Nothing is considered a more shocking mark of defective education than
_false spelling_, or _bad spelling_, or _misspelling_--all which terms
are used to express one's spelling a word in some way which the critic
does not approve; that is, does not consider the right way. But this
is plainly assuming that there is but one right way. Begging his
pardon, is he quite certain that there must be true and false, good
and bad, right and wrong ways of spelling every word in every
language, or even in our own? It seems very doubtful. At all events,
we must, I think, tether the critic to his own particular period, and
not let him range up and down at his pleasure, condemning the past and
legislating for the future.
No doubt there is at this time a common and usual way of spelling most
words, which may claim to be called the right way, or _orthography_.
It is equally certain, that for any individual writer to depart from
that way, is anything but a mark of wisdom. At the same time, it would
not be difficult to specify a considerable number of words, of which
the spelling has only recently been made what it is, and about which,
even now, doubts may be raised.
But this is hardly worth mentioning, for it is clear that there is,
generally speaking, a mode of spelling the English language which is
followed by all well-educated persons; and as, according to
Quintilian, the _consensus eruditorum_ forms the _consuetudo
sermonis_, so this usage of spelling, adopted by general consent of
the learned, becomes a law in the republic of literature. My object is
not to insist on what is so plain and notorious, but rather to call
attention to a fact which many readers do not know, and many others do
not duly consider. I mean this fact--that three or four hundred years
ago there was no such settled rule. Not that a different mode was
recognised, but that there was no recognised mode. There was no idea
in the minds of persons who had occasion to write, that any such thing
existed, for in fact it did not exist; and the adoption of this or
that mode was a matter of taste or accident, rather than of duty or
propriety. Thus it was that the writer who spelt (or spelled, for we
have some varieties still) a word variously in different parts of the
same book or document, and even the printer whose own name appeared
one way on the title-page and another on the colophon, was not
contradicting his contemporaries or himself: he was not breaking the
law, for there was none to break--or, at least, none that could be
broken in that way. He would, perhaps, have said to the same effect,
though not so elegantly as Quintilian: 'For my part, except where
there is any established custom to the contrary, I think everything
should be written as it is sounded; for the use of letters is to
preserve sounds, and render them, as things which they have been
holding in trust, to the reader.' In short, the people of England, in
these old times, had a law of their own, though it did not manifest
itself in a fixed mode of spelling, but differed from ours, and,
indeed, was based on a very different principle. Perhaps I might say,
that they were brought up, not to the Spelling-book, but the
Horn-book.
By this, I mean that the critic of modern times has been no doubt well
drilled in the spelling-book, soundly rated if he was guilty of a
misspelling, and made to understand that it was next to impossible
for him to commit a more disgusting barbarism; while his
many-times-great-grandfather (the scholar of Lily, perhaps we might
almost say of Busby) went through no such discipline. He was, as I
have said, brought up on the horn-book.
Now, I grant that, generally, the major includes the minor; and a
man's being able to read is _prima facie_ evidence that he knows his
letters; yet it is possible that the modern many-times-great-grandson
may indulge in as much laxity respecting _letters_, as his ancestor
did with regard to _words_. Just try the experiment. Go round to
half-a-dozen printers, and ask them to print for you the first letter
of the alphabet. They will understand you, and you will understand me,
without my puzzling the workman who is to print this--if it is
printed--by naming the letter here. Apply to them, I say, successively
to print this letter for you. It is not likely that any one of them
will ask you: 'What shape will you have it?' because that is not a
technical mode of expression among printers; but if any one should do
so, you would perhaps answer with some surprise: 'Why, the right shape
to be sure. Do not you know your letters, and are not your first,
second, and third letters, and all through the alphabet, of the right
shape? Only take care that you do not make this first one in the shape
of the second, or third, or any of those which follow, for the whole
set are distinguished from one another simply and purely by their
_shape_.'
As I have said, however, if you applied to a practical man, he would
not put the question in this form. At the same time, he certainly
would put it in another. He would perhaps say: 'What type will you
have? Shall it be Roman, Italic, Black-letter, Script, or any of the
grotesque inventions of modern fancy?' You immediately become aware
that your order is too indefinite to be acted on without some further
specification. As, however, it is immaterial to you in a matter of
mere experiment, you say at once 'Roman.' Does that settle it?--not at
all: the question of form and shape is as wide open as ever. The Upper
Case and Lower Case in a printing-office differ as much as the Upper
House and Lower House in parliament or convocation. Is it to be a
great 'A,' or a little 'a?' A great 'A,' I need not tell you, though
quite the same in sound and value, is no more like a little 'a,' than
a great 'B' is like a little 'b.'
As to writing also, as well as printing--set half-a-dozen critics
separately and apart to write a capital 'A,' and see how far the
letters which they will produce agree in form and shape--I do not say
with any in the printer's stock, for not one will do that, we may be
certain, but with each other. One scribe will probably make something
like an inverted cornucopia, or wiredrawn extinguisher; and one will
cross it with a dash, and another with a loop; while another will make
a letter wholly different--something that shall look like a pudding
leaning against a trencher set on edge--something that is only a great
'A' by courtesy, being in fact nothing but an overgrown little 'a;'
bearing the same proportion to a common 'a' as an alderman does to a
common man, and looking as if it had been invented by some municipal
scribe or official whose eye was familiar with the outline of
recumbent obesity.
But notwithstanding these and many other variations, you freely allow
that each of your friends has made a capital 'A.' You do not dream of
saying that one is right, and all the rest are wrong. The taste and
the skill of their penmanship may be various, and the judgment of good
and bad goes so far, but it knows better than to go further. Your
toleration on this point is unbounded. If you can but make it out, you
say, without the least emotion of resentment or contempt: 'Mr A.
always makes _his_ Bs in this way;' and 'Mrs C. always makes her Ds in
that way.' _Their_ Bs and Ds forsooth! Yes: 'every man his own
alphabet-maker.' Why not, if you do but understand him? Right or
wrong, the fact is that, come in what shape it may, you take what
stands for 'A' to _be_ 'A,' with all the rights and qualities annexed
to that letter. Except so far as taste is concerned, you do not think
of rebuking the self-complacent type-founder, who prides himself on
having produced a new form which all the world will admit to be a
genuine 'A,' as soon as they make out that it was meant for one.
I have thought it worth while to say all this about letters, because I
believe that it will illustrate what was once upon a time nearly true
as to words. The principle of those who had occasion to write in those
early times was, so far as circumstances allowed, just opposite to
that of the modern critics who find fault with their practice. They
made that which, notwithstanding its fluctuations, we may call 'the
constant quantity' to be the sound, exactly as we do with the
multiform As and Bs just noticed. On the other hand, modern purists
consider, not altogether incorrectly as to the fact, that the notation
has somehow been settled and fixed, and they are disposed to force the
sound into conformity. 'B, y, spells by,' said Lord Byron; and what he
settled for himself, the spelling-book has settled for the rest of the
world and all the words in it.
The circumstances of those who wrote English some centuries ago, may
be considered as bearing some analogy to those of modern English
authors who have occasion to write down Oriental words in English
letters, and who are therefore obliged to make the characters which we
use represent sounds which we do not utter. Of course there can only
be an approximation. Writers feel that there is a discretion, and use
it freely. It is easy for one after another to imagine that he has
improved on the spelling of his predecessors. How many variegations
and transmogrifications has the name of one unhappy Eastern tongue
undergone since the days when Athanasius Kircher discoursed of the
Hanscreet tongue of the Brahmins? I am almost afraid to write the name
of Vishnoo, for I do not remember to have seen it in any book
published within these five years; and what it may have come to by
this time, I cannot guess. To a certain point, I think, this
progressive purification of the mode of representing Eastern sounds
has been acceptable to the world of letters; but the reading-public
have shewn that there is a point at which they may lose patience. They
not long ago decided that Haroun Alraschid, and Giafar, and Mesrour,
and even the Princess Badroulboudour, and the fair slave
Nouzhatoul-aouadat, had all 'proper names,' and refused to part with
the friends of their youth for a more correctly named set of persons
never before heard of.
This by the way, however; for the main object of these remarks is to
convey and impress the idea, that what naturally seems to us the
strange and uncouth spelling of former times, was not a proof of the
gross, untaught ignorance which it would now indicate. The purpose of
the writer in those days was, not to spell accurately words which
there was no strict rule for spelling, but to note down words in such
a way as to enable those who had not heard them to reproduce them, and
to impart their sense through the eye to those who should only see
them. One of the finest proofs and specimens of this which we possess,
is to be found in a sort of historical drama, now about three hundred
years old, written by Bishop Bale, one of the most learned men of his
time, and still existing, partly in his hand-writing, and partly in
another hand, with his autograph corrections.[1] Certainly the prelate
and the scribe between them did, as we should consider it, most
atrociously murder the king and queen's English--for I suppose it
would be hard to say how much of it belonged to Edward, and how much
to Elizabeth; and there is something quite surprising in the prolific
ingenuity with which they evade what we should consider the obvious
and natural spelling. For instance, one of the _dramatis personæ_, and
a very important one, is an allegorical person called 'Civil Order;'
but I believe that the word 'civil' thus spelled never occurs in the
whole work, though seven other modes of spelling it are to be found
there. What then? You know what the writer means by cyvill, cyvyll,
cyvyle, sivyll, syvyll, sivile, and syvile. Only say it out, and don't
be afraid. It is mere nervousness that hinders people from reading old
spelling. Clear your throat, and set off at full speed, and the top of
your voice, with the following paragraph. Do not stop to think; take
the raspers without looking at them, and you will find that you get
over the ground wonderfully:--
'The suttle munkych rewlars in furdewhodes rewled the pepell with
suttyll rewles. But some of the pepyll were sedycyows scysmatyckes,
and did puplyshe them for dysgysyd ipocryts, full of desseyvable gylle
and covytous hydolatrie of luker. And these sysmatykes could in no
wysse indewer that lords, nowther dewks, nor yet the kings mageste,
nor even the empowr, should ponnysh any vylayn. Because, say they,
peples in general, as well as peplys in particular (that is, yehe man
and his ayers), hath an aunchant and ondowghted right to do his
dessyer attonys. "Yea sewer," said a myry fellawe (for such as be
myrie will make myrye jests)--"even as good right as a pertre to yield
peres, and praty pygys to eat them."'
It is, of course, only for the spelling, or various spellings, of
these words that the bishop is responsible, they being here
arbitrarily brought together from various parts of his work merely to
form a specimen. There can be no doubt that he would have pronounced
the words 'people' and 'merry' in one uniform manner wherever they
occur; but it is curious to consider how little we can judge
respecting the pronunciation of our forefathers. Their _litera scripta
manet_; but how they vocalised it, we cannot always decide. If the
reader takes up any edition of Sternhold and Hopkins, printed less
than a hundred years ago, he may, I believe, read in Psalm lxxix--
O God, the Gentiles do invade,
thine heritage to spoil:
Jerusalem an heap is made--
thy temple they defile.
Any one who is aware how many of what are called 'vulgarisms' in
pronunciation are in fact 'archaisms,' will naturally think that the
ancient pronunciation of 'spoil,' like the modern vulgar one, was
'spile.' But if he goes to one old black letter--say that printed by
John Windet for the assignees of Richard Day in 1593--he will find in
the fourth line 'defoile;' and if he goes to another edition he may
find 'defoyle;' and he will learn that in speculating on such matters,
he must be on his guard against modernisers, and go to originals. Even
then the rhymes of our ancestors teach us much less of their
pronunciation than we might expect; and the curious glimpses which we
sometimes get from them, and from other sources, are only enough to
make us wish for more. Take, for instance, Master Holofernes's
vituperation of Don Adrian de Armado in _Love's Labour Lost_, and see
what you can make of it: 'I abhor such phantasms, such insociable and
point-devise companions, such rackers of orthography, as to speak
_dout_ fine, when he should say _doubt_; _det_, when he should
pronounce _debt_; d, e, b, t; not d, e, t; he clepeth a calf, _cauf_;
half, _hauf_; neighbour vocatur _nebour_; neigh abbreviated _ne_: this
is abominable, which we would call _abhominable_.' Such a passage is
curious, coming from one of whom it was asked: 'Monsieur, are you not
lettered?' and answered: 'Yes, yes; he teaches boys the Horn-book.'