When our system of education was first established on the revival of literature, by means of the introduction of the languages of Greece and Rome, men's thoughts were wholly turned to books, and consequently to written language. The English, then poor and barbarous, was soon supplanted by the richer, and more polished Latin. The service of the church was in Latin, the laws in Latin. The religious controversies which embroiled all Europe, after the writings of Luther and Calvin had appeared, were all carried on in Latin. Men of the brightest parts throughout Europe, were necessarily engaged in the closest application to that language, which became the universal vehicle of knowlege, in all works of genius and learning. No was its use confined to writing only, but it was also adopted into speech amongst the polite; it revived, in a manner, from its tomb, and once more became a living tongue. Not, indeed, in its original beauty and strength; it might rather be considered as the ghost of the old Roman, haunting different countries in different shapes. For as the true pronunciation of a dead language could not be known, each nation gave to it the sounds which belonged to their own; and consequently it differed as much in point of sound in the several countries where it was spoken, as the native tongues differed from each other in that respect. But as they all agreed in one uniform manner of writing it, for which they had models before them, in the works of the ancients, we need not wonder that the chief attention was given to the written language, in preference to that which was spoken, as they had sure rules to guide them in the one, and none at all in the other. Latin words, upon paper, were universally intelligible to all nations, as they all agreed in the _orthography_, or true manner of writing them, though they were far from agreeing with respect to the _orthoepy_, or true manner of pronouncing them; in which the difference was so great, that the people of one country could scarce understand Latin, or know it to be the same language, when pronounced by those of another. This will sufficiently account for the fashion which prevailed in those days universally, of applying their time chiefly to the acquisition of skill in letters, not sounds; in writing, not speaking; in words presented to the eye by the sure pen, not in those offered to the ear by the uncertain or erroneous tongue.