The palatine requiring a withdrawing of the tongue, an action to which it had not been accustomed, and an application of different parts of it to different places, as being the most difficult, are the last attempted by them, and the last which they mafter. Accordingly we find that when they are urged too foon to pronounce words containing any of those letters, they either wholly omit them, or change them for others which they were able to pronounce before. Thus for lady, they either fay ady or dady; for coach, toach; for go, do-and fo on. The letter r requiring a vibrating motion of the tip of the tongue between the jaws, without application to any part, is the most difficult of all founds, and that in which we find the greatest number deficient. Now from this method of perinitting children to attempt all words alike, before they can pronounce all the letters, habits are often contracted

which are never afterwards to be changed. The only way to prevent this, is, never to urge them to attempt any word containing any letter which they cannot first distinctly found by itself; on the contrary, as far as you can, to discourage them from making the attempt. In this way they will get a distinct articulation; which is the foundation of good speech, and which if it be not laid in the first simple elements with the utmost care and exactnefs, Quinctilian, one of the best judges of antiquity, does not fcruple to pronounce, that whatever fuperftructure you may attempt to raise on it, must fall.

In this way alfo the foundation will be laid for measure and proportion in founds, the fource of grace and harmony in speech. For by accuftoming them to prolong the founds of the vowels that will admit of it, and of the femivowels, they will be able to

do

do it with ease where it is proper; whereas, in general, people are taught to pronounce all the letters in an equal space of time, and from habit are not able to prolong the found of any. With these all fyllables being put upon a par, the beauty arising from the obfervation of a due proportion between long and fhort, is utterly loft; and not only fo, but they are apt to fall into fuch a rapidity of utterance, as to be very indistinct and often unintelligible.

Though I have all along confidered this as a method propofed for the better inftruction of children from their first attempts to articulate, yet it is equally fuited to the adult. Whoever has contracted any bad habits in utterance, has no way to get rid of them, but by recurring to the fource. He must return to his alphabet, and be able to pronounce all the letters with exactnefs in their fimple and feparate state, be

fore he will be able to do it in their feveral combinations. There are not many who upon trial will not find themselves defective in this respect. There are few who will not find it difficult at firft to prolong the founds of the vowels and femivowels; and a much greater number who are defective in founding the mutes properly. For though they give the mutes their due found before a vowel, which they were taught to do in repeating the alphabet, yet I have known few that pronounce them with exactness when they finish a syllable. I have scarce found any that could, without repeated trials, prolong the founds of the impure mutes at all, as eb ed eg-or who completed the founds of the pure mutes, by separating the organs after their formation in the manner before described, as ep et ek. Another good confequence that would follow from teaching the alphabet in this man

ner,

ner, is, that whole countries and counties, that now speak a corrupt dialect of English, might have their pronunciation in a short time reformed. Let us examine for instance wherein the peculiarity of the Welsh confifts; and we fhall find that it arifes from their conftantly substituting the three pure mutes in the room of the three impure; and the three afpirated femivowels in the place of the three vocal. Thus inftead of b or eb, they use p or ep; for or eg, they use k or ek; and for d or ed, they employ t or et. For blood they fay plut; for God, Cot; and for dear, tear. In the fame manner in the femivowels, they substitute ef in the place of ev, efs in the place of ez, eth in the place of eth, and efh in the place of ezh. Thus instead of virtue and vice, they fay firtue and fice; inftead of zeal and praise, they say seal and praiffe; inftead of these

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and