"For they this queen attended; in whose steed,
Oblivion laid him down on Laura's herse:
Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed,
And grones of buried ghosts the heavens did perse."
Verses to Edmond Spenser.
Pierce is also made to rhime with rehearse. Pope makes it rhime with universe.
"He, who thro vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe."
Essay on Man, 23.
The rhime in the last quotation, is not unequivocal proof of the pronunciation in Pope's time; but the orthography in Chaucer's and Spenser's writings, are to me satisfactory evidence that e in these words was short. The standard English pronunciation now is ferce, perce, terce, and it is universal in New England. I have only to add, that the sharp abrupt sound of e in the two first words is most happily adapted to express the ideas.
The English pronounce leap, lep; and that in the present tense as well as the past. Some of our American horsemen have learnt the practice; but among other people, it is almost unknown. It is a breach of analogy, at least in the present tense; the American pronunciation, leep, is therefore the most correct and should not be relinquished.
In the fashionable world, heard is pronounced herd or hurd. This was almost unknown in America till the commencement of the late war, and how long it has been the practice in England, I cannot determine. By Chaucer's orthography, one would imagine that it had been handed down from remote antiquity; for he writes herd, herde, and herden.[58] In reading more modern poets, I have rarely found any instance of a verse's closing with this word; so that it is difficult to say what has been the general practice among the learned. But for centuries, the word has been uniformly spelt heard; the verb hear is in analogy with fear, sear, and yet e in the past time and participle has been omitted, as heard, not heared. That herd was not formerly the pronunciation, is probable from this circumstance; the Americans were strangers to it when they came from England, and the body of the people are so to this day.[59] To most people in this country, the English pronunciation appears like affectation, and is adopted only in the capital towns, which are always the most ready to distinguish themselves by an implicit imitation of foreign customs. Analogy requires that we should retain our former practice; for we may as well change feared, seared, into ferd, serd, as to change heard into herd.
Beard is sometimes, but erroneously, pronounced beerd. General practice, both in England and America, requires that e should be pronounced as in were, and I know of no rule opposed to the practice.