and without its help we understand our print and pen, our evidence, and other writing. And though we grant some imperfection, as in a tongue not yet fully developed, yet we do not admit that it is to be perfected either by altering the form or by increasing the number of our familiar letters, but only by observing where the tongue by her ordinary custom yields to the refining process, as the old, and therefore the best, method leads us. For it is no argument, when faults are found, to say this is the help, and only this, because no other is in sight. But whenever the right is found by orderly seeking, then the argument is true, that it was not thoroughly sought, when it was denied to exist. And to speak impartially between the letter and sound on the one side, and custom and the letter on the other side, letters can express sounds with all their joints and properties no more fully than the pencil can the form and lineaments of the face, whose merit is not life but likeness; for the letters, though they yield not always what sound exactly requires, give always the nearest, and custom is content with this. And therefore if a letter do not sound just as you wish, yet hold it as the next best, lest if you change you come not so near. And though one letter be used in diverse, or even contrary sounds, you cannot avoid it by any change, seeing that no other has been liked hitherto but this which we use. Certainly, so far as I have observed, we are as well appointed for our necessity in that way, and as much bound to our general custom for the artificial tones of our natural tongue as any other nation is to any other language, whether ancient in books or modern in speech. And whatever insufficiency seems to be in its writing, it will excuse itself, and lay the whole blame upon the insufficient observer for not seeking the solution in the right way. This will be found true, when it shall be seen that by sufficient care it may be made clear and pure without any foreign help, and without either altering the form or increasing the number of our ordinary letters, but only by notes of its own breeding, which, being already in use, desire nothing else but some direction from art. This I am in good hopes of performing, according to the plan of the best refiners in the most refined tongues, with such consideration as either breeds general rules, or else must bear with particular exceptions. I will mark what our customary writing will yield us in the way of notes, without dreaming of change, which cannot stem so fatal a current as custom runs with. I will therefore do my best to confirm our custom in his own right, which will be easily obtained, where men are acquainted with the matter already, and would be very glad to see wherein the correct manner of their writing stands, and a great deal more glad to find it so near when they thought it to be further off. Thus have I run through these alleged infirmities in