last instance, some people wish also to say
_pertisum_; but the same fashion which regulates the other changes,
has not sanctioned this one. But what can be more elegant than this,
which is not caused by nature, but by some regular usage?--we say
_inclytus_, with the first letter short; _insanus_, with the first
letter long; _inkumanus_, with a short letter; _infelix_, with a long
one: and, not to detain you with many examples, in those words in
which the first letters are those which occur in _sapiente_ and
_felice_, it is used long; in all others it is short. And so, too, we
have _composuit, consuevit, concrvpuit, confecit_. Consult the truth,
it will reprove you; refer the matter to your ears, they will sanction
the usage. Why so? Because they will say that that sound is the most
agreeable one to them; and an oration ought to consult that which
gives pleasure to the ears. Moreover, I myself, as I knew that our
ancestors spoke so as never to use an aspirate except before a vowel,
used to speak in this way: _pulcros, Cetegos, triumpos, Cartaginem_;
when at last, and after a long time, the truth was forced upon me by
the admonition of my own ears, I yielded to the people the right of
settling the rule of speaking; and was contented to reserve to myself
the knowledge of the proper rules and reasons for them. Still we say
_Orcivii_, and _Matones_ and _Otones, Coepiones, sepulchra, coronas,
lacrymas_, because that pronunciation is always sanctioned by the
judgment of our ears.

Ennius always used _Burrum_, never _Pyrrhum_: he says,--

"Vi patefecerunt Bruges;"

not _Phryges_; and so the old copies of his poems prove, for they had
no Greek letters in them. But now those words have two; and though
when they wanted to say _Phrygum_ and _Phrygibus_, it was absurd
either to use a Greek character in the barbarous cases only, or else
in the nominative case alone to speak Greek, still we say _Phrygum_
and _Phrygibus_ for the sake of harmonizing our ears. Moreover (at
present it would seem like the language of a ploughman, though
formerly it was a mark of politeness) our ancestors took away the last
letter of those words in which the two last letters were the same, as
they are in _optumus_, unless the next word began with a vowel. And
so they avoided offending the ear in their verse; as the modern poets
avoid it now in a different manner. For we used to say,--

"Qui est omnibu' princeps," not "omnibus princeps;"

and--

"V