that the Prince embarked on board the privateer. I shall here refer only to one other historical statement; which regards the celebrated marble chair of Scone, in which the Scottish kings were crowned. Sir John Carr affirms that this marble chair is now in Westminster Abbey. But I suspect that in this assertion he blindly follows all his predecessors in tour writing; at least, I could not procure a sight of this national antiquity; but my inquiries on the subject were met by a grin from the ecclesiastical officers in at tendance at the abbey, who wondered how I could give credit to such a fable! If Sir John Carr reside in London, he himself may easily make inquiry on this subject. If he find it to exist, a description of it, accompanied with a drawing, might form a most interesting supplement to the Svo edition of the Sketches. of "presbytery" churches than of "diocese" churches. Before Sir John Carr had got farther into Scotland than Jedburgh, he discovered that "the Scotch have a natural urbanity." Indeed he might have discovered this without leaving London; merely by turning over the pages of the Edinburgh, or even the Anti-Edinburgh Review. Lest I should forfeit for my countrymen this excellent character, I shall here take my leave of the Knight and his Sketches; and closing my eyes on many faults,-some of which perhaps “incuria fudit,"-shall acknowledge that the book is not without some excellencies; that it conveys some acceptable information, and some useful hints for improvement; that it displays some traits of candour and benevolence honourable to the author's principles and feelings. 14th April 1809. Hail! ancient book, most venerable code, HORN BOOK. On the east coast of Scotland nothing very remarkable occurred, unless that, near Aberdeen, Sir John "got for dinner a branded fowl ;" by which he On the Necessity of a NEW ALPHABET, means brandered, and which he had the sagacity to discover was nothing else than "a fowl broiled on the gridiron;" a discovery that might have been both amusing and instructive to his readers, had not the hackneyed story of the Scotch magistrate in London ordering the waiter to fetch" a brandered dow" (broiled pigeon) been familiar to his readers. Sufficient specimens of Sir John Carr's style have perhaps already appeared. He sometimes attempts to soar into the loftiest Johnsonian; of which one example shall suffice."Economy (he observes) has led the Scotch to convert parts of their cathedrals in presbytery churches, and to perform their simple worship amid the mouldering ruins of monastic magnificence !" Such sonorous alliteration eclipses Johnson himself; but that correct writer would no more have talked To the Editor. SIR, ture of all human institutions is a proposition so self evident, that it would be totally superfluous to attempt a proof of it. To enumerate a hundredth part of the innovations which are daily taking place, would be impossible, and in the present case is unnecessary. All that I mean is, to draw the attention of you and your readers to the permanent state of our Alphabet, and the ever-fluctuating state of our language, an inconsistency which I do not recollect to have seen any where accounted for. Language is probably coeval with the human race. Though we cannot as ascertain the exact date of Alphabets, we may at least presume, that they are of high antiquity, and anterior to all history. They were unquestionably framed as Characteristics to represent the articulate sounds of the human voice at a remote period, and in a rude state of society, when the wants of men were few, and their language scanty. Thus, Alphabets, tho' well calculated for the rude periods at which they were framed, are totally inadequate to the modern and more refined condition of mankind. In order to make alphabets and languages move in unison, it is necessary, either to confine a language always to the rude state in which it was when the alphabet was invented, or gradually to improve the alphabet in proportion to the improvement of the language. In this case, a language and its alphabet would be co-adequate, and its Orthoepy, as well as its Orthography, might be permanently settled. In the English language, nothing appears more absurd than the quiescent letters, and nothing can be more certain, than that every letter, originally, had its specific and appropriate sound. Our remote ancestors had difficulty enough to form an Alphabet, and assign a distinct sound to each letter. Crowding half a dozen quiescent letters into one word, or giving half a dozen different sounds to one letter, could form no part of their system. If the language has improved to such a degree as to render a part of the Alphabet redundant, or inadequate, why not lop off its redundancies, and supply its defects? It is indeed selfevident, that the strictest affinity ought to exist betwixt the Orthöepy and Orthography of our language, and that we ought either to pronounce according to the Orthography, or write according to the Orthoepy. Who could trace the least affinity betwixt Colonel and Curnel,-Cholmondeley and Chumley, -sigh and sy-Anstruther and Ainster,Housewife and Houseff,and April 1809. Tissaphernes and Tissafurnace,-- Achilles and Akilles,-Right and Roit, All and Oll, Gloucester and Gloster, &c. &c.? After the labour of a succession of centuries, the Orthography of our language is tolerably settled; but being settled on the basis of an Alphabet totally inadequate to characterize the to Orthoepy, we have but attained half our purpose, and have only widened the breach betwixt the two relative essentials of our language, by chaining down the one, and leaving the other to roam at large. If we had wished them to maintain their reciprocal affinity, it would have been prudent to have chained down both, or neither. It is not a little singular, that none of our sage inquirers into the philosophy of language have discovered this important fact, that every letter, originally, had one only sound, and that the Orthography and Orthoepy of language were synonimous. In proportion however as the human race became civilized, the discrepancy became greater, and is daily increasing. One of the great causes of this discrepancy is an absurd affectation of an undefined something called English accent. On this particular point I am, fortunately, able to speak Ι not only from theory, but practice. Some 20 or 30 years ago, in quality of Governor, I accompanied a nobleman's family,who had finishedtheir clas→ sical education, to England, where they were placed at the University of Oxford, with the view of attaining the English accent. During a residence of six years, they made so little progress, tho' they were, in every other respect, profound linguists, that I was totally at a loss to account either for their non-proficiency, or my own; especially as Sally the kitchen-maid, and Joe the postilion, who could neither read nor write, were completely Englified in less than three months, and possessed more of the os rotundum than either Demosthenes, Cicero, or Adam Gillies. It English. A legion. A little book. A schoolmaster. Luacharn, Luan, Maighistir, Maighistir-scol, Maighne, Mailis, Malitia, Main, Mane, Main, Manus, Mainigh, Mania, Mainister, Monasterium, A monastery. A breast. March 28th 1809. MILO. Criticism on Exhibition of Paintings by cular notice in your miscellany, which SCOTTISH Artists. To the Editor. SIR, THE best institutions for promoting and perfecting the arts, are those which at once excite emulation, and give prospect of reward; which, while they minister to fame, diffuse a taste and desire for the productions of genius. As I consider an Exhibition of the works of our artists to be materially productive of those effects, and, therefore, by its establishment in this part of the island, to constitute an æra in the history of its arts, it was with some regret that I saw the Exhibition of last year passed over without parti contains so much valuable information on Scottish affairs. When it is considered, that such exhibitions have hitherto been attempted in the Metropolis only, promoted and encouraged by every aid of metropolitan patronage and opulence, surely the unaided attempts of our Scottish artists ought to be cherished by their countrymen, and their success recorded in our national magazine. Without further preface, therefore, I shall now offer you my feeble assistance, in pointing out some of those exhibited specimens, which appear to me most deserving of notice. In doing so, I am by no means vain enough to consider my taste as uniformly cor rect; |