Sweet slumber seemed to have o'erta'en As sunset's glories blend with gloom, The death that cankered there? Of thought or deed unkind- And love like mine, my lost one! Else, from this darksome sepulchre, Thy lost, thy sorrowing lover! I Thy husband, and thy king! go, Louise! but speedy Will my returning be! Ne'er, ne'er again to leave thee ! MRS. ACTON TINDAL. THE WRITING AND PRINTING REFORM. PART I.-PHONOGRAPHY. "The invention all admired, and each how he Once found, which yet, unfound, most would have thought THE ability to express our thoughts and ideas upon paper, by written characters, whether for our own use at some future time, or in the transactions of business, or to send to some beloved relative or friend, "over the hills and far away," so that he may know what we would inform him of as well as though we "held sweet converse together," is indeed a priceless blessing. To render this art, then, more easy of acquisition—and that the system we are about to explain does this we hope to satisfy our readers-is surely conferring a benefit upon the whole human. family. There are two ways of expressing our ideas upon paper, viz., the hieroglyphic and the phonetic; but the former of these is too tedious ever to be brought into general use. The latter is the principle on which our present mode professes to be based; but it has departed so widely from it, that to learn to read, instead of being (as it would were it purely phonetic in its character) an art easy and pleasant of accomplishment, is one of the most difficult tasks of our life. To illustrate the absurdities and inconsistencies caused by this departure from the phonetic principle, we will give a few examples, the first of which shall be a list of our present vowels-a, e, i, o, u—followed by a series of words, in which the same sign or letter is used to represent other sounds, premising that each vowel contains the true sound of the letter :— a-fate, father, fall, fat, many, wander, cellar. e-me, pen, England, there. i-mine, mint, fir. o-no, not, prove, women. u-use, but, busy. Nor are these different sounds all the inconsistencies which these five unfortunate, hard-worked letters are made to perform; for they are often not sounded at all, as the a in zeal, e in heart, i in pierce, o in journey, and u in guest. The consonants also teem with difficulties. Thus, in the word debtor the b is not heard at all. C, which takes the sound of s in ceiling, changes into k in call, and is not pronounced in scissors; whilst 9 is hard in give and soft in ginger. The different sounds assigned to some of our combinations of letters are truly ridiculous. Who can tell the pronunciation of the frequently-occurring one of ough? Is it ow, as in the word plough? If so, then of course cough will be cow, and dough dow! If oo, as in through, then it will turn trough into troo, and enough into enoo!! The different sounds attached to this combination have been exhibited in this couplet : "Though the tough cough and hiccough plough me through, Again, if the true sound of the combination ch be heard in the word chair, what are we to call such words as chaise, chorus, and schism? and if sign contains the proper sound of s, what becomes. of it in resign, measure, and Grosvenor? If we spell post p-o-s-t, why should not b-o-s-t be boast? Such, too, is the magic power effected by prefixing or affixing a letter or letters to some words, that by preceding laughter with an s, it turns to slaughter; the addition of gh to thou makes it though, and by adding thereto a t it is metamorphosed into thought; and hanged, by simply prefixing to it a c, becomes changed! These are only a few of the absurdities we could adduce; but where would be the good of proceeding further-to say nothing of lack of space-seeing that it is computed, that out of the fifty thousand words of which the English language is composed, only fifty, or one in a thousand, are pronounced precisely as they are spelt? Is it not a disgrace to us, that such a state of things has been allowed so long to exist? It need no longer exist; and, therefore, must not be allowed to exist. In these days of general education-when all parties are straining every nerve to increase the means of instruction-surely a system which does away with these anomalies-which cleanses this Augean stable which converts this one 66 great lie" (as the English language has been termed) into one great truth"-which renders the learning to read easy, pleasant, and rapid-deserves, at least, an impartial and earnest investigation of its claims by every friend of educa 66 tion and progress. Such a system is PHONOGRAPHY; and on these grounds we bespeak for it the attention of our readers. Phonography, or the writing of sounds, is the invention of Mr. Isaac Pitman, of Bath. It has not inaptly been termed, "Talking on Paper." Its superiority over the present mode of writing consists in its brevity-the ease with which a knowledge of it may be acquired-the rapidity with which it may be writtenand its truthfulness. Proceeding on the principle, that our written signs ought to be a faithful representation of our spoken sounds; and that, in order to secure this, no sign should, in any case, represent more than one sound; and that simple dots, strokes, and curves, are as legible as our present cumbrous letters, and far more expeditiously written, Mr. Pitman has produced a system combining at once the utile et dulce. His alphabet (we call it an alphabet—although it does not commence with A, B,for want of a more expressive name) consists of six simple vowels -arranged in the following order: e, a, ah, au, o, oo, and represented by dots and short strokes-and thirteen consonants. of the vowels has also a short sound, which is represented by a lighter stroke or dot, as the case may be. The following list of words, in which the long and short sound of each vowel is heard, will explain this arrangement: Each 00.....food.. The vowel o having no short sound in our language, its light form has, for convenience' sake, been assigned to the sound heard in the word up. "From these six simple vowels," says Mr. "several series of The diphthongs The Pitman, in the "Manual of Phonography,' diphthongs and triphthongs *** are derived. are divided into two classes, proper and improper * * *. proper diphthongs-i, oi, ou-are represented by a small angular mark ***. The two series of improper diphthongs are represented by small curves placed in the position of the vowel which enters into combination with y (a modified e) and w (a modified oo). From the proper diphthongs-i, ou-two triphthongs (wi, wou) are formed, by prefixing w: they are represented by a small right angle. Of the thirteen consonants, eight (making in the whole twentyone) have a heavy sound, which is represented by the same sign as its corresponding light sound, but written heavily. We give them, as the vowels, with a word following each, in which the true sound of the letter is heard : 66 Of the reasons for this arrangement we will let Mr. Pitman be his own exponent. He says, The present system is founded upon a minute and careful examination of the organs of speech, and the result has been, that we have deemed it expedient to arrange the vowels and articulations, not in the old alphabetical style, but according to their natural sequence. Thus the letter p stands first; it is the least complicated of all articulations, being formed by the very edges of the lips, and not requiring the assistance either of the teeth, the tongue, or the palate, in its production. Next in order stands b, then t, d, &c. The rest follow in a perfectly natural arrangement; the explosive letters being taken first, proceeding in order from the lips to the throat; then the continuous consonants in the same order; and, lastly, the linguals and nasals." The truthfulness and order exhibited in Phonography are not, however, its only recommendations. By the judicious introduction of a few very simple contractions, it is adapted to the English language as the best system of short-hand extant; and for these reasons, that what is written in it may be laid aside for future use with as much certainty as the common long-hand; that, unlike stenography, correspondence not only may be, but is, carried on in it with the greatest facility and certainty; and that what would require six hours for accomplishment in the old system, may, by a person well acquainted with Phonography, be |