languages more tuneable and sonorous. The sounds of our English
words are commonly like those of string music, short and transient,
which rise and perish upon a single touch; those of other languages
are like the notes of wind instruments, sweet and swelling, and
lengthened out into variety of modulation.

In the next place we may observe that, where the words are not
monosyllables, we often make them so, as much as lies in our power,
by our rapidity of pronunciation; as it generally happens in most of
our long words which are derived from the Latin, where we contract
the length of the syllables, that gives them a grave and solemn air
in their own language, to make them more proper for despatch, and
more conformable to the genius of our tongue. This we may find in a
multitude of words, as "liberty," "conspiracy," "theatre," "orator,"
&c.

The same natural aversion to loquacity has of late years made a very
considerable alteration in our language, by closing in one syllable
the termination of our preterperfect tense, as in the words
"drown'd," "walk'd," "arriv'd," for " drowned," "walked," "arrived,"
which has very much disfigured the tongue, and turned a tenth part
of our smoothest words into so many clusters of consonants. This is
the more remarkable because the want of vowels in our language has
been the general complaint of our politest authors, who nevertheless
are the men that have made these retrenchments, and consequently
very much increased our former scarcity.

This reflection on the words that end in "ed" I have heard in
conversation from one of the greatest geniuses this age has
produced. I think we may add to the foregoing observation, the