274 CG. A Bato AW AS: 
He gives fome fpecimens of the reformed or- 
thography, of Sir Thomas Smith, fecretary of ftate to 
Queen Elizabeth ;—of Dodtor Gill, the celebrated matter. 
of Saint Paul’s {chool in London;—of Charles Butler; — 
and fhows that Milton was inclined to change the f{pelling : 
finally, he mentions Bifhop Wilkins, as the laft general 
reformer. The fpecimens however which he exhibits as . 
a ‘* guide to reformers, or terror to mnovaters” 1 am a= 
fraid will anfwer neither intention, being too inperfec to ; 
ferve the former, and too incorre&t to deter the latter; but 
{ome of the imperfections he attributes. to the want of 
proper types; yet by thefe inftances, we find, at fo early a . 
time, many advantages over the barbarous fpelling of the . 
prefentage. To examine the common-place obfervations, . 
of even the generality of profodial writers, would be too 
tedious a tafk for the author, to give any account of them, 
too tedious to the reader, who {hall therefore be fubjected 
to as few remarks as poffible, upon what others have writ-. 
ten on the doctrine of articulate founds;. but as Thomas 
Sheridan is one of the lateft authors on the fubje@, and his | 
pronouncing dictionary, in which he has much merit, is 
more generally known than any other, a few obfervations . 
on different parts of his work will be indifpenfable. — 
The diftinGtion. which he* and other grammarians 
make, between a vowel anda confonani, 1s, that the firft - 
can be uttered or pronounced by itfelf; the latter cannot. 
How harmlefs foever this may appear, it has been more 
fatal to fcholars than Sylla or Charybdis were to Mariners. 
If a confonant cannot be pronounced by itfelf, it muft 
be part of a compound ; therefore Mr. Sheridan fhould 
have made nineteen additional compounds to the } 7 andx 
in his fcheme of the alphabet-—-yet, he fays{ ‘* there are 
“ twenty eight fimple founds in our tongue; fix of which 
however, 
* See his dictionary. 
Page 1/t of his profodial grammar, 
