tion of the many classical derivatives in English; and
therefore it is highly important that we should understand precisely
what it was before it began to be sophisticated (as in our own early
days) by sporadic and inconsistent attempts to restore the classical
quantities. In the following paper Mr. Sargeaunt describes, with a
minuteness not before attempted, the genuine English tradition of
Latin pronunciation, and points out its significance as a factor in
the development of modern English.

H.B.]

* * * * *

It seems not to be generally known that there is a real principle
in the English pronunciation of words borrowed from Latin and Greek,
whether directly or through French. In this matter the very knowledge
of classical Latin, of its stresses and its quantities, still more
perhaps an acquaintance with Greek, is apt to mislead. Some speakers
seem to think that their scholarship will be doubted unless they say
'doctr['i]nal' and 'script['u]ral' and 'cin['e]ma'. The object of
this paper is to show by setting forth the principles consciously or
unconsciously followed by our ancestors that such pronunciations are
as erroneous as in the case of the ordinary man they are unnatural and
pedantic. An exception for which there is a reason must of course be
accepted, but an exception for which reason is unsound is on every
ground to be deprecated. Among other motives for preserving the
traditional pronunciation must be reckoned the claim of poetry. Mark
Pattison notes how a passage of Pope which deals with the Barrier
Treaty loses much of its effect because we no longer stress the second
syllable of 'barrier'. Pope's word is gone beyond recovery, but others
which are threatened by false theories may yet be preserved.

The _New English Dictionary_, whose business it is to record facts,
shows that in not a few common words there is at present much
confusion and uncertainty concerning the right pronunciation. This
applies mostly to the position of the stress or, as some prefer to
call it, the accent, but in many cases it is true also of the quantity
of the vowels. It is desirable to show that there is a principle in
this matter, rules which have been naturally and unconsciously obeyed,
because they harmonize with the genius of the English tongue.

For nearly three centuries from the Reformation to the Victorian era
there was in this country a uniform pronunciation of Latin. It had its
own defi