All of these specimens of the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary, and many of a kindred order, have been often made to tell exquisitely in our national poetry. The same averment may be made regarding hosts of other words, differently begun and formed; but we must so far content ourselves with having shown the principle, and go over what is to come more quickly. However, the aspirate h must not be lightly overpassed, having a striking value in verse. Being pronounced with an aspiration, it gives a certain energy to almost all words which it begins, as hack, harsh, hawl, haste, hit, hunt, and the like. To some terms it imparts a sort of laboriously elevative force. Pope composed the following line purposely to exemplify this property:—
Up the high hill, he heaves a huge round stone."
The merely expiratory force of the h is felt equally in naming the "heights of heaven" and the "hollows of hell." Though but half a letter, it is thus potent in poetry, and is often beautifully turned to account by Milton, as in the passage, "Him the Almighty power hurled headlong," and so on.
The letter j gives the initiative to many expressive words, though their expressiveness rests mainly on the terminations. Such is the case with jar, jerk, jig, jilt, jog, jostle, jumble, jump. Our comic writers have used the most of these to good purpose. It is worth while specially to notice jeer. It would seem as if the eer was an ending peculiarly fitted to express the meaning which jeer bears, since it gives a pretty similar force to sneer, fleer, leer, peer, queer, and some others. Sound and sense concur in all these terms. The k merely gives to words the same power as the hard c. L has no great force as the initial letter of words, though it yet possesses so far its own peculiar expressiveness. That the whole members of the alphabet do so, indeed, may be very simply proved. Of the following twelve monosyllables closing in ash, the different opening letters give a different force, in respect of sound, to each word, and such as perfectly accords with the actual and several meanings. The words are, clash, crash, dash, flash, gnash, lash, mash, quash, plash, slash, smash, and thrash. The distinction here may not be great in some instances, but it certainly is so in the grating crash, the rapid flash, and the ponderous smash! These points are well worthy the attention of the student of English Versification—in truth, of English literature generally.
Many expressive words, opening with l, are formed by apt closes, as lift, lisp, limp, loathe, log, lull, and lurk. How fine the loll in Shakspeare's line:—
"The large Achilles, on his press'd bed lolling,
From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause!"
M and n, opening words isolatedly, have little peculiarity of power, but gain it by continuations and terminations:—
"Hell is murky."
"To pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud."