Part 13 (2/2)

A year or two prior to the discovery of this pernicious influence, Christopher Ocland had printed a erel lish people froenets down to that of Elizabeth, whoentleh the Lords Commissioners in Causes Ecclesiastical, letters-patent prescribing the use of his _Angloruland and Wales in lieu of the books of less e, dated May 7, 1582, was accorded in consideration not only of the freedoacy, but of ”the quality of the verse,”--an encoree it eil, Ovid, Homer, and the rest of the heathens, was dedicated to Zenobia by the worthy writer in some lines which are a fair saia Nympha, soli [_sic_] ione nites, Quae vitae meritis, morum & candore coruscans, Zenobiam vincis, siqua vel ante fuit”

Such was the Oclandian Muse which the Lords Commissioners in Causes Ecclesiastical accounted preferable to the coht of every succeeding age!

Despite the lofty patronage and auspicious circulorum Praelia_ was launched on its proud career, the imbecility of the whole idea appears to have been promptly appreciated; and the ”lascivious poets,” whom it was to have effaced, continued, and to this day continue, ”to corrupt the youth”

XVI

Ben Jonson and shi+rley writers of Grammars--Some account of the former--Thomas Hayne's Latin Gralish Gra Ben Jonson's works in 1640, and also to be found in the inally cohafter the destruction of Jonson's books and MSS by an accidental fire It appears that the author had taken considerable trouble to collect together the literature of this class already existing in our own and other languages, with a view to comparison and improvement, and he was probably assisted by friends, as Howell speaks so early as 1620 of having borrowed for him Davis's Welsh Grammar, ”to add to those many which he already had” Sir Francis Kinaston cites ”his most learned and celebrated friend, Master Ben Jonson,” as the possessor of a very ancient graue and character, by way of illustrating what it could scarcely illustrate--the state of our language in the time of Chaucer This book doubtless perished with the rest

The work in its present state is divided into chapters: _Of Grammar and the Parts_; _Of Letters and their Powers_; _Of the Vowels_; _Of the Consonants_, and so forth In the third chapter, under Y, the writer reue, and hath only the power of an _i_, even where it obtains the seat of a consonant, as in _young_, _younker_, which the Dutch, whose priht rite _iouth_, _ies_, _ioke_”

”C is a letter,” he says, ”which our forefathers ue; but since it hath obtained place both in our writing and language, we are not now to quarrel with _orthography_ or _custom_”

Nor is _c_ the only ht have advantageously dispensed; for in a subsequent page he declares that ”_q_ is a letter we ht very well have spared in our _alphabet_, if ould but use the serviceable _k_ as he should be, and restore hiht of reputation he had with our forefathers For the English Saxon knew not this halting _q_, with her waiting woman _u_ after her, but exprest

_quail_,} {_kuail_, _quest_,} by {_kuest_, _quick_,} {_kuick_, _quill_,} {_kuill_”

In other words, Jonson, discarding _c_ and _q_, ith those who nowadays ask us to say _Kikero_, _Kelt_, _Kaesar_; and he seems also to be an advocate for such terminations as _st_ or _pt_ for _ed_ in _exprest_, _confest_, _profest_, _stopt_, _dropt_, _cropt_, wherein he has a follower in Mr Furnivall

His deht to be sounded as pronounced is occasionally very aue striking the upper teeth” ”P breaketh softly through the lips” ”N ringeth somewhat more in the lips and nose”

But of H he remarks: ”Whether it be a letter or no, hath been much examined by the ancients, and by some of the Greek party too much condemned, and thrown out of the alphabet”

This last piece of criticis the moderns who also repudiate it, and may not be aware that they have the Greek party in Jonson's day on their side, only that the Greek party did not offer the deposed letter any substituted position

Jonson's _Graists, however, rather than for the elee of education

The method is discursive and the style obscure; and it is chiefly prizable as an evidence of the versatility, the extensive reading, and the perseverance of the author He quotes aate, Fox's _Martyrs_, Harding's _Chronicle_, Chaucer, and Sir John Cheke

It is curious enough that Jonson's notion as to the superfluities of our alphabet is supported to soraphy sanctioned by M

Vimont in his _Relation de la Nouvelle France_, 1641, where he puts _Kebeck_ for _Quebec_; but the change must necessarily influence the pronunciation

Neither of these writers was avowedly an advocate of Phonography; but the adoption of that principle of spelling would necessarily involve the dispensation with certain letters which at present forlish A B C

In the dedication to Lord Herbert of his little book, JAMES shi+RLEY refers to the abundance of such treatises at that time before the public, ”by which so, as if the root and foundation of art stood in need of warmth and reparation”

But he furnishes no infor himself or the h it is readily inferable that he did so to aug of the theatres, from school-work in Whitefriars Some of the illustrations are in such couplets as the subjoined:--

”In _di_, _do_, _dum_, the Gerunds chime and close, _Um_, the first Supine, _u_ the latter shews”