ancient Teutonic, whence it originally comes, or even but by the
latest terms which it borrows daily from foreign tongues, either
out of pure necessity in new matters, or out of mere bravery to
garnish itself with, it cannot be young--unless the German himself
be young, who claims a prerogative for the age of his speech, of an
infinite prescription; unless the Latin and Greek be young, whose
words we enfranchise to our own use, though not always immediately
from themselves, but mostly through the Italian, French, and
Spanish; unless other tongues, which are neither Greek nor Latin,
nor any of the forenamed, from which we have something, as they
have from ours, will for company’s sake be content to be young,
that ours may not be old. But I am well assured that every one of
these will strive for antiquity, and rather grant it to us than
forgo it themselves. So that if the very newest words we use savour
of great antiquity, and the ground of our speech is most ancient,
it must needs then follow that our whole tongue was weaned long
ago, as having all her teeth.
As for the importance of our tongue, both in pen and speech, no
man will have any doubt who is able to judge what those things are
that make any tongue to be of account, which things I take to be
three--the authority of the people who speak it, the subject-matter
with which the speech deals, and the manifold uses which it serves.
For all these three our tongue need not give place to any of her
peers.
First, to say something of the people that use the tongue, the
English nation has always been of good credit and great estimation,
ever since credit and estimation in the course of history came over
to this side of the Alps, which appears to be true--even by foreign
chronicles (not to use our own in a case that affects ourselves),
which would never have said so much of the people if it had been
obscure, and unworthy of a perpetual history.
Next, as to the matter with which it deals, whether private or
public, it may compare with some others that think very well of
themselves. For not to touch upon ordinary affairs of common life,
will matters of learning in any kind of argument make a tongue
of account? Our nation then, I think, will hardly be proved to
have been unlearned at any time, in any kind of learning, not to
use any stronger terms. Therefore, having learning by confession
of all men, and uttering that learning in their own tongue for
their own use, they could not but enrich the tongue, and bring it
consideration.
Will matters of war, whether civil or foreign, make a tongue of
account? Neighbouring nations will not deny our people to be very
warlike, and our own country will confess it, though loth to feel
it, both on account of remembering the suffering, and of fearing to
gall our friends by vaunting ourselves. Now, in offering material
for speech, war is such a breeder that, though it is opposed
to learning because it is an enemy to the Muses, yet it dares
compare with any department of learning for the multitude of its
discourses, though these are not commonly so certain or useful
as learned subjects. For war (besides the many grave and serious
considerations about it) as sometimes it sends us true reports,
either privately in the form of projects and devices that are
intended, or publicly in events which are blazed abroad because
they have occurred, so mostly it gives out--I dare not say lies,
but--very incredible news, because it can hatch these at will,
being in no danger of control, and commonly free from witnesses.
Every man, moreover, seeks both to praise himself and to harm his
enemy, besides procuring some courteous entertainment by telling
what is not true to those that love to hear it. All these tales
about stratagems and engines of war and many other such things,
give matter for speech and occasion for new words, and by making
the language so ready, make it of renown.
Will all kinds of trade, and all sorts of traffic, make a tongue
of account? If the spreading sea and the spacious land could use
any speech, they would both show you where and in how many strange
places they have seen our people, and also let you know that they
deal in as much, and in as great a variety of matters, as any
other people, whether at home or abroad. This is the reason why
our tongue serves so many uses, because it is conversant with
so many people, and so well acquainted with so many matters, in
such various kinds of dealing. Now all this variety of matter and
diversity of trade, both make material for our speech, and afford
the means of enlarging it. For he who is so practised will utter
what he practises in his natural tongue, and if the strangeness of
the matter requires it, he who is to utter, will rather than stick
in his utterance, use the foreign term, explaining that the people
of the country call it so, and by that means make a foreign word an
English denizen.
All these reasons concerning the tongue and its importance being
put together, not only prove the nation’s exercise in learning, and
their practice in other dealings, but seem to infer--to say the
least--no base-witted people, because it is not the part of fools
to be so learned, so warlike, and so well-practised in affairs. I
shall not need to prove any of these positions, either from foreign
or home history, as my readers who are strangers will not urge me
for them, and those of my own nation will not, I think, gainsay
me in them, since they know them to be true, and may use them for
their honour.
Therefore I may well conclude my first position, that if use and
custom, having the advantage of such length of time to refine our
tongue, of so great learning and experience to furnish material
for the refining, and of so good intelligence and judgment to
direct it, have attained nothing which they refuse to let go in the
correct manner of our writing, then our tongue has no certainty to
trust to, but writes all at random. But the antecedent is, in my
opinion, altogether impossible; therefore the consequent is a great
deal more than probable, which is that our tongue has in her own
possession very good evidence to prove her own correct writing;
and though no man as yet, to judge by any public writing of his,
seems to have seen this, yet the tongue itself is ready to show
it to anyone who is able to read it, and to judge what evidence
is trustworthy in regard to the standard of writing. Therefore,
seeing I have proved sufficiently in my own opinion that there
is great cause why our tongue should have some good standard in
her own writing, and consider myself to have had the sight of
that evidence by which such a standard appears most capable of
justification, and am not altogether ignorant of how to give a
decision upon it, I will do my best, according to the course which
I said was kept in the first general refining of any speech, and
has also been transferred to every secondary and particular tongue,
to set forth some standard for English writing. This I will base
upon those notes which I have observed in the tongue itself, the
best and finest therein, which by comparison with themselves offer
the means of correcting the worse, without either introducing any
innovation, as those do who set forth new devices, or mistaking my
way, as those do who despair that our tongue can be brought to any
certainty without some marvellous foreign help. Thus much for the
material fit for art in our tongue; now for the objections which
charge it with infirmities.
Those who see imperfections in our tongue either blame certain
errors which they allege to be in our writing, or else they will
seem to seek its reformation. In pointing out errors they rail
at custom as a vile corrupter, and complain of our letters as
miserably deficient. In their desire for redress they appeal to
sound as the only sovereign and surest leader in the government of
writing, and fly to innovation, as the only means of reforming all
errors in our writing.
In their quarrel with custom they seek to bring it into general
hatred, as a common corrupter of all good things, declaring it to
be no marvel if it abuse speech, which in passing through every
man’s mouth, and being imitated by every man’s pen, must needs
gather much corruption by the way, because the ill are many just as
the good are few, and common corruption, which they term custom,
is an ill director to find out a right. Hereupon they conclude
that, as it seems most probable, so it is most true that the chief
errors which have crept into our pen take their beginning from
the sole infection of an evil custom, which ought not so much as
once to be named, for direction to what is right, in either pen
or speech, being so manifestly false, notwithstanding whatever
any writers, old or new, can pretend to the contrary. Then they
descend to particularities, proving that we sometimes burden our
words with too many letters, sometimes pinch them with too few,
sometimes misshape them with wrong sounding, sometimes misorder
them with wrong placing. And are not these marvellously great
causes of discontent with custom, which is the breeder of them?
And yet if good writers seem to favour custom, then the case is
not so clear as you take it to be, that it is nothing but a hell
of most vile corruptions; that it alone infects all good things;
that it alone corrupts correct writing. For if it were indeed only
this, they would not warrant it, and give it such great credit, as
I remember they do. Is there not, then, some error in the name,
and may not custom be misconstrued? For certainly these writers,
when they speak of custom, mean that rule in conduct and virtuous
life in which good men agree, and their consent is what these
men term custom, as they call that rule in speaking and writing
the custom wherein the most skilful and learned agree. And is it
likely that either the honest in act will mislead virtue in living,
or the learned will disapprove of correctness in writing? And,
again, those honest men who approve of custom in matters of life
complain very much of corruption in manners and evil behaviour;
and the learned men, who approve of custom in matters of speech
and pen, complain very much of error in writing and corruption in
speech; and both accuse the majority of people as the leaders to
error, and set down the common abuse at the door of the multitude.
And therefore it cannot be otherwise but that the double name is
what deceives. For those who accuse custom mean false error which
counterfeits custom, and is a great captain among the impudent for
evil and the ignorant for rashness, and yet has the chief part in
directing all. And those who praise custom mean plain truth, which
cannot dissemble, which is the companion of the honest in virtue,
and of the learned in knowledge, and directs all best. Now will ye
see? This mistermed “custom” in the pen is that counterfeit abuse
which was the only cause why the monarchy of sound, of which I
spoke before, was dissolved, and itself condemned by those wise
people who joined reason with sound; and the right custom which
writers commend so is that companion of reason which succeeded
in its place when the counterfeit was cast out. Now you see the
error. So neither do writers approve of such a corruption, nor is
custom your opponent, but both writers and custom, as well as you
and I will scratch out the eyes of common error, for misusing good
things and belying custom. If good things are abused it is by bad
people, whose misnamed custom is rightly named error. If words are
overcharged with letters, that comes either by the covetousness
of those who sell them by lines, or the ignorance of those who,
besides pestering them with too many, both weaken them with too
few, and wrong them with the change of force and position.
When they have dealt thus with custom, and with their opponents
(as they consider those who are really their friends) without
marking what their reasons are, or by whose authority custom is
established, which they so impugn by suggestion of a counterfeit,
then they begin to complain sorely of the insufficiency and poverty
of our letters. While these are as many as in other tongues,
yet they do not suffice, it is alleged, for the full and right
expression of our sounds, though they express them after a sort,
but force us to use a number of them, like the Delphic sword of
which Aristotle speaks, for many sounds and services contrary to
the nature of such an instrument, each letter being intended at
first for one sound. Thus it comes to pass that we both write
improperly, not answering the sound of what we say, and are never
like ourselves in any of our writing, but always vary according
to the writer’s humour, without any certain direction. Therefore,
foreigners and strangers wonder at us, both for the uncertainty in
our writing and the inconstancy in our letters. And is it not a
great shame that so able a nation as the English, who have been
of very good note for so many years, either should not notice, or
would not amend, in all this time the poverty of their pen, and the
confusion in their letters, but both let their writing thus always
run riot, and themselves be mocked by foreign people?
If foreigners do marvel at us, we may requite them with as much,
and return their wonder home, considering that they themselves
are subject to the very same difficulties which they wonder at in
us, and have no more letters than we have, and yet both write and
are understood in spite of all these insufficiencies, just as we
also write and are understood in this our insufficiency even by
their own confession. But the common use of writing among those
strangers, which agrees so with ours in our uncertainty, makes me
think that this complaint of insufficiency is not general either
with them or with us, but in both cases belongs to a few, who
objecting to what they know nothing of, and not observing what
they cannot, therefore blame what they should not. For if their
blaming upon good cause, and marking upon wise judgment concurred
with their number, though not so great, I should be afraid lest
they should have the better, because they were the fewer; but
being both the fewer and the weaker, they carry no great weight in
condemnation. Other folks also, who see something as well as they,
do not quite disapprove of all their disapproval, but desire some
redress, where there is good cause, though they may not agree as
to the means of bringing about the redress, nor yet admit that the
error is as great as these objectors pretend. For we confess that
this multiplicity and manifold use in the force and service of our
letters requires some distinctions to be known by, if general
acquaintance with our own writing do not help us to perceive in
use what we put down by use; but still we defend and maintain the
multiplicity itself, as a thing much used even in the best tongues,
and therefore not unlawful, even though there were no distinctions.
And again, we do not think that every custom is an evident
corruption, where the general usage of those who cannot be
suspected of writing with other than good judgment, lays the
groundwork for precept, as leading to the exercise of art, and
assurance to the pen. And we rest content with the number of our
letters. Some people in studying to increase this number, only
cumber our tongue, both with strange characters and with needless
diphthongs, forcing us away from what the general rule has won and
is content with. And why not these letters only? Or why may they
not be put to many uses? This paucity and poverty of letters has
contented the best and bravest tongues that either are, have been,
shall be, or can be, and has expressed by them, both in speech and
pen, as great variety and as much difficulty in all subjects as
possibly can be expressed or understood by the English tongue or
be devised by any English intelligence. The people that now use
them, and those that have used them, have naturally the same organs
of voice, and the same delivery in sound, for all their speaking,
that we English have, because they are men, just as we English
folk are; and they handed down the use of the pen to us, and not
we to them. And finding in their own use this necessity which you
note, they fled to that help which you think naught, and were bold
with their letters, to make them serve diverse turns, sometimes
with change, sometimes with some ingenious mark of distinction.
That this kind of distinction is enough, is known to all who are
acquainted with the foreign letters, and with those writers who
treat of them. Nor is there any difficulty which they are not
subject to, either in the same or in very similar things, just as
we are. And will strangers wonder at us? Or do not those of our own
people who are learned perceive these things? For in the ignorant I
require no such discretion. I certainly think that all people, as
they have the same natural organs to speak by, though from habit
some may harp more on one sound than on others, and some--even
whole nations--may lean more upon one organ, such as the throat
or the teeth, than others do, yet naturally all are made able to
sound all kinds of speech and all letters, if they are accustomed
to them at the most fitting age and by the best means. I hold also
that it is only education and custom that make the difference, and
therefore rule all, or at least most, in speech, wherein if there
be any reason, it is not natural and simple, as in things, but
artificial and compound, based upon such and such a cause in custom
and consent. And though the Hebrew grammarians alone divide their
letters according to the vocal organs on which they lean most, such
as the throat, the roof of the mouth, the tongue, the lips, or the
teeth, yet not the Hebrews alone have that distinction in nature,
but every people which has throat, teeth, palate, tongue, lips, and
with those organs use the utterance of sounds. This is an argument
to me, both that use is the mistress, and that he who sounds on any
one method by the usage of his country, may be smoothed to some
other by the contrary use, and that therefore the same letters will
serve all people, if they choose to frame themselves accordingly.
For, otherwise, why do we persuade our people to sound Latin in
one way, Greek in another, Hebrew in another, Italian in another,
if it is not a thing that we can become acquainted with through
customary usage? And this being so in all nations, what need have
we for more letters to utter our minds, seeing that the organs of
utterance are all one, and that nothing can be uttered either more
diverse or difficult than those have uttered from whom we have the
letters we possess? Nor is it any discredit to our people to rest
content with those letters, and with that number, which antiquity
has approved and held for sufficient. Is nature, therefore, which
was fruitful in them, now so barren that we may not invent, and add
something to theirs? No, forsooth. All mankind is one, without any
respect of this or that age, both to nature herself, and to the
God and Lord of nature, and therefore what is given to one man, or
delivered in one age of common service, is meant for all men and
all ages, and always for their benefit; nor is either God himself,
or nature his minister, tied to any time for the delivery of their
gifts, but whenever man’s necessity compels him to seek, then they
help him to find. We understand, therefore, that as no one age
brings forth everything, so no one age can but confess that it has
some one or other particular invention, though not the self-same,
because it is enough to have received it once to use ever after.
So is it in this use of letters, which being once perfected is
never to be shaken, unless a better means be found of uttering
our speech, which I shall not see, nor can foresee by any secret
prophecy. In these inventions, though the first receiver have the
prerogative in taking, yet the whole posterity has the benefit in
using, and generally with greater perfection, because time and
continuance increase and prune, and when it is at the full, it
is a mistake to seek further, which I take to be the case in the
matter of penning. Nor is the restraint from innovating, altering,
or adding to things already perfected any discourtesy in reason, or
any discountenance in nature, but the simple delivery of a perfect
thing to our elder brethren to be conveyed unto us; as we in like
case must be the transporters to our posterity of such things as
it pleases God to continue by our means, whether received from our
elders or devised by ourselves.
But why may we not use all our four-and-twenty letters, even for
four-and-twenty uses each, if occasion serve, seeing that the
characters being known are more familiar and easier to be discerned
than any new device--yea, even though the old resembled each other
more, and there were but one new? It has been sufficiently declared
already, that those men who first devised letters, reserved the
authorities over them and their use to themselves for life, and
to their successors for ever, to modify and use them as it should
please them best by consent among themselves, as necessity arose.
And why not so, where the invention is their own, and the right
use of it? This general reservation is enrolled already in all
reason and antiquity, and the particular consent for the writing
of our language is given already by our general use, and will be
registered also in a very good record, I hope, and that shortly.
And will you make that sovereign which is but subaltern? Or will
you take that to be immovable like a steady rock, which roams by
nature, to serve the finder? There is no such assurance in sound
for the establishing of a right as you conceive, nor any such
necessity in letters to be constant in one use as you seek to
enforce.
The philosopher says that nature makes one thing for one use, and
that every use has its particular instrument naturally, but that
our own inventions--nay, that even the most natural means--may
through our application, serve for sundry ends and uses. And will
letters stand so upon their reputation as not to seem to admit of
our applying them to their own purposes, seeing that they are both
our creatures, and by creation our bondmen, both to sound as we
shall think good, and in as many ways as we may wish them to serve?
No, surely, they do not think so, but they are most ready to serve
as we appoint, both by creation and by covenant. The letters yield
readily, but some letters seek to delay their dutiful obedience,
holding that their substance is adamant, and that they were not
born to yield so.
With the same pen we make letters and mar them; with the same we
direct and destroy them; which are contrary uses, though meant to
compass the same right end. And will letters seem to serve but for
one use, being nothing but elves of the pen’s breeding? They will
not, but prove their own dutifulness to the pen, their parent,
by following his direction in very many points, as they yield to
reason and reasonable custom in many of their powers, whereby they
seem to argue against contention, they themselves being satisfied.
The number of things which we write and speak about is infinite,
yet the words with which we write and speak are definite and of
limited number. Therefore we are driven to use one and the same
word in very many--nay sometimes in very contrary senses--and that
is the case in all the best languages, as well as in English,
where a number of our words are of very various powers, as in
the sentence: “A bird flies light, wherever she may light,” and
many others that need not now be mentioned. And will letters
stand aloof, so as to sound always in but one way, and to serve
always but one use, where their great-grandfathers, even the words
themselves, are forced to be manifold--nay, are very well content
so to be, because of their founder’s command to be pliable, and
at the voluntary disposal of wisdom and learning? Letters must
not stand aloof, but approve of the service allotted to them, be
it never so manifold, seeing that without confusion, customary
acquaintance will make the distinctions clear; as a disputer will
sift out the difference of manifold words, so that the variety in
their senses may cause no quarrel in the argument.
If through want of skill and mere ignorance, we do not write always
in the same way, then knowledge is the helper, and he that will
follow the right usage must have the desire to learn aright.