There is little doubt, however, that the chief link of association in these passages is the difficult muscular action, which is call'd into play in the prounciation of str. Under the influence of fear the voice sinks into a whisper. Hence in describing that passion, or such conduct as it generally accompanies-deceit or caution-we find the whisper-letters peculiarly effective. F. Q. 1. 7. 8. With sturdy steps came stalking on his sight F. Q. 1. 12. 55. So daunted when the giant saw the knight, F. Q. 1. 7. 14. And pious awe, that fear'd to have offended. P. L. 9. P. L. 9. Fit vessel fittest imp of fraud in whom To enter, and his dark suggestions hide. The whisper letters p, t, are sometimes used at the end of words with great effect, in representing an interrupted action. The impossibility of dwelling upon these letters, and the consequently sharp and sudden termination which they give to those words into which they enter, will sufficiently explain their influence. Till an unusual stop of sudden silence Sudden he stops, his eye is fir'd, away! Away! thou heedless boy. Comus. Childe Harold, 1. All unawares Fluttering his pinions vain, plumb down he dropt Ten thousand fathom deep Par. Lost, 2. The pilgrim oft At dead of night, mid his orisons, hears Aghast the voice of time! disparting tow'rs, Dyer's Ruins of Rome. Little effort is wanted, as Johnson once observed, to make our language harsh and rough. It cost Milton no trouble to double his consonants, and load his line with rugged syllables, when he described the mighty conflict between his angels. But soon obscur'd with smoke all heav'n appear'd And all her entrails tore, disgorging foul Their dev'lish glut, chain'd thunderbolts and hail Of iron globes. P. L. 6. But when he chose, he could also glide upon his vowels and make his language as smooth as the Italian. And all the while harmonious airs were heard. P. L. 9. Milton's verses, however, lose half their beauty when thus insulated. It is a remark of Cowper, that a rough line seems to add a greater smoothness to the others; and no one better knew the advantages of contrast than Milton, There can be little doubt that many of his harsher verses. some of which contain merely a bead-roll of names, were introduced for the sole purpose of heightening the melody of the lines which followed. CHAPTER III. SYLLABLE. The definition of a scientific term is seldom aided by its etymology. According to the Greek derivation, a syllable means a collection of letters, according to the Celtic* a verbal element. The first of these must have suggested to Priscian his well-known definition. The Latin grammarian pronounces a syllable, to be a collection of letters bearing the same accent, and formed by one impulse of the breath. Scaliger, more simply, and I think more sensibly, defines it to be a verbal element falling under one accent. The objection which attaches to both these definitions is the vagueness of the word accent. Among the Greeks and Latins accent meant tone, with us it means something widely different. There are also Greek syllables which receive both a grave and a sharp tone. It is true we call this union of the tones a circumflex, but this is merely an evasion of the difficulty; or rather, we should say, it is a loose expresssion, on which an erroneous definition has been grounded. I am also far from sure that our English accent in all cases pervades the syllable. On some letters the stress is certainly more obvious than on others. These difficulties might be avoided, by defining a syllable to be a word or verbal element, which for rythmical purposes is considered as having only one accent. * In Welsh, eb is an utterance; fraetheb an oration, fraeth eloquent; direb a proverb, dir true; galareb a voice of mourning, galar mourning; graetheb a climax, graeth a step; silleb an elementary part of speech, a syllable, sill an element. Hence the Norman syllabe, and our English syllable. Properly, every syllable ought to have a distinct vowel sound. Such is the rule which prevailed in the Greek and Latin, and I believe also in our earlier dialect. At present it is different. Thus the word heaven is now considered as of two syllables, though it has but one vowel, the second syllable consisting merely of a consonantal sound. It is probable that in the earlier periods of our language there was no such thing as a syllable thus merely consonantal. It is certain that the critics of Elizabeth's reign thought a vowel essential, and though many syllables were held to be doubtful, yet in all such cases there prevailed a difference of pronunciation, as to the number of the vowelsounds. At present we have many words, such as heaven, seven, &c. which are used in our poetry sometimes as monosyllables, sometimes as dissyllables, yet in neither case have more than one vowel-sound. The only differ ence in the pronunciation is, that we rest somewhat longer upon the final consonant, when we use them as dissyllables. There can be little doubt that at an earlier period these words would, in such a case, have been pronounced with two vowel-sounds, heav-en, sev-en, &c. as they still are in some of our provincial dialects. It is not quite easy to say, why all the early systems of syllabification should be thus dependent upon the number of the vowel-sounds. Every letter, except p, t, k, may be dwelt upon during a finite portion of time, and if we also except b, d, g, the consonants may be lengthened just as readily as the vowels. There is therefore only a partial objection to the system, which should even divide a word into its literal elements. If we excepted the six letters b, d, g, p, t, k, and joined them in pronunciation to those immediately preceding or succeeding, I can see no a priori objection to a system even thus simple. Musical composers take this liberty without scruple in adapting words to music, and often split a monosyllable into as many parts as it has letters. The probable reason is the much greater importance of the vowel in the older dialects. In those languages which had a temporal rhythm, verse must have been spoken in a kind of recitative; and such to this day is the manner in which the Hindoos recite their Sanscrit poems. The more grateful sound of the vowels would naturally point them out as best fitted for musical expression, and on these the notes would chiefly rest. Again, the tendency of language is to shorten the vowels. Most of our present short vowels were pronounced by the Anglo-Saxons with the middle* quantity, and some with the long. Those knots of consonants too, which are so frequent in our language, unloose themselves as we trace them upwards. The vowels reappear one after the other, and as we advance we find their quantity gradually lengthening. There are dissyllables which expand themselves, even within the Anglo-Saxon period, to six syllables, and the number might be doubled, if we traced them still further by the aid of the kindred dialects. This accumulation of consonants and shortening of the vowel made the voice rest the longer on the consonantal portion of the word, and seems at length to have paved the way for consonantal syllables. In tracing the gradual extinction of our syllables, I shall first call the reader's attention to the final e. The loss of the initial syllable will then be considered; and afterwards the case of those vowels which have at any time melted into diphthongs, or have otherwise coalesced into one syllable. The loss of the vowel before different consonants will then be matter of investigation; and we shall conclude the chapter by noticing such syllables as are formed by the coalition of two or more distinct words. FRENCH e FINAL. The following are instances of French substantives which retained their final e after they were introduced into our language; * See chap. v. |