There is little to remark about the other letters, except that S, N, and M became very weak when final and were often entirely lost. S was rehabilitated in the literary dialect in the time of Cicero, who speaks of the omission to reckon it as _subrusticum_; but final M is always elided before a vowel. An illustration of the way in which final M and N were weakened may be found in the nasalised pronunciation of them in modern French (_main, faim_). The gutturals C and G have by some been supposed to have had from the first a soft sibilant sound before E and I; but from the silence of all the grammarians on the subject, from the transcriptions of C in Greek by _kappa_, not _sigma_ or _tau_, and from the inscriptions and MSS. of the best ages not confusing CI with TI, we conclude that at any rate until 200 A.D. C and G were sounded hard before all vowels. The change operated quickly enough afterwards, and to a great extent through the influence of the Umbrian which had used _d_ or _ç_ before E and I for some time. In spelling much irregularity prevailed, as must always be the case where there is no sound etymological theory on which to base it. In the earliest inscriptions we find many inconsistencies. The case-signs _m_, _d_, are sometimes retained, sometimes lost. In the second Scipionic epitaph we have _oino (unum)_ side by side with _Luciom_. In the _Columna Rostrata_ (260 B.C.) we have _c_ for _g_, single instead of double consonants, _et_ for _it_ in _ornavet_, and _o_ for _u_ in terminations, all marks of ancient spelling, contrasted with _maximos, maxumos; navebos, navebous; praeda_, and other inconsistent or modern forms. Perhaps a later restoration may account for these. In the decree of Aemilius, _posedisent_ and _possidere_ are found. In the _Lex Agraria_ we have _pequnia_ and _pecunia_, in _S. C. de Bacchanalibus, senatuos_ and _nominus_ (gen. sing.), _consoluerunt_ and _cosoleretur_, &c., showing that even in legal documents orthography was not fixed. It is the same in the MSS. of ancient authors. The oldest MSS. of Plautus, Lucretius, and Virgil, are consistent in a considerable number of forms with themselves and with each other, but vary in a still larger number. In antiquity, as at present, there was a conflict between sound and etymology. A word was pronounced in one way; science suggested that it ought to be written in another. This accounts for such variations as _inperium, imperium; atque, adque; exspecto, expecto;_ and the like (cases like _haud, haut; saxum, saxsum;_ are different). The best writers could not decide between these conflicting forms. A still greater fluctuation existed in English spelling in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, [8] but it has since been overcome. Great writers sometimes introduced spellings of their own. Caesar wrote _Pompeiii_ (gen. sing.) for _Pompeii_, after the Oscan manner. He also brought the superlative _simus_ into use. Augustus, following in his