Mr Clowes's original letters to Mr Tulk, Mr Harrison, and others. Though I never had the advantage of seeing Mr Clowes, his writings have been, under Divine Providence, the principal means of my own happiness, and I esteem it a high privilege indeed to be enabled to take a humble part in bringing their pious and enlightened author before a younger generation. The original matter collected by Mr Harrison forms but a small part of the present volume. His personal recollections are now placed in a separate chapter, and I have endeavored to improve the arrangement of the whole materials, including some corrections, and a good deal of new matter elicited by the former edition. Winscombe, March, 1882. THEODORE COMPTON. 3. Avowal of Theological Views, and Citation before the Bishop. 4. Sunday Schools. Spread of Light. 5. A New Denomination. Abbé Barruel. 1788-99 In the First Stage of the Spelling Reform. Semiphonotypy, or Reformed ... In the Second Stage of the Spelling Reform, with the new letters 13. Correspondence continued. Illness. Visits London. 1815-17 14. Disturbed state of the Country. Further Writings. Fiftieth Page 166, line 11. The atheistical writer was Richard Carlile, not Carlyle. REFORMED SPELLING. As the births of living creatures at first are ill shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time: yet, notwithstanding, as those that first bring honor into their family are commonly more worthy than most that succeed, so the first precedent (if it be good) is seldom attained by imitation; for ill, to man's nature as it stands perverted, hath a natural motion, strongest in continuance; but good, as a forced motion, strongest at first. Surely every medicine is an innovation, and he that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils: for time is the greatest innovator; and if time of course alter things to [for] the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end? It is true that what is settled by custom, though it be not good, yet at least it is fit. And those things which have long gone together, are, as it were, confederate with themselves; whereas new things piece not so well; but, though they help by their utility, yet they trouble by their inconformity; besides, they are like strangers, more admired [wondered at], and less favored. All this is true, if time stood still; which, contrariwise, moveth so round [rapidly], that a froward retention of custom is as turbulent a thing as an innovation; and they that reverence too much old times, are but a scorn to the new. It were good, therefore, that men in their innovations, would follow the example of time itself, which indeed innovateth greatly, but quietly and by degrees scarce to be perceived; for otherwise, whatsoever is new is unlooked for; and ever it mends some, and impairs others; and he that is holpen takes it for a fortune, and thanks the time; and he that is hurt, for a wrong, and imputeth it to the author. It is good also not to try experiments in States, except the necessity be urgent, or the utility evident; and well to beware, that it be the reformation that draweth on the change, and not the desire of change that pretendeth the reformation: and lastly, that the novelty, though it be not rejected, yet be held for a suspect; and, as the Scripture saith, "That we make a stand upon the ancient way, and then look about us, and discover what is the straight and right way, and so to walk in it."-Bacon's Essays. "Of Innovations." Second Stage.-Five new letters are introduced in Chapter 12, namely, 4, ŋ, 3, B, 8, faith, long, pleasure, father, but. The italicised sentence in the above quotation justifies an attempt to amend English spelling, which is the worst in the world. Lord Bacon elsewhere says "that writing for the sounds in thin, sing, vision, alms, son, should be consonant to speaking is a branch of unprofitable subtlety." But this censure must be considered as leveled against those crude attempts to reform our orthography which had been made in his day. In the following pages the reader is introduced to a reformed spelling by successive stages. The first five Chapters are printed in the received orthography. First Stage.-In Chapters 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Third Stage.-In Chapters 13, 14, five more new letters, long vowels, are brought in; namely, 2, į, @, σ, ч, for the sounds in they, field, fall, bone, boot, make, feel, fought, boat, truly. Fourth Stage.-Three more consonants, 11, the principle of phonetic spelling is for the sounds in acknowledged, as far as it can be, in the use of the 23 serviceable letters of the old al- complete the enlarged alphabet. They will phabet; c, q, and a being rejected as un-be found in the concluding Chapters, 15, necessary, as duplicates of k, s 16, 17, 18. A a...am, fast, far.......at F f...safe, fat.......ef A ...alms, father.......ah Σ f...vicious, she........ish O o...on, not, nor.........ot "I honestly can say I cannot conceive how it is that a foreigner learns how to pronounce English, when you recollect the total absence of rule, method, system, and all the auxiliaries which people generally get when they have to acquire something that is difficult of attainment."-The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone. -The Late Dr Thirlwall, Bishop of St David's. "I look upon the established system of spelling (if an accidental custom may be so called), as a mass of anomalies, the growth of ignorance and chance, equally repugnant to good taste and to common sense. But I am aware that the public cling to these anomalies with a tenacity proportioned to their absurdity, and are jealous of all en"The unhistorical, unsystematic, unintel- croachment on ground consecrated by presligible, unteachable, but by no means un-cription to the free play of blind caprice." amendable spelling now current in England. Can this unsystematic system of spelling English be allowed to go on for ever? Is every English child, as compared with other children, to be mulcted in two or three years of his life in order to learn it ? Are the lower classes to go through school without learning to read and write their own language intelligently? And is the country to pay millions every year for this utter failure of national education ?"Professor Max Müller. . "A more lying, roundabout, puzzle-headed delusion than that by which we confuse the clear instincts of truth in our accursed system of spelling was never concocted by the father How can a system of education flourish that begins by so monstrous a falsehood, which the sense of hearing of falsehood. suffices to contradict."-The Late Lord Lytton. |