BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. (continued 4)

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.

If distinctions are wanted then accent must be the means of 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.