In these, and any other remarks on Shakspeare with which I may happen to trouble you at any time, I beg to be regarded as a mere _guerilla_ as compared with regularly trained and disciplined Shakspearians like _Mr. Singer_, MR. COLLIER, and others. I have never read the folios of 1623 or 1632. I do not even possess a _variorum_ edition of the poet; my only copy being Mr. Collier's excellent edition. Finally, my studies have lain most about the sunny shores of the Mediterranean; and I am most at home in the literature of its three peninsulas, and the coasts of Asia. THOS. KEIGHTLEY. [Footnote 5: "in" corrected from "with" by erratum in Issue 172.--Transcriber.] [Footnote 6: "mask" corrected from "remark" by erratum in Issue 172.--Transcriber.] * * * * * NIÁGARA, OR NIAGÁRA. (Vol. vi., p. 552.; Vol. vii., p. 50.) As I consider J. G.'s apology for the popular, though undoubtedly erroneous, pronunciation of this word to be far from satisfactory, may I trouble you with some evidence in favour of Niagára, which MR. W. FRASER truly says is the Huron pronunciation? I also agree with him, that it is "unquestionably the most musical." For my own part, the sound of Niágara is painful to my ear; even Moore himself could not knock music out of it. Witness the following lines: "Take, instead of a bowl, or a dagger, a Desperate dash down the Falls of Niágara."[7] How very different is the measured, solemn sound, which the word bears in the noble lines of Goldsmith, who, it is reasonable to suppose, was as well informed of its proper pronunciation as of its correct interpretation. Travelling a few years since in Canada, I was assured by an old gentleman, who for many years held constant intercourse with the aborigines, that they invariably place the accent upon the penult. If this be true, as I doubt not, it is conclusive: and in order to testify to the correctness of the assertion, I could cite numberless aboriginal names of places in "The States," as well as in Canada: a few, however, will here suffice: Stadacóna. Hochelága. Torónto. Mississíppi. Alleghány. Apalachicóla. Saratóga. Ticonderóga. Narragánset. Oswégo. Canandáigua. Tuscalóosa. Now, I am aware that there are other Indian words which would seem, at first sight, if not to contradict, to be at least exceptions to the rule, but upon investigation they, I conceive, rather strengthen my argument: for instance, Connécticut--the original of which is, Quonehtácut, the long river. In conclusion, we should bear in mind that we have the prevalent pronunciation of such words through either of two channels,--the French or the American; consequently, in Canada, we find them Frenchified, and in "The States" Yankeefied. I therefore hold that Niágara is a most inharmonious Yankeefication of the melodious aboriginal word Niagára. ROBERT WRIGHT. 40. Tavistock Street, Covent Garden.