140 ANALOGY of GREEK LETTERSj 



peated fibilation thereby occafioned is undoubtedly very difa- 

 greeable to the ear. Of this, a noted paflage in the Medea of 

 Euripides, which has been feverely cenfured by fome critics, 

 is a fufBcient proof. 



'Yjffutra, or, ug '/o-cktiv "E\Xriva>v ceot 

 Tctvrov evntiriftrirruv ' Agywov <TKa<po$ *. 



The poet, however, had not attended to this circumftancev 

 otherwife he would have avoided fuch an ofFenfive tautology. 

 Cicero, from inadvertence of a fimilar fort, has begun his 

 Topica with the following fentence : " Majores nos res feribere 

 " ingrefTos, C. Trebati, et iis libris, quos brevi tempore fatis 



multos edidimus, digniores, e curfu ipfo revocavit voluntas 

 " tua." Several fuch pafTages might be produced from the 

 beft authors, both Greek and Latin, if it were worth while to 

 collect them. 



It is remarkable, that in the Englifh tongue, where almoft 

 no inflection takes place, and confequently where the S has no 

 peculiar duty to difcharge, that letter is of more frequent oc- 

 currence than in any other language, and occafions, efpecially 

 in the ears of foreigners, a conflant and difagreeable hiffing f . 

 Such a language would have been confidered as harfh and bar- 

 barous in an extreme degree, by thofe ancient authors who were 



offended 



* Verfe 477. 



f " S (fays Johnson) has in Englifh the fame hiffing found' as in other languages, and 

 ** unhappily prevails in fo many of our words, that it produces in the ear of a foreigner 

 " a continued fibilation." DiB. Letter S. Addison too had obferved, "That a change 

 " has happened in our language, by the abbreviation of feveral words that are termi- 

 " nated in eth, by fubftituting an S in the room of the laft fyllable, as in drowns, wa/is, 

 " arrives, and innumerable other words, which, in the pronunciation of our forefathers, 

 " were drowneth, walketh, arriveth. This (adds he) hath wonderfully multiplied a let- 

 " ter which was before too frequent in the Englifh tongue, and added to that hiffing in 

 " our language, which is taken fo much notice of by foreigners." fyeflator, No. 135. 



