268 ANALYTIC ORTHOGRAPHY. 
33. If English spelling had been reformed earlier, it would have been badly done, by per- 
sons ignorant of the bearings of the subject, and before a correct enumeration of the sounds 
had been made. Now physictists like Willis, Herschel and Faber, and philologists of the 
first class, contribute their stores, based upon a more refined analysis of the operations of 
speech. Formerly, had there been an educated class, (educated in linguistic science,) this 
class would have stood aloof until an alphabet as corrupt as the present one would have 
been fastened upon the language, making English the laughing stock of civilised and savage 
nations, indirectly checking its influence—cutting off the English people from the antece- 
dents of their language, whether Anglic, classic or C*eltic—depriving them of the inci- 
dental etymologic knowledge which is suggested through the eye of a population where 
information is acquired by reading rather than by conversation—and surrounding them 
with a literary Chinese wall, not to exclude the barbarians, but to keep them within the 
circle of their abominations. 
34. If Walker had used a phonetic alphabet instead of his figured notation, he would have 
done much towards a reform in spelling; but he would probably have allowed b-a-r to 
spell bare instead of bar; n-o-t to spell not rather than note—sanctioning corruptions which 
a better educated age might have a difficulty in removing. 
35. Walker’s notation is not chronologic, as in tar, which he marks with a, instead of a,, 
or simply a, as the original power for which the character was made. A chronologic notation 
would run something like /a,r, all, wha,t, fust,* a;le, fare, (French €,) wmbrella,, magny, 
plait; marine, win, wisne, fir; Shang-he,, (-high,) Ge.lic,Ce,sar; 0,we,o r, hosrror, mo,ve, 
wo;rk. If, with such a notation, the orthoepists had represented agiven sound with the letter 
having the lowest figure, the tendency would have been from corruption toward purity, 
and the figured pronunciation would have been a collateral aid to etymology, especially 
if characters which want the original power in English, had been started without the 
lower numbers, as in rhy,thm, (y; being the Greek vowel, and y, the French %,) rhyme, 
myrrh, year. 
36. Mr. Trench uses an argument which deserves attention.; He considers it an as- 
sumption of the spelling reformers “ that all men pronounce all words alike, so that when- 
ever they come to spell a word, they will exactly agree as to what the outline of its sound 
is. Now we are sure men will not do this from the fact that, before there was any fixed 
* Mr. Ellis thinks that am had the vowel of fat formerly ;—that all what were not early sounds; that within 
three hundred years, made lade were mad lad, with the vowel lengthened; and that the historic order of the 
powers is—arm, fat, all, what, fare, ale. Mr. Ellis will present a history of Hnglish pronunciation for the last 
three centuries, in the third edition of his Plea, to be published in the United States. 
+ English, Past and Present, Lecture V., a production which, in sixty years, is likely to be regarded as a curi- 
osity, if we may be allowed to reason from the condition of chemical notation in 1798. 
