CHAP. II. OF WRITING. ON THE PARTICULAR ADVANTAGES ARISING FROM EPISTOLARY WRITING. Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid, THH HE art of expressing to the eye, by marks or characters, upon stone, paper, or other substance, the articulated sounds of human language, is of the most remote antiquity. The origin of writing has by some been, very inconsiderately, limited to the engraving of the decalogue on the tables of stone delivered to Moses on mount Sinai. A very slight attention to the previous history of that great lawgiver might have suggested, that the proverbial wisdom of the Egyptians, in which he was instructed, could not have existed without characters or symbols to record the facts and conceptions in which that wisdom consisted. The characters now used all over Europe, not excepting the German, are evidently Roman, and confessedly copied from the Greeks: for even the Russian or Sclavonian letters are either Greek, or of a comparatively modern invention. What we call Italic characters, were first employed by the Aldi, celebrated printers of Venice, to imitate current writing, soon after printing was brought into use. The Greeks acknowledged themselves to have been instructed in the use of alphabetic characters, by Cadmus and his companions from Phoenicia; who, in all probability, drew them from Chaldea, where the human race were first established after the deluge. The Hebrews who inhabited the interior of the country, of which the Phoenicians of Tyre and Sidon occupied the sea-coast, used their original characters until the Babylonish captivity, above 600 years before our Saviour: but having in the course of 70 years laid their own letters aside, they adopted the beautiful square characters of the Chaldeans, among whom they lived; and these are the letters now used by the Jews, which both they and we very improperly call Hebrew. The original Hebrew characters still subsist, on coins struck by their neighbours, imitators, and rivals, the Samaritans: and although plainly of the same family, are yet very unlike the modern Hebrew. The antient Egyptians employed one set of characters for common use, and another for recording their religious, philosophical, and political mysteries and knowledge. This last being employed by the priests, and upon subjects held to be sacred, was distinguished by a title which the Greeks, who visited Egypt for instruction, in very early times, translated by their own term hieroglyphics, a word signifying sacred characters. These consist of a succession of figures, repre senting men and other animals, birds, serpents, fishes, plants, the human eye, and various other emblems, of which the meaning, notwithstanding the labours of the most ingenious and learned men of all ages, still remains concealed. Among the trophies of the British arms in Egypt, under the lamented Abercrombie, in 1801, were a number of inscriptions in hieroglyphics of the most complete kind, now preserved in the British Museum in London. One of these monuments would, it was natural to conceive, furnish a key to open the mysteries of the hieroglyphics. It contains a tripple inscription, in honour of Ptolemy Epiphanes king of Egypt, 250 years before Christ, composed in the common character of that country, in hieroglyphics, and in Greek. This last contains the same sense with the Egyptian, and it is but reasonable to conclude that the hieroglyphics contain also the same sense: no efforts have however yet proved successful in tracing out the correspondence. The Chinese language and character are so absolutely original, that no traces of the most distant relation has yet been perceived to any other tongue, either in structure or form. The characters have no alphabetical arrangement, consisting merely of a prodigious number of marks, apparently of arbitrary formation, and bearing no outward resemblance to the things they are meant to denote. The words of the Chinese language all orignally consist of only one syllable, and still continue so, when two or more are joined together, as in house-wife, tin-man, &c. The whole number of radical words are by some reckoned 484, but by others only 330: and the sense of each is infinitely varied, even when standing alone, by a multitude of accents and tones of the voice, scarcely percep tible by a foreign ear; all which render the acquisition of the Chinese language vastly more difficult than that of any other prevalent in the world. The art of writing being altogether imitative, is purely mechanical: it may therefore be said with truth, that every young person may learn to write with regularity and elegance, with accuracy and speed. He has only to follow the counsels of a judicious teacher, and to copy with assiduity the most correct specimens and examples he can procure, to become a proficient in penmanship. In the beginning the learner ought to practise the formation of his letters of a very large size. For in large characters, errors more readily -strike the eye, and may consequently be more easily corrected, than in small writing. In writing on a large scale the proportions of the several parts of a letter amongst themselves, and of the broad and fine strokes of which these parts consist, are the most accurately and easily attended to; and he who is expert in forming a large character will, with great facility, descend to the formation of others of a middling or small size. The young penman ought also to lay it down as a law to draw every stroke, and form every letter, with the greatest deliberation. Better restrict yourself to write half a dozen of lines, slowly, carefully, and correctly, than twice as many sheets of paper, in a rapid, rambling, rough way. The student should adopt for a motto the old Greek proverb: not every greut work is a good work; but every good work is a great work: ou to mega eu, allu to eu mega. It has within these few centuries become the practice in Europe to draw their letters not perpendicular to the line as in Roman print, but inclined from the right above to the left below. This practice first sprung up in Italy, whither literature, science, and the arts, fled for protection, when in the 15th century, Greece and Western Asia were overwhelmed by Mahome→ tan superstition and barbarism; and from whence the cheering light of knowledge spread over the other nations of Europe. In France, Spain, and Italy, the letters stand much more erect upon the line than they do with us: yet we have never ascertained the degree of inclination of our written characters. Much therefore must in this case be left to the judgment and taste of the writer. The most commendable practice seems to be to draw the broad downstrokes so inclined as to form an angle (as the geometricians say) of about 56 degrees with the right-hand part of the line on which you write, but the practice of the most scientific writers (not the most ornamental) is the only true guide. Having adopted a proper degree of inclination for your letters, they must all have precisely the same slope; that is all the down-strokes must be drawn perfectly parallel to each other, or at an equal distance asunder in their whole length. Letters of the same kind must also be made of exactly equal lengths, whether as i and n, in round text, they be confined within the lines limiting the body of the writing, or as b and h, they rise above the upper line, or as p and y they fall below the under line. Were we to judge from the practice of many approved masters of writing, and even from the engraved examples published for the use of beginners, we should be tempted to suppose that no rule existed for the management of these long letters. It seems however adviseable that long letters such as d and g should just rise above the upper line, and fall below the under line, bounding the body of the writing, as much as is equal to the space between these bounding lines. The letter should rise above the upper line half the height of the d; and if the long stroke of the p be carried above the upper line, as is often done, it should rise to the height of the t. Whatever indulgence may be granted to the writer in the size of the first capital beginning a letter, a poem, a discourse, &c. all the other capitals in the body of the work ought to be strictly confined to rise no higher above the body of the writing, than bor k, or any other long small letters. With respect to capital letters themselves, when written in succession, they ought to be all of precisely the same length, with the exception of the Gand the Y which should extend their tails below the other letters, to a distance equal to their height. It is also the general practice to extend the tail of the consonant J, likewise to the same distance below the line of the other letters. The propriety of this may however be questioned, on a consideration of the nature of the Roman letter from which our J is derived. Neither the Romans nor their great masters in literature and science the Greeks, had in their alphabets any such sound as that of our J in John, or of the soft G in George. The Romans used only capital letters, and made no distinction between Vand U. The Latin name for John, which is borrowed from the Greek, viz. Joannes they wrote IOANNES; and the words Julius imperator (the emperor Julius Cæsar) they wrote IVLIVS IMPERATOR. But after the introduction of printing, among the nations of western Europe, where the consonant was in use, the letter-founders cast two letters, precisely of the same size, viz. Kand J. How the Romans pronounced the I may be seen from IVLIVS, which they sounded like Yulius. In writing therefore both I and J might safely be made of the same length, both resting on the lower line of the body of the writing; and for distinction's sake the vowel I might be turned up with a hair-stroke, while the consonant J is likewise turned up a little, to end in a point, as is the case in printed characters. In or order to write conformably to the preceding observations, the learner must with a ruler and black lead pencil, draw across his paper four lines perfectly parallel, that is, every where equally distant; and the distance to correspond to the space allotted for the body of the writing. In the middle of the space between the upper and the second line, another is drawn, to which the t must rise, as also the top of the p, if that form be adopted: and upon the same middle line the point or dot over the i, is to be placed. The t is cut on the second line, even with the heads of the body letters m, s, &c. In ruling the paper for writing, the close marks of the wires used in the manufacture of the paper and the open lines running across them, will be of great service: but the beginner should not trust implicitly to this help: he should mark off, with a pair of compasses, on the margin of the paper, a number of points, at regular distances, and through them draw light pencil-lines, within which the writing must be confined. At first compasses and a plain flat ruler are to be employed; because by them the lines are drawn with the greatest accuracy: but when the writer's eye is more experienced, he may judge of the distance to be left between the lines, without using compasses; and then for expedition's sake, employ a round ruler, which ought to be perfectly cylindrical, that is of precisely the same thickness in every part of its length. That each line of writing may appear to the best advantage, they should be placed so far asunder that the letters, reaching above and below the body in one row, shall never touch or be confounded with similar letters in the rows before and after it. These observations and counsels may appear unimportant: but it is not sufficient that writing should be merely legible; it ought also to be neat, and even beautiful. If therefore the student of penmanship content himself with a performance, inferior to what he knows to be easily attainable, he may be assured that he will never arrive at even that humble mediocrity, to which he conceives his wishes to be stinted. All characters in writing are formed by means of two motions of the pen; the one upwards, fine and delicate, and therefore called a hair stroke; the other downwards, broad and strong, called a down stroke. The proportion between these strokes never has been, and perhaps never can be determined. Still that some sort of proportion ought to be preserved, will be evident to any one who examines letters written, engraved, printed, carved, or painted, in which the proper balance is not maintained. It is likewise to be observed that, in passing from the hair to the broad stroke, the change must be so gradual and regular, that it may be in some measure impossible to say where the former ends, and the latter begins. It is a great fault in writing, as in engraving and printing, that the hair-stroke is made so extremely delicate that, when beheld at a proper distance, the letters seem to consist only of an endless succession of dark lines, at certain intervals, apparently unconnected; because the fine strokes, by which they are in fact joined together, are so over-fine as then to be imperceptible. In fixing the breadth of letters upon a line, the letter n is a convenient standard for one half of n will make an i, and n and i will make an m. The letters e and o require as much room as n; so do u and v; but w will fill the space of m. : Having proceeded thus far in explanation of the rules for writing. a fair hand, in this country, it is now necessary only to refer the student to the engraved examples or copies to be found in all respectable stationer's shops. In the plan of a farm or a field, the accuracy of the boundaries, and not the beauty of the drawing, is the object of both landlord and tenant. So in writing, the shape, position, and proportion of the letters, words, sentences, &c. are much more important to the reader than the finest ornaments. Many occasions must, and certainly do occur, when it is out of the power of the man of business to set down upon paper a regular and complete account of the transactions in which he has been engaged. Still, before he go to sleep, he will draw out, at proper length, a statement of those transactions; and he will take care that they shall be duly registered in his books of business, in such a form, and such a character, that neither he himself, who ought to understand his own business, nor the greatest stranger, can be at a loss in trying to understand the whole transaction. In |