a municipal and parliamentary borough, and market-town of England, county of Kent, 15 miles S. of Canterbury. It stands at the foot of a steep hill or cliff, near the E. extremity of Romney Marsh, and consists chiefly of one long street, running parallel to the coast, from which it is about half a mile distant. The church, on the slope of the hill above the town, is an elegant cruciform structure in the early English style. Hythe is much frequented during the bathing season. The municipal borough is governed by a mayor, four aldermen, and twelve councillors; and contained, in 1851, 2857 inhabitants. The parliamentary borough includes Folkestone and several smaller places, and contained, in 1851, 13,164 inhabitants. It returns one member to parliament. I, or i, the ninth letter and third vowel of the alphabet, is pronounced by throwing the breath suddenly against the palate, as it comes out of the larynx, with a small hollowing of the tongue, and nearly the same opening of the lips as in pronouncing a or e. Its sound varies; in some words it is long, as high, mind; in others short, as bid, hid, sin; in others again, it is pronounced like y, as in collier, onion; and in a few it sounds like ee, as in machine, magazine, and the like. No English word ends in i, e being either added to it, or else the i turned into y. But, besides the vowel, there is the jod consonant, which, because of its different pronunciation, has likewise a different form, thus, J, j. In English it has the soft sound of g; nor is it used excepting when g soft is required before vowels, where g is usually hard. Thus we say jack, jet, join, instead of gack, get, gain, which would be contrary to the genius of the English language.

I, used as a numeral, signifies one, and stands for as many units as it is times repeated; thus I, one, II, two, III, three; and when put before a higher numeral it subtracts itself, as IV, four, IX, nine, and so on. But when placed after it, as many are added to the higher numeral as there are I's added. Thus, VI, is $5+1$, or six; VII, $5+2$, or seven; VIII, $5+3$, or eight. The ancient Romans likewise used IO for 500, CIO for 1000, CIO for 5000, CCICIO for 10,000. Further than this they did not go in their notation, but, when necessary, repeated the last number, as CCCICIOOCCCICIOO for 200,000; CCCICIOOCCCICIOOCCCICIOO for 300,000; and so on. The ancients sometimes changed i into u; as decumus for decimus, maximus for maximus, and so on. According to Plato, the vowel i is proper to express delicate but humble things, as in the verse of Virgil:

"Accipiant insimilem imbrum, rimisque fatiscant."

I, used as an abbreviation, is often substituted for the word Jesus, of which it is the first letter.