OBS. 7.—­I have enumerated thirty-six well known sounds, which, in compliance with general custom, and for convenience in teaching.  I choose to regard as the oral elements of our language.  There may be found some reputable authority for adding four or five more, and other authority as reputable, for striking from the list seven or eight of those already mentioned.  For the sake of the general principle, which we always regard in writing, a principle of universal grammar, that there can be no syllable without a vowel, I am inclined to teach, with Brightland, Dr. Johnson, L. Murray, and others, that, in English, as in French, there is given to the vowel e a certain very obscure sound which approaches, but amounts not to an absolute suppression, though it is commonly so regarded by the writers of dictionaries.  It may be exemplified in the words oven, shovel, able;[99] or in the unemphatic article the before a consonant, as in the sentence, “Take the nearest:”  we do not hear it as “thee nearest,” nor as “then carest,” but more obscurely.  There is also a feeble sound of i or y unaccented, which is equivalent to ee uttered feebly, as in the word diversity.  This is the most common sound of i and of y.  The vulgar are apt to let it fall into the more obscure sound of short u.  As elegance of utterance depends much upon the preservation of this sound from such obtuseness, perhaps Walker and others have done well to mark it as e in me; though some suppose it to be peculiar, and others identify it with the short i in fit.  Thirdly, a distinction is made by some writers, between the vowel sounds heard in hate and bear, which Sheridan and Walker consider to be the same.  The apparent difference may perhaps result from the following consonant r, which is apt to affect the sound of the vowel which precedes it.  Such words as bear, care, dare, careful, parent, are very liable to be corrupted in pronunciation, by too broad a sound of the a; and, as the multiplication of needless distinctions should be avoided, I do not approve of adding an other sound to a vowel which has already quite too many.  Worcester, however, in his new Dictionary, and Wells, in his new Grammar, give to the vowel A six or seven sounds in lieu of four; and Dr. Mandeville, in his Course of Reading, says, “A has eight sounds.”—­P. 9.

OBS. 8.—­Sheridan made the elements of his oratory twenty-eight.  Jones followed him implicitly, and adopted the same number.[100] Walker recognized several more, but I know not whether he has anywhere told us how many there are.  Lindley Murray enumerates thirty-six, and the same thirty-six that are given in the main text above.  The eight sounds not counted by Sheridan are these:  1.  The Italian a, as in far, father,