After the sensible Note of your correspondent E. H., it is perhaps hardly
necessary to say more on the subject of aspirated and mute _h_. If these
remarks, therefore, seem superfluous, they may easily be suppressed, and
that too without any offence to the writer. {395}
It is very dangerous to dogmatise on the English language. We really have
no authority to which we can confidently appeal, except the usage of good
society: "Quem penes arbitrium est, et jus et norma loquendi."
Unfortunately, however, every man is convinced, that in _his own_ society
that usage is to be found; and your correspondents, who have agreed in
approving the _Heapian_ pronunciation, will probably, on that ground, still
retain the same opinion.
The only words in the English language, in which _h_ is written, but not
pronounced, are words derived from Latin through the French; but of these,
many in English retain the aspirate, though in French nearly all lose it.
The exceptions collected by E. H. satisfactorily prove that we do not
follow the French rule implicitly. They indeed carry the non-aspiration
farther than to words of Latin derivation. They omit the aspirate to nearly
all words derived from Greek. This we never do. I think that E. H.'s rule,
of always aspirating _h_ before _u_, is not entirely without exceptions.
Except in Ireland, I never heard _humour_ or _humorous_ aspirated, though
in _humid_ and _humect_ the _h_ is always sounded. If this be right, it
depends solely on the usage of good society, and not on rules laid down by
Walker or Lindley Murray, whose authority we do _not_ acknowledge as
infallible. I may here remark, that no arguments can be drawn from our
Liturgy or translation of the Bible that would not prove too much. If,
because we find in our Liturgy "an _humble_, lowly, and obedient heart," we
are to read "an _'umble_," we must also read "an 'undred, an 'ouse, an
'eap, an 'eart;" for _an_ was prefixed in our Liturgy as well as in our
translated Bible to _every_ word beginning with _h_, and not (as one of
your correspondents supposes) only to words beginning with silent _h_.
Among young clergymen there is a growing habit (derived I suppose from
Walker, or other such sources) of indulging in the _Heapian_ dialect. I
think Mr. Dickens will have done us more good by his ridicule, than will
ever be effected by serious arguments; and I feel as much obliged to him as
to E. H. To show how dangerous it is to be bound by a mere grammarian
authority, a disciple of Vaugelas or Restaut (no insignificant names in
French philology) would be led to read _les héros_ as if it were "les
zéros."