any of us may have within our reach, to 
‘fee the enormity of {0 cruelly mangling 
and disfiguring the moft glorious mou- 
ments of ancient genius.” (Metron-arif- 
On,'p. 157 
Though that found and humourons 
fcholar thought the merit of a more jutt 
and reformed pronunciation only that of 
having,—"* G wonderful !—pue off the 
monkey and brought ‘out the man,” 
fill T fear that the number of fuch worthy 
inftaurators is not’ great. It will, fT am 
fure, be a hich gratification, to fome at 
leat, and it may have other goed effeéts, 
if sentlemen cf claifical tafte and feeling, 
and efpecially thofe who are laudably em: 
ployed in kindling the fire of fuch tatte 
and feeling in other breafts, wil! candidly 
anfwer the following enquiry: 
“To what extent, in your practice, or 
that of your friends, is the method punc- 
tually obferved of reading the Greek and 
Latin poets, fo as to preierve the charms 
of due quantity in the feet, and confe- 
quent melody in the general effest?”’ 
The Mouthly Magazine, which has fo 
often favoured us with communications 
on claffical fubjeéts from the late, ever to 
be lamented, WAKEFIELD, Quo non de- 
vindior alter, from Mr. Cogan, and 
from other children of Athens and La- 
ium, who have envied us their names, 
will furnifh the beft medium of commu- 
nication on this topic. 
- May the ‘writer of this requeft hope 
that’ Mr. Collier, Mr. Stock, Mr. Lyne, 
and Dr. Carey, will feel difpofed to con- 
tribute their portions of information and 
opinion, I am, Sir, 
Yours very fincerely, 
Now. Tt; 1804. QO. E. | i 
ee 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, . 
OUR correfpondent ©, whe enquires 
what authority can be alledg:d for 
the ufe of y before uw long, rightly ob- 
ferves, that purfuing-analogy alone would 
frequently lead to ridiculous confequences. 
But, on the other hand, I conceive the 
neslect of andlogy has caufed much of 
that conf:Son and obfcurity which is 
found in the writings of the moft cele- 
brated modern ortho€pifts. Your en- 
quirer feems to: think the y is intioduced 
jn addition tothe long zw, in duke ( dyzke) 
mew (nyew) Sc. but as the pronoun you 
is obvioufly the fame in found as 4 long, 
the y, in this cafe, cannot be confidered>as 
either auxiliary or redundant. If they 
{which it fhould be obferved is the y con- 
fonant) be omitted, the vowel is no lon- 
ger u long, but the long a, which, in the 
prefent heterogeneous orthography, is ge- 
nerally fpelled by a doubie ¢. The Leid 
. I 
OLfervations on Englifo Pronunciation. 
383 
hancellor who, the querif favs, pra. 
nountes duke as if written dooke, merely 
emits the y, which is confidered as ob. 
jetionable. In what fenfe, therefore, can 
his pronunciation deviate from {irict prow 
pricty? stig 
-The y is invariably omitted after nr, 
for it us not poffible to pronounce it ia 
that fituation. da Few it is never lof, 
for in that cafe the F would no longer 
exift, but merely its radical found @. The 
y isalio frequently omitted after fand 4, 
according to which mode of pronuncia- 
tion, Sufan and Tue/day might be written 
Scofaa and Toofday.. If the y be retained, 
er, in other words, the w long pronounced 
with propriefy, the founds would be fimi- 
lar to Shoofaz and Choofday, or Syoufas 
and Tyoufday. Such is the abfurdity of 
the prelent orthography, which frequently 
makes no diitinélion between 4 and y, é 
and ¢, founds which, I believe, have never 
becn thougnt to poffefs any fimilarity-toe 
each other. It may, perhaps, be thonghe 
that fome intermediate found between 00 
and wz long, is preferable to etther, and 
fach a found is, indeed, often heard, 
though not noticed by Sheridan or Jones. - 
It is apparently derived from eu cr eawy 
and feems to be a combination of -the 
found of z fhort, as in give, fucceeded hy 
av (confonant). This found is -general 
among the populace in mot parts of the 
kingdom, and even in the metropolis. 
Tie meaning of fuch words as #72, diw, 
fit, dyiw, diwk, &c. is not difficult to 
difcover, but it is forely not eafy to mift 
take the dipthong zw for either the oa or 
the long w of the alphabet. With re- 
fpe& tothe y in kind (kyind) it may be 
oblerved, that it has probably no other 
foundation than what is derived from 
analegy. The y is found in words where 
wz follows g, as guerdon (gyerdon), guide 
&c. and procéeds from a partial attempe 
to pronounce the w long, which is, at all 
events, as rational.a practice as to retaia 
the w in fpelling as a filent and ufelefs fu- 
pernumerary. Iris remarkable, at a time 
when new and extenfively ufeful botani- 
cal, medical, mineralogical, and chemi- 
cal nomenclatures have been propofed, 
and in general adepted, that no regular 
fyftem of orthography, with a completely 
reformed alphabet, has yet been offered 
to the worli. It is true, fome very im- 
perfect attenpts of this’ kind have been 
made at different times, but totally in- 
adequate to the purpofe: for, as the 
queries of © fuficiently evince, the founds 
of many combinations are at prefent by 
no means inveitigated with critical accu- 
racy. .The letter # is, by Shetidan, 
written dzb, by Jones aj; I fhould write 
it dy. The tedioufnels and obfeurity of 
oS a fizured 
