e
sounds, of the English language, will be found in the example; and most of
them, many times over: "'And I, even I, Artaxerxes, the king, do make a
decree to all the treasurers' who 'are beyond the river, that whatsoever
Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven, shall require
of you, it be done speedily' and faithfully, according to that which he
shall enjoin." Some letters, and some sounds, are here used much more
frequently than others; but, on an average, we have, in this short passage,
each sound five times, and each letter eight. How often, then, does a man
speak all the elements of his language, who reads well but one hour!

OBS. 6.--Of the number of elementary sounds in our language, different
orthoepists report differently; because they cannot always agree among
themselves, wherein the identity or the simplicity, the sameness or the
singleness, even of well-known sounds, consists; or because, if each is
allowed to determine these points for himself, no one of them adheres
strictly to his own decision. They may also, each for himself, have some
peculiar way of utterance, which will confound some sounds which other men
distinguish, or distinguish some which other men confound. For, as a man
may write a very bad hand which shall still be legible, so he may utter
many sounds improperly and still be understood. One may, in this way, make
out a scheme of the alphabetic elements, which shall be true of his own
pronunciation, and yet have obvious faults when tried by the best usage of
English speech. It is desirable not to multiply these sounds beyond the
number which a correct and elegant pronunciation of the language obviously
requires. And what that number is, it seems to me not very difficult to
ascertain; at least, I think we may fix it with sufficient accuracy for all
practical purposes. But let it be remembered, that all who have hitherto
attempted the enumeration, have deviated more or less from their own
decisions concerning either the simplicity or the identity of sounds; but,
most commonly, it appears to have been thought expedient to admit some
exceptions concerning both. Thus the long or diphthongal sounds of _I_ and
_U_, are admitted by some, and excluded by others; the sound of _j_, or
soft _g_, is reckoned as simple by some, and rejected as compound by
others; so a part, if not all, of what are called the long and the short
vowels, as heard in _ale_ and _ell, arm_ and _am, all_ and _on,