LEROY DE SAINT ARNAUD-LESLIE its name, was placed even by Cuvier not among crustaceans, but Entozoa. The true relations of these creatures, however, after having been rendered probable by others, were finally demonstrated by Von Nordmann. A remarkable circumstance is that, when young, they resemble the higher crustaceans much more than in their mature state; having then organs for swimming, which they are capable of doing with great agility, and eyes-or an eye as in Cyclops, to which they exhibit much general resemblance; whilst, when mature, they are fixed to a single spot, as parasites on fishes, and are destitute both of eyes and of organs of locomotion. The number of the L. is very great, each kind of fish having apparently its own peculiar species of parasite. Some of them adhere to the eyes of fishes, which they render blind, some to the gills, some to other parts of the body. The ancients were acquainted with such parasites of the tunny and sword-fish, and Aristotle mentions them as causing great annoyance to the fishes infested by them. The L. assume in their mature state very various and grotesque forms. LEROY DE SAINT ARNAUD, JACQUES, a French marshal of the second Empire, was born at Paris, 20th August 1801, entered the army in 1816, but found it necessary more than once to leave it, so that, in 1831, after a lapse of fifteen years, he was only a lieutenant. In 1837, he was appointed captain of the foreign legion, and first rose to eminence in the African wars. The valour he exhibited at the siege of Constantine won him the cross of the Legion of Honour. In 1840, he became a chef de bataillon; in 1842, a lieutenantcolonel; and in 1844, a colonel. During the rising of the desert tribes under Bou-Maza, Colonel L. de St A. signalised himself at the head of the column placed under his orders, reduced the Dahra to subjection, and made Bou-Maza a prisoner. On the termination of the campaign, he was promoted to be a Commander of the Legion of Honour. In 1847, he was raised to the rank of a field-marshal; and in the early part of 1851 carried on a bloody but successful warfare with the Kabyles. He was now appointed a general of division. At this period, Louis Napoleon was plotting the overthrow of the republic, and was on the look-out for resolute and unscrupulous accomplices; and accordingly, about the beginning of autumn, L. de St A. appeared in Paris, and was immediately appointed to the command of the second division of the city forces. On the 26th October he became war minister, and took an active part in the coup d'état of 2d December, and the subsequent massacres at the barricades. On the breaking out of the Crimean war in 1854, he was intrusted with the command of the French forces, and co-operated with Lord Raglan in the battle of the Alma, 20th September. He died nine days afterwards, the victim of an incurable disease. LE'RWICK, a burgh of barony, chief town of the Shetland Islands, is situated on the Mainland, on Bressay Sound, 110 miles north-east of Kirkwall. The town presents a strange appearance from having no regular streets, the only thoroughfares between the houses being badly kept and winding pathways. The harbour is commodious and safe. Pop. (1861) 3061. In 1861, 304 vessels, of 50,742 tons, entered and cleared the port. Fishing is the chief branch of industry. LESAGE, ALAIN RENÉ, a French dramatist and novelist, born 8th May 1668, at Sarzeau, now in the department of Morbihan, and studied under the Jesuits. In 1692, he came to Paris, to pursue his philosophic and juristic studies, and to seek employment. His personal qualities attracted the favourable regard of a lady of rank, who offered him her hand; but in 1695 he married the daughter of a citizen of Paris. He renounced the practice of his profession as an advocate to devote himself to literature, and lived entirely by his literary labours, till the Abbé de Lyonne gave him a small pension of 600 livres. Some of his dramatic pieces attained great popularity; and in 1709 he was offered 100,000 francs to suppress one of them, Turcaret, a bitter satire on the financiers of the time, but he refused the offer. His comic novels, which have never been excelled by anything of the same kind, won for him a still higher place in literature, particularly Le Diable Boiteux, Les Aventures de Guzman d'Alfarache (an abridged translation from the Spanish of Aleman), and Gil Blas de Santillane (2 vols. Par. 1715), which is universally regarded as his master-piece. He died 17th November 1747. A complete edition of his works was published in Paris in 1730. The novels above named have been translated into different languages, and Gil Blas, in particular, is extremely popular. LE'SBOS, the ancient name of an island in the Grecian Archipelago, belonging to Turkey, called, during the middle ages, Mitylene (from its capital city), and hence, by the modern Greeks, Mitylen or Melino, and by the Turks Midilli. It lies 40 miles south-east of Lemnos (q. v.), near the coast of Asia Minor, from which it is distant only 10 miles; area, about 600 square miles; pop. about 40,000, of whom from 15,000 to 18,000 are Turks, the rest are Greeks. L. is rather mountainous, but only one of the mountains attains an elevation of 3000 feet. The climate is salubrious beyond that of any other island in the Ægean, and the soil is fertile. Anciently, it was famous for its wines-Horace celebrates the innocentis pocula Lesbii-but the modern produce is indifferent. Its figs, however, are excellent; but its principal exports are oil, timber, and gall-nuts. The chief town is Castro (q. v.).-L. was the birthplace of Terpander, Arion, Alcæus, Sappho, Pittacus, Theophrastus, and Cratippus. LESION, a term in Scotch Law to denote injury of weak capacity, sufficient to be a ground of action or prejudice sustained by a minor or by a person to reduce or set aside the deed which caused the lesion. See INFANT. LESLIE, LESLY, or LESLEY, THE FAMILY OF. The first trace of this Scottish historical house is found between the years 1171 and 1199, when David, Earl of Huntingdon and the Garioch, brother of King William the Lion, granted a charter to Malcolm, the son of Bartholf, of the land of Lesslyn (now written Leslie), a wild pastoral parish in Aberdeenshire. Bartholf's descendants, taking their surname from their lands of Leslie, acquired large domains before the end of the 13th c., by marriages with the heiress of Rothes on the Spey, and with one of the co-heiresses of Abernethy on the Tay. Sir Andrew of Leslie appears as one of the magnates of Scotland in 1320, and from this time the family figures more or less prominently in the history of the country. EARLS AND DUKE OF ROTHES.-It became ennobled in 1457, when George of Leslie, of Rothes, and of Leslie upon Leven (the family had transferred the name of its first possession in the Garioch to the lands of Fethkil, in Fife) was made Earl of Rothes and Lord Leslie. The third earl was the father of Norman Leslie, Master of Rothes, the chief actor in the murder of Cardinal Beaton. The fifth earl, although a man of dissolute life, distinguished himself as one of the ablest of the Covenanting leaders. His son, scarcely less able, though almost uneducated, LESLIE. became Lord Chancellor of Scotland in 1667, and in 1680 was created Duke of Rothes, Marquis of Ballinbreich, Earl of Leslie, &c. These honours, being limited to the heirs-male of his body, became extinct upon his death without male issue in 1681. The earldom of Rothes went to his eldest daughter, whose descendant, the present Countess of Rothes, is the sixteenth who has held the dignity. EARLS OF LEVEN.-Before the family forsook its first seat in Aberdeenshire, it had thrown off branches, some of which still flourish there. The chief, that of Balquhain, has given birth by itself or by its offshoots to several men of mark, such as the learned John Leslie, Bishop of Ross (born in 1527, died in 1596), the devoted champion of Mary, Queen of Scots; Sir Alexander Leslie of Auchintoul, a general in the Muscovite service, who died governor of Smolensko in 1663; and Charles Leslie, chancellor of the diocese of Connor, author of a Short Method with the Deists, who died in 1732. A still more distinguished man was Alexander Leslie, a soldier of fortune, who, bursting the trammels of illegitimate birth and a scanty education (he could write his name, but nothing more), rose to be a field-marshal of Sweden under the great Gustavus Adolphus. He was recalled to Scotland in 1639, to take the command of the Covenanting army; and in 1641 was made Earl of Leven and Lord Balgony. He died in 1661, leaving two grandchildren, the younger of whom married the Earl of Melville, and left a son, who became third Earl of Leven and second Earl of Melville. His descendant is now eleventh Earl of Leven and tenth Earl of Melville. LORDS LINDORES.-The second son of the fifth Earl of Rothes was created Lord Lindores in 1600. The title has been dormant since the death of the seventh lord in 1775. LORDS NEWARK.-David Leslie, fifth son of the first Lord Lindores, served with distinction under Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, and returning to Scotland, on the outbreak of the Great Civil War, was one of the leaders of the Parliamentary army at Marston Moor, and surprised and routed Montrose at Philiphaugh. He was defeated by Cromwell at Dunbar in 1650, and after ten years' imprisonment in the Tower, was set at liberty at the Restoration. He was made Lord Newark in 1661, and died in 1682. The title has been dormant since the death of his great-grandson, the fourth lord, in 1791. COUNTS LESLIE-Walter Leslie, a younger son of the House of Balquhain, distinguished himself in the Austrian army, and in 1637 was created a count of the empire, as a reward for his services in the murder of Wallenstein. He died without issue in 1667, when he was succeeded by his nephew, James, a field-marshal in the Austrian service, who died in 1694. The title, it is understood, became extinct in 1844. sciences, he was sent to St Andrews University in 1779. In 1785, he entered the Edinburgh Divinity Hall, but devoted most of his time to the sciences, particularly chemistry. In 1788, he left Edinburgh, and after being two years in America, as tutor to the sons of a Virginian planter, he returned to London in 1790. From that time till 1805 he was employed as tutor to the family of Mr Wedgewood, at Etruria, Staffordshire, in travelling on the continent, in contributing to the press, and in making experimental researches: the fruits of his labours were a translation of Buffon's Natural History of Birds (1793), the invention of a Differential Thermometer, a Hygrometer, and a Photometer, and the publication of an Experimental Inquiry into the Nature and Propagation of Heat (1804), a most ingenious work, constituting an era in the history of that branch of physical science, and for which the Royal Society awarded him the Rumford medals. In March 1805, he was, after a great deal of opposition from the Edinburgh clergy, elected Professor of Mathematics in the university of Edinburgh, and soon after commenced the publication of his Course of Mathematics. In 1810, L. invented the process of artificial congelation, performed the experiment in the following year before the Royal Society of London, and in 1813 published a full explanation of his views on the subject; subsequently, he discovered a mode of freezing mercury. In 1819, he was transferred to the chair of Natural Philosophy, a position better adapted to his peculiar genius, and in 1823 published one volume of Elements of Natural Philosophy, never completed. In 1832, he was created a knight of the Guelphic Order; and on November 3 of the same year expired at Coates, a small estate which he had purchased near Largo. Besides the instruments above mentioned, he invented an Ethrioscope, Pyroscope, and Atmometer, and contributed many articles to various periodicals on Heat, Light, Meteorology, the Theory of Compression, Electricity, Atmospheric Pressure, &c. His last important work was his discourse on the Progress of Mathematical and Physical Science during the Eighteenth Century, which constitutes the fifth dissertation in the first volume of the Encyclopædia Britannica. LESLIE, CHARLES ROBERT, R. A. This distinguished artist was born in London in 1794. His parents were Americans resident there at the time of his birth; they went back to America in 1799, taking with them Charles Robert along with their other children. His father died in 1804, leaving the family in straitened circumstances. Young L having, from infancy, been fond of drawing, wished to be a painter; but his mother not having the means of giving him a painter's education, he was bound apprentice to Messrs Bradford and Inskeep, booksellers and publishers in Philadelphia. He had been three years at his apprenticeship, when he managed to execute a drawing of the popular actor, George Frederick Cook. The likeness having been The history of the Leslies was written by Father William Aloysius Leslie, a younger brother of the second count, in a large and sumptuous folio pub-pronounced excellent by a number of connoisseurs, lished at Grätz in 1692, with the title of Laurus Lesliana Explicata. The Pedigree of the Family of Leslie of Balquhain was printed at Bakewell in 1861, for private circulation. Some histories of the family still remain in MS. One of them boasts that at one time three Leslies were generals of armies in three kingdoms-Walter, Count Leslie, in Germany; Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven, in Scotland; and Sir Alexander Leslie of Auchintoul, in Muscovy.' LESLIE, SIR JOHN, a celebrated natural philosopher, was born in Largo, Fife, 16th April 1766. While a boy, shewing a strong bias for the exact a subscription was raised to enable the rising artist to study painting two years in Europe. He accordingly returned to England in 1811, and entered as a student in the Royal Academy. He seems at first to have attempted subjects in what is called the classical style, together with portraits; but by degrees he came to follow out the bent of his genius, and turn his attention to works in that style in which he distinguished himself-viz., genrepainting of the highest class. The first picture that brought him into notice was 'Sir Roger de Coverley going to Church,' exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1819. In 1821, his picture of LESSING-LETTERS. 'May-day in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth' secured his election as an Associate of the Academy; and 'Sancho Panza and the Duchess,' painted for Lord Egremont, and exhibited in 1824, his best work (of which there is a repetition among the paintings of the British school bequeathed by Mr Vernon to the National Gallery), obtained for him the rank of Academician. After this, till near the period of his death, there were few exhibitions of the Royal Academy to which L. did not contribute. L.'s principal pictures are embodiments of scenes from the works of many of the most popular authors-German or any other language. In 1767, appeared Shakspeare, Cervantes, Lesage, Molière, Addison, Sterne, Fielding, and Smollett. His works have had a great influence on the English school; and though he almost always executed repetitions of his principal works-a practice that generally leads to decrease the value of pictures-his pictures bring immense prices. Great power of expression, and a delicate perception of female beauty, are the leading points in L.'s pictures. In the early part of his career, his style may be objected to as deficient in colour, and rather dry and hard; but the influence of Newton, his talented compatriot, led him to direct his attention to the works of the Venetian masters, and impart greater richness to his colouring. Later in life, the example of Constable inclined him to strive at producing empasto, or fulness of surface, in his pictures. L. accepted the appointment of Professor of Drawing at the military academy of West Point, New York; but he gave up this occupation after a five months' residence, and returned to England. In 1848, he was elected Professor of Painting at the Royal Academy, but resigned in 1851. He died in London in May 1859. His lectures were published in 1845 under the title of A Handbook for Young Painters-a very sound and most useful work on art. A life of his intimate friend and brother-artist, Constable, whose great talent he was the first fully to appreciate, was published by him in 1845, and deservedly ranks with the best writings of that class. The Autobiographical Recollections of Leslie, edited by Tom Taylor, Esq. (Lond. 1860), is a very interesting book. Mendelssohn, and others. In company with the last two, he started (1757) the Bibliothek der Schönen Wissenschäften, the best literary journal of its time, and still valuable for its clear natural criticism; he also wrote his Fabeln, his Literaturbriefe, and a variety of miscellaneous articles on literature and æsthetics. Between 1760-1765, he lived at Breslau as secretary to General Tauenzien, governor of Silesia. The year after his return to Berlin, he published his master-piece, the Laocoon, perhaps the finest and most classical treatise on æsthetic criticism in the Minna von Barnhelm, a national drama, hardly less celebrated than the Laocoon; and in 1768, his Dramaturgie, a work which exercised a powerful influence on the controversy between the French and the English styles of dramatic art-i. e., between the artificial and the natural, between the conventional and the true, between shallow and pompous rhetoric, and genuine human emotion. In 1770, L. was appointed keeper of the Wolfenbüttel Library. Two years later appeared his Emilie Galotti ; and between 1774-1778, the far-famed Wolfenbüttelschen Fragmente eines Ungenannten. These Wolfenbüttel Fragments are now known to have been the composition of Reimarus (q. v.), but the odium of their authorship fell at the time on L., and he was involved in much bitter controversy. In 1779, he published his Nathan der Weise, a dramatic exposition of his religious opinions (his friend Moses Mendelssohn is said to have been the original of Nathan); and in 1780, his Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts, a work which is the germ of Herder's and all later works on the Education of the Human Race. He died February 15, 1781. L. is one of the greatest names in German literature. If his works seem hardly equal to his fame, it is because he sacrificed his own genius, as it were, for the sake of others. When he appeared, the literature of his country was corrupted and enslaved by French influences. The aim of L. was to reinvigorate and emancipate the national thought and taste; and the splendid outburst of national genius that followed, was in a large measure the result of his labours. Compare Adolf Stahr's G. E. Lessing, Sein Leben und Seine Werke (2d. edit. Berlin, 1862). LETHAL WEAPON, in Scotch criminal law, means a deadly weapon by which death was caused, as a sword, knife, pistol. LE THE, in Grecian Mythology, the stream of forgetfulness in the lower world, from which souls drank before passing into the Elysian Fields, that they might lose all recollection of earthly sorrows. LETTER OF MARQUE (because the sovereign allowed a market or mart-i. e., authorised the disposal of the property taken), the commission authorising a privateer to make war upon, or seize the property of, another nation. It must be granted by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, or by the vice-admiral of a distant province. Vessels sailing under such commissions are commonly spoken of as letters of marque. Making war without letters of marque by a private vessel is piracy. Letters of marque were abolished among European nations at the treaty of Paris in 1856. LESSING, GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM, an illustrious German author and literary reformer, was born January 22, 1729, at Kamenz, in Saxon Upper Lusatia, where his father was a clergyman of the highest orthodox Lutheran school. After spending five years at a school in Meissen, where he worked very hard, he proceeded to the university of Leipzig in 1746, with the intention of studying theology. But he soon began to occupy himself with other matters, made the acquaintance of actors, contracted a great fondness for dramatic entertainments, and set about the composition of dramatic pieces and Anacreontic poems. This sort of life pained his severe relatives, who pronounced it 'sinful,' and for a short time L. went home; but it was his destiny to revive the national character of German literature; and after one or two literary ventures at Leipzig of a trifling character, he proceeded to Berlin in 1750, where he commenced to publish, in conjunction with his friend Mylius, a quarterly, entitled Beiträge zur Historie und Aufnahme des Theaters, which only went the length of four num- LETTERS, a legal term used in the United bers. About this time also appeared his collection Kingdom in combination with other words. Letters of little poems, entitled Kleinigkeiten. After a brief of Administration in England and Ireland mean residence at Wittenberg, in compliance, once more, the legal document granted by the Probate Court with the wishes of his parents, he returned to Berlin to a person who is appointed administrator to a in 1753, and in 1755 produced his Miss Sara Samp-deceased person who has died intestate. See ADMINson, the first specimen of bourgeoisie tragedy in ISTRATION, WILL, INTESTACY. Letter of Attorney, Germany, which, in spite of some hostile criticism, or power of attorney, in English law, is a writing became very popular. L. now formed valuable lite- or deed authorising an agent (whether he is a rary friendships with Gleim, Ramler, Nicolai, Moses | certificated attorney or not) to do any lawful act LETTERS-LETTERS AND ARTICULATE SOUNDS. in the stead of the party executing it. Letters conform, in Scotch law, mean a writ issued by the supreme court enforcing a decree of an inferior court. Letter of credit is an authority from one banker to another to pay money to a third person. Letters of exculpation, in Scotch criminal law, are a warrant obtained by a prisoner to summon witnesses on his behalf at his trial. Letter of guarantee, in Scotch law, means a writing guaranteeing a debt or engagement of another. Letter of licence is a deed or instrument executed by the creditors of a trader who is insolvent, giving him time to pay, and, in the meantime, to carry on his business under surveillance. Letters missive, in England, is an order from the Lord Chancellor to a peer requesting the latter to enter an appearance to a bill filed in Chancery against such peer; in Scotland, the word means any written agreement or memorandum relative to some bargain as to mercantile matters, or as to the sale of land or houses or the letting of land. Letters patent mean a writing of the Queen, sealed with the Great Seal of Great Britain, authorising or appointing the party to whom it is addressed to do some act, or execute some office, as creating a peer; a judge, a Queen's Counsel; also granting a patent right to a person who is the first inventor of some new contrivance. See PATENT. Letters of request, in English ecclesiastical law, mean a writ which commences a suit in the Court of Arches against a clergyman, instead of proceeding, in the first instance, in the Consistory Court. Letters of safe conduct mean a writ, under the great seal, to the subject of a state at war with this country, authorising and protecting such subject while dealing or travelling in this country, so that neither he nor his goods may be seized, as they otherwise might be. LETTERS AND ARTICULATE SOUNDS. Letters are conventional marks or visible signs of the elemental sounds of spoken language. The earliest symbols of sounds represented syllables rather than simple sounds (see ALPHABET, HIEROGLYPHICS, CHINESE LANGUAGE). It was only gradually that syllables were reduced to their ultimate elements, and all alphabets yet bear marks of their syllabary origin (see letter K), displaying various imperfections both of excess and defect. Articulate sounds are divided into vowels and consonants; and the latter are subdivided into voiceless and vocal elements (otherwise called 'sharps' and 'flats'), obstructive and continuous elements (otherwise called 'mutes' and 'semivowels), and liquids. Many other divisions have been proposed, but the above classification embraces all real varieties. The elements are likewise classified according to the organs which form them, as labials, linguals, gutturals, nasals, &c. A physiological description of the articulate sounds used in English speech, will shew the necessary extent of a perfect system of letters, and exhibit the shortcomings of our present alphabet. All the elements of speech are susceptible of separate formation; and in the following description, reference is always intended to the exact sound of each element, and not to the names of the letters. Emitted breath mechanically modified forms every articulate sound. The breath is first modified in the throat, by a certain amount of constriction in the larynx, wanting which restraint, the air would flow out noiselessly, as in ordinary breathing, or gushingly, as in sighing. The breath is thus economised into a steady stream, and rendered audible by the degree of roughness or asperation' it acquires when forced through a narrow aperture. This asperated' current of air, when articulated, forms whispered speech. In passing through the larynx, the breath is further acted on by the opposing ligaments of the glottis (the aperture of the larynx), and sonorous voice is produced. The vocalised or asperated breath receives vowel and articulate modification in its passage through the mouth. When the mouth is sufficiently open to allow the breath to flow without obstruction or oral asperation, the air is moulded into the various qualities of vowel-sound; and when the channel of the mouth is obstructed, or narrowed so much as to cause a degree of asperation of the breath between the tongue and the palate, the lips, &c., consonant-sounds are produced. The upper part of the mouth is an immovable arch: all variations in the shape of the oral passage are consequently effected by the tongue and the lips. [A nasal variety of vowel-sounds occurs in French-represented by n after the vowel-letters. These sounds are formed by depressing the soft palate, which otherwise covers the inner end of the nostrils, and allowing part of the breath to pass through the nose, while the remainder is modified in the usual way.] Vowels. When the tongue is raised in its greatest convexity towards the roof of the mouth, but without being so close as to roughen or asperate the breath, the resulting vowel quality is that heard in the word eel; and progressively less degrees of elevation produce a series of lingual vowels, of which Ah is the most flattened the lips being equally expanded throughout the series, to allow the breath to escape without labial modification. When the aperture of the lips is contracted in the greatest degree short of asperating the breath, the resulting vowel-quality is that heard in the word ooze; and progressively less degrees of labial contraction form a series of labial vowels, of which Aw is the most open-the tongue being retracted throughout the series, to direct the breath without lingual modification forward against the lips. A third series of vowels is formed by combining elevated positions of the tongue and contracted positions of the lips, or retracted positions of the tongue, and expanded positions of the lips. Of this labio-lingual series, the German ü is the most contracted, and the English sound heard in the word err the most open. The following table shews the principal vowels of each class: Close, Lingual. The possible modifications of the oral channel are endless, and untraceably minute, as are the shades of vowel-quality heard in dialects, and among individual speakers. In English, there are altogether thirteen established varieties, as heard in the words eel, ill, ale, ell, an, ask, ah, err, up, all, ore, old, ooze. Besides these, which a perfect alphabet must represent, we have the diphthongal sounds heard in the words isle, owl, oil, and the asperated compound yoo-the sound of the letter u in use-which is often, but erroneously, supposed to be a diphthongal vowel. The Aspirate H.-The letter H (see ASPIRATE) represents an expulsive breathing, modified by the form of the vocal element which follows it -as in he, hay, high, hoe, &c., in which the H will be observed to have the quality of e, ā, i, ō, &c., but without the laryngal contraction, and consequent asperation of the breath, which forms a whispered vowel. Consonants. When the tongue is raised convexly against the back of the palatal arch so as to stop the breath, the separation of the tongue from the roof LETTERS AND ARTICULATE SOUNDS. asperation, but has almost the pure sonorousness of a vowel, as in err, earn, &c. The roughly trilled Scotch or Spanish R is formed by the quivering of the whole fore-part of the tongue as it is laxly approximated to the palate.] or back of the mouth is accompanied by a percussive [R final, or before a consonant, has little or no effect, which is represented in the English alphabet by C, K, and Q, and by G when the obstructed breath is vocalised. While the tongue is in this obstructive position, if the soft palate be depressed so as to uncover the inner end of the nostrils, the breath will pass through the nose. This, with vocalised breath, is the formation of the element represented in English, for lack of an alphabetic character, by the digraph ng. [The percussive effect of K-G is slightly modified by the point at which the tongue leaves the palate before different vowels, as in the words key and caw; the consonant of the latter word being struck from the soft palate, and that of the former word further forward, from the hard palate. A peculiar Anglicism of pronunciation is derived from the substitution of the anterior for the posterior formation of K-G in certain words, as kind, card, guide, guard, girl, &c.] When the fore-part of the tongue is raised to the front of the palate, so as to stop the breath, the separation of the tongue is accompanied by the percussive effect which is represented by T, and by D when the obstructed breath is vocalised. The uncovering of the end of the nostrils while the tongue is in this obstructive position produces, with vocalised breath, the sound represented by N. When the lips are brought in contact (the lower lip rising to join the upper lip), their separation from the obstructive position is accompanied by the percussive effect represented by P, and by B when the obstructed breath is vocalised. The uncovering of the nares while the lips are in contact, produces, with vocalised breath, the sound represented by M. The remaining consonants are all of the continuous or non-obstructive class; the organs of articulation being so placed as merely to narrow the apertures, central or lateral, through which the breath issues with a degree of hissing or asperation. The elevation of the base of the tongue so as to leave a narrow aperture between its centre and the back-part of the palate, forms, with vocalised breath, the sound of Y initial as in ye. The sound of y resembles that of the vowel , but with the contracted aperture and resulting oral asperation of the breath essential to a consonant. The same position with voiceless breath forms the German ch as in ich -an element which is heard in English as the sound of H before u, as in hue. [The Scotch guttural heard in loch differs from this only in the more retracted position of the tongue, which is approximated to the soft instead of the hard palate. The same position with vocalised breath produces the soft Parisian burr. The approximation of the concave root of the tongue to the fringe of the soft palate causes the uvula to flutter in the breath, and forms the rough Northumbrian burr.] The elevation of the middle of the tongue towards the front of the palatal arch, with a narrow central passage for the breath, produces the element which, for lack of an alphabetic character, is represented by the digraph Sh; and the same position forms, with vocalised breath, the common element heard in pleasure, seizure, &c., but which has no appropriate literal symbol in English. The approximation of the flattened point of the tongue to the front of the mouth, so as to leave a narrow central passage between the tongue and the upper gum, forms the sound represented by S; and by Z when the breath is vocalised. The elevation of the tip of the tongue towards the rim of the palatal arch causes a degree of vibration of the edge of the tongue, and consequent asperation of the breath, proportioned to the degree of elevation, which is the English sound of the letter R. The approximation of the lower to the upper lip, so as to leave a central aperture for the breath, produces, with vocalised breath, the sound of W initial, as in woo. The sound of w resembles that of the vowel oo, but with a more contracted aperture. The same position, with voiceless breath, forms the element represented, for lack of an alphabetic character, by the digraph Wh. The remaining varieties of English articulate sounds are formed by forcing the breath through lateral apertures, instead of one central aperture. When the fore-part of the tongue is spread against the front of the palate, and vocalised breath passes laterally over the middle of the tongue, the sound of L is heard. [The same position of the tongue forms, with voiceless breath, the sound of L in Welsh. The English L, as heard before u (= yoo) is modified by convexity of the back-part of the tongue towards its position for Y, forming the sound which is represented in Smart's Dictionary by L', as in lure, pronounced loor. A peculiar Gaelic variety of Lis formed by raising the back-part of the tongue to the soft palate, and passing the voice laterally over the root of the tongue.] When the tip of the tongue is applied to the upper teeth (or the gum), and the breath is emitted laterally over the point of the tongue, the sound of the digraph Th as in thin is heard; and, with vocalised breath, the sound of. Th in then-neither of which elements is represented in our alphabet. When the middle of the lower lip is applied to the edge of the upper teeth, and the breath is emitted laterally between the teeth and the lip, the sound represented by F is produced; and, with vocalised breath, the sound of V. Liquids. The voice is so little intercepted in passing through the nostrils (forming m, n, or ng), and through the wide apertures of L, and also of R when not initial in a syllable, that the sound has almost the pure sonorousness of a vowel; and these elements have received the name of Liquids, to designate their property of syllabically combining with voiceless consonants-seeming to flow into and to be absorbed by them, and losing much of their natural quantity as vocal sounds; as in lamp, temse, tent, sense, tenth, ink (= ingk), &c.; milk, spilt, help, self, else, Welsh, health, &c.; hark, heart, harp, serf, earth, harsh, horse, &c. The characteristic effect of the Liquids will be best perceived by contrasting such words as temse and Thames, hence and hens, else and ells, curse and curs-in which the normal influence of vocal consonants on subsequent elements is manifested in the vocalising of the sibilant in the second word of each pair. From this review of the physiological varieties of articulate sounds, it will be evident that our alphabet of 26 letters is very imperfect, both by redundancy and deficiency. (1.) The same sounds are represented by more than one letter; as C, K, and Q; C and S; G and J. (2.) The same letter represents more than one sound; as C, which is sometimes K, and sometimes S; G, which is sometimes the vocalised form of K, and sometimes J; N, which is sometimes N, and sometimes ng; S, which is sometimes S, and sometimes Z; and Y, which is sometimes a consonant (when initial), and sometimes a vowel, sounded like the letter L. (3.) Single letters are used to represent articulate compounds; as G and J, which are sounded dzh [the voiceless form of J is represented by ch, as in chair]; U, which is |