to two or three simple rules.

The same uniformity of accentuation and quantity may be observed in the first syllable of those words which have the accent on the third, as dem-on-stra'tion, dim-i-nu'tion, lu-cu-bra'tion,* &c. where we evidently perceive a stress on the first syllable shortening every vowel but u, and this in every word throughout the language, except where two consonants follow the u, as in cur-vi-lin'e-ar; or where two vowels follow the consonant that succeeds any other vowel in the first syllable, as de-vi-a'. tion; or, lastly, where the word is not evidently of our own composition, as re-con-vey' but as u in the first syllable of a word, having the accent on the third, has tue same tendency to length and openness as was observable when it preceded the termination ity, I find it necessary to separate it from the consonant in bu-ty-ra'ceous, which I have never heard pronounced, as well as in -cu-bration, which I have, and this from no pretended agreement with the quantity of the Latin words these are derived from; for, in the former word, the u is doubtful but, from the general system of quantity I see adopted in English pronunciation, this only will direct an English ear with certainty; for, though we may sometimes place the accent on words we borrow from the Greek or Latin on the same syl lable as in those languages, as acumen, elegi'ac, &c.; nay, though we sometimes adopt the accent o the original with every word of the same termination we derive from it, as assiduity, vidu'ity, &c yet the quantity of the accented vowel is so often contrary to that of the Latin and Greek, that not a shadow of a rule can be drawn, in this point, from these languages to ours. Thus, in the letter in question, in the Latin accumulo, dubius, tumor, &c. the first u is every where short; but in the English words accumulate, dubious, tumour, every where long. Nuptialis, murmur, turbulentus, &c. where the u in the first syllable in Latin is long, we as constantly pronounce it short in ruptial, murmur, tubulent &c. Nor indeed can we wonder that a different œconomy of quantity is observable in the ancient and modern languages, as in the former, two consonants almost always lengthen the preceding vowel, and in the latter as constantly shorten it. Thus, without arguing in a vicious circle, we find, that as a division of the generality of words, as they are actually pronounced, gives us the general laws of syllabication, so these laws, once understood, direct us in the division of such words as we have never heard actually pronounced, and consequently to the true pror unciation of them. For these operations, like cause and effect, reflect mutually a light on each other, and prove, that by nicely observ ing the path which custom in language has once taken, we can more than guess at the line she must keep in a similar case, where her footsteps are not quite so discernible. So true is the observation of Scaliger: Ita omnibus in rebus certissima ratione suoi ipsa respondet natura. De causis Ling. Lat.

Rules to be observed by the Natives of IRELAND, in order to obtain a just Pronunciation of English. As Mr. Sheridan was a native of Ireland, and had the best opportunities of understanding those peculiarities of pronunciation which obtain there, I shall extract his observations on that subject as the best general direction, and add a few of my own, by way of supplement, which I hope will render this article of instruction suill more complete.

The reader will be pleased to take notice, that as I have made a different arrangement of the vow els, and have adopted a notation different from Mr Sheridan, I am obliged to make use of different figures to mark the vowels, but still such as perfectly correspond to his

The chief mistakes made by the Irish in pronouncing English, lie for the most part in the sounds "of the two hrst vowels, a and e; the former being generally sounded å by the Irish, as in the word "bår, in most words where it is pronounced à, as in day, by the English. Thus the Irish say, patron, matron, the vowel & having the same sound as in the word father; whilst the English pronounce them "as if written paytron, maytron. The following rule, strictly attended to, will rectify this mistake "through the whole language.

"When the vowel a finishes a syllable, and has the accent on it, it is invariably pronounced å [day] "by the English. To this rule there are but three exceptions in the whole language, to be found "in the words father, papá, mainmå. The Irish may think also the word rather an exception, as well "as father; and so it would appear to be in their manner of pronouncing it råther, laying the accent

*See Principles, No. 524, 527, 530.

1 See Principles, No. 544, 545,

on the vowel a, but in the English pronunciation the consonant th is taken into the first syllable as thus, rath'e which makes the difference

"Whenever a consonant follows the vowel a in the same syllable, and the accent is on the conso "nant, the vowel a has always its fourth sound, as hât, mân; as also the same sound lengthened "when it precedes the letter r, as får, bår, though the accent be on the vowel; as likewise when it pre "cedes im, as balm, psalm. The Irish, ignorant of is latter exception, pronounce all words of that structure as if they were written hawm, psawm, quawm, caum, &c. In the third sound of a, marked by "different combinations of vowels or consonants, such as au, in Paul; aw, in law; all, in call; ald "in bald; alk, in talk, &c. the Irish make no mistake, except in that of lm, as before mentioned. "The second vowel, e, is for the most part sounded ee by the English, when the accent is upon it; "whilst the Irish in most words give it the sound of slender à, as in hate This sound of è [ee] is marked by different combinations of vowels, such as, final mute, ee, and ie. In the two last "combinations of ee and ie, the Irish never mistake; as meet, seem, field, believe, &c.; but in all the others, they almost universally change the und of è into à. Thus in the combination they pronounce the words tea, sea, please, as if they were spelt tay, say, plays; instead of teen see, pleese. The English constantly give this sound to ea whenever the accent is on the vowel e, ex cept in the following words, great, a pear, a bear, to bear, to forbear, to swear, to lear, to wear In all "which the e has the sound of a in hate. For want of knowing these exceptions, the gentlemen of "Ireland, after some time of residence in London, are apt to fall into the general rule, and pro nounce these words as if spelt greet, beer, sweer, &c.

"

ea,

"Ei is also sounded ee by the English, and as a by the Irish; thus the word decent, receive, are pro"nounced by them as if written desate, resave. E is always sounded e, except when a g follows it ❤as in the words reign, feign, deign, &c.; as also in the words rein (of a bridle,) rein-deer, vein, drein, veil, heir, which are pronounced like rain, vain, drain, vail, ar

"

ee,

"The final mute e, makes the preceding e in the same syilable, when accented, have the sound of as in the words suprème, sincère, replète. This rule is almost universally broken through by "the Irish, who pronounce all such words as if written suprame, sinsåre, replate, &c There are "but two exceptions to this rule in the English pronunciation, which are the words there, where. "In the way of marking this sound, by a double e, as thus ee, as the Irish never make any mistake "the best method for all who want to acquire the right pronunciation of these several combination "is, to suppose that ea, ei, and e, attended by a final mute e, are all spelt with a double e, or e.

"Ey is always sounded like a by the English when the accent is upon it, as in the words prey, convey, pronounced, pray, convay. To this there are but two exceptions, in the words key and ley, "sounded kee, lee. The Irish, in attempting to pronounce like the English, often give the same sound "to ey as usually belongs to ei; thus for prey, convey, they say pree, convee.

"A strict observation of these few rules, with a due attention to the very few exceptions enume"rated above, will enable the well-educated natives of Ireland to pronounce their words exactly in "the same way as the more polished part of the inhabitants of England do, so far as the vowels ares "concerned. The diphthongs they commit no fault in, except in the sound of i, which has been al"ready taken notice of in the Grammar: where, likewise, the only difference in pronouncing any "of the consonants has been pointed out; which is the thickening the sounds of d and t, in certain "situations; and an easy method proposed of correcting this habit.f

"In order to complete the whole, I shall now give a list of such detached words that do not come un"der any of the above rules, as are pronounced differently in Ireland from what they are in England.

"Vide p. 11. where the true manner of pronouncing the diphthong 1 is pointed out; the Irish pronouncing it much in the same manner as the French.'

The letter d has always the same sound by those who pronounce English well; but the Provincials, particularly "the Irish, Scotch, and Weish in many words thicken the sound by a mixture of breath. Thus, though they sound the "d right in the positive loud and broca, in the comparative degree they thicken it by an aspiration, and sound it as it if "were written loudher, broadner. This vicious pronunciation is produced by pushing the tongue forward so as to touch "the teeth in forming that sound: and the way to cure it is easy, for as they can pronounce the properly in the word loud, "let them rest a little upon that syllable, keeping the tongue in the position of forming d, and then let them sepanite it from the upper gum without pushing it forward, and the sound der will be produced of course. for the organ being ⚫ left in the position of sounding d at the end of the syllable loud, is necessarily in the position of forming the sanie a in uttering the last syllable, unless it makes a new movement, as in the case of protruding it so as to touch the teeth "Thus letter is sometimes, though net often, quiescent, as in the words handkerchief, handsome, handsel

"In pronouncing the letter f the Irish and other Provincials thicken the sound, as was before mentioned with regard to the d; for better, they say betther; for utter, utther; and so on in all words of that structure. This faulty roanner arises from the same cause that was mentioned as affecting the sound of the d; I mean the protruding of the tongue ens to touch the teeth, and is curable only to the same way.”

Irish pronunciation.

retsh (reach) squa dron zaalous

English pronunciation
reach

squôd'run
zel'lus

zel'iut

"These, after the closest attention, are all the words, not included in the rules before laid down, that I have been able to collect, in which the well-educated natives of I.cland differ from those of England."

I shall make no observations on the accuracy of this list, but desire my reader to observe, that the strongest characteristics of the pronunciation of Ireland is the rough jarring pronunciation of the eiter R, and the aspiration or rough breathing before as the accer..ed vowels. (For the true sound of R, see that letter in the Principles, No. 419.) And for the rough breathing or aspiration of the owels, the pupil should be told not to bring the voice suddenly from the breast, but to speak, as i were, from the mouth only.

It may be observed too, that the natives of Ireland pronounce rm at the end of a word so distinctly as to form two separate syllables. Thus storm and firm seein sounded by them as if written staw-rum, fa-rum; while the English sound the r so soft and so close to them, that it seems pronounced nearly as if written stairm, faam.

Nearly the same observations are applicable to in. When these iters end a word, they are, in Ireland, pronounced at such a distance, that helm and realm sound as if written hel-um and real-um; but in England the land m are pronounced as close as possible, and so as to form but one syllable To remedy this, it will be necessary for the pupil to make a collection of words terminating with these consonants, and to practise them over till a true pronunciation is acquired.

-

Rules to be observed by the Natives of SCOTLAND, for attaining a just Pronunciation of English. THAT pronunciation which distinguishes the inhabitants of Scotland is of a very different kind from that of Ireland, and may be divided into the quantity, quality, and accentuation of the vowels. With respect to quantity, it may be observed, that the Scotch pronounce almost all their accented vowels long. Thus, if I am not mistaken, they would pronounce habit, hay-bit; tepid, tee-pid; sinner, sre-ner; conscious, cone-shus; and subject, scob-ject: it is not pretended, however, that every accented vowel is so pronounced, but that such a pronunciation is very general, and particularly of the i. This vowel is short in English pronunciation, where the other vowels are long; thus, erasion. adhe sion, emotion, confusion, have the a, e, o, and u, long; and in these instances the Scotch wou... pro. nounce them like the English; but in vision, decision, &c. where the English pronounce the i short, the Scotch lengthen this letter by pronouncing it like e, as if the words were written ree-sion, de cee-sion, &c. and this peculiarity is universal. The best way, therefore, to correct this, will be to make a collection of the most usual words which have the vowels short, and to pronounce them daily till a habit is formed. See Principles, No. 507.

With respect to the quality of the vowels, it may be observed, that the inhabitants of Scotland are apt to pronounce the a like one, where the English give it the slender sound: thus Satan, is pronounced Sawtan, and fulal, fatal. It may be remarked too, that the Scotch give this sound to the a preceded by, according to the general rule, without attending to the exceptions, Principles, No. 83; and thus, instead of making wax, waft, and twang, rhyme with tax, shaft, and hang, they pronounce them so as to rhyme with box, soft, and song. The short e in bed, fed, rea, &c. borders too inuch upon the English sound of a, in bad, lad, mad, &c. and the short in bid, lid, rid, too much on the English sounds of e in bed, led, red. To correct this error, it would be useful to collect the long and short sound of these vowels, and to pronounce the long ones first, and to shorten them by degrees till they are perfectly short; at the same time preserving the radical sound of the vowel in Both. Thus the correspondent long sounds to the e in bed, fed, red, are bade, fade, rade; and that of the short i in bid, lid, rid, are bed, lead, read; and the former of these classes will naturally lead the ear to the true sound of the latter, the only difference lying in the quantity. The short o in not, lodge, got, &c. is apt to slide into the short u, as if the words were written nit, hudge, gd, &c. To rectify this, it should be remembered, that this o is the short sound of aw, and ought to have the radical sound of the deep a in ball. Thus the radical sound corresponding to the o in not, cot, sol, is found in naught, caught, sought, &c.; and these long sounds, like the former, should be abbreviat d into the short ones. But what will tend greatly to clear the difficulty will be, to remember that only those words which are collected in the Principles, No. 165, have the o sounded like short when the accent is upon it: and with respect to the u in bull, full, pull, &c. it may be observed, that the pro nunciation peculiar to the English is only found in the words enumerated, Principles, No. 174.

In addition to what has been said, it may be observed, that co in food, mood, moon, soon, &c. which ought always to have a long sound, is generally shortened in Scotland to that middle sound of the in bull and it must be remembere!, that wool, wood, good, hood, stood. foot, are the only words where this sound of so ought to take place.

The accentuation, both in Scotland and Ireland, (if by accentuation we mean the stress, and not the kind of stress,) is so much the same as that of England, that I cannot recollect many words in which they differ. Indeed, if it were not so, the versification of each country would be different:

That this is the general mode of pronouncing these words in Scotland is indisputable: and it is highly probable that the Scotch have preserved the old English pronunciation, from which the English themselves have insensibly de parted 1 Hicks herved long ago that the Scotch saxonised in their language much more than the English; and it s scarcely to be doubted that a situation nearer to the Continent, and greater commercial intercourse with other nans, made the English admit of numberless changes which never extended to Scotland. Elizabeth, when the Greek and Latin languages were cultivated, and the periantry of showing an acquaintance with them became fashionable, it is not improbable that an alteration in the quantity of many words took place; for as ic Latin almost every vowel before a single consonant is short, so in English almost every vowel in the same situation was About the reign of Queen pposed to be long, or our ancestors would not have doubled the consonant in the participles of verbs, to prevent the Preceding vowel from lengthiening. But when once this affectation of Latinity was adopted, it is no wonder it should extend beyond its principles, and shorten several vowels in English, because they were short in the original Latin; and in this nanner, perhaps, might the diversity between the quantity of the English and the Scotch pronunciation arise, M2) (543.) See Drama

B

for as English verse is formed by accent or stress, if this accent or stress were upon different sylla bles in different countries, what is verse in England would not be verse in Scotland or ireland; and this sufficiently shows how very indefinitely the word accent is generally used.

Mr. Elphinston, who must be allowed to be a competent judge in this case, tells us, that in Scot jand they pronounce silence, biás, canváss, sentence, triumph, comfort, solace, constrúe, resche, respite, govern, haráss, ransack, cancel, with the accent on the last syllable instead of the first. To this list may be added the word menace, which they pronounce as if written men'ss; and though they place the accent on the last syllable of canal, like the English, they broaden the a in the last syllable, as if the word were spelt canal. It may be farther observed, that they place an accent on the compara tive adverb as, in the phrases as much, as little, as many, as great, &c. while the English, except in some very particular einphaticar cases, lav no stress on this word, but pronounce these phrases lik words of two or three syllables without any accent on the first

But besides the mispronunciation of single words, there is a tone of voice with which these words are accompanied, that distinguishes a native of Ireland or Scotland, as much as an improper ound of the letters. This is vulgarly, and, if it does not mean stress only, but the kind of stress, I think, not improperly called the accent. For though there is an asperity in the Irish dialect, and a drawl in the Scotch, independent of the slides or infections they make use of, yet it may with confidence be affirmed, that much of the peculiarity which distinguishes these dialects may be reduced to a predominant use of one of these slides. Let any one who has sufficiently studied the speaking voice to distinguish the slides, observe the pronunciation of an Irishman and a Scotch. man, who have much of the dialect of their country, and he will find that the former abounds with the falling, and the latter with the rising inflection; and if this is the case, a teacher, if he understands these slides, ought to direct his instruction so as to remedy the imperfection. But as avoid. ing the wrong, and seizing the right at the same instant, is, perhaps, too great a task for human powers, I would advise a native of Ireland, who has much of the accent, to pronounce almost all his words, and end all his sentences, with the rising slide; and a Scotchman in the same manner, to use the falling inflection: this will, in some measure, counteract the natural propensity, and bids fairer for bringing the pupil to that nearly equal mixture of both slides which distinguishes the English speaker, than endeavouring at first to catch the agreeable variety. For this purpose the teacher ought to pronounce all the single words in the lesson with the talling inflection to a Scotchman, and with the rising to an Irishman, and should frequently give the pauses in a sentence the same inflections to each of these pupils, where he would vary them to a native of England. But while the human voice remains unstudied, there is little expectation that this distinction of the slides should be applied to these useful purposes.

Besides a peculiarity of inflection, which I take to be a talling circumflex, directly opposite to that of the Scotch, the Welsh pronounce the sharp consonants and aspirations instead of the flat. (See Principles, No. 29, 41.) Thus for big they say pick; for blood, ploot; end for good, coot Instead of virtue and vice, they say firtue and fice; instead of zeal and praise, they say seal and prore ; instead of these and those, they say there and thoce; and instead of azure and osier, they say aysher and osher; and for jail, chail. Thus there are nine distinct consonant sounds which, to the Welsh, are entirely useless. To speak with propriety, therefore, the Welsh ought for some time to pro nounce the flat consonants and aspirations only; that is, they ought not only to pronounce them where the letters require the flat sound, but even where they require the sharp sound: this will be the best way to acquire a habit; and when this is once done, a distinction will be easily made, and a just pronunciation more readily acquired.

There is scarce any part of England remote from the capital where a different system of pro ntration aves ne prevau. As in Wales they pronounce the sharp consonants for the flat, so in Somersetshire they pronounce many of the flat instead of the sharp: thus for Somersetshire, they say Zomerse'snire; for father, vather; for think, THink, and for shure, zhure.

There are dialects peculiar to Cornwall, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and every distant county in England; but as a consideration of these would lead to a detail too minute for the present occa. sion, I shall conclude these remarks with a few observations on the pecu arities of my countrymen, the Cockneys; who, as they are the models of pronunciation to the distant provinces, ought to be the more scrupulously correct.

FIRST FAULT OF THE LONDONERS.-Pronouncing s indistinctly after st.

The letters after st, from the very difficulty of its pronunciation, is often sounded inarticulately. The inhabitants of London, of the lower order, cut the knot, and pronounce it a distinct syllable, as if e were before it; but this is to be avoided as the greatest blemish in speaking; the three last letters in posts, fists, mists, &c. must all be distinctly heard in one syllable, and without per mitting the letters to coalesce. For the acquiring of this sound, it will be proper to select nouns that end in st or ste; to form them into plurals, and pronounce them forcibly and distinctly every day. The same may be observed of the third person of verbs ending in sts or stes, as persists, wastes, hastes, &c.

SECOND FAULT. -Pronouncing w for v, and inversely.

The pronunciation of v for w, and more frequently of w for r, among the inhabitants of London, and those not always of the lower order, is a blemish of the first magnitude. The difficulty of remedying this defect is the greater, as the cure of one of these mistakes has a tendency to pro mote the other.

Thus, if you are very careful to make a pupil pronounce real and vinegar, not as if written reai and winegar, you will find him very apt to pronounce wine and wind, as if written vine and rind. The only rethod of rectifying this habit seems to be this: Let the pupil select from u Dictionary, not only all the words that begin with v, but as many as he can of those that have this letter in any other part. Let him be tola to bite his under lip while he is sounding the v in those words, and to practise this every day till he pronounces the properly at first sight: then, and not till then, let him pursue the same method with the w; which he must be directed to pronounce by a ponting out of the lips without suffering them to touch the teeth Thus by giving all the attention to only one of these letters at a time, and fixing by habit the true sound of that, we shall at last find ooth or them reduced to their proper pronunciation, in a shorter ime than by endeavoaring to rectify them both at once.

See this more fully exemplified in Elements of Elocution, Vol. II. page 13.

✦ Or rather a rising circumflex. For an explanation of this tulecilon, see Rhetorical Grammar, third edition Page 78 She two word Grange,