A verbal exception being taken, the statement of Dr. Johnson, that in words like _stick_ and _block_ the _c_ is mute, is objectionable. The mute letter is not so much the _c_ as the _k_. "_G_ at the end of a word is always hard, as _ring_, _sing_."--_Johnson._ A verbal exception may be taken here. _Ng_, is not a combination of the sounds of _n_+_g_, but the representation of a simple single sound; so that, as in the case of _th_ and _sh_, the two letters must be dealt with as a single one. "_G_ before _n_ is mute, as _gnash_, _sign_, _foreign_."--_Johnson._ The three words quoted above are not in the same predicament. In words like _gnash_ the _g_ has been silently dropped on the score of euphony (see remarks on _k_); in _sign_ and _foreign_ the _g_ has not been dropped, but changed. It has taken the allied sound of the semivowel _y_, and so, with the preceding vowel, constitutes a diphthong. {195} Before _a_, _o_, _u_ (full vowels), _g_ has the sound, as in _gay_, _go_, _gun_: before _e_, _i_, _y_, that of _gem_, _giant_. At the end of a word (that is, followed by nothing at all), or followed by a consonant, it has the same sound that it has before _a_, _o_, _u_--_agog_, _grand_. This shows that such is its natural sound. In _hedge_ and _oblige_ the _e_ mute serves to show that the _g_ is to be pronounced as _j_. Let there be the word _r[)o]g_. Let the vowel be lengthened. Let this lengthening be expressed by the addition of _e_ mute, _roge_. There is now a risk of the word being called _roje_. This is avoided by inserting _u_, as in _prorogue_. Why, however, is it that the _u_ runs no chance of being pronounced, and the word of being sounded _prorogw['e]_? The reason for this lies in three facts. 1. The affinities between the sounds of _ga_ and _ka_. 2. The fact that _qu_ is merely _kw_. 3. The fact that in _qu_, followed by another vowel, as in _quoit_ (pronounced _koyt_), _antique_, &c., the _u_ is altogether omitted in pronunciation. In other words, the analogy of _qu_ is extended to _gu_. For the varied sounds of _gh_ in _plough_, _tough_, _enough_ (_enow_), _through_, we must remember that the original sound of _gh_ was a hard guttural, as is at present the case in Scotland, and between _g_, _h_, _f_, _v_, _w_, there are frequent interchanges. "_H_ is a note of aspiration."--It is under the notion that _th_, _ph_, _sh_, as in _thin_, _thine_, _Philip_, _shine_, are aspirated sounds, that _h_ is admitted in the spelling. As has been repeatedly stated, _th_, _ph_, _sh_ are to be treated as single signs or letters. "_J_, consonant, sounds uniformly like the soft _g_ (_i.e._, as in _gem_), and is, therefore, a letter useless, except in etymology, as _ejaculation_, _jester_, _jocund_, _juice_."--_Johnson._ It may be added that it never occurs in words of Saxon origin, and that in the single word _Allelujah_ it has the sound of _y_, as in the German.