June 1, 1889.] 



♦ KNOV;rLEDGE 



169 



Jletiexs. 



[Tlie Editor does not hold himself responsible for the opinions or 

 statements of correspondents.] 



ON THE STSTEM OF SHORTHAND EMPLOYED BY 

 ABRAHAM SHARP. 



To the Editor- of Knowledge. 



Sir, — In your interesting notice of Mr. Cudworth's " Life 

 and Correspondence of Abraham Sharp " in the March 

 number of Knowleuge you have given a facsimile of the 

 end of a letter from Flamsteed, and of the draft of iSharp's 

 answer to it which is written in shorthand. 



Mr. Cudworth mentions that in Sharp's note-books there 

 are many of such shorthand notes, but that he had quite 

 failed in his attempts to decipher them, and he states that 

 ]\Ir. Baily, before him, had been equally unsucces.sful. A 

 correspondent of yours in the same number of Knowledge 

 mentions that from the study of a specimen of Sharp's 

 shorthand writing on a letter dated .June 1705, he had 

 succeeded in mastering the alphabet and most of the 

 symbols, but he seems not to be aware that the system 

 employed is one by a known author. Although I have no 

 pretension to be an expert in shorthand, I happen to be in a 

 position to clear up this matter, and I think that it may 

 perhaps be interesting to some of your readers if I explain 

 briefly the circumstances that led me to acquire the infor- 

 mation which I am now able to give. Several years ago, 

 when examining the Newton MSS. belonging to the Earl 

 of Portsmouth, a portion of which he has presented to the 

 University of Cambridge, I found a small note-book of 

 Newton's containing, among other things, two or three 

 pages of memoranda written in shorthand and numbered 

 in con.secutive order, all of them belonging to the year 

 16G2, which was written in plain figures. This was the 

 year immediately following that in which Newton came 

 into residence in Trinity College. 



Naturally I was curious to decipher these memoranda of 

 Newton's, and I had great hopes that by consulting the 

 extensive collection of ancient books on sliorthand, made by 

 Pejjys, and preserved in the Pepysian Libr.iry, I might be 

 enabled to do so. The librarian of Magdalene College most 

 kindly allowed me to examine these books and I found, 

 as I expected, that one of them contained an explanation of 

 the identical system of shorthand which had been employed 

 by Newton. After a little study I was able to read every 

 word which occurred in the.se memoranda, which, however, 

 were all of a private, personal character, having no reference 

 to science. 



The author of this system of shorthand was Thomas 

 Shelton, and the title which ho gave to it was Zeiglo- 

 graphia. I have a copy of this book dated in 1059, but I 

 believe that the work went through many editions. The 

 same author published an earlier work on the same subject, 

 with the title Tachygraphy, my copy of which has the 

 date 1045. The systems explained in these works are quite 

 siuiilar in principle, but tlie aliihabets are entirely different. 

 On referring to Abraham Sharp's .shorthand letter given in 

 Knowledge, I saw that the alphabet was the same as that 

 of Zoiglographia, and I i-eadily made out that the letter 

 referred to the fright cau.sed by the rebels in 1715 passing 

 in the neighbourhood of Bradford, whore Sharp was then 

 residing, and that it was in fact the draft of the letter which 

 appears under the date October 19, 1715. — Yours faithfully, 



J. C. Adams. 



01 )ser vat ory , C: i mbri dge. 



To the Editor of Knowledge. 



Dear Sir, — I am obliged for the opportunity afforded 

 me of reading Professor Adams's interesting letter on the 

 shorthand used by Abraham Sharp. My letter in 

 Knowledge, March 1, in which I stated I had partially 

 deciphered three of Sharp's letters to Yarwell from tlie 

 shorthand copy is referred to, under the impression that I 

 was unaware of the system used. Thus wa-s not the case 

 however. I intended to imply that I knew it by stating 

 that it was "a sy.stem of which very little was known," 

 and I told you in conversation that I was acquainted with 

 the system. It is really Coles's, not Shelton's, but the two 

 are so alike that one needs to be intimately familiar with 

 them to detect the difference. I know something of over 

 two hundred systems, but generally attack an old shorthand 

 problem as I would a cryptogram, without thinking of 

 systems. I saw at once that it was on the lines of Thomas 

 Shelton's Zeiglography (1050), and that it was from 

 Elisha Coles's adaptation of the same (1074). This was 

 corroborated on consulting the only accessible edition — the 

 tenth (1710), unfortunately a mutilated one. With this 

 defective material to help me, I was able to send you on 

 March 1 a complete transcription of the letters to Yarwell, 

 and on March 7 a transcription of the shorthand facsimile 

 of Sharp's letter to Flamsteed {vide Knowledge, April 1). 

 A German friend to whom I had presented a copy of the 

 New Testament, neatly written in Coles's shorthand, kindly 

 returned it to me a few days after, but too late to serve me 

 with the above transcription. 



On reference to my " Bibliography of Shorthand " (1887), 

 there will be found among its 5,000 items of shorthand 

 books, pamphlets, MSS., ifec, in English and Latin, thirty- 

 seven entries under '' Thomas Shelton," but only three 

 entries to " Elisha Coles." 



Most of the old shorthand systems are similar in their 

 alphabets, and the signs are easily recognised, but the mere 

 knowledge of an alphabet will not go for in the decipher- 

 ment of letters of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 

 There are complex arrangements for unwritten but indi- 

 cated vowels, tables of complete and broken consonants, lists 

 of prefixes and terminations, grammalogues, arbitraries and 

 symbols, which block the decipherer's course. Coles made 

 many additions to Shelton's Zeiglography, notably a neatly 

 engraved table of 500 ".symbolicalls," and a table of " our 

 mo.st usuall words," 240 in number — a great improvement 

 on Shelton's limited system. 



The greatest difficulty in deciphering old shorthand notes 

 arises from the duplex forms of signs for consonants and 

 vowels, words and phrases of the most opposite meaning 

 having similar and even identical outlines. For instance, 

 in my transcript of the letter to Flamsteed I took a sign, 

 aw, or (dw, for " allow," and now find it should be ac, for 

 " acknowledge," which also stands in Coles's system for 

 " account " and " according." 



To-day, for the first time, I have the use of a copy of ]\Ir. 

 Cudworth 's " Life of Abnibam Sharp," and have examined 

 the letter- of October 19 referred to by Professor Adams, 

 which appears to bo a copy of the original loug-liand letter 

 to Flamsteed, of which, in Knowledge, March 1, you liad a 

 facsimile of Sharp's shorthand notes. I gave the date — 

 January 19, 1715-10; and this must be correct, as the 

 letter was evidently written a few weeks after the taking of 

 Preston by the Koyal troops on November 13, 1715. It 

 was in the well-known Derwentwater rebellion. There are 

 several ditieronces between the long-h;md copy and the 

 shortliand transcription. Beyond those variations of mine, 

 duo chiolly to the <luplox outlinas alre^idy mentionetl, there 

 are other mistakes and omi.ssions in the long-hand copy 

 which I cannot account for, except on the assumption of 



