L, M, N, R, which are called liquids, because their sounds combine easily with most of the others.

Ng., nasal, as are also M and N, because the vibrating column of air that produces them is forced to pass through the nose instead of the mouth.

H, aspirate, or the rough breathing.*

The correct and habitual use of the aspirate is perhaps the most obvious test to distinguish the well-trained from the illiterate. Those who have had the good fortune to be brought up entirely amongst educated and refined people are never tempted to go wrong in matters of grammar and pronunciation, as they seldom hear incorrect speech; while others less favoured have to be constantly upon their guard. The h is silent in heir, hour, honour, honest, but in herò, humble,† humour, and hospital, custom is divided, though its insertion is preferable. In aspirated words care should be taken not to make the rough breathing too prominent; and it should be borne in mind that to insert the h sound in the wrong place is a much greater fault than to omit it from its right place.

Wh.-In Old English words that begin with these letters the order is transferred to hw, and the sound is aspirated, as it should be still. Ben Jonson represents the sound of what, which, &c., in the sixteenth century, as "hou-at, hou-ich," &c. Most Englishmen, nowadays, erroneously omit altogether a slight breathing in words of this class, while many of the Irish overdo it.

Th.-In Old English the sharp and flat th sounds were represented by separate characters, p and respectively. G.—The soft sound of this letter before e, i, y, is identical with the sound of J.

In Greek the rough breathing is not indicated by a letter, but by an accent mark placed above the sound to be aspirated: e.g., = ho. The h in humble has begun to be sounded of late years, partly, perhaps, on account of the antipathy aroused by the character of Uriah Heep, in Dickens's "David Copperfield," who was always so very 'umble.

Ch. This combination in Anglicised classical words is sounded as k, as in chaos, echo, monarch; but in English words as tch, as in child, chill. In loch, pibroch, it has the deep Keltic guttural sound.

We feel it necessary to impress upon the student again that the thorough mastery of the elements of speech, as concisely laid down here, will be of the greatest assistance in his later studies.

SPOKEN WORDS.

HAVING acquired a correct knowledge of the elements of speech, the student's attention must next be directed to those incidents which constitute the perfect utterance of sounds when combined into words. These are Articulation, Accent, and Pronunciation.

ARTICULATION.

Good articulation is the distinct and correct utterance of each of the sounds of which a word is composed. Words are divided into syllables; every syllable must contain one vowel sound, and may have from one to five consonant sounds as well; the clear utterance of each of these in pronouncing a word constitutes perfect articulation. All the various sounds which build up speech must not only be rightly formed and uttered, but they must be clearly enunciated, or given forth, with sufficient force to reach the ear of the auditor. This is the primary essential to all effective speaking, whether conversational, argumentative, or declamatory. The listener must catch readily all that the speaker says; the omission of a sound will often change the meaning of a sentence, and destroy the force of an argument. And this by no means involves the expenditure of undue force. A speaker with only a moderate voice will be better understood, and heard with greater

pleasure, if he articulates correctly, than one who vociferates without judgment. The voice of the latter will undoubtedly be heard at a greater distance, but it will reach the ear as confused noise rather than as articulate sound. Of the former voice not the slightest vibration is wasted, every beat is perceived at the utmost distance to which it reaches. As contrasted with distinct articulation and clear enunciation all the embellishments and tricks of the orator are worthless.

It will readily occur to the student that the difficulties in the attainment of good articulation lie in the consonant sounds. The vowels are easily uttered and prolonged when necessary, but to round off clearly a combination of discordant consonants requires care and effort at all times. Unless this clearness of utterance has become habitual by early training, nothing but the closest attention to the end in view, and assiduous practice, will enable the student to articulate his mothertongue perfectly. Starting as it may sound, perhaps not more than one person in a hundred can do this. The majority are accustomed to utter their words in a careless or slovenly manner, their organs of speech have become partially paralysed for want of proper exercise, they do not even know the necessity of making certain muscular efforts in order to produce certain desirable results, because the elegance and beauty of perfect speech is unknown to them.

A few examples of difficult combinations of consonant sounds are given below which the student can amplify from any book or newspaper; the main point to insist upon being the distinct utterance of each separate sound, at first slowly and then rapidly.

Accent is the stress of the voice on a particular syllable of a word. All words of more than one syllable have a primary accent, and many polysyllables have a secondary accent, less clearly marked, in addition to the primary one; thus, gráteful, ingratitude, incompréssibility. Accent is generally, but not always, upon the most important or root syllable of a word: e.g.

Let this be indélibly impressed upon the mémory.
A scene of indescribable confusion.

By the instrumentálity of enginéering skill.

Accent is moved from one syllable to another, when a word is compounded; thus, áccident, accidental; hármony, harmónious. It is used also to distinguish the same word when employed as different parts of speech; e.g., cóncert, concért; August, august; rébel, rebél.

Without accent speech would be monotonous both as regards tone and time, for the stress of the voice intensifies the one, like the beat in music, and varies the