and the few words which end with u are all foreign, except thou and you.  And not only so, the letter j is what was formerly called i consonant; and v is what was called u consonant.  But it was the initial i and u, or the i and u which preceded an other vowel, and not those which followed one, that were converted into the consonants j and v.  Hence, neither of these letters ever ends any English word, or is ever doubled.  Nor do they unite with other consonants before or after a vowel:  except that v is joined with r in a few words of French origin, as livre, manoeuvre; or with l in some Dutch names, as Watervleit.  Q ends no English word, because it is always followed by u.  The French termination que, which is commonly retained in pique, antique, critique, opaque, oblique, burlesque, and grotesque, is equivalent to k; hence we write packet, lackey, checker, risk, mask, and mosk, rather than paquet, laquey, chequer, risque, masque, and mosque.  And some authors write burlesk and grotesk, preferring k to que.

OBS. 24.—­Thus we see that j, q, and v, are, for the most part, initial consonants only.  Hence there is a harshness, if not an impropriety, in that syllabication which some have recently adopted, wherein they accommodate to the ear the division of such words as maj-es-ty, proj-ect, traj-ect,—­eq-ui-ty, liq-ui-date, ex-cheq-uer.  But v, in a similar situation, has now become familiar; as in ev-er-y, ev-i-dence:  and it may also stand with l or r, in the division of such words as solv-ing and serv-ing.  Of words ending in ive, Walker exhibits four hundred and fifty—­exactly the same number that he spells with ic.  And Horne Tooke, who derives ive from the Latin ivus, (q. d. vis,) and ic from the Greek [Greek:  ikos], (q. d. [Greek:  ischus]) both implying power, has well observed that there is a general correspondence of meaning between these two classes of adjectives—­both being of “a potential active signification; as purgative, vomitive, operative, &c.; cathartic, emetic, energetic, &c.”—­Diversions of Purley, Vol. ii, p. 445.  I have before observed, that Tooke spelled all this latter class of words without the final k; but he left it to Dr. Webster to suggest the reformation of striking the final e from the former.