Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue

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Of the Orthographie and
Congruitie of the Britan Tongue

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Title: Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue A
Treates, noe shorter than necessarie, for the Schooles
Author: Alexander Hume
Editor: Henry B. Wheatley
Release Date: November 4, 2005 [EBook #17000]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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ORTHOGRAPHIE OF THE BRITAN TONGUE ***

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{Transcriber's Note:
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