lOO JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



The alphabet introduced into England was insufficient to repre- 

 sent the many sounds heard in Anglo-Saxon, and was constructed to 

 represent not English but Latin. This system was, however, adopted 

 its deficiencies being in some degree made up by employing digraphs 

 and resorting to other expedients. Two of the runes were retained 

 because there were no Roman letters to take their places. They 

 were " p," afterwards represented by " th," and " p," superseded by 

 " w," this being formed by the union of two "v" characters (vv)_ 

 (This " V " had the power of " u " in " rune.") 



As the language expanded, the evil became intolerable, and the 

 awkwardness of employing one letter to represent two sounds, led to 

 the introduction of a separate sign for the vowel sound " u," and 

 assigning the "v" to the consonantal sound. " V," as a sign proper 

 for the consonant as distinct from the vowel, was not established 

 in its place until the seventeenth century, although as a spoken 

 sound it had been in use since the conquest. Before the in- 

 troduction of the written "v," the rule prevailed that " u," when 

 doing duty as a consonant, should be used between two vowels, 

 as in " euil," "Hue." The latter of these vowels being generally an 

 " e," it followed that words ending in the " v " sound were written 

 with a final " e." When the "v" came in as the representative of 

 the consonantal sound, it might have been expected that the final 

 "e" in words that had formerly been written " haue," "giue," "serue," 

 would be dropped, and these words written "hav," "giv," "serv," etc., 

 but a stupid conservatism has persisted in retainmg the useless ter- 

 minal " e." " J " was invented during the fifteenth century, its 

 origin being the prolongation of the "i,"' but did not come into gen- 

 eral use pntil the seventeenth century. In the earliest printed books 

 «' i " and " y," as well as " v " and " u," were used in a very arbitrary 

 manner. Caxton spells, " unyversal/' " fyrst," " lulyus,"' " Byble," 

 "wryte," etc. In Tyndale's New Testament we find "vnto," "ser. 

 uaunt," "greuously," " vnder," etc. It is to be understood that 

 early printers could use " i," "y," and "v" when they chose, as is 

 to be seen in " leprosie," " sayings," " whiche," " verely," etc. 



" Z " is, comparatively speaking, a new-comer ; and, as can be 

 seen in King Lear, Act II, Scene 2, Shakspere had not the highest 

 regard for it. In early translations of the Bible in Saxon times it 

 was used in " Zaccheus " and similar words, but owing to the fact that 

 " s " had the power of " z," there was little use for the new letter ; 



