OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 177 



pupil taught with its alphabet to learn ordinary English, says that 

 ' the whole construction of the phonetic alphabet was devoted to this 

 end, and that to attain this great, this most important object, the siren 

 voice of scientific analogies was steadily and systematically disregard- 

 ed ; not because European analogies were worthless, but because 

 English analogies were paramount.' If this was the intention, the 

 'English analogies' must have been extremely difficult to discover, 

 since the crossed I was used at different times to represent the vowel 

 in fields and the consonant and diphthong in thigh. The character w 

 (nearly) replaced a less corrupt type for the vowel in /ooZ, to be itself 

 replaced by ai as stronger analogies appeared. In January, 1844, 

 these were secured by using A as in far and A in fat, and there was 

 a similar correspondence between the primary and secondary vowel- 

 characters. In March, A had the cross line lengthened, in October it 

 had the head of T, now shortened to a simple line. In the same 

 month the small letter for the vowel in field was a dotted j, finally 

 rejected for e, which, in the search for English analogies, was first as- 

 signed to the vowel in they, although subsequently pretended to be 

 derived from the double English character in fee. 



" As the Essentials of Phonetics contains the fullest and latest 

 ethnical alphabet before the public, it became necessary to examine 

 the basis upon which it is founded. The fact that it was intended to 

 produce ' as little alteration as possible in the appearance of the print- 

 ed [English] page,' (Phon. Journ., 1847, p. 32; News, p. 32,67'", 

 103,) against the corruptness of which the phonetic publications have 

 been so eloquent, not only calls for its prompt rejection abroad, but 

 also as far as English is concerned. 



" If concessions in orthography are allowed to languages with a per- 

 verted alphabet, they can and ought to be demanded with tenfold 

 force for the humblest language which spells correctly ; as the Danish in 

 its use of J and i/. But there is little to fear, since it is not probable 

 that nations, who have spent centuries in keeping their orthography 

 more or less pure, would submit to a literary fraud of such magnitude. 



" A singular fact in connection with the wonderful increase of pho- 

 netic works in England is the great dearth of examples of the native 

 dialects, and the comparatively few foreign languages investigated, 

 when London must afford such admirable opportunities. Officers in 

 the public service, who have spent years in distant countries, might 

 furnish much information ; but, judging from the tone of these jour- 



voL. II. 23 



