[92] Dr. Webster died in 1843.  Most of this work was written while he was yet in vigour.

[93] This old definition John L. Parkhurst disputes:—­says it “is ambiguous;”—­questions whether it means, “that the name of such a letter, or the simple sound,” requires a vowel!  “If the latter,” says he, “the assertion is false. The simple sounds, represented by the consonants, can be uttered separately, distinctly, and perfectly.  It can be done with the utmost ease, even by a little child.”—­Parkhurst’s Inductive Gram. for Beginners, p. 164.  He must be one of these modern philosophers who delight to make mouths of these voiceless elements, to show how much may be done without sound from the larynx.

[94] This test of what is, or is not, a vowel sound or a consonant sound, is often appealed to, and is generally admitted to be a just one.  Errors in the application of an or a are not unfrequent, but they do not affect the argument.  It cannot be denied, that it is proper to use a, and not proper to use an, before the initial sound of w or y with a vowel following.  And this rule holds good, whether the sound be expressed by these particular letters, or by others; as in the phrases, “a wonder, a one, a yew, a use, a ewer, a humour, a yielding temper.”  But I have heard it contended, that these are vowel sounds, notwithstanding they require a; and that the w and y are always vowels, because even a vowel sound (it was said) requires a and not an, whenever an other vowel sound immediately follows it.  Of this notion, the following examples are a sufficient refutation:  an aeronaut, an aerial tour, an oeiliad, an eyewink, an eyas, an iambus, an oaesis, an o’ersight, an oil, an oyster, an owl, an ounce.  The initial sound of yielding requires a, and not an; but those who call the y a vowel, say, it is equivalent to the unaccented long e.  This does not seem to me to be exactly true; because the latter sound requires an, and not a; as, “Athens, as well as Thebes, had an Eetion.”

[95] Dr. Rush, in his Philosophy of the Human Voice, has exhibited some acuteness of observation, and has written with commendable originality.  But his accuracy is certainly not greater than his confidence.  On page 57th, he says, “The m, n, and ng, are purely nasal;” on page 401st, “Some of the tonic elements, and one of the subtonics, are made by the assistance of the lips; they are o-we, oo-ze, ou-r, and m.”  Of the intrinsic value of his work, I am not prepared or inclined to offer any opinion; I criticise him only so far as he strikes at grammatical principles long established, and worthy still to be maintained.

[96] Dr. Comstock, by enumerating as elementary the sound of the diphthong ou, as in our, and the complex power of wh, as in what, (which sounds ought not to be so reckoned,) makes the whole number of vocal elements in English to be “thirty-eight.”  See Comstock’s Elocution, p. 19.