7. Yet in sum case we are forced to tolerat this idle e; 1. in wordes ending in c, to break the sound of it; as peace, face, lace, justice, etc.; 2. behind s, in wordes wryten with this s; as false, ise, case, muse, use, etc.; 3. behind a broaken g; as knawlege, savage, suage, ald age. Ther may be moe, and these I yeld because I ken noe other waye to help this necessitie, rather then that I can think anye idle symbol tolerable in just orthographie.
[ OF THE ACCENTES OF OUR TONGUE.]
Cap. 9.
1. Seing that we fynd not onelie the south and north to differ more in accent then symbol, but alsoe one word with a sundrie accent to have a diverse signification, I commend this to him quho hes auctoritie, to command al printeres and wryteres to noat the accented syllab in everie word with noe lesse diligence then we see the grecianes to noat their’s.
2. Cicero, in his buik de Oratore ad Brutum, makes it a natural harmonie that everie word pronunced be the mouth of man have one acute syllab, and that never farther from the end then the third syllab, quhilk the grammareanes cales to the same end the antepenult. Quhilk observation of so noble a wit is most true in tongues quhilk he understud, the greek and latin. But if Cicero had understud our tongue, he sould have hard the accent in the fourth syllab from the end; as in mátrimonie, pátrimonie, vadimonie, intóllerable, intélligences, and whole garrisones of lyke liverie. This anie eare may if he accent the antepenult matrímonie, or the penult matrimónie, or the last as matrimoníe.
3. Then to the purpose we have the same accentes quhilk the latin and the greek hath, acute, circumflex, and grave.
4. The acute raiseth the syllab quheron it sittes; as profésse, prófit, ímpudent.
5. It may possesse the last syllab: as supprést, preténce, sincere; the penult: as súbject, cándle, cráftie; the antepenult: as diffícultie, mínister, fínallie; and the fourth also from the end, as is said sect. 2; as spéciallie, insátiable, díligentlie. In al quhilk, if a man change the accent, he sall spill the sound of the word.
6. The grave accent is never noated, but onelie understood in al syllabes quherin the acute and circumflex is not. Onlie, for difference, sum wordes ar marked with it, thus `, leaning contrarie to the acute.
7. The circumflex accent both liftes and felles the syllab that it possesseth, and combynes the markes of other tuae, thus ˆ. Of this we, as the latines, hes almost no use. But the south hath great use of it, and in that their dialect differes more from our’s then in other soundes or symboles.