Let me now proceed, not prefcribing rules for others, but explaining those which I have prefcribed for myself, to unfold my own fyftem, the convenience of which has been proved by careful observation and long experience.

It would be fuperfluous to difcourfe on the organs. of speech, which have been a thousand times diffected, and as often defcribed by musicians or anatomifts; and the feveral powers of which every man may perceive, either by the touch or by fight, if he will attentively obferve another perfon pronouncing the different classes of letters, or pronounce them himself diftinctly before a mirror: but a fhort analyfis of articulate founds may be proper to introduce an examination of every feparate fymbol.

All things abound with errour, as the old fearchers for truth remarked with defpondence: but it is really deplorable that our first step from total ignorance fhould be into grofs inaccuracy; and that we fhould begin our education in England with learning to read the five vowels, two of which, as we are taught to pronounce them, are clearly diphthongs. There are, indeed, five fimple vocal founds in our language, as in that of Rome, which occur in the words an innocent bull, though not precifely in their natural order; for we have retained the true arrangement of the letters, while we capriciously difarrange them in pronunciation; so that our eyes are fatisfied, and our ears difappointed. The primary elements of articulation are the soft and hard breathings, the spiritus lenis and spiritus asper of the Latin grammarians. If the lips be opened ever fo little, the breath fuffered gently to pafs through them, and the feebleft utterance attempted, a found is formed of fo fimple a nature, that, when lengthened, it continues nearly the fame, except that, by the leaft acuteness in the voice, it becomes a cry, and is probably the first found uttered by infants; but if, while this element is articulated,

articulated, the breath be forced with an effort through the lips, we form an aspirate, more or lefs harsh in proportion to the force exerted. When, in pronouncing the fimple vowel, we open our lips wider, we exprefs a found completely articulated, which moft nations have agreed to place the first in their symbolical fyftems: by opening them wider ftill, with the corners of them a little drawn back, we give birth to the second of the Roman vowels; and by a large aperture, with a farther inflexion of the lips, and a higher elevation of the tongue, we utter the third of them. By purfing up our lips in the leaft degree, we convert the fimple element into another found of the fame nature with the first vowel, and eafily confounded with it in a broad pronunciation: when this new found is lengthened, it approaches very nearly to the fourth vowel, which we form by a bolder and stronger rotundity of the mouth : a farther contraction of it produces the fifth vowel, which, in its elongation, almoft clofes the lips, a small paffage only being left for the breath. Thefe are all short vowels: and if an Italian were to read the words an innocent bull, he would give the found of each correfponding 1ong vowel, as in the monofyllables of his own language, sà, si, sò, se, sù. Between these ten vowels are numberlefs gradations, and nice inflexions, which use only can teach; and, by the compofition of them all, might be formed an hundred diphthongs, and a thousand triph thongs; many of which are found in Italian, and were probably articulated by the Greeks; but we have only occafion in this tract for two diphthongs, which are compounded of the first vowel with the third, and with the fifth, and fhould be expreffed by their conftituent letAs to thofe vocal compounds which begin with the third and fifth fhort vowels, they are generally, and not inconveniently, rendered by diftinct characters, which are improperly arranged among the confonants. The tongue, which affifts in forming fome of the vowels, is the principal inftrument in articulating two liquid founds, which have fomething of a local nature: one,

ters.

by

by ftriking the roots of the upper teeth, while the breath paffes gently through the lips; another, by an inflexion upwards, with a tremulous motion; and these two liquids coalefce with fuch ease, that a mixed letter, ufed in fome languages, may be formed by the first of them followed by the fecond. When the breath is obftructed by the preffure of the tongue, and forced between the teeth on each fide of it, a liquid is formed peculiar to the British dialect of the Celtick.

We may now confider in the fame order, beginning with the root of the tongue, and ending with the perfect close of the lips, thofe lefs mufical founds, which require the aid of a vowel, or at least of the simple breathing, to be fully articulated: and it may here be premifed, that the harsh breathing diftinctly pronounced after each of these consonants, as they are named by grammarians, conftitutes its proper aspirate.

By the affiftance of the tongue and the palate are produced two congenial founds, differing only as hard and soft; and these two may be formed ftill deeper in the throat, fo as to imitate, with a long vowel after them, the voice of a raven; but if, while they are uttered, the breath be harfhly protruded, two analogous articulations are heard, the second of which feems to characterize the pronunciation of the Arabs; while the nafal found, very common among the Persians and Indians, may be confidered as the soft palatine, with part of the breath paffing through the nofe; which organ would by itself rather produce a vocal found, common also in Arabia, and not unlike the cry of a young antelope, and fome other quadrupeds.

Next come different claffes of dentals; and among the first of them fhould be placed the sibilants, which moft nations express by an indented figure. Each of

the

the dental founds is hard or foft, fharp or obtuse; and by thrufting the tip of the tongue between the teeth, we form two founds exceedingly common in Arabick and English, but changed into lifping fibilants by the Persians and French; while they, on the other hand, have a found unknown to the Arabs, and uncommon in our language, though it occurs in fome words, by the compofition of the hard fibilant with our laft vowel pronounced as a diphthong. The liquid nasal follows thefe, being formed by the tongue and roots of the teeth, with a little affiftance from the other organ : and we must particularly remember, when we attend to the pronunciation of Indian dialects, that most sounds of this clafs are varied in a fingular manner by turning the tongue upwards, and almoft bending it back towards the palate, fo as to exclude them nearly from the order, but not from the analogy, of dentals.

The labials form the laft feries, most of which are pronounced by the appulfe of the lips on each other, or on the teeth, and one of them by their perfect close. The letters by which they are denoted reprefent, in moft alphabets, the curvature of one lip or of both : and a natural character for all articulate founds might eafily be agreed on, if nations would agree on any thing generally beneficial, by delineating the feveral organs of fpeech in the act of articulation, and felecting from each a diftinct and elegant outline. A perfect language would be that in which every idea capable of entering the human mind might be neatly and emphatically expreffed by one fpecifick word; fimple, if the idea were fimple; complex, if complex: and on the fame principle a perfect fyftem of letters ought to contain one specifick fymbol for every found ufed in pronouncing the language to which they belonged. In this refpect the old Persian, or Zend, approaches to perfection: but the Arabian alphabet, which all Mohammedan nations have inconfiderately adopted, appears to me fo complete for the purpofe of writing Arabick, that not a letter

2

could