Next, as to the matter with which it deals, whether private or public, it may compare with some others that think very well of themselves. For not to touch upon ordinary affairs of common life, will matters of learning in any kind of argument make a tongue of account? Our nation then, I think, will hardly be proved to have been unlearned at any time, in any kind of learning, not to use any stronger terms. Therefore, having learning by confession of all men, and uttering that learning in their own tongue for their own use, they could not but enrich the tongue, and bring it consideration.
Will matters of war, whether civil or foreign, make a tongue of account? Neighbouring nations will not deny our people to be very warlike, and our own country will confess it, though loth to feel it, both on account of remembering the suffering, and of fearing to gall our friends by vaunting ourselves. Now, in offering material for speech, war is such a breeder that, though it is opposed to learning because it is an enemy to the Muses, yet it dares compare with any department of learning for the multitude of its discourses, though these are not commonly so certain or useful as learned subjects. For war (besides the many grave and serious considerations about it) as sometimes it sends us true reports, either privately in the form of projects and devices that are intended, or publicly in events which are blazed abroad because they have occurred, so mostly it gives out—I dare not say lies, but—very incredible news, because it can hatch these at will, being in no danger of control, and commonly free from witnesses. Every man, moreover, seeks both to praise himself and to harm his enemy, besides procuring some courteous entertainment by telling what is not true to those that love to hear it. All these tales about stratagems and engines of war and many other such things, give matter for speech and occasion for new words, and by making the language so ready, make it of renown.
Will all kinds of trade, and all sorts of traffic, make a tongue of account? If the spreading sea and the spacious land could use any speech, they would both show you where and in how many strange places they have seen our people, and also let you know that they deal in as much, and in as great a variety of matters, as any other people, whether at home or abroad. This is the reason why our tongue serves so many uses, because it is conversant with so many people, and so well acquainted with so many matters, in such various kinds of dealing. Now all this variety of matter and diversity of trade, both make material for our speech, and afford the means of enlarging it. For he who is so practised will utter what he practises in his natural tongue, and if the strangeness of the matter requires it, he who is to utter, will rather than stick in his utterance, use the foreign term, explaining that the people of the country call it so, and by that means make a foreign word an English denizen.
All these reasons concerning the tongue and its importance being put together, not only prove the nation’s exercise in learning, and their practice in other dealings, but seem to infer—to say the least—no base-witted people, because it is not the part of fools to be so learned, so warlike, and so well-practised in affairs. I shall not need to prove any of these positions, either from foreign or home history, as my readers who are strangers will not urge me for them, and those of my own nation will not, I think, gainsay me in them, since they know them to be true, and may use them for their honour.
Therefore I may well conclude my first position, that if use and custom, having the advantage of such length of time to refine our tongue, of so great learning and experience to furnish material for the refining, and of so good intelligence and judgment to direct it, have attained nothing which they refuse to let go in the correct manner of our writing, then our tongue has no certainty to trust to, but writes all at random. But the antecedent is, in my opinion, altogether impossible; therefore the consequent is a great deal more than probable, which is that our tongue has in her own possession very good evidence to prove her own correct writing; and though no man as yet, to judge by any public writing of his, seems to have seen this, yet the tongue itself is ready to show it to anyone who is able to read it, and to judge what evidence is trustworthy in regard to the standard of writing. Therefore, seeing I have proved sufficiently in my own opinion that there is great cause why our tongue should have some good standard in her own writing, and consider myself to have had the sight of that evidence by which such a standard appears most capable of justification, and am not altogether ignorant of how to give a decision upon it, I will do my best, according to the course which I said was kept in the first general refining of any speech, and has also been transferred to every secondary and particular tongue, to set forth some standard for English writing. This I will base upon those notes which I have observed in the tongue itself, the best and finest therein, which by comparison with themselves offer the means of correcting the worse, without either introducing any innovation, as those do who set forth new devices, or mistaking my way, as those do who despair that our tongue can be brought to any certainty without some marvellous foreign help. Thus much for the material fit for art in our tongue; now for the objections which charge it with infirmities.
Those who see imperfections in our tongue either blame certain errors which they allege to be in our writing, or else they will seem to seek its reformation. In pointing out errors they rail at custom as a vile corrupter, and complain of our letters as miserably deficient. In their desire for redress they appeal to sound as the only sovereign and surest leader in the government of writing, and fly to innovation, as the only means of reforming all errors in our writing.
In their quarrel with custom they seek to bring it into general hatred, as a common corrupter of all good things, declaring it to be no marvel if it abuse speech, which in passing through every man’s mouth, and being imitated by every man’s pen, must needs gather much corruption by the way, because the ill are many just as the good are few, and common corruption, which they term custom, is an ill director to find out a right. Hereupon they conclude that, as it seems most probable, so it is most true that the chief errors which have crept into our pen take their beginning from the sole infection of an evil custom, which ought not so much as once to be named, for direction to what is right, in either pen or speech, being so manifestly false, notwithstanding whatever any writers, old or new, can pretend to the contrary. Then they descend to particularities, proving that we sometimes burden our words with too many letters, sometimes pinch them with too few, sometimes misshape them with wrong sounding, sometimes misorder them with wrong placing. And are not these marvellously great causes of discontent with custom, which is the breeder of them? And yet if good writers seem to favour custom, then the case is not so clear as you take it to be, that it is nothing but a hell of most vile corruptions; that it alone infects all good things; that it alone corrupts correct writing. For if it were indeed only this, they would not warrant it, and give it such great credit, as I remember they do. Is there not, then, some error in the name, and may not custom be misconstrued? For certainly these writers, when they speak of custom, mean that rule in conduct and virtuous life in which good men agree, and their consent is what these men term custom, as they call that rule in speaking and writing the custom wherein the most skilful and learned agree. And is it likely that either the honest in act will mislead virtue in living, or the learned will disapprove of correctness in writing? And, again, those honest men who approve of custom in matters of life complain very much of corruption in manners and evil behaviour; and the learned men, who approve of custom in matters of speech and pen, complain very much of error in writing and corruption in speech; and both accuse the majority of people as the leaders to error, and set down the common abuse at the door of the multitude. And therefore it cannot be otherwise but that the double name is what deceives. For those who accuse custom mean false error which counterfeits custom, and is a great captain among the impudent for evil and the ignorant for rashness, and yet has the chief part in directing all. And those who praise custom mean plain truth, which cannot dissemble, which is the companion of the honest in virtue, and of the learned in knowledge, and directs all best. Now will ye see? This mistermed “custom” in the pen is that counterfeit abuse which was the only cause why the monarchy of sound, of which I spoke before, was dissolved, and itself condemned by those wise people who joined reason with sound; and the right custom which writers commend so is that companion of reason which succeeded in its place when the counterfeit was cast out. Now you see the error. So neither do writers approve of such a corruption, nor is custom your opponent, but both writers and custom, as well as you and I will scratch out the eyes of common error, for misusing good things and belying custom. If good things are abused it is by bad people, whose misnamed custom is rightly named error. If words are overcharged with letters, that comes either by the covetousness of those who sell them by lines, or the ignorance of those who, besides pestering them with too many, both weaken them with too few, and wrong them with the change of force and position.
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.