"Warriors she fires with animated sounds, Pours balm into the bleeding lover's _wounds_." Pope. The fashionable pronunciation of _wound_ destroys the rhime and infringes the rule of analogy; two objections to it which can be removed only by universal practice. Does this practice exist? By no means. One good authority[62] at least, directs to the analogous pronunciation; and another compiler directs to both--the regular and the fashionable. But were _woond_ the universal practice in Great Britain, this should not induce us to lay aside our own practice for a foreign one. There is but a small part, even of the well bred people in this country, who have yet adopted the English mode; and the great body of the people uniformly pursue analogy. The authority of practice therefore, is, in this country, opposed to the innovation. Shall we then relinquish what every man must acknowlege to be _right_, to embrace the corruptions of a foreign court and stage? Will not the Atlantic ocean, the total separation of America from Great Britain, the pride of an independent nation, the rules of the language, the melody of English poetry, restrain our rage for imitating the errors of foreigners? But it is said that _woond_ is softer than _wound_, and therefore more agreeable. Suppose the assertion to be true, will it follow that the softest pronunciation should be preferred? It is acknowleged on all hands, that a correspondence between sound and sense is a beauty in language, and there are many words in our language, the sounds of which were borrowed from the sensible objects, the ideas of which they are designed to express. Such are the _dashing_ of waters, the _crackling_ of burning faggots, the _hissing_ of serpents, the _lisping_ of infants, and the _stuttering_ of a _stammerer_. These are considered as beauties in a language. But there are other words, the sounds of which are not adopted in imitating audible noises, which are either soft or harsh, and by the help of association are particularly calculated to express ideas, which are either agreeable or disagreeable to the mind. Of this kind are _soft_ and _harsh_, _sweet_ and _sour_, and a multitude of others. On the supposition therefore, that _woond_ is the softer pronunciation, this is a good reason why it should _not_ be adopted; for the idea it conveys is extremely disagreeable, and much better represented by a harsh word.[63]