ered this for some time past is the misgiving whether it
will not be read '{)e}thos,' and not '{-e}thos,' and thus not be the
word intended.

Let us trace a like process in some French word, which is at this moment
becoming English. I know no better example than the French 'prestige'
will afford. 'Prestige' has manifestly no equivalent in our own
language; it expresses something which no single word in English, which
only a long circumlocution, could express; namely, that magic influence
on others, which past successes as the pledge and promise of future
ones, breed. The word has thus naturally come to be of very frequent use
by good English writers; for they do not feel that in employing it they
are passing by as good or a better word of their own. At first all used
it avowedly as French, writing it in italics to indicate this. At the
present moment some write it so still, some do not; some, that is,
regard it still as foreign, others consider that it has now become
English, and obtained a settlement among us{62}. Little by little the
number of those who write it in italics will become fewer and fewer,
till they cease altogether. It will then only need that the accent
should be shifted, in obedience to the tendencies of the English
language, as far back in the word as it will go, that instead of
'presti/ge', it should be pronounced 'pre/stige' even as within these
few years instead of 'depo/t' we have learned to say 'de/pot', and its
naturalization will be complete. I have little doubt that in twenty
years it will be so pronounced by the majority of well educated
Englishmen{63},--some pronounce it so already,--and that our present
pronunciation will pass away in the same manner as 'obl_ee_ge', once
universal, has past away, and everywhere given place to 'obl_i_ge'{64}.

{Sidenote: _Shifting of Accents_}

Let me here observe in passing, that the process of throwing the accent
of a word back, by way of completing its naturalization, is one which we
may note constantly going forward in our language. Thus, while Chaucer
accentuates sometimes 'natu/re', he also accentuates elsewhere
'na/ture', while sometimes 'virtu/e', at other times 'vi/rtue'.
'Prostrate', 'adverse', 'aspect', 'process', 'insult', 'impulse',
'pretext', 'contrite', 'uproar', 'contest', had all their accent on the
last syllable in Milton; they have it now on the first; 'cha/racter' was
'chara/cter' with Spenser; 'the/atre' was 'thea/tre' with Sylvester;