Subsequently to the A. B. C. of 1553, there seems to be nothing actually extant of this nature till we come to _The Pathway to Reading, or the newest spelling A. B. C._ of Thomas Johnson, 1590, which I have not been able to inspect, but as to which there was a litigation between two publishers in the following year, seeming to shew its popularity and a brisk demand for copies. A few years later (1610) there is _A New Book of Spelling, with Syllables_, a series of alphabets, followed by the vowels, alphabetical arrangements of syllables, and remarks on vowels, in the course of which the writer furnishes us with an explanation of the virtue and force of the final _e_ in such monosyllables as _Babe_. From vowels he proceeds to the diphthong, where he animadverts on the abuse of the _w_ for the _u_. He then presents us with the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, the Decalogue, &c., as orthographical theses. At the end of the Scriptural selections we arrive at this curious heading: "Certain words devised alphabetically without sense, which whosoever will take the pains to learn, he may read at the first sight any English book that is laid before him." These words are divided into two classes, dissyllables and words of three and four syllables, and introduced by a few lines of introduction, in which the words are divided by way of guidance. The spelling-book of 1610 was printed for the Stationers' Company, by which it had been perhaps taken over; and as the Company did not usually have assigned to it any stock except old copyrights, there is little doubt that there were earlier impressions. At any rate, it is a Shakespearian volume, and, as the only manual for children or illiterate adults except the Protestant A. B. C. of 1553, it becomes interesting to consider that the great poet himself may have had a copy in his hands of some edition, if at least his scholastic researches ever went beyond the Horn-book and the Abacus. The volume may be regarded as a pioneer in the direction of English orthography and pronunciation; and when the author propounds that you might proceed from his pages to the Latin tongue, he does nothing more than follow in the steps of all teachers of that time, as well as of every other age and country down to almost yesterday. While I have the book before me, it may be worth while to transfer to these pages a specimen of it:-- kach, kech, kich, koch, kuch, kash, kesh, kish, kosh, kush, kath, keth, kith, koth, kuth. And so it runs through the alphabet. In the Lord's Prayer and other selections the syllables are also divided for the convenience and ease of the learner. The biographer of Dean Colet mentions that Mr. Stephen Penton, Principal of St. Edmund's Hall, Oxford, in the days of Charles II., published a Horn-book or A. B. C. for children. This, which Knight oddly characterises as a piece of humble condescension on the part of so worthy and noted a man, I have not yet seen.