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Extracts from the Port-folio of a Man of Letters. 
252 
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£ 
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COMMENT om the ALPHABET. 
BOUT “forty years ago appeared a 
vy pamphlet, entitled ‘* 4 Philofophic 
Comment on the Englifh Alphabet,” &c. by 
one Yeomans, a {choolmafter at Chelfea. 
His fcheme was to new model, or rather 
form entirely anew, the Englifh language. 
The author’s capacity for this undertak- 
ing he himf{clf affures us of in the follow- 
ing eccentric terms :—‘* The knowledge 
of founds have been my conftant diligence 
for feveral years, both at home and ina 
voyage to the Levant; and I had an un- 
“common talent to that art; inafmuch, as 
when any one fpoke, my ear ran ftraight- 
way through every accent and fyllable of 
their tongue ; always liftening to nature’s 
voice in the brute creation, copying the 
feathered fongfter’s artlefs notes, the tra- 
veliics of a drum, the key of a bell, and 
even the leaft nick that chafed a found ; 
and I have often thought, that had I lived 
in the days of old, when the tools of talk 
were but jejunely difcovered, in the time 
of our unbegoiten rife, or high-top Ba- 
bel’s prepoftcrous anarchy, I fhould have 
made a very confiderable progres, both in 
inventing tse firft, and alfo in regulating 
the latter confounded idiom. Iam nota 
foreigner to the prefent manner of found- 
ing our letters, and the uncertain rules of 
proiody ; for I would much facilitate the 
art of reading and fpelling, from the judg- 
ment I have in the total defeéts of it, and 
that with much lefs pains and time (and 
with fewer zota bene’s) than has been 
expended heretofore: but it too much 
checquers my inclination to think of 
mending an old thing, when I had fo 
much the /cientient power to make it 
anew.” 
COMETS. 
In aridiculous pamphlet, publifhed ia 
1759, the author of it, in mentioning the 
comet which appeared that year, fays— 
«¢ that this grand phenomenon has appear- 
ed three different times, each on fome joy- 
ful occafion. That, in 1607, Kepler ob- 
ferved it at Prague, when it performed the 
office of a bonfire at the birth of a prince. 
That, in 1682, when Caffini obferved it 
in France, it was equally loyal, on the 
birth of the Duke of Burgundy. In 1759, 
this jovial traveller made his appearance 
in England amidft the preparations for 
keeping the birth day of the Prince of 
Wales, (his prefent Majefty,) in a man- 
‘per fuitable to the grandeur of; a free 
people.” From which we are led to con- 
jecture, that, after the various theories of 
comets, which have been ftarted, thefe 
courtly phenomena are no other than cer- 
tain celeffial fire-works, complaifantly 
played off adeve on thefe joyful occafions 
below. . 
MUSKETS. 
The honour of the invention of muf- 
kets is faid to be due to the Spaniards ; 
but it was Prince Maurice of Naffau, 
who firft reduced the exercife of them to 
any degree of regularity. The great 
Guftavus Adolphus of Sweden improved 
upon it; and the father of the immortal] 
Frederic the Great, of Pruffia, brought it 
to perfe&iion. Since which little has been 
done, but fimplifying the motions, and 
fhortening the manual and platoon exer- 
Ciles or 
BURTON’S ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 
_. Henry VIII. has been often blamed by 
the Catholics for the diffolution of the re- 
ligious houfes, yet his daughter Mary 
granted twenty {cites of them in the fictt 
year of her reign. . 
Great as. all the riches’ were which 
Henry VIII. appropriated at the Refor. 
mation, yet they were foon {quandered 
away, without being of any benefit to the 
crown in particular, or the nation in-ge- 
neral. 
Hiftory of Yorkthire, fays—that ‘ the 
eftates of the religious houtfes were fup- 
pofed to be really worth’ ten times more 
than they were rated at, even at the time 
of their difiolution ; and if to this we add 
the difference in the value of money be- 
twixt that time and the prefent, one would 
think that fuch an addition of revenue to 
the crown, might have been iufiicient al- 
moft to have fuperfeded the neceffity of 
any other taxes.” , 
SPEECH of MR. CUFFE.. . 
When Mr. Cuffe, fecretary to the Earl 
of Effex, the favourite of Elizabeth, was 
brought to the fcaffoid for the fame of- 
fence which his mafter fuffered for, he 
made the following remarkable fpeech :— 
«© Tam heré adjudged to die for acting an 
act never plotted, for plotting a plot never 
a&ted. Jufiice will have her courfe; ac. 
cufers muft be heard; greatnefs will have 
the victory: {cholars and martialifts, 
(though learning and valour fhould have 
the pre-eminence,) in England, muft die 
like dogs, and be hanged. To miflike 
this, were but folly ; to difputeit, pues 
i | loft ; 
x 
Dr. Burton, in his Ecclefiaftical - 
