But permit me to enquire, on what do the advocates of this practice ground their assertion, that _u_ had in Saxon the sound of _eu_ or _yu_? Are there any testimonies to support it, among old writers of authority? In the course of my reading I have discovered none, nor have I ever seen one produced or referred to. Will it be said, that _yu_ is the name of the letter? But where did this name originate? Certainly not in the old Saxon practice, for the Saxons expressed this sound by _ew_, or _eo_: And I do not recollect a single word of Saxon origin, in which the warmest sticklers for the practice, give _u_ this sound, even in the present age. Kenrick, who has investigated the powers of the English letters with much more accuracy than even Sheridan himself, observes, that we might with equal propriety, name the other vowels in the same manner, and say, _ya_, _ye_, _yi_, _yo_, as well as _yu_.[69] _U_ in _union_, _use_, &c. has the sound of _yu_; but these are all of _Latin_ origin, and can be no proof that _u_ had, in _Saxon_, the sound of _ew_ or _yu_. The whole argument is founded on a mistake. _U_ in pure English has not the sound of _ew_, but a sound that approaches it; which is defined with great accuracy by the learned Wallis, who was one of the first correct writers upon English Grammar, and whose treatise is the foundation of Lowth's Introduction and all the best subsequent compilations.[70] This writer defines the English letter _u_ in these words, "Hunc sonum Extranei sere assequenter, si dipthongum _iu_ conentur pronunciare; nempe _i_ exile literæ _u_, vel _w_ preponentes; (ut in Hispanorum ciudad, civitas.) _Non tamen idem est omnino sonus, quamvis, ad illum proxime, accedat_; est enim _iu_ sonus compositus, at Anglorum et Gallorum _u_ sonus simplex."[71]---- Gram. Ling. Angl. Sect. 2.