government pronunciation of New-Orleans, or Georgia, or the Carolinas, or Virginia, or Maryland; nor will New-York pride itself in copying the court enunciation of New-Jersey, or Pennsylvania, or Ohio, or Kentucky, or Tennessee, or Indiana, or Mississippi. And still less will any of these republican sovereignties suffer the federal city of Washington to prescribe the courtly standard of pronunciation. Nor do the separate states look to their own seats of government as the models of pronunciation. The people of New-York are not anxious to adopt the mode used by their governor, senators, and representatives, convened at Albany; nor are the gentlemen of Philadelphia ambitious to copy the government enunciation of Lancaster or Harrisburgh.

Nevertheless, there is a greater uniformity in the pronunciation of English, and less diversity of dialects, idioms, and provincialisms in the United States, than in England, Ireland, or Scotland. The people of Georgia and Massachusetts, of Connecticut and Virginia, of NewYork and Kentucky, approximate much nearer to each others pronunciation than do the natives of York and Devon, of Dublin and Donaghadee, of Edinburgh and Inverness. Some of the reasons for this great equality of American pronunciation are, that the United States were chiefly settled by Englishmen, in the times of Elizabeth, James the First, and the two Charleses. These first settlers, particularly in New-England, were generally people of some education, as well as of strong religious feeling; and therefore less likely to be infected with the peculiar dialects and provincial idioms of the places whence they emigrated. The Americans also are a very enterprising locomotive people; the inhabitants of the different states intercommunicate much with each other, and consequently assimilate in the pronunciation of that vernacular tongue common to them all. And their having no national standard induces them to look to that of England for their model; with this advantage, that whereas in England, every different county has a different dialect, the United States escape the importation of these, and follow as nearly as they

can the best English standard, by the help of approved written rules and regulations, and the personal intercourse of some of their most intelligent citizens with the best society in the British metropolis.

The question has been much debated, whether modern nations should pronounce Greek and Latin according to the analogies of their own living languages, or establish a uniform pronunciation, that of the Greeks and Romans themselves. The great objection to a plan of universal pronunciation is, that we know very little as to what was the Greek and Roman pronunciation. Scholars, to this day, are much divided in opinion upon this subject; and, at least, until their discussions can be adjusted, may not the English continue their own mode of pronouncing Greek and Latin, which is in full accordance with the analogy of their own living tongue; even if it does not approximate in some few instances so nearly to the ancient pronunciation as the Italian, French, German, and Scottish modes? For we have no means of ascertaining how the Greeks and Romans actually pronounced the great proportion of their languages; and we do know that all their idioms and dialects, all their nicer tones and varieties of inflexion, have perished for ever.

The Americans speak English all over the Union, yet read Greek and Latin with the Scottish pronunciation. The reason of this anomaly is, that although English is their mother-tongue, yet, ever since the country has been settled, the dead languages have been generally taught by Scottish schoolmasters and professors, who grafted their own mode of pronunciation upon the native stock of English in the United States. The Scottish, as a people, are more generally educated than the English; and, consequently, being more enterprising, spread themselves in greater numbers as teachers all over the world. The most universally intelligent are always the most enterprising and industrious nations. The Scottish pronunciation of Greek and Latin more nearly resembles that of the French, Italians, Spaniards, and continental Europeans, generally, than does the

English, because the Scottish mode of pronouncing English bears a greater resemblance to the vernacular pronunciation of the European continent; which mode is supposed also to approximate nearer than that of the English to the pronunciation of the ancient Greeks and

Romans.

But there appears to be no good reason why the Americans, who in general pronounce the English language in greater purity than the people of England, should violate all the analogies of their own living pronunciation, and engraft into their classical utterance a foreign tone and accent, borrowed from the Scottish, whose idioms, intonations, and inflexions, are altogether alien from their own. Nor can this habit long continue in the United States; for they will soon cease to look to Scotland for teachers of the dead languages. And when American scholars instruct the youth of this country, they will, of course, follow the genius and character of their own language, whose analogies will eventually eradicate all the vestiges of Scottish pronunciation; which, even now, does not pervade the union; for at the colleges of Schenectady, in New-York, Princeton, in New-Jersey, and of New-England, generally, the students are taught to read and speak the classics after the English mode.

The object to be acquired is, to ascertain the English quantity with which the vowels and consonants of the Greek and Latin languages are to be pronounced; and then give utterance to these learned tongues, with the same distinct and manly articulation, the same bold and impressive intonations, the same force of emphasis and variety of cadence, with which the best English poets and prose writers are read and spoken. This, however, cannot be accomplished by the mere knowledge of the dead languages, but by an intimate acquaintance with the general analogies and floating usages of our own mother-tongue. And in the nature of things, and the radical conformation of the human mind, these analogies must always enter largely into the scholar's pronunciation of the dead languages. And, in fact, every nation

does pursue this course. The Scottish, French, Italians, Germans, and Spaniards all pronounce Greek and Latin according to the analogies of their own living tongues; and what reason can be assigned why the Americans and English, who both speak one common language, whose mother tongue is neither Spanish nor German, nor Italian, nor French, nor Scottish, should not be permitted to follow the same law of nature, reason, and liberty, in pronouncing the dead languages, according to the analogies of their own living idiom? On what principle should a Frenchman or Scotchman undertake to teach an American or Englishman to read and speak Latin and Greek, with a French or Scottish pronunciation, which would not equally justify teaching the pupil to read and speak English with a French or Scottish pronunciation? Let then a Scotchman and Frenchman, as long as they continue to talk Scottish and French, follow the analogies of their own living tongues in pronouncing the dead languages, and also let the numerous and growing millions of America and England pronounce the classical tongues according to the general analogies and best usages of their own living language, and cherish that English pronunciation which has taken deep root, and sprung up aloft in their own native soil; which is congenial to the frame and character of their language, which owes its origin to the habits and manners, the ideas, opinions, and sentiments, the peculiarities, views, intelligence, and national achievements of the people.

The custom which regulates the pronunciation of all living languages is not made up altogether of the usage. of the mere multitude of speakers in a community, counted numerically, and suffered to vote, per capita, for the standard of national utterance; nor does it spring. entirely from the usages of the studious, in the recesses of their halls and colleges; nor does it owe its origin to the unmingled efforts and effusions of the affluent, gay, and fashionable portion of society; but is compounded of the usages of all these three classes of men. The learning of the scholars acts as a restraint and balance

wheel, alike upon the frivolous affectation and evershifting caprice of the wealthy and fashionable, and upon the illiterateness and ignorance of the multitude: the refinement and delicacy of the well-bred and polished curb and diminish the pedantry of the mere scholar, and soften the rude forward vulgarity of the uneducated and uninformed, while the plain, strong, home-bred, practical common sense of the industrious orders, erects a barrier of equal force against the light and airy incursions of fashion, and the ponderous attacks of laborious scholarship. The Latin and Greek infusions of the schools, the nicer peculiarities of polished life, and the native provincialisms of the irregularly educated, must all be received and tolerated by each other, for a long time, and to a great extent, before they can grow up into that permanent general use, which constitutes an established custom of pronunciation.

The si vis me flere, etc. of Horace is as applicable to teaching as to dramatic enunciation; and no lecturer will ever be able to render his labours either interesting or instructive to his pupils, if his manner be dull, cold, and formal, and his elocution monotonous, drawling, nasal, and vapid. The ingenious ardour, or, as the ancients call it, the sacred fire of youth, can only be kept alive, and fanned into a brighter flame, by the kindred enthusiasm of the teacher, whose example, as well as precept, is necessary to inspire the student with a love for letters. The enthusiasm of the head is genius, the enthusiasm of the heart is virtue; and both lie at the foundation of all real greatness. The paramount excellence of every instructor consists in the ability, so happily to temper and combine the three several influences of duty, necessity, and ambition, as to make them all co-operate in their respective stations and powers, to produce in his pupils confirmed habits of intellectual diligence. This once accomplished, his work is effectually done, for they will ever after continue to enlarge the limits of their understanding, by vigilant observation, by systematic reading, by patient reflection, by rational conversation, so that all which they see, observe,