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Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue A Treates, noe shorter than necessarie, for the Schooles By: Alexander Hume |
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All material in parentheses () or square brackets [], including the
( sic ) notations, is from the 1865 original. Material added by the
transcriber is in braces {}.
Greek words have been transliterated and shown between symbols.
Single Greek letters are identified by name: eta , alpha .
"i" represents upside down i (used in I.3.6).
{gh} represents yogh (used in I.4.10).
Irregularities in chapter numbering are explained at the end of the
editor's Notes.}
OF THE ORTHOGRAPHIE AND CONGRUITIE OF THE BRITAN TONGUE
A Treates, noe shorter then necessarie, for the Schooles, Be ALEXANDER HUME.
Edited from the Original MS. in the British Museum,
by
HENRY B. WHEATLEY.
LONDON:
Published for the Early English Text Society,
by Trübner & Co., 60, Paternoster Row.
MDCCCLXV. HERTFORD:
Printed by Stephen Austin.
PREFACE.
The following Tract is now printed for the first time from the original
Manuscript in the old Royal Collection in the Library of the British
Museum (Bibl. Reg. 17 A. xi). It is written on paper, and consists of
forty five leaves, the size of the pages being 5 3/4 in. by 3 3/4 in.
The dedication, the titles, and the last two lines, are written with a
different coloured ink from that employed in the body of the MS., and
appear to be in a different handwriting. It is probable that the tract
was copied for the author, but that he himself wrote the dedication to
the King. The Manuscript is undated, and we have no means of ascertaining the
exact time when it was written; but from a passage in the dedication to
James I. of England, it is fair to infer that it was written shortly
after the visit of that monarch to Scotland, subsequent to his accession
to the throne of the southern kingdom, that is, in the year 1617. This
would make it contemporaneous with Ben Jonson's researches on the
English Grammar; for we find, in 1629, James Howell (Letters, Sec. V.
27) writing to Jonson that he had procured Davies' Welch Grammar for
him, "to add to those many you have." The grammar that Jonson had
prepared for the press was destroyed in the conflagration of his study;
so that the posthumous work we now possess consists merely of materials,
which were printed for the first time in 1640, three years after the
author's death. The Dedication of this Tract is merely signed Alexander Hume , and
contains no other clue to the authorship. Curiously enough there were
four Alexander Humes living about the same time, and three of them were
educated at St. Mary's College, St. Andrew's; only two, however, became
authors, the first of whom was Minister of Logie, and wrote Hymnes or
Sacred Songes . There can be little doubt, however, that the present
grammar was written by the Alexander Hume who was at one time Head
Master of the High School, Edinburgh, and author of Grammatica Nova . From Dr. Steven's History of the High School, Edinburgh, and from
M'Crie's Life of Melville, I have been enabled to extract and put
together the following scanty particulars of our author's life: The
time and place both of his birth and of his death are alike unknown;
but he himself, on the title of one of his works, tells us that he was
distantly connected with the ancient and noble family of Home, in the
county of Berwick. He was educated at the school of Dunbar, under the
celebrated Andrew Simson, and in due time was enrolled a student in St.
Mary's College, St. Andrew's, and then took the degree of Bachelor of
Arts in 1574. He came to England, and was incorporated at Oxford January
26, 1580 81, as "M. of A. of St. Andrew's, in Scotland."[1] He spent
sixteen years in England, partly engaged in studying and partly in
teaching. During the latter part of this term he was a schoolmaster at
Bath, as appears from Dr. Hill's answer to him, published in 1592; and
the fact of his residence in this city is corroborated at page 18 of
the present treatise... Continue reading book >>
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