nature. The anchorite saw a chamois. Charlotte died of chagrin. Chancellor of the Exchequer. Chyme and chyle are formed in digesting food. Spinach is a vegetable. An ostrich's egg. Chalybeate waters. The chrysalis of a butterfly. The fuchsia is so called from Fuchs, a German botanist.

chasm, chisel, distich, chariot, chaos, archdeacon, Michael, archangel, ochre, cherub, strychnine, chorister, chronicle, charivari, schismatic, crotchety, chloroform, chronometer, galoches.

Exercise 88.

sc, sch (c, ch mute), in words of classic derivation. He wields the sceptre. A sharp scythe. The

scion of a noble house. A schism in the church. He opened the abscess with a pair of scissors. God is prescient and omniscient. A schedule of his debts. The parties coalesced. A pleasant reminiscence. The Scythians wore scimitars. Effervescing draughts.

rescind, obscene, conscious, quiescent, scientific, excrescence, convalescent, scintillation, sciatica, fascinating.

Exercise 89.

scsk, chiefly in words of Saxon and Danish derivation.

squ = skw.

The boy scrambled through the thorns, and scratched his hands. The scullion was scolded for scalding himself while scouring out the scullery. A skull and a skeleton. The owl screeches. Pigs squeak. The skipper squandered his money at skittles. The scavenger stole the coal scuttle and scrubbing brush. The weather was too squally for the squadron to skirmish. Scraggy meat. A lively squirrel. Her face was so scorched and scarred that

it quite scared me. The scribe was scourged for scribbling scurrilous and scandalous libels. escaped unscathed.

He

scheme, scate, disc, scout, skilful, squeamish, skimmed, scutage, skewer, skating, scrawling, squatter, obelisk, scrutiny, microscopic, Isle of Skye, Schiedam.

Exercise 90.

Th in Saxon words has two sounds, as in thin and thine.

th=Greek (pronounced as th in thin).

th, h mute in thyme, Thompson, and in most French and German words.

The thistles were thick and thriving in his garden. Wild thyme. Bound with withies. Blythe as a lark. Thirty-three themes were read in the theatre. Clothe the naked. What is the breadth of the isthmus of Suez? It was quite a myth. Orthography and orthoepy. Yorkshire has three trithings or ridings. An attack of asthma.

writhe, rhythm, thrill, enthral, thorough, seething, athlete, lithograph, logarithm.

Exercise 91.

wh hw A.-Saxon. h aspirated by public speakers. A queer whim. Don't whine when you speak. Not a whit the better. The boar whets his tusks. The wherry was moored to the wharf. Never whisper in company. The whooping cough. The balls whizzed by his head. Whig and whisky are both Celtic words.

whist, whack, whirl, whelp, wheedle, whitlow, whistle, overwhelm, whittle, wheezing, whetstone, whimsical, whortleberry.

Exercise 92.

rh Greek (aspirated).

Rhyme is distinct from rhythm. He had a rheum and the rheumatics at the same time. Rhubarb pills. Tincture of myrrh. You have a catarrh or cold in the head. A rhombus and a rhomboid. Homer's poems are called rhapsodies, but the meaning of the word is changed. Rhetoric is the art of speaking. The rhinoceros trampled down the rhododendrons. A hæmorrhage from the nose. An attack of diarrhoea. Pyrrhus was king of Epirus. Exercise 93.

phf Greek .

=

In many words the ph is written as well as pronounced ƒ.

A nymph with a sylph-like form. A phial of physic. Phases or changes of the moon. Typhus fever. An epitaph on an orphan boy. The physician wrote a graphic pamphlet on ophthalmic diseases. His philosophy was mere sophistry. The apocrypha. The apophthegms of Bacon. Phthisis is a pulmonary disorder. Pheasant is from the French 'faisan.'

lymph, sphynx, sphere, phalanx, hyphen, phantom, sulphur, sapphire, phrensy, philtre, caliph, naphtha, spherical, Pharisee, phosphorus, blasphemy, atmosphere, phlegmatic, catastrophe, euphony, geography, &c.; all words beginning with amphi, as amphibious.

Exercise 94.

wr is slightly rolled in the pronunciation by good speakers.

Wry faces. A wreath of roses. The worm wriggled and writhed. He wrought a good work.

First wrangler. A pretty wren. In his wrath he wrenched it from me and sprained my wrist. A wrinkled forehead. Wrack and ruin.

wreathe, wreak, wrung, wrapper.

ps Greek 4, is found in only a few words the P

should be sounded.

Psyche (psike), pshaw, psalmody, psychology, apocalypse.

SECTION VIII.

ON THE COMPOSITION OF WORDS.

The simplest form of a word is called its root. A syllable put before the root is called a prefix. A syllable put after the root is called an affix or suffix.

The prefixes and affixes are either Saxon, Latin, or Greek.

The spelling of the root word is often varied by these prefixes and affixes, as the following Exercises will show.

Most of the prefixes and affixes are pronounced as written. Many of the prefixes, however, undergo a change in their final consonant, for the sake of euphony: for example, with the Latin and Greek prefixes, ad, con (co), in, e (ex), ob, sub, syn, the final consonant generally becomes the same as the initial consonant of the root word, as affix, aggrieve, correspond, illegal, immutable, effusion, occur, suffuse, syllable, symmetry. The exceptions are, however,

numerous.

N.B.-In the spelling of words in which the final letter of the prefix and the initial letter of the affix are the same as the initial or final letter of the root, care must be taken not to drop one of the consonants. See Ex. 102. The confusion of the sound of the prefixes in and e in such words as immigrant, emigrant, imminent, eminent, &c.; as also of pre and pro, ante, anti, in prescribe, proscribe, anteroom, antidote, &c., must be guarded against, by considering the sense