John Kemble, it is well known, maintained that the latter was the mode of pronouncing this word in Shakspeare's days. He was right, and he was wrong; for, as I shall show, both modes prevailed, at least in poetry, till the end of the seventeenth century. So it was with some other words, _show_ and _shew_, for instance. It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to observe that the sounds _k, ch, sh, kh_ (guttural) are commutable. Thus the letter _h_ is named in Italian, _acca_; in French, _ache_, in English, _aitch_, perhaps originally _atch_: our _church_ is the Scottish _kirk_, &c. Accordingly, we meet in Shakspeare _reckless_ and _rechless_, _reeky_ and _reechy_; "As I could _pike_ (pitch) my lance." (Coriol., Act I. Sc. 1.) Hall has (_Sat_. vi. 1.) "Lucan _streaked_ (stretched) on his marble bed." So also there were _like_ and _liche_, and the vulgar _cham_ for _I am_ (_Ic eom_, A.-S.) Having now to show that both _ake_ and _ache_ were in use, I commence with the former: "Like a milch-doe, whose swelling dugs do _ake_, Hasting to find her fawn hid in some brake." Shakspeare's _Venus and Adonis_ "By turns now half asleep, now half awake, My wounds began to smart, my hurt to _ake_." Fairfax, _Godf. of Bull._, viii, 26. "Yet, ere she went, her vex'd heart, which did _ake_, Somewhat to ease, thus to the king she spake." Drayton, _Barons' Wars_, iii. 75. "And cramm'd them till their guts did _ake_ With caudle, custard, and plumcake." _Hudibras_, ii. 2. The following is rather dubious: "If chance once in the spring his head should _ach_, It was foretold: thus says my almanack." Hall, _Sat._ ii. 7., ed. Singer. The _aitch_, or rather, as I think, the _atch_ sound, occurs in the following places: "_B._ Heigh ho! _M._ For a hawk, a horse, or a husband? _B._ For the letter that begins them all, _H_." _Much Ado about Nothing_, Act III. Sc. 4. "Their fears of hostile strokes, their _aches_, losses." _Timon of Athens_, Act V. Sc. 2. "Yea, fright all _aches_ from your bones." Jonson, _Fox_, ii. 2. {473} "Wherefore with mine thou dow thy musick match, Or hath the crampe thy ionts benom'd with _ache_." Spenser, _Shep. Cal._, viii. 4. "Or Gellia wore a velvet mastic-patch Upon her temples, when no tooth did _ach_." Hall, _Sat._ vi. 1. "As no man of his own self catches The itch, or amorous French _aches_." _Hudibras_, ii, 2. "The natural effect of love, As other flames and _aches_ prove." _Ib._, iii. 1. "Can by their pangs and _aches_ find All turns and changes of the wind." _Ib._, iii. 2. These, in Butler, are, I believe, the latest instances of this form of the word. THOMAS KEIGHTLEY. * * * * * LOCALITIES MENTIONED IN ANGLO-SAXON CHARTERS.