have before observed, corrupts, in a greater or less degree, almost every vocal sound that comes into contact with it. This consonant, when fol. lowing the short e or i, and not reduplicated, converts those vowels into u short exactly, or into a sound nearly resembling it. These two modifications, which Walker found existing in our language, he has chosen to denote by è and ů; not because he considered the sound of e in met the same with i in fir (a tree), but because this notation enabled him to point out and to effect, by means of the organs themselves, some very nice distinctions, such as that between fir (a tree), and fur (a skin). The proper sound of the latter word is produced by leaving the lips in that quiescent position, which, according to Mr. Mitford, they usually retain in the pronunciation of u short; while the proper sound of the former word, can be attained only by drawing the under lip inwards, under the upper teeth, and endeavouring by close pressure, to attain as nearly the sound of e in met, as the imperfect nature of the consonant r will permit. & has also been chosen as the representative of short e and i, between v and r, and in every other instance where & has, in the notation, been preferred to ù, the lips will be found to be contracted or forced out of that natural, easy position, which they generally have in expressing short u. On such nicetics, however, in the anatomy of sounds,' we do not wish to dwell. We appeal to the unsophisticated ear of the reader to confirm our own conviction, that there is presented to one sense, less resemblance between Mr. Duponceau's man and bird, than Diogenes exhibited to another, between Plato's human being, and his own featherless biped. Under Arpeth, we find but three accented short sounds, the a in art (the verb, as in thou' ǎrt, with the emphasis on thou), mortar, and partition. In the two first instances, the a is necessarily corrupted into u, and in the last, if the word be deliberately pronounced, a has the long sound which belongs to it in far, and not the short sound in fat or man. Between man and tar we perceive a resemblance, and also between woman and mortar, but man and mortar are as different from each other as woman and tar.

The third vocal sound is Airish, which Walker would have called, when long, the sound of a in fare, and when short, that of e in ferry, had he not deemed it hypercritical to distinguish between these sounds and those of a in fate, and e in met. If a in fare, he with propriety exhibited as a separate element from a in fate, and denominated Airish; the vocal sound in mere, ought to be called Earish; in door, Oarish; in boor, Oorish; in fire, Irish, &c. to denote their respective differences from the sounds heard in mete, dote, boot, and fight-distinctions with which Mr. Duponceau, anxious as he is to exhibit every variety of sound, has not ventured to overload and confound his vocal scale.

'If our language,' says a learned and ingenious inquirer, be critically examined, in order to discover the effect which each letter has upon the voice in singing, it will be found that peculiar letters as well as combinations of letters, have peculiar vices and tendencies to impede or corrupt musical sounds, both in their formation and passage.' Certainly, the phonologist cannot question our right to apply the same remark to the voice in speaking, or giving utterance to articulate sounds, but he must at the same time, excuse our orthoepists for not having exactly defined a certain class of atoms, the greater part of which, seem to have escaped his own microscopic glass.

If our author's exemplifications of the short sounds of Airish, now adduced, be correct, they differ unaccountably from his results, as given under the article Alphabet, above quoted, where he says, 'it will appear that ai in fair, and a in hat, are sounded alike, though the former is long, and the latter short. Mr. Sheridan's classification cannot, therefore, be considered sufficiently analytical and correct. Now can any ear discover the resemblance between hat and merry? which last word is now said to include, as it certainly does, the short sound of ai in fair, or Airish, while the first, as unquestionably includes the short sound of a in far, or Arpeth. A Frenchman,' says Mr. D. can hardly be persuaded that Arpeth and Airish are different sounds.' Can we then repose upon the decisions of an ear, which gives himself no better' ground to rest upon.' Where and there, which are perfect rhymes to fair, are also inexplicably placed among Mr. Duponceau's short sounds of Airish. Does it not then appear, that whenever he wanders from Walker's straight path, error and inconsistency become his associates?

Azim, the fourth vocal sound, corresponds, when long and accented, with Walker's sound of a in fate; when short and accented, with that of e in met. In the unaccented last syllable of desperate, surface, foreign, and captain, we fruitlessly endeavour to recognize any affinity to the sound of e in met; and unless these syllables be respelt with e, and then accented, in which case they would cease to be English, either an indefinite sound between short u and a, or a more distinct one, like the short i, will necessarily belong to them-as unlike to e in met, as Mr. D's u in busy. We do not object to the place which he has assigned to u in burial, which is sufficiently analogous to e in met; but why busy should appear by the side of bury, or why bury should not be ranked with very and merry, is more than we can comprehend; nor can our author's mysterious classifications be unravelled, but by supposing him to have deduced his sounds from some hypothetical standard in his own 'mental ear.'

Walker, indeed, in his paginal key, adheres to a simple and well understood alphabetical arrangement of the vowels, as commonly denominated long and short; but in various parts of his principles, classifies and explains for his philosophical readers, all the accented elementary vocal sounds, in the same manner with Mr. Duponceau:-but holding the same opinion with regard to tones, which our author avows respecting quantity, to wit,' that after the most elaborate investigation, a great deal would, perhaps, remain doubtful,' the orthoepist has been contented with nice approximations between the accented and unaccented sounds, which, in many instances, are no more reducible to the same law, than the sounds produced by the chords of a harp, when braced or unbraced. Our author's project of fixing in the mental ear,' a precise idea of all the modifications of vocal sound existing in our language, by means of the seven notes of his scale, is not less visionary, than the attempt would be, to make us acquainted with every modification of light, by placing before the eye the seven prismatic colours.

Our prescribed limits do not permit us to extract further details, either from the Essay, or from the Dictionary before us. Enough, however, has, we flatter ourselves, been said to convince every reader who may have honoured the foregoing remarks with an attentive perusal, that our author has misconceived the nature and extent of the investigations of his predecessors that he cannot justly lay claim to any important discoveries that six out of seven, of his simple vocal sounds, with their requisite distinctions of long and short, already exist, in at least one English dictionary, in common use that in adopting a seventh, as a distinct element, he has departed from practical simplicity of arrangement, without fulfilling his own extensive pledges-that his results, wherever the corrupting influence of the consonant r extends to the accented or unaccented vowels under examination, are utterly falJacious, and that from his analysis of the unaccented vowels, the only part of the inquiry really new, much more was to be expected than has been satisfactorily performed, that, even from the few instances, rari nantes in gurgite vasto,' which he has thought proper to exhibit, of unaccented syllables, an unfavourable opinion must be deduced, either of the correctness of his standard-in short, that clouds and darkness' cover the whole region which his fancy has presented to him, beyond the luminous and well defined verge of Walker's horizon.

These our own decided impressions, whether well or ill founded, we have not been able, under a sense of gratitude to our respected English instructor, to withhold, and we are persuaded they will be confirmed, by a closer examination of the whole essay, the remainder of which, we can now only glance at.

One of Mr. Duponceau's aspirates, exists in the power of the letter h, before any of our vowels; the other, the gh, in the Irish pronunciation of Drogheda, belongs properly to foreign phonology.

What our author says of nasal sounds, would be as well understood by pronouncing at once, song, sing, sang, sung, as by any reference to Aulif, Elim, Arpeth, and Oreb. No English orthoepist could, we believe, have been so astonishingly deluded by the eye, as to agree with Mr. D. in placing among, a perfect rhyme to clung, by the side of song and long, and we ourselves, though little advanced in phonology, have already discovered, in contradiction to our Palinurus, that Azim does receive a nasal sound in the common English words length and strength. Walker's four diphthongal sounds, coinciding essentially with those in the Essay, are as satisfactorily exemplified by oil, pound, pine, and tube, and as accurately explained in his principles, as if he had enjoyed the singular advantage we possess, of ringing all the changes of Mr. Duponceau's instrument.

In order to complete his system, our author favours the world with. a new nomenclature of the consonants, which we have no objection to call organic sounds. Their denominations, however, possess no other value, direct or indirect, than we recognize in the consonants employed by Walker's intermediate notation, or in Murray's analysis, before noticed. If, indeed, our author's analysis should be approved of,' and his plan thought worthy of being pursued,' we discover, accidentally, one merit in the names proposed. They naturally fall, with a single transposition, into barbarous verse, which, like Grey's Rompinsa, Rommidub Romput, &c. may technically aid the memory of the learner.

'Bee, pen, mem, vel, fesh, go,
Coss, zhim, shall, zed, sin, rỏ,
Låmed nim delta tar,

Thick, thence, yes and war.'

We may, perhaps, be excused for indulging in a little pleasantry, at the close of this grave discussion, if our memorial lines should bring to the recollection of the reader, Hortensio's musical lesson to Bianca, where Shakspeare so happily expresses in a few words, the opinion we entertain of Mr. Duponceau's whole system.

HOR. Madam, before you touch the instrument
To learn the order of my fingering,

I must begin with rudiments of art
To teach you gammut, in a briefer sort,
More pleasant, pithy, and effectual
Than hath been taught by any of my trade,
And here it is in writing, fairly drawn.

BIAN. Call you this gammut? tut, I like it not,
Old fashions please me best; I'm not so nice
To change true rules for odd inventions.

ART. V.-American Manufactures.

R.

[The public attention is at present very much attracted by the question, every where discussed, whether heavy imposts, amounting to a prohibition, ought not to be laid on foreign manufactures, for the purpose of giving effectual encouragement to our own. The subject requires very careful and impartial investigation, and supplies perhaps the only question of national policy that now divides the opinions of our citizens.

That the manufacturing establishments of our country may be successful is, or ought to be, the wish of every American, but by what means their prosperity is to be secured without injury to the agricultural and commercial classes, it is not very easy to determine. Communications on both sides have been offered for insertion in this journal, and as the first desideratum is to have the matter well discussed, we shall, maintaining a perfect neutrality, give insertion to both. And we commence with the essay which follows, because it was the first received, and also because the opposite argument having been lately given very fully to the public in the addresses of the Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of National Industry;' our readers may be disposed to see what can be said in support of the system hitherto in favour.] THE papers in Philadelphia, are crowded with essays in support

of the system of encouraging our manufactures at home, and prohibiting by high duties the importation of manufactures from abroad; and we are gravely referred to the examples of Russia, Portugal, and other European nations, to persuade us to adopt a measure, which if it be adopted at all, ought to be adopted on motives and reasons exclusively of domestic manufacture arising from the existing circumstances of our own nation.

I have no objection to concede many advantages as arising from the system recommended: for instance.

It will furnish employment for many idle people in our seaport towns; and for many women and children in our cities who appear to want such a resource.

It will answer the purpose of an increased population, by substituting the force of machinery for the force of men.

It will increase greatly all the motives to acquire useful knowledge among us; a knowledge of mathematics and mechanics for the construction of machinery; and a knowledge of chemistry for devising and conducting the innumerable chemical processes upon which the great manufactures depend. Such as those of gold, silver, and platina, for plating, gilding, silvering, platinating-those of copper, brass, tin, antimony, cobalt-the almost innumerable processes connected with iron and steel manufactures from the ore to the finished article-the bleaching, dyeing, and printing of woollen and cotton goods-the manufacture of paper hangings, chemical drugs, pottery ware, glass ware, &c. &c. all of which will create such a demand for the knowledge necessary to the pursuit and improvement of all these branches of manufacture, that a man must wilfully shut his eyes to these advantages, who can venture to deny them. The time will come ere many years shall have passed away, in which the low value and great abundance of raw material, the increased capital and population of the country, the high price of land, and the low profit of agricultural employments, will gradually tempt capital into manufactures, and place them on a permanent basis. But in my opinion that state of things is yet at a distance; and a manufacturing system is as yet, premature. To be permanent, it must be brought on gradually by the natural and permanent influence of causes that do not yet exist in sufficient force. Let us look on the other side of the question; and examine with what justice congress can accede to the clamours of the manufacturing interest: whether it is expedient to gratify their wishes at this time: whether it is not now, and for many years will be, necessary to permit the introduction of foreign manufactures at a tariff not exceeding the present: and whether the protection already afforded to the home manufacturer be not sufficient for all reasonable purposes.

And FIRST, as to the justice of prohibitory duties, beyond the present tariff. Our population reaches eight millions: the manufacturers in woollen, cottons, metals, dyes, &c. will be rated high at thirty-two thousand. I mean those whose labour and capital are embarked exclusively in one or other of these branches of manufacture; for the manufactures carried on to employ the leisure hours of the members of a family at home, are out of the question; they neither ask nor need more than has been already granted.

Divide eight millions by thirty-two thousand, and the quotient is two hundred and fifty. Hence it follows that one man asks of