Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Aches
Up start as many aches in his bones, as there are ouches in his skin.
George Chapman.—The Widow’s Tears.
[This word is a dissyllable and to be pronounced aitches. In Swift’s own edition of “The City Shower” he had “old aches throb,” but modern printers who lost the right pronunciation treated aches as a monosyllable, and then to complete the metre have foisted in “aches with throb.” A good example of this occurs in Hudibras, pt. 3, canto 2, line 407.]
Can by their pangs and aches find
All turns and changes of the wind.
[The rhythm here demands the dissyllable a-ches as used by the elder writers. Shakespeare particularly, who in his Tempest makes Prospero threaten Caliban,]
If thou neglect’st, or dost unwillingly
What I command, I’ll rack thee with old cramps;
Fill all thy bones with aches; make thee roar
That beasts shall tremble at thy din.
Shakespeare.—The Tempest, Act I. Scene 2. (Prospero and Caliban.)
[John Kemble was aware of the necessity of using the word in this instance as a dissyllable, but he was ridiculed by the O. P. critics, and a medal was struck on the occasion which served only to perpetuate their own ignorance. See Disraeli’s Cur. of Lit., Vol. I. p. 81.]