RULES to be observed by the NATIVES of IRELAND , in order to obtain a justPronunciation of English ,

•iiS Mr. Sheridan was a native of Ireland , andhad the best opportunities of understanding thosepeculiarities of pronunciation which obtain there,

I shall extract his observations on that subjectas the best general direction, and add a lew ofmy own, by way of supplement, which I hopewill render this article of instruction still morecomplete.

The reader will be pleased to take notice thatas I have made a different arrangement of thevowels, and have adopted a notation differentfrom Mr. Sheridan, 1 am obliged to make use ofdifferent figures to mai k the vowels, but stillsuch as perfectly correspond to,his.

“ The chief mistakes made by the Irish , in pro-nouncing English , lie for the ’most part in thesounds of the two first vowels, a and e ; the form-er being generally sounded \ by the Irish , as inthe word bir, in most words where it is pronoun-ced i, as in day, by the English . Thus the Irish say pitron, mitron, the vowel i having the samesound as in the'word father; whilst the English pronounce them as if written paytron, maytron.The following rule, sttictly attended to, will rec-tify this mistake through the whole language.

“ When the vowel a finishes a syllable, andlias the accent on it, it is invariably pronouncedS [day] by the English . To this rule there arehut three exceptions in the whole language, to befound in the words fither, papa, mama. The Irish may think also the word rather an exception, aswell as father; and so it would appear to be intheir manner of pronouncing it ri-ther, laying theaccent on the vowel a ; but itt the English pro-nunciation the consonant ih is taken into the firstsyllable, as thus, rath'er, which makes the dif-ference.

“ Whenever a consonant follows the vowel ain the same syllable, and the accent is on theconsonant, the vowel a has always its fourthsound, as hit, man ; as also the same sound length-ened when it precedes the letter r, as fir, bit*,though the accent be on the vowel ; as likewisewhen it precedes tm, as bilm, psilm. The Irish ,ignorant of this latter exception, pronounce all■words of that structure as if they were writtenhawm, psawm, quaicm , catvm, &c. In the thirdsound of a, marked by different combinations ofvowels or consonants, such as au , in Paul ; aw,in law ; all, in call; aid, in bald ; alk, in talk,&c. the Irish make no mistake, except in that ofIm, as before mentioned.

“ The second vowel, e, is for the most partsounded ee by the English , when the accent isupon it; whilst the Irish in most words give itthe sound of slender &, as in hate. This sound of* [eej is marked by different combinations ofvowels, such as ea, ei, e final mute, ee, and ie .In the two last combinations of ee and ie theIrish never mistake; such as in meet, seem,field, believe, &c. ; but in all the others they al-most universally change the sound of i into i.Thus, in the combination ea, they pronounce the"words tea, see, please, as if they were spelt tay,soy,plays; insteadof tee, see, pleese. The English constantly give this sound to ea whenever theaccent is on the vowel e, except in the followingWords, great, a pear, a bear, to bear, to forbear,to swear, to tear, to wear. In all which the p■as the sound of i in bite. For want of knowingthese exceptions, the gentlemen of Ireland , after?°® ie of residence in London , are apt to fallinto the general rule, and pronounce these wordsa M 1 srect, beer, sweer, See.a v 1S i als P 8 °onded ee by the English , and asa by tne Irish ; thus the word deceit, receive, arepronounced by them as if written Aesate, resave.

is always sounded ee, except when a g followsit, as m the words reign, feign, deign, See. ; asalso m the words rein (of a bridle), rein-deer,vein, drein, veil, heir, which are pronounced likeratn, tain, drain, vail , air.

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“ The final mute e makes the preceding e nthe same syllable, when accented, have thesound of ee, as in the words supreme, sincere, re-pute. This rule is almost universally brokenthrough by the Irish , who pronounce all suchwords as if written suprime, sincere, repUte , &c.There are but two exceptions to this rule in theEnglish pronunciation, which are the words there,where.

“ In the way of marking this sound, by a doublee, as thus, ee, as the Irish never make any mis-takes, the best method for all who want to ac-quire the right pronunciation of these severalcombinations is to suppose that ea, ci, and e, attended by a final mute e, are all spelt with adouble e, or ee.

** Ey is always sounded like i by the English ,when the accent is upon it; as in the words prey,convey, pronounced pray, convay. To this thereare but two exceptions, in the words kiy and Uy,sounded kee, tee. The Irish , in attempting to pro-nounce like the English , often give the samesound to ey as usually belongs to ei; thus lorprey, convey, they say, pree, convee.

“ A strict observation of these few rules, witha due attention to the very few exceptions enu-merated above, will enable the well-educated na-tives of Ireland to pronounce their words exact-ly in the same way as the more polished part ofthe inhabitants of England do, so far as thevowels are concerned. The diphthongs theycommit no fault in, except in the sound of i,which has been already taken notice of in theGrammar* : where, likewise, the only differencein pronouncing any of the consonants has beenpointed out ; which is, the thickening thesounds of d and t , in certain situations ; andan easy method proposed of correcting thishabit f.

“ In order to complete the whole, I shall nowgive a list of such detached words, that do notcome under any of the above rules, as are pro-

* “ Vide page 11, where the true manner of pro-nouncing the diphthong i is pointed out; the Irish pronouncing it much in the same manner as theFrench .

t “ The letter d has always the same sound bythose who pronounce English well ; but the pro-vincials, particularly the Irish , Scotch, andWelch, in many words thicken the sound by amixture of breath. Thus, though they sound thed right in the positive loud and broad , in the com-parative degree they thicken it by an aspiration,and sound it as if it were written loudher, broad •her. This vicious pronunciation is produced bypushing the tongue forward so as to touch theteeth in forming that sound : and the way to cureit is easy; for, as they can pronounce the d pro-perly in the word loud, let them test a little uponthat syllable, keeping the tongue in the positionof forming d, and then let them separate it fromthe upper gum without pushing it forward, andthe sound der will be produced of course : for theorgan, being left in the position of sounding d atLhe end of the syllable loud, is necessarily in theposition of forming the same d in uttering the lastsyllable, unless it makes a new movement, as intne case of protruding it so as to touch the teeth.This letter is sometimes, though not often, qui-escent, as in the words handkerchief, handsome,handset. , , . ,

“ In pronouncing the letter t, the Irish andother provincials thicken the sound, ns was be-fore mentioned with regard to the d: for betterthey say betther ; for utter, utther ; and so on inall words of that structure. This faulty nuumerarises from the same cause that was mentioned asaffecting the sound of the d (I mean the protrudingI of the tongue so as to touch the teeth,) and isenrableonly in the same way.