The Educational Writings of Richard Mulcaster

by Richard Mulcaster

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.