The Preface.
owardes the latter ende of the ſeuenth Chapter, of my Treatiſe of the Engliſh Orthographie, published in June. 1569. I declared Quintilians opinion, in teaching of letters, where I alſo profeſſed, if I did ſet forth an A. B. C. for teaching of the rude, I would follow his councell, which I doe hereafter very neare. And although it hath appeared by my ſayde Treatiſe, that we maye write certainely and well without the doubling of conſonants for the ſhortneſſe of the voel before them, yet for that it doth none otherwiſe import but for the twiſe writing of them, I doe vſe them hereafter doubled: and thinke it ſufficient that men may ſee, what our prediceſſors might very well haue done. And for the, l, aſpired, for the which Welſhmen and Spanyardes doe uſe the, ll, For our Engliſh tongue, the, l, without any mark for the aſpiration, may ſufficiently ſerue, after the folowing maner of teaching: but otherwiſe not. And therefore, I vſe hereafter no marke for the l, aſſpired. Which yet ſhould be very meete for any man that would write the Welſh. As by the way of paſtime, I haue done from a Welſhmans mouth, though I vnderſtood no worde thereof, and did reade it againe to him, and diuers others of that language, ſo as one amongſt them (which knew me not) ſayde vnto the reſt in Welſh, that I coulde ſpeake Welſh ſo well as he. But the reſt knowing the contrary, laughing tolde me what he ſayde, whom I forthwith certified, that I did it, by an order and certaine knowledge what I did write, and not by any acquaintance with the tongue. The like haue I done of the Iriſhe, and may as eaſily doe of the Barbarian, or Ruſſian ſpeaches, or any other ſo ſtraunge as they, hearing them diſtinctly ſpoken. And though I vſe not their letters or maner of writing, I would well hope ſo to write, as at any time thereafter ſeeing it, I ſhould be able to reade and pronounce it againe, euen as he that I heard it of, ſpake it vnto me. And I haue of late experi-
