| Citation |
NHG-P.774.009
4 Feb 1774:22 (902)
From the Sentimental Magazine, for June 1773.
I have always had a particular aversion to any deviations
from rectitude in every respect. You will, perhaps, esteem
me scrupulously nice, and effectly delicate, when I tell you
that I cannot bear excess or extravagance in behaviour, in
dress, or in food; nor yet misapplication of words, vicious
pronunciation, or ungrammatical language. There is one
thing, which gives me particular disgust, which I observe
many persons guilty of; I mean the aspirating of all words
beginning with a vowel, and rejecting the aspiration in
those which begin with an h. Such pronunciation, even from
the nectareous lips of the fair, is ungraceful. . . [31 more
lines]
The clerk of this parish, at the conclusion of every
prayer, takes in vain the names of exalted Haman. While the
clergyman cries out, "oly, oly, oly, Lord God of Saba hoth!"
and the clerk proceeds to say, 'eaven and hearth are full,
&c. Hell, with these people, loses all its harshness, &
becomes ell. This reminds me of a clergyman, who having an
impediment in his speech used to add an h after an s, and
used to read, "O Lord shave the King:" and the Clerk out of
complaisance, or through the force of example, went on, "and
mercifully shear us when we call upon thee."
. . . [15 more lines, signed] Disconsolate H. and P. L. B.
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