avoiding confusion, or some such device which may serve the
purpose without pestering the writing by anything too strange.
For it is most certain that we may use our letters like all other
things whose end is the convenience of man. Nor is it any abuse
when those who use can give a reason that is sufficient to the
wise, and not contrary to good custom. And though some may not be
persuaded, yet when an act is passed by division of the house, it
is law by parliament. Then the objectors must relent and follow,
though they may not favour it. They must make the best of what
they thought worst, when lawful authority restrains their will. A
thing originally free, being once controlled by order, has lost its
freedom, and must then keep the current appointed for it, being
itself subject to man for his uses.
Our letters are limited in number, but their usage is certain
even in their greatest uncertainty, and therefore I take it that
we may rest content both with their number and with their use. So
much concerning the complaint of our poverty in letters, and the
confusion in their powers, which I do not wonder at, because I see
it so in all things; and I see no cause why we cannot overcome the
difficulty by our own inventions and devices, where we are to take
account of nothing but our own consent, guided by the judgment of
the wisest men, and imitation of uncorrupted nature.
If there be need, the increase in the number of our letters is
not refused to us any more than to other people, but the need
is denied, because we entered upon other people’s most perfect
inventions, and though this came later in time, yet it was so much
the surer, because all things necessary were devised to our hands,
and because our need can be no new need. Whatever we need to write
we are able to write, and when we have written it we are able to
read it. If there be any fault, the remedy must be, not to seek
what we have not, but to mark what we have, seeing that we have
sufficient.
The credit of sound being well established in their opinion, as
the natural lord and leader of all our letters, and custom being
condemned as a traitor, intruding against all right upon the
territory of sound, then they turn to the cure of this diseased
corruption, and pray Hippocrates to be judge. To amend that which
is amiss in the writing of our tongue, their ground-work being
laid in the shaken monarchy of deposed sound, they proceed in a
full course of general innovation, though some more and some less.
First, they increase the number of our letters and diphthongs, as
if it were not possible either heretofore to have written, or at
this day to write, any word correctly, for want of some increase
in the number of our letters. For as the overcharging of our words
with too many letters comes by using too much those which we have
already, so the difficulty through using them so diversely proceeds
from the mere want of material to answer each particular purpose.
Then they change the form of our letters and bring us in new faces
with very strange lineaments, how well-favoured to behold, I am
sure I know, and how unready for a penman to run on with, methinks
I foresee,--yet such readiness in the character to follow the
hand roundly is a special service belonging to the pen. Nor do I
myself in these observations so much regard what the print will
stamp well,--for it will express anything well whose form can be
imitated,--as what the pen will write well and that with good
dispatch, because printing is but a peculiar benefit for the few,
while writing is general and in every man’s fingers. A form that
is fair to the eye in print and cumbersome to the hand in penning,
will not pass in writing. To conclude, this, they say, is the only
help to amend all misses: for defect, to enlarge; for what is old
and corrupt, to bring in what is new and correct; need enforces
redress, and duty requires these changes.
Must we then alter all our writings anew? Or from what day is this
reform to take full place? It is a strange point of physic when
the remedy itself is more dangerous than the disease. Besides, I
take the alteration in this sort to be neither necessary, as there
is no such insufficiency, nor yet expedient, seeing that such
inconveniences follow. For speech being an instrument and means of
uttering what the mind conceives, if by the delivery of the mouth
the mind be understood, the speech is sufficient in fully answering
so needful a purpose. If writing, in which I include both the print
and the pen, so fully express the pith of the voice that the reader
may understand the writer’s meaning in full, I cannot persuade him
that the letters which he reads are not sufficient to express the
writer’s meaning, as he is ready to confute this by the proof that
he understands it most completely.
But these objectors will say that this understanding comes, not
through the writing, but by the intelligent reader, who understands
correctly by means of the so usual, though so corrupt, writing,
which is imperfectly and improperly written, and that propriety in
using the pen is wrongly refused, when it may be had easily with
very small effort.
I like the reason well, as I admit some imperfection. But neither
is the imperfection so great as they conceive, nor is their reason
so near to redress as they think. As for the imperfection, how it
comes and how to help it, my whole labour will prove that in the
sequel. As for their reason, I cannot see that it would be a small
effort, because they alter entirely, or at least they quite change
the superficial appearance, which in this case, where propriety in
writing is the possession of custom, would be too great a strain.
For custom, being so secure, will not be content to be overruled in
his own province, or to admit the claim of any reform where he is
proprietor, however private men’s notions, upon never so probable
appearances, may offer support to the contrary side.
The use and custom of our country has already chosen a kind of
penning, in which she has set down her religion, her laws, her
private and public dealings; every private man has, with the
approval of his country, so drawn his private writings, his
evidence, his letters, that the thing seems impossible to be
removed by so strong an alteration, though it be most willing to
receive some reasonable pruning, so that the substance may remain,
and the change take place in such points only as may please without
novelty, and profit without forcing. For were it not in good sooth
too violent a step to offer to overthrow a custom so generally
received, so definitely settled--nay, grounded so securely as shall
shortly appear--by altering either all or most of our letters? Were
it not a sign of a very simple orator to think that by so strange
an innovation he could persuade custom to divorce himself from so
long and so lawful a match? Nay, were it not wonderful even but to
wish that all our English scripture and divinity, all our laws and
policy, all our evidence and writings were penned anew, because we
have not that set down in writing which our forefathers meant, but
either more or less, owing to the insufficiency of our writing,
which is not able to set faithfully and fully down what the mind
conceives? They will say that they do not mean so radical a change.
But they must needs mean it, because it must either follow at once
upon the admitting of this new alteration, which is too great in
sense, or, after a term of years, which is too great in thought.
For with a new writing coming in, and the old character growing
out of knowledge, all records of whatever kind must needs either
come over to the new fashion, or remain worm-eaten like an old
relic, to be read as the Roman religion written down under Numa
Pompilius was read by those of Cicero’s time, when every word was
as uncouth and strange as if it had come from some other world.
But am I not undertaking a needless task in disapproving what I
need not fear, because there is no danger in it, the very usage of
our country refusing it already? I grant I am. But yet I must say
something that I may not seem to contemn, since if I say nothing
my opponents may then seem to have said something. But certainly
I hold the thing to be much too cumbersome and inconvenient, even
though it were likely to be profitable, but where no likelihood of
any profit at all is in sight, and the change itself seems neither
necessary nor easy, I cannot approve the means, though I bear no
grudge to its proposers, who deserve great thanks for their good
intentions. For their labour is very profitable to help forward
some redress, though they themselves have not hit on it. For while
different men attempt to solve the problem, some one or other will
hit it at last, whereas the case would be desperate if it were
never dealt with. But this amendment of theirs is too far-fetched,
and without its help we understand our print and pen, our evidence,
and other writing. And though we grant some imperfection, as in
a tongue not yet fully developed, yet we do not admit that it is
to be perfected either by altering the form or by increasing the
number of our familiar letters, but only by observing where the
tongue by her ordinary custom yields to the refining process, as
the old, and therefore the best, method leads us. For it is no
argument, when faults are found, to say this is the help, and
only this, because no other is in sight. But whenever the right
is found by orderly seeking, then the argument is true, that it
was not thoroughly sought, when it was denied to exist. And to
speak impartially between the letter and sound on the one side,
and custom and the letter on the other side, letters can express
sounds with all their joints and properties no more fully than the
pencil can the form and lineaments of the face, whose merit is not
life but likeness; for the letters, though they yield not always
what sound exactly requires, give always the nearest, and custom
is content with this. And therefore if a letter do not sound just
as you wish, yet hold it as the next best, lest if you change you
come not so near. And though one letter be used in diverse, or
even contrary sounds, you cannot avoid it by any change, seeing
that no other has been liked hitherto but this which we use.
Certainly, so far as I have observed, we are as well appointed for
our necessity in that way, and as much bound to our general custom
for the artificial tones of our natural tongue as any other nation
is to any other language, whether ancient in books or modern in
speech. And whatever insufficiency seems to be in its writing, it
will excuse itself, and lay the whole blame upon the insufficient
observer for not seeking the solution in the right way. This will
be found true, when it shall be seen that by sufficient care it may
be made clear and pure without any foreign help, and without either
altering the form or increasing the number of our ordinary letters,
but only by notes of its own breeding, which, being already in use,
desire nothing else but some direction from art. This I am in good
hopes of performing, according to the plan of the best refiners in
the most refined tongues, with such consideration as either breeds
general rules, or else must bear with particular exceptions. I will
mark what our customary writing will yield us in the way of notes,
without dreaming of change, which cannot stem so fatal a current
as custom runs with. I will therefore do my best to confirm our
custom in his own right, which will be easily obtained, where men
are acquainted with the matter already, and would be very glad
to see wherein the correct manner of their writing stands, and a
great deal more glad to find it so near when they thought it to be
further off. Thus have I run through these alleged infirmities in
our tongue, whose physicking I like not this way, and therefore I
will join close with my own observation to see if that will help.
Those men who will give any certain direction for the writing of
any tongue, or for anything else that concerns a tongue, must
take some period in its history, or else their rules will prove
inapplicable. For every tongue has a certain ascent from the lowest
to the highest point, and a descent again from the highest to the
lowest; and as in the ascent it has not reached a secure position,
because it is not thoroughly reduced to art, so in the descent it
comes to be not worth noting, because it gets rude again, and in
a manner withered. Hence it comes that the age of Demosthenes is
the prince of Greece, as that of Cicero is the flower of Rome, and
if the languages of these countries had not been committed to the
security of books, they would have been of little worth; nay, they
would have been forgotten altogether, long before our day, as the
spoken tongues of those nations, changing continually since the
periods named, are now quite altered, or at least are nothing like
what they were in their prime, though still blooming in another
form. So that books give life where bodies bring only death.
Consider the Greek and Latin writers before the ages of those men,
and by comparing them with these, you will see the difference that
I spoke of, the earlier being too rude to be brought under rule,
and the later departing from established rules and yielding to
change. This period of full development, with the ascent to it and
the decline leading to decay, shows us that everything belonging
to man is subject to change, the language changing also, but never
dying out. It must needs be therefore that there is something of
the nature of a soul in every spoken tongue that feeds this change
even with perceptible means. For if any tongue be fixed, and free
from movement, it is enshrined in books, not subject to ordinary
use, but made immortal by the register of memory.
This secret mystery, or rather quickening spirit, that dwells
in every spoken tongue, and therefore in our own, I call
“prerogative,” because when sound has done his best, when reason
has said his best, and when custom has carried into effect what
is best in both, this prerogative will resist any of them, and
take exception to all their rules, however general and certain.
It thus makes way for a new change, which will follow at some
stage of the language, if the writer’s period be chosen at the
best. I cannot compare this customary prerogative in speech to
anything better than to those who devise new garments, and are
left by law to liberty of device. Hence it comes in the matter
of apparel, that we do not remain like ourselves for any length
of time, though what is most seemly, like a rule of art, pleases
the wisest people best. From this same liberty of speech to
carve out a way for itself, come the exceptions to our general
rules. Hence it comes that _enough_, _bough_, _tough_, and such
other primitives are so strangely written, and more strangely
sounded. In this way prerogative seems to be like quicksilver,
ever stirring and never settled, though the general custom always
offers itself to be ordered by rule, as a close friend to reason.
This stirring quintessence, leading to change in a thing that
is naturally changeable and not blameworthy for changing, some
not very well-advised people consider as an error, and a private
misuse, contrary to custom, because it seems to be a very imperious
controller, but in this they are deceived. For indeed, though this
prerogative, by opposition in particular cases, checks general
conclusions, yet that opposition came not from individual men; it
is a private thing itself, and the very life-blood which preserves
tongues in their best natural form, from the first time that they
grew to be of any account till they come to decay, and begin a new
period, different from the old, though excellent in its kind, which
in its turn must give way to another when the time is ripe.
I take this present period of our English tongue to be its very
height, because I find it as excellently refined, both in its
general substance and in its customary writing, as either foreign
workmanship can give it gloss, or home-wrought handling can give
it grace. When the period of our nation which now uses the tongue
so well is dead and departed, another will succeed, and with the
people the tongue will alter. A later period may in its full
harvest prove comparable to the present, but surely this which
we now have seems to be at its best and bravest, and whatever
may become of the English State, the English tongue cannot prove
fairer than it is at this date, if it may please our learned class
to think so of it, and to bestow their labour on a subject so
capable of adornment, and so fitting to themselves. The force of
prerogative is such that it cannot be disobeyed, though it seems to
derange some well-ordered rule, and make people wonder who do not
weigh the cause.
For this reason, when any case arises quite contrary to the common
precept, though not to the common custom, then we must needs think
of the power of prerogative, a great princess in influence, and a
parent to corruption, but intending to raise another Phœnix from
the former ashes. He who refuses to grant such a prerogative to any
tongue, denies it life, unless he means, by registering some period
in it of most excellent note, to restrain prerogative, and preserve
the tongue, which he secures by writing from being profaned by
the people; it becomes then a learned tongue and exempt from
corruption, as our book-languages are, whose rules are so secure
that they dream of no change. This prerogative and liberty which
the nation has, to use both speech and pen at will, is the cause
why English writers are finer now than they were some hundred years
ago, though some antiquary may consider the old writing finer. But
the question is wherein fineness consists. So was Sallust deceived
among the Romans, living with Cicero, and writing like ancient Cato.
In this prerogative of writing, the very pen itself is a great
influence and has marvellous authority, for being the secretary
who carries out what is expressed by the intelligence, it presumes
upon this to venture, as far as any counsellor may, though never
against reason, whose instrument it is to satisfy the eye as the
tongue satisfies the ear. Custom, whose charge prerogative is, as
the pen is his conveyer, favours the pen very greatly and will not
hesitate to maintain that a dash with a pen may hold for a warrant,
when both speed and grace bid the pen be bold. Hence it comes that
in our language so many z’s are heard, and so few seen, owing to
the regard for dexterity and speed in the fluency of writing; and
as the pen can do this, I take it as a matter of prerogative, for
the sake of smoothness, that our tongue uses _z_ so much for _s_.
But it may be said that all our exceptions, due to most reasonable
prerogative, may well be reduced to a general form, which I do not
at all deny, though I see some difficulty in altering what our
custom has thus grasped, and it were almost too much to require any
wise and learned man so to arrest exceptions, particularly where
no standard can be fixed. He who wishes this seems to conceive of
such a thing, but even if it were attempted, the stream of custom
would break out again immediately in some other way, and cause an
even greater gap, for no banks can keep it in so narrowly but those
that are content to be sometimes overflowed, and no strength can
withstand such a current but those stays which in the fury of water
will bend like a bulrush.
If any pen, either through ignorance or pretension, offend against
reason, and intrude upon prerogative, that is no good quill, and it
will not be upheld by me; nor is that current to be called _custom_
which holds by usurpation; nor is that cause to be accounted
_reason_ which has any other beginning than genuine knowledge, or
any other ending than the nature of the thing will seem to admit.
Certainly, when I consider the matter deeply--and my thoughts on
it have not been slight or superficial--I cannot see why, when the
imperfections are removed that always accompany perfection, and
can easily be removed, to the satisfaction of the wise who are not
blinded with their own habits, the tongue as well as the pen may
not quite well have its prerogative, since our custom has become
so well-ordered that it may be ruled without chopping or changing
a single letter, or otherwise begging more aid from foreign
invention than I have already sufficiently set down.
These are my suggestions for the regulation of our tongue and the
fixing of a standard in its writing. If I have in any way hit the
mark, I shall be warranted by the right, though it may not seem so
to some, and in this I must be comforted, even if I cannot content
all.
THE PERORATION.
_To my gentle readers and fellow-countrymen, wherein many things
are handled concerning learning in general, and the nature of
the English and foreign tongues, besides some particular remarks
about the writing of books in English._
My fellow-countrymen and gentle readers, my first purpose in taking
up this subject, and venturing into print, of which till lately I
have stood in awe, was to do some good in the profession in which
I have for many years been engaged, and by giving my experience in
the teaching of the learned tongues, to lighten the labour of other
men, because I had discovered some defects that required a remedy.
But the consideration of these led me a great deal further than
I dreamed of at first. Intending to deal only with the teaching
of languages in the Grammar School, I was enforced by the sway
of meditation to think of the whole course of learning, and to
consider how every particular thing arose in a definite order. For
without that consideration how could I have discerned where to
begin and where to end, in any one thing that depends on a sequel
and proceeds from a principle? For the subject I am dealing with
is a matter of ascent, where every particular that goes before has
continual reference to what comes after, if the whole scheme is
scientifically arranged. In this course of mine, the elementary
principles may be compared to the first groundwork, the teaching of
tongues to the second storey and the after-learning to the upper
buildings. Now as in architecture and building he were no good
workman who did not plan his framework so that each of the ascents
should harmonise with the others, so in the stages of learning it
were no masterly part not to show a similar care, and that cannot
be done till the whole is thought of and thoroughly shaped in the
mind of him who undertakes the work.
After I had formed an opinion both as to where lay the blemishes
which disfigured learning and as to how they might be redressed,
as well for my own practice as by way of advice to others, I came
down to particulars and began to examine even from the very first
what went before the tongues in the orderly upbringing of children.
This was the first task that claimed me before I fell to further
thoughts and the last too, even when I had considered all that
followed, but it was then undertaken more advisedly. I entered upon
an investigation into the whole early training all the more readily
because I perceived great backwardness in the learning of tongues
through infirmities in the elementary groundwork. What a toil it
is to a grammar master when the young child who is brought to him
to teach, has no foundation laid on which anything can be built! I
undertook, therefore, to enquire into all those things that concern
the elementary training, as a stage in teaching preceding the study
of grammar, hoping by my own labour to be of use to a multitude of
masters. Moreover, as this matter concerns learners who have not
yet entered upon Latin, and teachers who may have only mediocre
learning, I thought it best to publish in the tongue that is common
to us all, both before and after we learn Latin.