party, which for ten years had sole custody of the Government, ignored all that was good and cultivated all that was bad in the South. I have hinted that there are people in the South who, "forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before," not only love their country, and are loyal to all that should constitute its greatness and pride, but entertain sound opinions upon the material issues which press upon our day and generation. My conclusion is that, if the Republican policy of meddling and muddling, of nagging and double-dealing, continues, it will at length complete the demoralization which it has only half accomplished; that it will loosen the South from its conservative moorings; and that, when the unlucky moment comes, instead of a reservoir of wholesome ideas, we shall find the South a magazine of combustibles, ready to be used by adventurers and charlatans.

The circumstances attending the last Presidential election put a serious strain upon our elective system, and it was the South which saved the country from civil strife and secured the peaceful settlement of a most dangerous issue. It is the South to-day, the "Solid South," to which the friends of social order and honest money will have to look for reënforcements when the tug of war is really at hand. How shall they fare if, in the mean time having leveled suffrage in the South to the low standard of suffrage at the North -yea, to a lower-having elevated ignorance into a power, and employed this power to prostrate and debauch the intelligence which could only organize and direct it for good-they find the South detached from its fixed principles, a monster without a head, broken into worthless cliques and ripe for political adventures?

Be it remcmbered that this cry about the "Solid South" and a "Solid North" is but an echo, after all. The country had four years of a "Solid South" against a "Solid North." Each side spoke its mind freely out of the cannon's mouth; the declamation was vociferous, the rhetoric was magnificent, the argument was conclusive. Good men on both sides, satisfied with the result, wish to forget the unhappy events which led to it. Is it possible that any wise man can believe that continuous debate on the old sectional lines can bring us nearer to a happy consummation of the questions in dispute?

But the Republican leaders say: "We don't want to do this; it is you. Cease to mistreat the negro, learn to love your country, guarantee the security of life and property and freedom of speech:

that is all we ask, and, by all the gods of a solid North! this we mean to have."

In reply, the South, conceiving itself a peer and not a vassal, might say: "What right have you to use such language? The assumption on which you base it is false. The spirit in which it is delivered is born of cowardice and cant. You seek no peace. You care nothing for the negro. Freedom of speech, and the security of life and property, are the last things which you would have established in the South. Your aim is continued disturbance, on which you hope to trade and derive a profit. Your game is to goad us into the imprudent utterances of outraged manhood. For years you legislated against us. For years you have maligned us. You lose no opportunity to insult us. Well, if the North can stand it, the South can. The present generation of Southern men is not responsible for slavery or the war of secession. Nearly all of the active leaders of the South were obscure young men when the war began. The leaders who are coming on were in their cradles. In all that constitutes good government, the government of the people, we are equally interested with you. In private virtues, as in public spirit and in public virtue, we claim to be at least your peers. As for you the radical leaders of the Republican party, who would rekindle the smoldering fires of an almost extinguished sectional fury to gain a partisan victory-we make no disguise of our feeling toward you; we detest and distrust you : detest you for your mean pursuit of us; distrust you for your hypocrisy and corruption. You alone, among Americans, have caused the check of honest Americans to blush for their country in every part of the world. You alone, mountebanks and malignants that you are, have driven our flag from the seas, to convert it on the land into a drop-curtain to conceal your machinations against the liberty and peace, the prosperity and fair good name of a section of your countrymen, sprung from the same origin as yourselves, and having an equal right to share with you the glorious achievements and the birthright of our fathers. If you are able to drag your neighbors, a majority of the good people of the North, down to your baseness, to poison their very blood with lies, and to array them 'solid' against us on the line of an insincere, proscriptive charlatanism, so be it. We wash our hands of the consequences. Degrade ourselves by alliance with you, contaminate ourselves by intriguing with you that we will not do, because you have exhausted the resources of human forgiveness by transcending the limits set upon

human endurance. In seeking to dishonor us, you have dishonored yourselves; and, though death and the devil stood at the door, we'll none of you!"

The South might say this, and more; and, in moments of exasperation, many an honest, liberal Southern man, who entertains opinions and sentiments and sympathies with the foremost thinkers of the North, has been tempted to say it. I am sure that he does not live, if in a discourse of this sort one may be allowed a personal reference, who more thoroughly respects the character and polity of New England than I do; who warms more heartily to her prowess, her courage, and her geniality; who has a kindlier laugh for her grotesquerie; who is freer of prejudices against her, having indeed none except such as favor her, and would elevate her munificence, her culture, and her thrift into examples to be constantly set before the ill-taught, the half-taught, the indolent, spendthrift, and impoverished South. And yet, speaking to the radical leaders in question, and to them alone, I do make bold to reiterate the words I have written down and to hold them true; and, sure of the intelligence and candor of the average Northern audience, and fearing not to disturb the ghostly back numbers of the "North American Review" by recording them in these pages, I should be surest of all in Faneuil Hall itself!

The Republican party is a sectionalist. It has done what it could to create the "Solid South" in order that it might compel a "Solid North." At length it has the appearance of the desired array of sectional forces. The effect upon parties affords pretty and timely speculation for the newspapers. The result, for the people at large, may be foretold by any thoughtful person; for vicious agitation leads inevitably to loss of business, public confidence, and credit, opens the way for corrupt enginery and adventurers, and, in the end, threatens the demolition of either liberty or property, and oftenest of both.

HENRY WATTERSON.

VI.

THE PRONUNCIATION OF THE LATIN

LANGUAGE.

In a previous paper we have given a rapid glance at the relation of modern Italian to ancient Latin. In further illustration of this subject we now propose to consider what was the probable pronunciation of the ancients, as far as it is indicated in their literature. This question has been much mooted of late, and deserves careful consideration. Hitherto each nation has assumed the right to pronounce Latin according to the rules and intonations of its own language. This, however, is as preposterous as if we were to insist on pronouncing French or Italian as if it were English. In Germany, Latin becomes German; in France, French; in England, English. Of all these, certainly the worst and the least defensible, at least so far as the vowels are concerned, is the English pronunciation; and probably the worst, so far as the consonants are concerned, is the German. Of late a considerable interest has been aroused on this question, especially in England; but it is to be regretted that, without apparently any very deep study of the subject, England proposes to follow the lead of Germany and adopt her pronunciation. At a conference of the head masters of schools in England held in 1871, the system of Latin pronunciation prevalent in England was declared to be unsatisfactory, and the Latin professors of Oxford and Cambridge were requested to draw up and issue a joint paper, to secure uniformity in any change contemplated. Complying with this request, a syllabus was drawn up and published by Mr. Edwin Palmer and Mr. H. A. J. Munro, recommending an entire change of pronunciation; and these changes we now propose to consider.

First, as to the vowels. There can scarcely be a question that at present all of these are pronounced incorrectly in English. Though we have all the vowel sounds, yet each vowel or character

is differently sounded from that of any other nation. Our flat a is the Italian e; our e is their i; our o is different from their o; our ¿ is not a vowel at all, but a diphthong, with the double sound of a broad and e; our u (when not pronounced as oo) is also a diphthong, or combination of e and oo.

The first rule given in this Oxford and Cambridge syllabus is that "u" should be pronounced "as the accentuated Italian a, as in the middle a of amata, or as the a of father; à as the unaccentuated Italian a, that is, as the first and last a of amata. It is not easy to represent this sound in English; we know nothing better than the first a in away, apart, aha.”

Now, with all due deference be it said, there is no such sound of a in Italian as in the initial letter away or apart; a has always the same sound as in father, and never the light, flying sound of the first a in away. This is one of the mistakes by which an Englishman is always recognized in speaking Italian. The three a's in amata have all the same sound. The only difference is, that there is the stress or accent on the second.

The third rule is: " as accentuated Italian i, as the first i of timidi, or the i of machine; as unaccentuated Italian i, i. e., as the last two 's of timidi, or the i of pity." Again we have to make the same comment. The three is in timidi are precisely alike in Italian, and there is no such sound as the light i in pity, as any one may prove by asking an Italian to pronounce this word. He always says eat for it, and peety for pity, in speaking Eengleesh.

The pronunciation of o is correctly given in the syllabus according to Italian. The pronunciation of u is given thus: " as accentuated Italian u, as the first u in tumulo, the second of tumulto, or as u in rule or lure; u as unaccentuated Italian u, as the second u in tumulo, the first in tumulto, the u of fruition." To this we have to observe that the u in Italian is always like our oo in moon. The two u's in tumulo have exactly the same sound.

These are, however, but slight differences, about which little need be said. The rules are, if not absolutely accurate, sufficiently so to serve all common purposes. Where we must differ more seriously and decidedly is in respect to the proposed pronunciation to be given to certain consonants, and these we shall discuss more at length. For the most part, although in the preliminary remarks it is admitted that the Italian pronunciation is probably the most proximate to that of the ancients, in point of fact the German rule is followed, and especially in the g, the c, and the v.