Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue / A Treates, noe shorter than necessarie, for the Schooles

The following Tract is now printed for the first time from the original Manuscript in the old Royal Collection in the Library of the British Museum (Bibl. Reg. 17 A. xi). It is written on paper, and consists of forty-five leaves, the size of the pages being 5¾ in. by 3¾ in. The dedication, the titles, and the last two lines, are written with a different coloured ink from that employed in the body of the MS., and appear to be in a different handwriting. It is probable that the tract was copied for the author, but that he himself wrote the dedication to the King.
The Manuscript is undated, and we have no means of ascertaining the exact time when it was written; but from a passage in the dedication to James I. of England, it is fair to infer that it was written shortly after the visit of that monarch to Scotland, subsequent to his accession to the throne of the southern kingdom, that is, in the year 1617. This would make it contemporaneous with Ben Jonson’s researches on the English Grammar; for we find, in 1629, James Howell (Letters, Sec. V. 27) writing to Jonson that he had procured Davies’ Welch Grammar for him, “to add to those many you have.” The grammar that Jonson had prepared for the press was destroyed in the conflagration of his study; so that the posthumous work we now possess consists merely of materials, which were printed for the first time in 1640, three years after the author’s death.
The Dedication of this Tract is merely signed Alexander Hume , and contains no other clue to the authorship. Curiously enough there were four Alexander Humes living about the same time, and three of them were educated at St. Mary’s College, St. Andrew’s; only two, however, became authors, the first of whom was Minister of Logie, and wrote Hymnes or Sacred Songes . There can be little doubt, however, that the present grammar was written by the Alexander Hume who was at one time Head Master of the High School, Edinburgh, and author of Grammatica Nova .
The school rapidly rose to distinction under Hume, but in 1615 he relinquished his position, and accepted the Mastership of the Grammar School of Dunbar, then in high repute, and the very same school in which he had commenced his own education. When occupied at Dunbar, Hume had the honour of being the first who, in a set speech, welcomed James VI. back to his Scottish dominions, after an absence of fourteen years. The King stopped on his way northward from Berwick on the 13th of May, 1617, at Dunglass Castle the residence of the Earl of Home, and Hume, as the orator of the day, delivered a Latin address.