sic of Nature_, p. 498. "It would be a great step
towards perfection to spell our words as they are pronounced!"--_Ibid._, p.
499. How often do the reformers of language multiply the irregularities of
which they complain!

[100] "The number of simple sounds in our tongue is twenty-eight, 9 Vowels
and 19 Consonants. _H_ is no letter, but merely a mark of
aspiration."--_Jones's Prosodial Gram. before his Dict._, p. 14.

"The number of simple vowel and consonant sounds in our tongue is
twenty-eight, and one pure aspiration _h_, making in all
twenty-nine."--_Bolles's Octavo Dict._, Introd., p. 9.

"The number of _letters_ in the English language is twenty-six; but the
number of _elements_ is thirty-eight."--_Comstock's Elocution_, p. 18.
"There are thirty-eight elements in the English alphabet, and to represent
those elements by appropriate characters, we should have thirty-eight
letters. There is, then, a deficiency in our alphabet of twelve
letters--and he who shall supply this imperfection, will be one of the
greatest benefactors of the human race."--_Ib._, p. 19. "Our alphabet is
both redundant and defective. _C, q_, and _z_, are respectively represented
by _k_ or _s, k_, and _ks_, or _gz_; and the remaining twenty-three letters
are employed to represent _forty-one_ elementary sounds."--_Wells's School
Gram._, 1st Ed., p. 36.

"The simple sounds were in no wise to be reckoned of any certain number: by
the first men they were determined to no more than ten, as spine suppose;
as others, fifteen or twenty; it is however certain that mankind in general
never exceed _twenty_ simple sounds; and of these only five are reckoned
strictly such."--_Bicknell's Grammar_, Part ii, p. 4.

[101] "When these sounds are openly pronounced, they produce the familiar
assent _ay_: which, by the old English dramatic writers, was often
expressed by _I_."--_Walker_. We still hear it so among the vulgar; as,
"_I, I_, sir, presently!" for "_Ay, ay_, sir, presently!" Shakspeare wrote,

"To sleepe, perchance to dreame; _I_, there's the rub."
--_Bucke's Classical Gram._, p. 143.

[102] Walker pronounces _yew_ and _you_ precisely alike, "_yoo_;" but,
certainly, _ew_ is not commonly equivalent to _oo_, though some make it so:
thus Gardiner, in his scheme of the vowels, says, "_ew_ equals _oo_, as in
_new, noo_."--_Music of Nature_, p. 483. _Noo_ for _new_, is a _vulgarism_,
to my ear.--G. BROWN.

[103] "As harmony is an inherent pro