know with how much difficulty innovations are admitted into an established language. By the same rule, the _spiritus_ must have had some meaning, but the modern Greeks wholly neglect it. They read by accent, and I think in general without any regard to quantity; but when the subject is poetry, the quantity becomes perceptible, and the ear readily distinguishes some degree of rhythm. The present Greeks pronounce the _iota_, the _eta_, the _upsilon_, and the two diphthongs ει and οι, all exactly alike, and resembling, when short, our short _i_, when long our double _ee_. The English pronunciation may be wrong, but that of the Greeks cannot be right. It is very improbable that the ancients should have added letters to the alphabet to express sounds for which they had already characters. And unless something of importance has been lost, we must at least deny them all praise of ingenuity in the formation of their alphabet. What I have above mentioned, are the most striking particulars of the present pronunciation, but there are others of considerable importance. No difference is made between the _epsilon_, and the _ai_ diphthong; none between the _omicron_ and _omega_ in common conversation. _Beta_ is pronounced like our _v_; _delta_, like _th_ in thy; _gamma_, before α, ο, or ω, is a guttural, bearing the same relation to the guttural _chi_, as our hard _g_ bears to _k_. Before the other vowels and diphthongs, _gamma_ is _y_ consonant with a guttural prefixed. _Kappa_ is like our _k_ before the α, ο, or ω, but before the other vowels and diphthongs, it takes a _y_ consonant in addition, and this at Athens, and I believe in most places, is very frequently corrupted into our soft _ch_. Since all the languages which have deduced their mode of writing from the Greeks, give two sounds to each of those two letters (for _c_, not _k_, is the legitimate daughter of the _kappa_) it is highly probable that some such difference existed in the original. _Upsilon_ after a vowel is _v_ or _f_. These particulars should, I think, be attended to, in transferring modern Greek or Romaic words into our own language.[33] Some names are naturalized, and these I would not attempt to alter; but in writing down the few places which will be less known to you, I have followed a regular system; β is _v_; δ _th_; γ and κ I leave as _g_ and _k_; χ, I have ventured to express by _kh_, which avoids the ambiguity of our _ch_. In the vowels and diphthongs, α is _a_; αι is _æ_: a recurrence to the old mode which suits tolerably well with our pronunciation, ε is _e_; ει is _ei_; η is _ee_; which is sometimes short with us, as in _been_, as well as with the modern Greeks; ι is _i_; ο and ω are both _o_; οι, _œ_; υ is _f_ or _v_, according as it is actually sounded when it follows a vowel; _y_ in other cases. This plan you see leaves the etymologies quite as clear as at present, and if it do not follow all the niceties of pronunciation, which it would be