This solution of a difficulty, which has occurred to many people, in comparing the manners of the English and French, may not be the true one; but it appears rational. Other causes also have a material influence upon eloquence, particularly the form of government and the state of society. In these respects England and France may not be so favorable to the cultivation of oratory, as were the republics of Greece and Rome. But if a free government is the best soil for the growth of eloquence, why should it flourish in France rather than in England, which is said to be the fact with respect to pulpit eloquence? The genius of the nation may have its effect; but it is presumed, the state of the language may be considered as an auxiliary cause, if not a principal. From the foregoing history of the language, we learn the causes of its incorrect orthography. The Saxon characters, some of which were Roman, both in shape and power, while others were peculiar to the language, continued in use till the fourteenth century. These were afterwards laid aside for the Old English characters, as they are usually called; which were introduced with the art of printing from Germany,[31] and continued in use, till within a century. But both the Saxon and German letters were much inferior to the Roman in the simplicity and elegance of their form; for which reason most of the European nations have rejected their primitive characters and adopted the Roman.[32] In changing the characters of an alphabet, as well as in expressing the sounds of one language by letters of an other, some difficulty will often arise from the want of a perfect correspondence between the true sounds of letters in both. Altho there is, and must be, a great uniformity in the articulate sounds of all men, yet there are also differences peculiar to each nation, which others have not proper characters to express. Thus the Romans, when they would express the sound of the Greek ~th~ and of ~ch~, for want of suitable characters, wrote _th_ and _ch_. We conclude from this circumstance, that the Greek sound of the former was that of _t_ followed by an aspirate, and the latter, that of _k_ with an aspirate. Yet it is very probable that the sounds were guttural in Greek, and not exactly represented by the Latin combinations _th_ and _ch_. Thus two Saxon characters are represented in modern English, by the Latin combination _th_, as in _think_, _thou_. These Saxon characters were single letters and had distinct powers. We preserve the distinction of sounds to this day, but are subject to the inconvenience of having no mark by which the eye can discern that distinction.