a secondary sound of _o_ in particular combinations,
though not emphatically its proper sound. The very same defence applies
to the _e_ in 'Berkeley,' etc. It is the legitimate sound of the English
_e_ in that particular combination, viz., when preceding an _r_, though
not its normal sound. But think of the wild havoc that would be made of
other more complex anomalies, if these purists looked an inch in
advance. Glocester or Gloucester, Worcester, Cirencester, Pontefract,
etc. What elaborate and monstrous pronunciations would they affix to
these names? The whole land would cease to recognise itself. And that
the purists should never have contemplated these veritable results, this
it is which seals and rivets one's contempt for them.

Now, if such harmony were at all desirable (whereas, on the contrary, we
should thus be carrying ruin into the traditions and obliteration into
the ethnological links of languages, industriously, in fact, throwing up
insuperable obstacles in the path of historical researches), it would be
far better, instead of adjusting the pronunciation to the imaginary
value of the spelling, inversely to adjust the spelling to the known and
established pronunciation, as a certain class of lunatics amongst
ourselves, viz., the _phonetic gang_, have for some time been doing
systematically.

Here, therefore, I hope is one fixed point. Here there is anchorage. The
usage is the rule, at any rate; and the law of analogy takes effect only
where _that_ cannot be decisively ascertained.

_The Latin Word 'Felix.'_--The Romans appear to me to have had no term
for _happy_, which argues that they had not the idea. _Felix_ is tainted
with the idea of success, and is thus palpably referred to life as a
competition, which for Romans every distinguished life was. In fact,
apart from his city the Roman was nothing. Too poor to have a villa or
any mode of retirement, it is clear that the very idea of Roman life
supposes for the vast majority a necessity of thick crowded intercourse,
without the possibility of solitude. I, for my peculiar constitution of
mind, to whom solitude has in all periods of life been more of a
necessity almost than air, view with special horror the life of a Roman
or Athenian. All the morning he had to attend a factious hustings or a
court--assemblies deliberative or judicial. Here only he was somebody,
and yet, however, somebody through others. Combining with one leader and
many underlings lik