the short sound heard in the
first syllable of _stamina_, and for the obscure sound heard in the
last syllable of each of these last two words in English.

The letter _e_ stood for the long sounds heard in _genus_ and in
_verbum_, for the short sound heard in _item_, and for the obscure
sound heard in _cancer_. When it ended a word it had, if short, the
sound of a short _i_, as in _pro lege_, _rege_, _grege_, as also in
unstressed syllables in such words as _precentor_ and _regalia_.

The letter _i_ stood for the two long sounds heard in _minor_ and in
_circus_ and for the short sound heard in _premium_ and _incubus_.

The letter _o_ stood for the two long sounds heard in _odium_ and in
_corpus_, for the short sound in _scrofula_, and for the obscure in
_extempore_.

The two long sounds of _u_ are heard in _rumor_, if that spelling
may be allowed, and in the middle syllable of _laburnum_, the two
short sounds in the first _u_ of _incubus_ and in the first _u_ of
_lustrum_, the obscure sound in the final syllables of these two
words. Further the long sound was preceded except after _l_ and _r_ by
a parasitic _y_ as in _albumen_ and _incubus_. This parasitic _y_ is
perhaps not of very long standing. In some old families the tradition
still compels such pronunciations as _moosic_.

The diphthongs _[ae]_ and _[oe]_ were merely _e_, while _au_ and
_eu_ were sounded as in our _August_ and _Euxine_. The two latter
diphthongs stood alone in never being shortened even when they were
unstressed and followed by two consonants. Thus men said _[=Eu]stolia_
and _[=Au]gustus_, while they said _[)[AE]]schylus_ and _[)OE]dipus._
Dryden and many others usually wrote the _[AE]_ as _E_. Thus Garrick
in a letter commends an adaptation of 'Eschylus', and although Boswell
reports him as asking Harris 'Pray, Sir, have you read Potter's
_[AE]schylus_?' both the speaker and the reporter called the name
_Eschylus_.

The letter _y_ was treated as _i_.

The consonants were pronounced as in English words derived from
Latin. Thus _c_ before _e_, _i_, _y_, _[ae]_, and _[oe]_ was _s_, as in
_census_, _circus_, _Cyrus_, _C[ae]sar_, and _c[oe]lestial_, a spelling
not classical and now out of use. Elsewhere _c_ was _k_. Before the
same vowels _g_ was _j_ (d[ezh]), as in _genus_, _gibbus_, _gyrus_.
The sibilant was voiced or voiceless as in English words, the one in
_rosaceus_, the other in _saliva_.

It will be seen that the Latin sounds were th