authority. Is it the usage of the studious in schools and colleges, with those of the learned professions, or that of those who, frond their elevated birth or station, give laws to the refinements and elegancies of a court? To confine propriety to the latter, which is too often the case, seems an injury to the former; who, from their very profession, appear to have a natural right to a share, at least, in the legislation of language, if not to an absolute sovereignty. The polished attendants on a throne are as apt to depart from simplicity in language as in dress and manners; and novelty, instead of custom, is too often the jus et norma loquendi of a court.
Perhaps an attentive observation will lead us to conclude, that the usage, which ought to direct us, is neither of these we have been enumerating, taken singly, but a sort of compound ratio of all three. Neither a finical pronunciation of the court, nor a pedantic Graecism of the schools, will be denominated respectable usage, till a certain number of the general mass of speakers have acknowledged them; nor will a multitude of common speakers authorise any pronunciation which is reprobated by the learned and polite.
As those sounds, therefore, which are the most generally received among the learned and polite, as well as the bulk of speakers, are the most legitimate, we may conclude that a majority of two of these states ought always to concur, in order to constitute what is called good usage.
But though custom, when general, is commonly well understood, there are several states and degrees of it which are exceedingly obscure and equivocal; and the only method of knowing the extent of custom in these cases, seems to be an inspection of those Dictionaries which professedly treat of pronunciation. We have now so many works of this kind, that the general current of custom, with respect to the sound of words, may be collected from them with almost as much certainty as the general sense of words from Johnson. An exhibition of the opinions of orthöepists about the sound of words always appeared to me a very rational method of determining what is called custom. This method I have adopted in the following work; and if I have sometimes dissented from the majority, it has been either from a persuasion of being better informed of what was the actual custom of speaking, or from a partiality to the evident analogies of the language.
And here I must intreat the candid reader to make every reasonable allowance for the freedom with which I have criticised other writers on this subject, and particularly Mr. Sheridan. As a man, a gentleman, and a scholar, I knew Mr. Sheridan, and respected him; and think every lover of elocution owes him a tribute of thanks for his unwearied addresses to the Public, to rouse them to the study of the delivery of their native tongue. But this tribute, however just, does not exempt him from examination. His credit with the world necessarily subjects him to animadversion, because the errors of such a writer are dangerous in proportion to his reputation: this has made me zealous to remark his inaccuracies, but not without giving my reasons; nor have I ever taken advantage of such
