of rebuking the self-complacent type-founder, who prides himself on
having produced a new form which all the world will admit to be a
genuine 'A,' as soon as they make out that it was meant for one.

I have thought it worth while to say all this about letters, because I
believe that it will illustrate what was once upon a time nearly true
as to words. The principle of those who had occasion to write in those
early times was, so far as circumstances allowed, just opposite to
that of the modern critics who find fault with their practice. They
made that which, notwithstanding its fluctuations, we may call 'the
constant quantity' to be the sound, exactly as we do with the
multiform As and Bs just noticed. On the other hand, modern purists
consider, not altogether incorrectly as to the fact, that the notation
has somehow been settled and fixed, and they are disposed to force the
sound into conformity. 'B, y, spells by,' said Lord Byron; and what he
settled for himself, the spelling-book has settled for the rest of the
world and all the words in it.

The circumstances of those who wrote English some centuries ago, may
be considered as bearing some analogy to those of modern English
authors who have occasion to write down Oriental words in English
letters, and who are therefore obliged to make the characters which we
use represent sounds which we do not utter. Of course there can only
be an approximation. Writers feel that there is a discretion, and use
it freely. It is easy for one after another to imagine that he has
improved on the spelling of his predecessors. How many variegations
and transmogrifications has the name of one unhappy Eastern tongue
undergone since the days when Athanasius Kircher discoursed of the
Hanscreet tongue of the Brahmins? I am almost afraid to write the name
of Vishnoo, for I do not remember to have seen it in any book
published within these five years; and what it may have come to by
this time, I cannot guess. To a certain point, I think, this
progressive purification of the mode of representing Eastern sounds
has been acceptable to the world of letters; but the reading-public
have shewn that there is a point at which they may lose patience. They
not long ago decided that Haroun Alraschid, and Giafar, and Mesrour,
and even the Princess Badroulboudour, and the fair slave
Nouzhatoul-aouadat, had all 'proper names,' and refused to part with
the friends of their youth for a more correctly named set o