'culture' which drops its H's, to class this with other affected
'niceties' of speech, and to regard the whole matter as of slight
importance:

[Quint. I. vi. 21, 22.] Multum enim litteratus, qui sine aspiratione et
producta secunda syllaba salutarit (_avere_ est enim), et _calefacere_
dixerit potius quam quod dicimus, et _conservavisse_; his adjiciat
_face_ et _dice_ et similia. Recta est haec via, quis negat? sed adjacet
mollior et magis trita.

Cicero confesses that he himself changed his practice in regard to the
aspirate. He had been accustomed to sound it only with vowels, and to
follow the fathers, who never used it with a consonant; but at length,
yielding to the importunity of his ear, he conceded the right of usage
to the people, and 'kept his learning to himself.'

[Cic. Or. XLVIII. 160.] Quin ego ipse, cum scirem ita majores locutos
esse ut nusquam nisi in vocali aspiratione uterentur, loquebar sic, ut
_pulcros_, _cetegus_, _triumpos_, _Kartaginem_, dicerem; aliquando,
idque sero, convicio aurium cum extorta mihi veritas, usum loquendi
populo concessi, scientiam mihi reservavi.

Gellius speaks of the ancients as having employed the H merely to add a
certain force and life to the word, in imitation of the Attic tongue,
and enumerates some of these words. Thus, he says, they said
_lachrymas_; thus, _sepulchrum_, _aheneum_, _vehement_, _inchoare_,
_helvari_, _hallucinari_, _honera_, _honustum_.

[Gellius II. iii.] In his enim verbis omnibus litterae, seu spiritus
istius nulla ratio visa est, nisi ut firmitas et vigor vocis, quasi