l sounds, and finds a beginning and
an end, a base and an apex, a radical and a vanishing movement, to them
all; and imagines a sufficient warrant from nature to divide them all "into
two parts," and to convert most of them into diphthongs, as well as to
include all diphthongs with them, as being altogether as simple and
elementary. Thus he begins with confounding all distinction between
diphthongs and simple vowels; except that which he makes for himself when
he admits "the radical and the vanish," the first half of a sound and the
last, to have no difference in quality. This admission is made with respect
to the vowels heard in _ooze, eel, err, end_, and _in_, which he calls, not
diphthongs, but "monothongs." But in the _a_ of _ale_, he hears _=a'-ee_;
in that of _an, ~a'-~e_; (that is, the short _a_ followed by something of
the sound of _e_ in _err_;) in that of _art, ah'~-e_; in that of _all,
awe'-~e_; in the _i_ of _isle, =i'-ee_; in the _o_ of _old, =o'-oo_; in the
proper diphthong _ou, ou'-oo_; in the _oy_ of _boy_, he knows not what.
After his explanation of these mysteries, he says, "The seven radical
sounds with their vanishes, which have been described, include, as far as I
can perceive, all the elementary diphthongs of the English
language."--_Ib._, p. 60. But all the sounds of the vowel _u_, whether
diphthongal or simple, are excluded from his list, unless he means to
represent one of them by the _e_ in _err_; and the complex vowel sound
heard in _voice_ and _boy_, is confessedly omitted on account of a doubt
whether it consists of two sounds or of three! The elements which he
enumerates are thirty-five; but if _oi_ is not a triphthong, they are to be
thirty-six. Twelve are called "_Tonics_; and are heard in the usual sound
of the separated _Italics_, in the following words: _A_-ll, _a_-rt, _a_-n,
_a_-le, _ou_-r, _i_-sle, _o_-ld, _ee_-l, _oo_-ze, _e_-rr, _e_-nd,
_i_-n,"--_Ib._, p. 53. Fourteen are called "_Subtonics_; and are marked by
the separated Italics, in the following words: _B_-ow, _d_-are, _g_-ive,
_v_-ile, _z_-one, _y_-e, _w_-o, _th_-en, a-_z_-ure, si-_ng_, _l_-ove,
_m_-ay, _n_-ot, _r_-oe."--_Ib._, p. 54. Nine are called "_Atonics_; they
are heard in the words, U-_p_, ou-_t_, ar-_k_, i-_f_, ye-_s, h_-e,
_wh_-eat, _th_-in, pu-_sh_."--_Ib._, p. 56. My opinion of this scheme of
the alphabet the reader will have anticipated.

IV. FORMS OF THE LETTERS.

In printed books of the English language, the