XVI.
Ben Jonson and Shirley writers of Grammars—Some account of the former—Thomas Hayne’s Latin Grammar—A curious anecdote about it.
I. The English Grammar inserted among Ben Jonson’s works in 1640, and also to be found in the modern editions, is not the production originally compiled by that eminent writer, but a series of notes and rough material collected perhaps for a new undertaking after the destruction of Jonson’s books and MSS. by an accidental fire. It appears that the author had taken considerable trouble to collect together the literature of this class already existing in our own and other languages, with a view to comparison and improvement, and he was probably assisted by friends, as Howell speaks so early as 1620 of having borrowed for him Davis’s Welsh Grammar, “to add to those many which he already had.” Sir Francis Kinaston cites “his most learned and celebrated friend, Master Ben Jonson,” as the possessor of a very ancient grammar written in the Saxon tongue and character, by way of illustrating what it could scarcely illustrate—the state of our language in the time of Chaucer. This book doubtless perished with the rest.
The work in its present state is divided into chapters: Of Grammar and the Parts; Of Letters and their Powers; Of the Vowels; Of the Consonants, and so forth. In the third chapter, under Y, the writer remarks:—“Y is mere vowelish in our tongue, and hath only the power of an i, even where it obtains the seat of a consonant, as in young, younker, which the Dutch, whose primitive it is, write junk, junker. And so might we write iouth, ies, ioke....”
“C is a letter,” he says, “which our forefathers might very well have spared in our tongue; but since it hath obtained place both in our writing and language, we are not now to quarrel with orthography or custom.” Nor is c the only member of the alphabet with which Jonson considers that we might have advantageously dispensed; for in a subsequent page he declares that “q is a letter we might very well have spared in our alphabet, if we would but use the serviceable k as he should be, and restore him to the right of reputation he had with our forefathers. For the English Saxon knew not this halting q, with her waiting woman u after her, but exprest
| quail, | } | by | { | kuail, |
| quest, | kuest, | |||
| quick, | kuick, | |||
| quill, | kuill.” |
In other words, Jonson, discarding c and q, was with those who nowadays ask us to say Kikero, Kelt, Kæsar; and he seems also to be an advocate for such terminations as st or pt for ed in exprest, confest, profest, stopt, dropt, cropt, wherein he has a follower in Mr. Furnivall.
His demonstration of the manner in which the several letters ought to be sounded as pronounced is occasionally very amusing. “T,” he informs the reader, “is sounded with the tongue striking the upper teeth.” “P breaketh softly through the lips.” “N ringeth somewhat more in the lips and nose.” But of H he remarks: “Whether it be a letter or no, hath been much examined by the ancients, and by some of the Greek party too much condemned, and thrown out of the alphabet.”
This last piece of criticism should have its consoling effect on those among the moderns who also repudiate it, and may not be aware that they have the Greek party in Jonson’s day on their side, only that the Greek party did not offer the deposed letter any substituted position.