eie, set on high materes of state, to take a glim of a thing of so mean contemplation, and yet necessarie. Quhiles I stack in this claye, it pleased God to bring your Majestie hame to visit your aun Ida. Quher I hard that your Grace, in the disputes of al purposes quherwith, after the exemple of the wyse in former ages, you use to season your moat, ne quid tibi temporis sine fructu fluat, fel sundrie tymes on this subject reproving your courteoures, quha on a new conceat of finnes sum tymes spilt (as they cal it) the king’s language. Quhilk thing it is reported that your Majestie not onlie refuted with impregnable reasones, but alsoe fel on Barret’s opinion that you wald cause the universities mak an Inglish grammar to repres the insolencies of sik green heades. This, quhen I hard it, soe secunded my hope, that in continent I maed moien hou to convoy this litle treates to your Majesties sight, to further (if perhapes it may please your Grace) that gud motion. In school materes, the least are not the least, because to erre in them is maest absurd. If the fundation be not sure, the maer gorgiouse the edifice the grosser the falt. Neither is it the least parte of a prince’s praise, curasse rem literariam, and be his auctoritie to mend the misses that ignorant custom hath bred. Julius Cæsar was noe less diligent to eternize his name be the pen then be the suord. Neither thought he it unworthie of his paines to wryte a grammar in the heat of the civil weer, quhilk was to them as the English grammar is to us; and, as it seemes noe less then necessarie, nor our’s is now. Manie kinges since that tyme have advanced letteres be erecting schooles, and doting revennues to their maintenance; but few have had the knaulege them selfes to mend, or be tuiched with, the defectes or faltes crept into the boueles of learning, among quhom James the first, ane of your Majesties worthie progenitoures, houbeit repressed be the iniquitie of the tyme, deserved noe smal praise; and your Majesties self noe less, commanding, at your first entrie to your Roial scepter, to reform the grammar, and to teach Aristotle in his aun tongue, quhilk hes maed the greek almaest as common in Scotland as the latine. In this alsoe, if it please your Majestie to put to your hand, you have al the windes of favour in your sail; account, that al doe follow; judgement, that al doe reverence; wisdom, that al admire; learning, that stupified our scholes hearing a king borne, from tuelfe yeeres ald alwayes occupyed in materes of state, moderat in theological and philosophical disputationes, to the admiration of all that hard him, and speciallie them quha had spent al their dayes in those studies.

Accept, dred Soveragne, your pover servantes myte. If it can confer anie thing to the montan of your Majesties praise, and it wer but a clod, use it and the auctour as your’s. Thus beseeking your grace to accep my mint, and pardon my miss, commites your grace to the king of grace, to grace your grace with al graces spiritual and temporal.

Your Majesties

humble servant,

Alexander Hume.

OF THE ORTHOGRAPHIE
OF THE BRITAN TONGUE;
A TREATES, NOE
SHORTER
THEN NECESSARIE, FOR
THE SCHOOLES.

OF THE GROUNDES OF ORTHOGRAPHIE.
Cap. 1.

1. To wryte orthographicallie ther are to be considered the symbol, the thing symbolized, and their congruence. Geve me leave, gentle reader, in a new art, to borrow termes incident to the purpose, quhilk, being defyned, wil further understanding.

2. The symbol, then, I cal the written letter, quhilk representes to the eie the sound that the mouth sould utter.

3. The thing symbolized I cal the sound quhilk the mouth utteres quhen the eie sees the symbol.

4. The congruence between them I cal the instrument of the mouth, quhilk, when the eie sees the symbol, utteres the sound.

5. This is the ground of al orthographie, leading the wryter from the sound to the symbol, and the reader from the symbol to the sound. As, for exemple, if I wer to wryte God, the tuich of the midle of the tongue on the roofe of the mouth befoer the voual, and the top of the tongue on the teeth behind the voual, myndes me to wryte it g o d. The voual is judged be the sound, as shal be shaued hereafter. This is the hardest lesson in this treates, and may be called the key of orthographie.

OF THE LATINE VOUALES.
Cap. 2.

1. We, as almaest al Europ, borrow our symboles from the Romanes. Quherforr, to rectefie our aun, first it behoves us to knaw their’s. Thei are in number 23: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, x, y, and z.

2. To omit the needless questiones of their order and formes; of them, five be vouales, ane a noat of aspiration, and all the rest consonantes.

3. A voual is the symbol of a sound maed without the tuiches of the mouth.

4. They are distinguished the ane from the other be delating and contracting the mouth, and are a, e, i, o, u.

5. Quhat was the right roman sound of them is hard to judge, seeing now we heer nae romanes; and other nationes sound them after their aun idiomes, and the latine as they sound them.

6. But seeing our earand is with our aun britan, we purpose to omit curiosities, et quæ nihil nostra intersunt. Our aun, hou-be it dialectes of ane tong, differing in the sound of them, differ alsoe in pronuncing the latine. Quherfoer, to make a conformitie baeth in latine and English, we man begin with the latine.

7. A, the first of them, the south soundes as beath thei and we sound it in bare, nudus; and we, as beath thei and we sound it in bar, obex.

8. But without partialitie (for in this earand I have set my compas to the loadstar of reason), we pronunce it better. If I am heer deceaved, reason sall deceave me.

9. For we geve it alwaies ane sound beath befoer and behind the consonant: thei heer ane and ther an other. As in amabant, in the first tuae syllabes they sound it as it soundes in bare, and in the last as it sounds in bar. Quherupon I ground this argument. That is the better sound, not onelie of this, but alsoe of al other letteres, quhilk is alwayes ane. But we sound it alwayes ane, and therfoer better. Ad that their sound of it is not far unlyke the sheepes bae, quhilk the greek symbolizes be η not α, βη not βα. See Eustat. in Homer.

10. Of this letter the latines themselfes had tuae other sounds differing the ane from the other, and beath from this, quhilk they symbolized be adding an other voual, æ and au. And these they called diphthonges.

11. The diphthong they defyne to be the sound of tuae vouales coalescing into ane sound, quhilk definition in au is plaen, in æ obscurer as now we pronunce it, for now we sound it generallie lyke the voual e, without sound of the a, quhilk, notwithstanding is the principal voual in this diphthong sound. Questionles at the first it semes to have had sum differing sound from a, sik as we pronunce in stean, or the south in stain. But this corruption is caryed with a stronger tyde then reason can resist, and we wil not stryve with the stream.

14. E followes, quhilk in reason sould have but ane sound, for without doubt the first intent was to geve