From f in the Islandick alphabet, v is only distinguished by a
diacritical point.

W.

Of w, which in diphthongs is often an undoubted vowel, some grammarians
have doubted whether it ever be a consonant; and not rather as it is called
a double u, or ou, as water may be resolved into ouater; but letters of the
same sound are always reckoned consonants in other alphabets: and it may be
observed, that w follows a vowel without any hiatus or difficulty of
utterance, as frosty winter.

Wh has a sound accounted peculiar to the English, which the Saxons better
expressed by hw, as, what, whence, whiting; in whore only, and sometimes in
wholesome, wh is sounded like a simple h.

X.

X begins no English word: it has the sound of ks, as axle, extraneous.

Y.

Y, when it follows a consonant, is a vowel; when it precedes either a vowel
or a diphthong, is a consonant, as ye, young. It is thought by some to be
in all cases a vowel. But it may be observed of y as of w, that it follows
a vowel without any hiatus, as rosy youth.

The chief argument by which w and y appear to be always vowels is, that
the sounds which they are supposed to have as consonants, cannot be
uttered after a vowel, like that of all other consonants; thus we say