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ART. III. A general Idea of a Pronouncing Dictionary of the English Language, on a Plan entirely new. With Obfervations on feveral Words that are variously pronounced, as a Specimen of the Work. Dedicated to David Garrick, Efq. By J. Walker. 4to. I s. 6d. Becket, &c. 1774.

TH

HE bufinefs of a Reviewer becomes uncommonly difficult when he is obliged to pay a regard not only to the usual irritability of an author, but to his immediate and pecuniary intereft. The work before us is to be considered not only in refpect of its claim to literary fame, but as a propofal for the benefit of the Author: he must therefore expect that the Public, as well as the Reviewers, will attend to it with rather more than common caution.

We are very willing to allow, to the tract now under confideration, its due praife. The general ideas of the Writer, though not new or peculiar to Mr. Walker, are nevertheless arranged and expreffed in a judicious and decent manner. We think the Reader may judge, in a great measure, of the merit of this work, from the following quotation :

• When I reflected on the small fatisfaction we could receive on this fubject from works already published, even an attempt at an improvement was flattered with fuccefs. Pronunciation, confidered as a science, I faw was generally treated with contempt, and when authors condescended to give rules, it was always in the analytic way. A few general rules were laid down as applicable to particular words, and a few inftances given where thefe rules take place, but the application of them to every other word was left entirely to the fagacity of the learner; who, in order to find out those rules that related to the pronunciation of a particular word, had no refource but reading a whole treatife with fuch care as to difcover, by analogy, every fingle word referred to in the general rule; fo that the few general rules, and thofe very few and very general indeed, which are given in fpelling-books and grammars, and fometimes prefixed to dictionaries, must be ftudied as a fcience before they can be extended to particular words, and therefore it is no wonder if fo little attention is paid to them.

The plan I have to offer aims at a quite oppofite method; that is, it proceeds fynthetically from parts to the whole. Inftead of fuppofing the infpector pre-acquainted with rules which are to direct him in his reafonings on every particular word, every word directs to fuch rules as relate to every part of its pronunciation. It will readily occur, on the flighteft confideration, that if the former method had been cultivated much beyond its prefent point, it must still be confiderably inferior to

the

the latter, where the object of enquiry is not fo much a whole language as particular words: for instead of giving rules which could never be brought down to every particular inftance, an inverted but a natural order is adopted, which, by finding out the word, leads us to every rule that concerns the pronunciation of it. Thus, if I would know whether the s in conclufive is pronounced as an s pure or an z, I look at the word, and find not only that the former is the s in this word, but that every adjective of a fimilar termination has the sharp or hiffing s, and that the reason of it seems founded on that diftinction which cuftom has almoft invariably made between the founds of this letter in the termination of a noun and a verb.

J

In order to give a fuller idea of the manner of explaining words and reafoning on them, I fhall make an extract of one which is fubject to a double pronunciation, and fubmit it to the judgment of the Reader.

ORTHOGRAPHY.

• OR-THOG RA-PHY. s. (A system of fpelling; fpelling with, propriety.)

Or. as the conjunction or. (under which word the found of • is explained.)

thog. th, as in thank, rhymes bog. (under thank the fharp found of th is explained.)

• ra. as a in ide-a, articulated by r. (under idea the a following the accent is explained.)

phy. ph. as in phyfic, rhymes fea. (under phyfic, pb is fhewn. to be founded like f.)

The unclaffical propenfity we have to place the accent on poly-fyllables as near the beginning as poffible, and the temptation we are under to discover our knowledge of the component parts of words, are very apt to betray us into a different accentuation of the word orthography from that which is here given. We not unfrequently hear the accent placed on the firft fyllable; and it is nothing but a certain compactnefs or unity of found in the' prefent mode of accentuation that has worn it into ufe. Those words, which are derived from the Greek, and are compounded of alyos, have univerfally given into this enclitical accentuation, if I may call it fo, from the common word apology to the learned combination phyficotheology. The fame reafon appears for a fimilar pronunciation of all thofe compounded of yppu, which is that by placing the accent on the antepenultimate og, the word is pronounced as one, and therefore more agreeably to that unity of idea fuggefted by the word, than if the ftrefs were placed on the first and third fyllables; for by dividing the accentual force on ortho and graphy, we give the word the found

and

and appearance of an adjective and a fubftantive, not fufficiently united to convey at once one complex idea. It is certain, however, that at first fight, the most plaufible reasoning in the world feems to lie against the accentuation here given. When we place the firefs on the first fyllable, fay our opponents, we indulge our own language in its favourite accent, and give a kind of fubordinate ftrefs to the third fyllable graph. Thus the word is divided as it were into its primitives, os and yeau, and those diftin&t ideas it contains are by this means conveyed, which must neceffarily be confounded by the contrary mode; and that pronunciation of compounds, fay they, must certainly be the best which best preferves the import of its fimples. No-. thing can be more fpecious than this reafoning, till we look a little higher than language, and confider its object; we shall then difcover, that in uniting two words under one accent, fo as to form one compound term, we do but imitate the fuperior operations of the mind, which, in order to collect and convey knowledge, unite feveral fimple ideas into one word. "The end of language," fays Mr. Locke," is by fhort founds to fignify with cafe, and difpatch, general conceptions, wherein not only abundance of particulars are contained, but alfo a great variety of independent ideas are collected into one complex one, and that which holds thefe different parts together in the unity of one complex idea, is the word we annex to it. For the connexion between the loofe parts of thofe complex ideas being made by the mind, this union which has no particular foundation in nature, would cease again were there not fomething that did as it were hold it together and keep the parts from scattering; though, therefore, it be the mind that makes the collection, 'tis the name which is as it were the knot which ties them faft together." This reafoning, with respect to words and ideas, is fo exactly applicable to accent and words, that we need but change the names to have an argument in form for that accentuation which unites the different parts of a word under one forcible preffure of the voice; for, as Mr. Locke continues," Men, in framing ideas, feek more the convenience of language and quick difpatch by short and comprehensive signs, than the true and precise nature of things, and, therefore, he who has made a complex idea of a body with life, fenfe, and motion, with a faculty of reafon joined to it, need but use the fhort monofyllable, man, to exprefs all particulars that correfpond to that complex idea." So it may be fubjoined, that in framing words for the purpose of immediate communication, the end of this communication is best answered by fuch a pronunciation as unites fimples into one compound, and at the fame time renders the compound as much a fimple as poffible:

but

but it is evident that this is done by no mode of accentuation' but that here adopted in the word orthography; and therefore that this accentuation, without infifting on its fuperior harmony, muft beft anfwer the great end of language.

If a work of this kind feems to promife utility, and the few fpecimens given of it make a favourable impreffion, the Author will not hefitate a moment to commit it to the prefs, and confign it to the candour of the Public; but though the fascination of a new discovery has for years confined him to the magic circle of this fingle fubject, the enchantment is not ftrong enough to make him rifque a publication of this bulk and expence on the countenance and encouragement of a few partial friends and acquaintance. If the Public, therefore, by their coldness, fufficiently advertise him of the futility of his project, he is ready to confign to oblivion what is unworthy of their notice, and acquiefce in the fentence of his country."

The Reader will fee that Mr. Walker poffeffes many of thöfe peculiar abilities which are neceffary in fuch an undertaking; but we really know not any Writer who is, in every refpect, capable of giving us a pronouncing dictionary of the English language. Perhaps there is no man without fome little oddities," peculiarities, and even faults, in his own pronunciation, of which he is fond, and which he would not fail to infert in a work of this kind. But if this were not the cafe; yet no attempt which we have ever seen has in the leaft altered our opinion that a proper and agreeable pronunciation can be taught only by the voice. Such a dictionary however as the Author propofes, might be of confiderable fervice in affifting thofe English mafters who teach our language to foreigners. But then, instead of being the work of one man, we think it should be prepared under fuch aufpices as fhould render its decifions a law, in all thofe doubtful cafes which are fo perplexing both to natives and foreigners. We muft, nevertheless, fufpend our judgment of the claim which Mr. Walker's undertaking may have to the favour of the Public, till the Dictionary itself appears.. An advertisement printed at the end of this preliminary tract, affures the Public that the work is actually now ready for the prefs. It is intended to be comprized in two volumes, 4to.Subfcription One Guinea and an Half.

ART. IV. Philofophical Tranfa&tions, VOL. LXII. 7 s. 6d. fewed. Davis. 1773.

ASTRONOMY.

PART. I.

4to.*

Article 11. Aftronomical Obfervations made at Chislehurst in Kent; by the Reverend Francis Woolafton, F. R. S.

HIS paper contains an account of the time kept by an aftronomical clock, with a wooden pendulum; a register of the thermometer and barometer: together with obfervations

of

of the eclipse of the fun, October 25, 1772; of occultations of ftars by the moon; of eclipfes and occultations of Jupiter's fatellites, tranfits over his difc, conjunctions of the fatellites and appearances of his belts.

Article 14. An Inquiry into the Quantity and Direction of the proper Motion of Arcturus: with fome Remarks on the Diminution of the Obliquity of the Ecliptic: By Thomas Hornby, M. A. Savilian Profeffor of Aftronomy, at Oxford, and F. R. S. It has been generally apprehended, from a comparison of antient with the beft modern obfervations, that fome of the fixed ftars have a proper motion of their own, independent of any motion hitherto known in our fyftem; or, in other words, that the angular distances of the fixed ftars have not always continued the fame; and this variation has been moft remarkable in the place of Arcturus. Mr. Caffini, in the memoirs of the Academy of Sciences for 1738, p. 231, has fhewn, that there is a variation of five minutes in the latitude of this ftar in the fpace of a century and a half, between his own time and that) of Tycho; and Monf. le Monnier, in the memoirs of the Academy of Sciences for 1767, p. 417, proves, that the latitude of Arcturus varies at the rate of two feconds every year; and that the longitude decreases at the rate of 60" in a hundred years.

This article contains a very elaborate and accurate inquiry into the quantity and direction of this motion, founded on a feries of obfervations made with this view in the year 1767 and 1768 and compared with thofe of Mr. Flamstead in 1690. It appears from the refult of thefe obfervations, that the proper motions of Arcturus, for this period of 78 years, have been weftward in right afcenfion=1' 33", 974, and 2′ 36′′, 81 in declination fouthward; and therefore that the real motion of Arcturus is inclined in an angle of 30°. 56′ to the weft of the meridian, or horary circle, and that its velocity is at the rate of 3′ 2′′, 81 in 78 years, or at the rate of 2", 343 in a year: and as the direction of this motion is nearly perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic, the latitude of Arcturus must diminish yearly almost in the fame proportion; and its longitude will alter less than that of the other ftars, though not fo confiderably as its right afcenfion. It appears from hence, that the proper annual motion of Arcturus is 1", 205 in right ascension weftward, and 2", 005 in declination, and therefore its yearly preceffion in right afcenfion will be 41", 108, and in declination 19", 133; fo that the true right afcenfion of Arcturus on Jan. 1, 1773 is 211°. 19′ 47′′, 4, and declination north 20° 22. 23, 3.

"

As this motion is the most confiderable in Arcturus, though not peculiar to it, Mr. Hornby infers, that this is the neareft ftar to our system vifible in this hemifphere: and if the annual parallax of the fixed ftars can ever be difcovered, it is moft

likely

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