“The number of letters in the English language is twenty-six; but the number of elements is thirty-eight.”—­Comstock’s Elocution, p. 18.  “There are thirty-eight elements in the English alphabet, and to represent those elements by appropriate characters, we should have thirty-eight letters.  There is, then, a deficiency in our alphabet of twelve letters—­and he who shall supply this imperfection, will be one of the greatest benefactors of the human race.”—­Ib., p. 19.  “Our alphabet is both redundant and defective. C, q, and z, are respectively represented by k or s, k, and ks, or gz; and the remaining twenty-three letters are employed to represent forty-one elementary sounds.”—­Wells’s School Gram., 1st Ed., p. 36.

“The simple sounds were in no wise to be reckoned of any certain number:  by the first men they were determined to no more than ten, as spine suppose; as others, fifteen or twenty; it is however certain that mankind in general never exceed twenty simple sounds; and of these only five are reckoned strictly such.”—­Bicknell’s Grammar, Part ii, p. 4.

[101] “When these sounds are openly pronounced, they produce the familiar assent ay:  which, by the old English dramatic writers, was often expressed by I.”—­Walker.  We still hear it so among the vulgar; as, “I, I, sir, presently!” for “Ay, ay, sir, presently!” Shakspeare wrote,

   “To sleepe, perchance to dreame; I, there’s the rub.”
        —­Bucke’s Classical Gram., p. 143.

[102] Walker pronounces yew and you precisely alike, “yoo;” but, certainly, ew is not commonly equivalent to oo, though some make it so:  thus Gardiner, in his scheme of the vowels, says, “ew equals oo, as in new, noo.”—­Music of Nature, p. 483. Noo for new, is a vulgarism, to my ear.—­G.  BROWN.

[103] “As harmony is an inherent property of sound, the ear should he first called to the attention of simple sounds; though, in reality, all are composed of three, so nicely blended as to appear but as one.”—­Gardiner’s Music of Nature, p. 8.  “Every sound is a mixture of three tones; as much as a ray of light is composed of three prismatic colours.”—­Ib., p. 387.

[104] The titulary name of the sacred volume is “The Holy Bible.”  The word Scripture or Scriptures is a common name for the writings contained in this inestimable volume, and, in the book itself, is seldom distinguished by a capital; but, in other works, it seems proper in general to write it so, by way of eminence.

[105] “Benedictus es Domine Deus Israel patris nostri ab eterno in eternum.”—­Vulgate.  “O Eternel!  Dieu d’Israel, notre pere, tu es beni de tout temps et a toujours.”—­Common French Bible. “[Greek:  Eulogaetos ei Kyrie ho theos Israel ho pataer haemon apo tou aionos kai heos tou aionos.]”—­Septuagint.