OBS. 5.—­Murray’s rule, “W and y are consonants when they begin a word or syllable, but in every other situation they are vowels,” which is found in Comly’s book, Kirkham’s, Merchant’s, Ingersoll’s, Fisk’s.  Hart’s, Hiley’s, Alger’s, Bullions’s, Pond’s, S. Putnam’s, Weld’s, and in sundry other grammars, is favourable to my doctrine, but too badly conceived to be quoted here as authority.  It undesignedly makes w a consonant in wine, and a vowel in twine; and y a consonant when it forms a syllable, as in dewy:  for a letter that forms a syllable, “begins” it.  But Kirkham has lately learned his letters anew; and, supposing he had Dr. Rush on his side, has philosophically taken their names for their sounds.  He now calls y a “diphthong.”  But he is wrong here by his own showing:  he should rather have called it a triphthong.  He says, “By pronouncing in a very deliberate and perfectly natural manner, the letter y, (which is a diphthong,) the unpractised student will perceive, that the sound produced, is compound; being formed, at its opening, of the obscure sound of oo as heard in oo-ze, which sound rapidly slides into that of i, and then advances to that of ee as heard in e-ve, and on which it gradually passes off into silence.”—­Kirkham’s Elocution, p. 75.  Thus the “unpractised student” is taught that b-y spells bwy; or, if pronounced “very deliberately, boo-i-ee!” Nay, this grammatist makes b, not a labial mute, as Walker, Webster, Cobb, and others, have called it, but a nasal subtonic, or semivowel.  He delights in protracting its “guttural murmur;” perhaps, in assuming its name for its sound; and, having proved, that “consonants are capable of forming syllables,” finds no difficulty in mouthing this little monosyllable by into b-oo-i-ee! In this way, it is the easiest thing in the world, for such a man to outface Aristotle, or any other divider of the letters; for he makes the sounds by which he judges.  “Boy,” says the teacher of Kirkham’s Elocution, “describe the protracted sound of y.”—­Kirkham’s Elocution, p. 110.  The pupil may answer, “That letter, sir, has no longer or more complex sound, than what is heard in the word eye, or in the vowel i; but the book which I study, describes it otherwise.  I know not whether I can make you understand it, but I will tr-oo-i-ee.”  If the word try, which the author uses as an example, does not exhibit his “protracted sound of y,” there is no word that does:  the sound is a mere fiction, originating in strange ignorance.