For this reason, when any case arises quite contrary to the common precept, though not to the common custom, then we must needs think of the power of prerogative, a great princess in influence, and a parent to corruption, but intending to raise another Phœnix from the former ashes. He who refuses to grant such a prerogative to any tongue, denies it life, unless he means, by registering some period in it of most excellent note, to restrain prerogative, and preserve the tongue, which he secures by writing from being profaned by the people; it becomes then a learned tongue and exempt from corruption, as our book-languages are, whose rules are so secure that they dream of no change. This prerogative and liberty which the nation has, to use both speech and pen at will, is the cause why English writers are finer now than they were some hundred years ago, though some antiquary may consider the old writing finer. But the question is wherein fineness consists. So was Sallust deceived among the Romans, living with Cicero, and writing like ancient Cato.
In this prerogative of writing, the very pen itself is a great influence and has marvellous authority, for being the secretary who carries out what is expressed by the intelligence, it presumes upon this to venture, as far as any counsellor may, though never against reason, whose instrument it is to satisfy the eye as the tongue satisfies the ear. Custom, whose charge prerogative is, as the pen is his conveyer, favours the pen very greatly and will not hesitate to maintain that a dash with a pen may hold for a warrant, when both speed and grace bid the pen be bold. Hence it comes that in our language so many z’s are heard, and so few seen, owing to the regard for dexterity and speed in the fluency of writing; and as the pen can do this, I take it as a matter of prerogative, for the sake of smoothness, that our tongue uses z so much for s.
But it may be said that all our exceptions, due to most reasonable prerogative, may well be reduced to a general form, which I do not at all deny, though I see some difficulty in altering what our custom has thus grasped, and it were almost too much to require any wise and learned man so to arrest exceptions, particularly where no standard can be fixed. He who wishes this seems to conceive of such a thing, but even if it were attempted, the stream of custom would break out again immediately in some other way, and cause an even greater gap, for no banks can keep it in so narrowly but those that are content to be sometimes overflowed, and no strength can withstand such a current but those stays which in the fury of water will bend like a bulrush.
If any pen, either through ignorance or pretension, offend against reason, and intrude upon prerogative, that is no good quill, and it will not be upheld by me; nor is that current to be called custom which holds by usurpation; nor is that cause to be accounted reason which has any other beginning than genuine knowledge, or any other ending than the nature of the thing will seem to admit. Certainly, when I consider the matter deeply—and my thoughts on it have not been slight or superficial—I cannot see why, when the imperfections are removed that always accompany perfection, and can easily be removed, to the satisfaction of the wise who are not blinded with their own habits, the tongue as well as the pen may not quite well have its prerogative, since our custom has become so well-ordered that it may be ruled without chopping or changing a single letter, or otherwise begging more aid from foreign invention than I have already sufficiently set down.
These are my suggestions for the regulation of our tongue and the fixing of a standard in its writing. If I have in any way hit the mark, I shall be warranted by the right, though it may not seem so to some, and in this I must be comforted, even if I cannot content all.
[THE PERORATION.]
To my gentle readers and fellow-countrymen, wherein many things are handled concerning learning in general, and the nature of the English and foreign tongues, besides some particular remarks about the writing of books in English.
My fellow-countrymen and gentle readers, my first purpose in taking up this subject, and venturing into print, of which till lately I have stood in awe, was to do some good in the profession in which I have for many years been engaged, and by giving my experience in the teaching of the learned tongues, to lighten the labour of other men, because I had discovered some defects that required a remedy. But the consideration of these led me a great deal further than I dreamed of at first. Intending to deal only with the teaching of languages in the Grammar School, I was enforced by the sway of meditation to think of the whole course of learning, and to consider how every particular thing arose in a definite order. For without that consideration how could I have discerned where to begin and where to end, in any one thing that depends on a sequel and proceeds from a principle? For the subject I am dealing with is a matter of ascent, where every particular that goes before has continual reference to what comes after, if the whole scheme is scientifically arranged. In this course of mine, the elementary principles may be compared to the first groundwork, the teaching of tongues to the second storey and the after-learning to the upper buildings. Now as in architecture and building he were no good workman who did not plan his framework so that each of the ascents should harmonise with the others, so in the stages of learning it were no masterly part not to show a similar care, and that cannot be done till the whole is thought of and thoroughly shaped in the mind of him who undertakes the work.