to me, both that use is the mistress, and that he who sounds on any one method by the usage of his country, may be smoothed to some other by the contrary use, and that therefore the same letters will serve all people, if they choose to frame themselves accordingly. For, otherwise, why do we persuade our people to sound Latin in one way, Greek in another, Hebrew in another, Italian in another, if it is not a thing that we can become acquainted with through customary usage? And this being so in all nations, what need have we for more letters to utter our minds, seeing that the organs of utterance are all one, and that nothing can be uttered either more diverse or difficult than those have uttered from whom we have the letters we possess? Nor is it any discredit to our people to rest content with those letters, and with that number, which antiquity has approved and held for sufficient. Is nature, therefore, which was fruitful in them, now so barren that we may not invent, and add something to theirs? No, forsooth. All mankind is one, without any respect of this or that age, both to nature herself, and to the God and Lord of nature, and therefore what is given to one man, or delivered in one age of common service, is meant for all men and all ages, and always for their benefit; nor is either God himself, or nature his minister, tied to any time for the delivery of their gifts, but whenever man’s necessity compels him to seek, then they help him to find. We understand, therefore, that as no one age brings forth everything, so no one age can but confess that it has some one or other particular invention, though not the self-same, because it is enough to have received it once to use ever after. So is it in this use of letters, which being once perfected is never to be shaken, unless a better means be found of uttering our speech, which I shall not see, nor can foresee by any secret prophecy. In these inventions, though the first receiver have the prerogative in taking, yet the whole posterity has the benefit in using, and generally with greater perfection, because time and continuance increase and prune, and when it is at the full, it is a mistake to seek further, which I take to be the case in the matter of penning. Nor is the restraint from innovating, altering, or adding to things already perfected any discourtesy in reason, or any discountenance in nature, but the simple delivery of a perfect thing to our elder brethren to be conveyed unto us; as we in like case must be the transporters to our posterity of such things as it pleases God to continue by our means, whether received from our elders or devised by ourselves.